Episode Transcript
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Let's turn in God's word, if
you have your bibles, or simply turn
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your attention to Romans, Chapter Fifteen, Romans fifteen, verses seventeen through twenty
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one. Here Paul addresses his ministry
and characterizes both it and, in the
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context of that, the things that
he's been saying in Romans. Let's hear
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God's word again Romans fifteen, beginning
at verse seventeen. In Christ Jesus,
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then I have reason to be proud
of my work for God, for I
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will not venture to speak of anything
except what Christ has accomplished through me,
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to bring the gentiles to obedience,
by word and deed, by the power
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of the signs and wonders, by
the power of the spirit of God,
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so that from Jerusalem and all the
way around to Illucrium, I have fulfilled
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the Ministry of the Gospel of Christ. And thus I make it my ambition
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to preach the Gospel, not where
Christ has already been named, lest I
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build on someone else's foundation, but
as it is written. Those who have
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never been told of him will see
and those who have never heard will understand.
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This is God's word to him.
He may be seated was. Paul
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closes his letter here, he takes
time to address how he has been speaking
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to them. He takes time to
characterize the things he's been saying, his
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motivations for saying them, the reasons
why he's doing what he does and what
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he has done. Paul is writing
to the Romans and he is addressing this
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particular thing that his ministry to them
is in part of this larger context of
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his ministry to the gentiles. Right
Paul says that something has happened in the
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world, a dramatic thing has happened
in the world, and he is a
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part of it. They are a
part of it. He'll go on to
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say, the reason I haven't come
to see you yet is because this thing
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has been happening. God has been
doing this work. I've been going out
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into the world, and going out
in this way is to fulfill a prophecy
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that we read in the very last
verse of this passage, Verse Twenty One.
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Those who have never been told of
him will see, those who have
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never heard will understand. Throughout the
Old Testament there are these promises that through
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Abraham, all the families in the
world would be blessed, that through Israel,
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the gentile nations would be brought into
the family of God. They are
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all of these people for a long, long time that have not heard of
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the word of God, that have
been out worshiping what? Rocks and trees
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and various other silly things, themselves, probably chief and foremost. So this
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is what's been going on. Sure
they know God, they know his law,
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they have a sense of their accountability
for him, to him, but
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forgiveness, salvation, knowledge of Christ, these things are foreign, unknown.
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But God has sent this apostle,
a cent one. He's sent him out
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into the world to preach the Gospel. So pulls addressing this context. He's
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saying I am a part of something, we are a part of something that
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God is doing here, and he
says that he's proud of it. This
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is how he characterizes his ministry.
He speaks very boldly about this. He
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says, I'm proud of I'm proud
of what has been going on. This
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is in verse seventeen. I have
reason to be proud of my work for
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God. I want to consider that
in particular this morning, that aspect of
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pride. Many other things we might
focus on, but for today, for
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this morning, this one Paul's pride. Now we usually think of pride is
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a bad thing. Right, pride
comes before a fall. He who's sinless,
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let him cast the first stone,
and so on. We know,
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though, however, that it doesn't
always have to be bad, and sometimes
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we see it in our lives.
We feel proud of maybe our children,
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of something that has happened. But
then we shy away from it because we're
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scared of pride, and to some
degree rightly so. But here in our
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passage, Paul doesn't really give he
doesn't seem embarrassed about his pride at all.
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Right, he says he has reason
for it. He feels solid in
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this. He's solidly proud. Why
is that? Well, what we see
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is that there are two kinds of
pride, kind of like two kinds of
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anger. There's good kinds and bad
kinds, holy anger and sinful anger,
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holy pride and sinful pride. Well, it's this kind of Holy Pride that
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Paul has here, a pride that
flows out of his faith in God through
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Christ. I want to consider that
this morning and in considering Paul's pride,
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I think that will come to have
reason for our own pride, a good
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pride, a confidence, a boasting
in Christ that says. I'm not ashamed
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of the Gospel. But first,
bad pride. Let's get this straight.
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There are two kinds of pride,
as I say, good pride and bad
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pride. Remember, even in this
book, Paul's addressed to the addressed to
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this in Romans Three, Chapter Twenty
seven, Paul asked this question. Then,
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what becomes of our boasting? Then? What becomes of our boasting?
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Now that's obviously a question that's following
on the tale of something. What is
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what is he talking about? Well, he's talking about this. He's had
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this long discussion which essentially says this. Every single person on the planet,
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you me, everyone except for Jesus, is a slightly different birth story.
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Every one of us who has been
born in Adam is under a curse,
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a fall, a sinful condition.
Even the heroes of the faith, Paul
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says, Abraham David, these men
too. We are all born into a
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sinful state. We're all born accountable
to the law of God, we're all
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Um. We all find ourselves in
a state of lacking righteousness, of doing
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evil, even creating it, and
all kinds of other things. He says
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that, you know, when we
compare ourselves to other men, we might
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find some reason to be proud,
but when we stand before a most holy
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God who is perfectly righteous and who
judges all men in all hearts, in
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to the most minute detail, we
know how far we fall short of the
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glory of God. Paul ends up
concluding no one is righteous. No,
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not one. And this is true. You know, if people are asked,
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are you an honest person, most
people will say well, yeah,
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of course, but if you ask
them, are you an absolutely honest person,
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people will immediately start well, you
know, there are times when I
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don't know if I can say quite
that this is true of how we ought
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to think of our standing before God. God, who is perfect and holy
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in all things, requires that of
people that are to be with him and
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near him and all things. And
so when we think about how close we
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are coming to the standard of perfect
righteousness, of perfect holiness, of the
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things that are unfitting for life with
God and the Kingdom of Heaven, we
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see that we fall shortless the argument
and Paul Develops us throughout the first chapters
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that I'd encourage you to go back
and read that again and again and again.
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Well then, that's why he comes
to this question. Well then,
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what becomes of our boasting? And
then he answers it is excluded. There
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is no boasting. None of us
can stand before God and say, well,
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yes, I've done quite well in
this life. As you can see,
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I have a bank account. Who
what does that mean to someone who
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owns the cattle on a thousand hills, who provided every single coin in that
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account? We stand before God and
say, well, look at these friends
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I have or this power I've achieved. and He who, who can turn
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a King's heart in his hand like
water in a faucet, just moving it
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this where that way? It doesn't
impress him. He is the one who
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gives all things, he is the
one to whom we are dependent on everything,
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and he is the one to whom
we commit our sins, or against
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whom we sin over and over and
over and over again. Paul says and
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three, twenty seven. Then what
becomes of our boasting? And he answers
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the obvious answer. It is excluded. We have no boasting, we have
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no pride aid and anyone who thinks
he has something to boast on, anyone
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who has pride, has nothing,
has nothing at all. James says this
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clearly as well. He says,
as it as it is. You boast
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in your arrogance, and all such
boasting is evil. Arrogance, of course,
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is sort of an unsubstantiated pride.
To be arrogant is to sort of
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be prideful without warrant, to think
that you're something that you're not. James
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says in concern. In concern and
I think in considering this bad kind of
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pride, you boast in your arrogance
and all such boasting is evil. So
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we see that the danger evil of
pride is the dangers of evil. Pride
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is twofold. For one, as
James says, it's an evil in and
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of itself. It's foolish to it
places our confidence in a weak thing.
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Think of all the Times in the
Old Testament where God talks about trusting and
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boasting and the chariots of Pharaoh,
for example, the horses of Egypt,
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when God can destroy those things.
As we see, an exodus is Farah
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pursues Moses. He can destroy empires
overnight. Pride therefore leads us to destruction.
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It makes us fools. It elevates
our opinions about ourselves without reason.
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Jesus says in Mark Seven Twenty One
and twenty two. From within, out
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of the heart of man, come
evil thoughts. Let he lists some Jesus
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says, sexual immorality, theft,
murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness,
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deceit, sensuality, evil, slander, pride, foolishness, all these evil
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things come from within and they defile
a person. What does it mean to
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be defiled? Let's kind of Old
Testament, sacrificial language. It's something that
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excludes us from holiness. It makes
us unfit to be in the glorious presence
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of God. To be defiled means
to become something that is disgusting, unworthy
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of being nearer good things. And
that's what comes from within us. And
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Pride is most certainly among them.
And if that weren't bad enough, evil
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pride does worse. It not only
defiles, making us unclean, unworthy of
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God, worthy of his judgment,
but pride also has this worsening effect of
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keeping us from seeking forgiveness and salvation
from the God who can provide it.
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You see what I'm saying. Not
only is it a sin in itself that
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needs forgiveness, but pride keeps us
from seeking forgiveness. I draw this a
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point from psalm what psalm ten verse. For in the pride of his face
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the wicked does not seek God.
All his thoughts are there is no god.
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That's how the wicked, prideful mind
works, the psalmness says, in
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the pride of his face, in
confidence and who he is, why would
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he seek God? I can clean
myself, I can live the way I
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want to, I can go my
own way, take my own paths.
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You know what, there is no
god, the foolish, prideful person says.
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So, you see, the the
terrible thing that pride does to us.
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It it comes in and it it
causes us to see it is a
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sin in itself. It causes us
to commit sins, and then it hardens
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our hearts against the very thing that
can forgive us, the very one who
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can forgive us. So pride.
In this devilish, evil sense we ought
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to avoid and to put it in
a very understated way, when we see
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pride approaching in our hearts, we
ought to flee from it, run from
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it, and when we find it
near, we ought to put it to
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death, not play with it,
not coax it, not lift it up
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in any way. That is evil. Pride, bad pride, wicked pride.
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But not all pride is evil,
not all pride is wicked, because
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there is a kind of boasting and
confidence in the right things. Think of
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another example. I gave anger earlier. But think of love. Love we
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usually think of as a good thing, but it can be bad. This
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is sort of the same kind of
thing. Right, we can take our
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love and if we pour it out
on things that are lovely, that are
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deserving of love, that are properly
ordered, that are according to the will
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of God, well, that's wonderful, right. But what happens if we
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go and love evil? What if
we love an idol? Well, now
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love isn't good at all. Right, love is destroyed, love is being
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taken over and and turned for wickedness. Pride is kind of like this.
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If our boasting, in our strength
and our confidence, are are standing up
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straight as in our own strength,
in our ways, in our authority and
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the things that we want to do, in the ways that we want to
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do them, it's foolishness. It
brings about wickedness and sin. But if
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our pride is in the Lord,
if our confidence is in the Gospel and
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his salvation and in Jesus, who
comes to us to give us these things.
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Well, there's nothing wrong with that, nothing at all. You should
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be prideful, you must be prideful, you must boast in Jesus and what
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he has come to do. And
that's what Paul says here. He says
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I have reason to boast or I
have reason to be proud. Now this
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next phrase of my work for God. Other translations put that as pertaining to
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the things of God. I have
reason to I've reason to be proud concerning
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or pertaining to the things of God. There's a reason that those are translated
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differently. Both are fine, but
the point is is if the reason I
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bring this up is that we have
to be careful with this translation my work
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for God, that we emphasize the
for good part and not the my work
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part. Now, Paul is most
definitely involved in this process. He is
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the one getting beatings, he's the
one going to jail, he is the
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one getting mocked and attacked and scorned. He is the one who's traveling,
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as he says, all over the
world and preaching the Gospel. Paul is
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very much involved, but that's not
Paul's emphasis here. Paul sees himself in
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the picture, but he wants us
to understand that it's God working through him.
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He's not the primary object of our
faith. It's God whom the preacher
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is pointing to. So although Paul
most certainly is boasting in God's work in
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him, his emphasis is on God, not himself. Notice how he puts
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this, not just there but in
many places in this these few verses.
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So just a few details from the
text. Verse Seventeen, in Christ Jesus,
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then I have reason to be proud. See, he's not standing up
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before them talking just about his work
in my strength, in my character and
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the amazing things that I have done. He says in Christ who is working
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in me, I have reason to
be proud. And then he emphasizes this
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and clarifies even more. In verse
eighteen, he says, for I will
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not venture to speak of anything except
what Christ has accomplished through me, namely
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to bring the gentiles to obedience by
word, indeed by the power of signs
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and wonders, by the power of
the spirit of God. These things,
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even these miraculous, miraculous things that
Paul is doing, he says it's not
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me, this power is not sort
of in me, it is the work
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of the spirit of God. God
is at work, God is doing these
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things, God is bringing the gentiles
to obedience. In that he is the
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Ministry of the Gospel of Christ as
being fulfilled. And so then verse twenty.
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Therefore, and thus I make it
my ambition to preach the Gospel.
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That's what his focuses and this all
ties into how he began the book.
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The ending is very much like the
beginning, for the Gospel is the power
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of God unto salvation for those who
believe, and of this he says,
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I am not ashamed. It's just
another way of saying I am proud of
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this. I'll stand up for this, I will straighten my spine and go
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into the world and suffer all kinds
of things because of Jesus, because Jesus
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has come into the world to save
sinners like Paul, Paul who persecuted the
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Church, Paul who was full of
prideful zeal, Paul who hungered after his
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own righteousness and not the righteousness of
God. That Paul was saved, and
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through the salvation of that man,
God did the work of saving many other
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men, including us, who have
heard the word of God written by the
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Apostle Paul through the inspiration of the
powerful spirit of God. That's why Paul
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looks us in the eye and says, I am not ashamed and I'm going
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to tell you this over and over
and over again. That is why I'm
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here, he says to the Romans, and that's what God says to us
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to day, the Apostle Paul,
by the power of the spirit of God,
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it writes these words, the spirit
speaks them to our hearts and says
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believe, be confident, have pride
in what God is doing. The rest
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of the New Testament is very helpful
here and to get a sense of Paul,
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how far Paul will go. And
in saying these things, he speaks
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not he never speaks of his own
pride in his own work. It's always
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qualified by what God is doing in
him and through him. The other way
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Paul boasts, isn't talking about Ush, the the products of the work of
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God, the gentiles being brought to
obedience. So, for example, in
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First Corinthians thirty one, he says, I protest, brothers, by my
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pride in you, which I have
in Christ Jesus, Our Lord, I
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die every day. Or First Thessalonians
two hundred nineteen, where he says,
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for what is our hope, or
joy or crown of boasting? What an
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amazing phrase that is. Crown of
boasting. What is our hope, our
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joy, our crown of boasting before
the Lord Jesus as at his coming,
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is it not you? You are
my crown, he says. You are
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my joy, you are the thing
that, when I stand before the Lord,
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I'll say, look at this,
look at what you have done,
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look at how you have accomplished the
things that you have promised to do.
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Paul's not going to stand before the
Lord God and say look at all that
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I have done and accept all these
gentiles as the proof of my great righteousness,
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as the proof of my obedience.
No, Paul will stand before the
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Lord on the Day of Judgment,
with all of the gentiles professing their faith,
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really raised up in this resurrected glory, and he will say you have
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done this work, Oh God.
Those who have never been told of him
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will see, those who have never
heard of him will understand. That's not
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Paul writing his, you know,
big goal for life and then going out
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and accomplishing it. That's God riding
his goal and saying I will accomplish this.
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Paul's in some ways just to long
for the ride. He's excited,
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he's boasting, he's confident, he
is ready. I wish that I could
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read all of this, these passages
that I want to point out to you
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now, in Second Corinthians. I'll
simply encourage you to go there some time
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in the near future and look at
them for yourself. But Paul says some
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striking things about his boasting that I
want to be mentioned before we begin to
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wrap up. He talks about he
will. First of all, he's in
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this difficult situation where there are these
Super Apostles, that's Paul's word, these
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Super Apostles, and these men are
going around and they're very flashy. They're
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there, are they? They're super
confident. They are telling everyone how important
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they are. They're establishing their platform, they're establishing their brand, they are
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pushing themselves out into the world and
saying, are you deserve to listen to
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me? You ought to listen to
me. This Paul Guy, look at
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him. What is he worth?
What is he doing? He struggles around,
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he says he's going to go minister
to all the gentiles and then he
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sits in jail for a couple of
years. Listen, come talk to me,
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come to my conference, I've got
something to tell you. So these
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people going around and they're making fun
of him. They're saying, listen to
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his speech, his abilities are not
even when compared to what I have.
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I actually think they were probably a
lot more subtle than that. You probably
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would go kind of jerk. Is
that if? But in all their subtlety,
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this is what they were saying,
this is what they were establishing,
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and Paul's now in this situation where
the Corinthians and other people are saying,
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well, what if we think of
this guy? There's a lot of other
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people saying we shouldn't really listen to
him, and they're honestly pretty impressive.
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They get big crowds, they have
lots of money, they're and on and
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on. And so Paul addresses this
issue. He addresses his boasting, his
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pride, his confidence and and where
where that is and and where it's not.
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He says at the beginning of Verse
Eleven, I wish you would bear
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with me in a little foolishness.
Do Bear with me, for I feel
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a divine jealousy for you, since
I have betrothed you to one husband to
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present you as a pure Vir Virgin
to Christ, but I am afraid that,
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as the desserpent deceived Eve by his
cunning, your thoughts will be a
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led astray from a sincere and pure
devotion to Christ. You see his concern.
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He loves these people and he says, if you're bear with me,
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I'm going to say some kind of
crazy things, I'm going to say some
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foolish things, but bear with me
because my feeling for you is very intense
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and I am really worried the justice. Eve was deceived, you too will
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be. And he goes on to
say, he says in Verse Five.
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Indeed, I consider that I am
not in the least inferior to these superimpostles,
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even if I am unskilled in speaking, which he wasn't terrible at,
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by the way. Read the New
Testament. But anyway, even if I
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am unskilled in speaking, I am
not so in knowledge. Indeed, in
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every way. We have made this
plain to you in all things. Sometimes
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in preachers their temptations to be flashy. Paul doesn't succumb to that temptation.
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He's not trying to be fancy.
He says, we've made it plain to
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you. That's been our big goal, so that you can understand it.
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Then he goes on. He says, did I commit a sin in humbling
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myself so that you might be exalted? Is that what I'm to be accused
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of? Because I preached the God, but God's Gospel to you free of
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charge. I robbed other churches by
accepting support from them in order to serve
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you. He says. This is
verse nine of Secod Corinthians Eleven. And
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when I was with you and was
in need, I didn't burden anyone,
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for the brothers who came from Macedonia
supplied my need. He goes on to
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he goes on from there. He
then starts talking as a fool, and
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not. Let's see verse Twenty One, he says, but whatever anyone else
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dares to boast of, I am
speaking as a fool. I dare to
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boast of that. Okay, so
he started taking on a personality. Says,
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okay, let's play that game.
Let's talk about boasting in things,
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in humanly things. I'll be a
fool for a second. That's what he
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says in Verse Twenty Two. ARE
THEY HEBREWS? So Am I. ARE
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THEY ISRAELITES? So Am I.
Are they offspring of Abraham? So Am
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I. Are they servants of Christ? I'm a better one. I am
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talking like a madman. Remember,
he's keeps sort of reminding them here what
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I'm saying. With far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings
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and often near death. Now you
start to feel the weight of his argument.
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Here he's saying everything that they're doing
doesn't begin to compare with what I've
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suffered and what I've gone through.
Five Times I received at the hands of
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the Jews and forty lashes, left
least one. Three times I was beaten
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with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked a night
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in a day I was adrift at
Sea on Frequent Journeys and danger from rivers
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or danger from robbers, danger from
my own people, danger from dentiles,
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danger in the city, danger in
the Wilderness, danger at sea, danger
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from false brothers, in toil and
hardship, through many a sleepless night,
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in hunger and thirst, often without
food, in cold and exposure. And
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apart from other things, there is
the daily pressure on me of my anxiety
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for all the churches. Who is
weak and I am not weak who is
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made to fall, and I am
not indignant. It's like you want to
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play that game. We can play
that game, he says, but I
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want you understand that game is foolishness, because he gontinues on. If I
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must boast, I will boast of
the things that show my weakness. The
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God and father of the Lord,
Jesus, he who blessed US forever forever,
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knows that I'm not lying. Then, in skipping down chapter twelve,
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verse eleven, now he says I've
been a fool. You forced me to
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it, for I ought to have
been commended by you, for I was
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not at all inferior to these superior
apostles, even though I am nothing.
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You see the difficult pastoral challenge he
has. On the one hand, he
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has to say these guys, don't
pay attention to them. I'm way better
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than this. He has to say
that because they're teaching bad things. He
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has to stand confidently and say listen
to me, but he can't do so
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in a way that points to himself. How do you manage that? That's
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a very difficult pastoral challenge, and
he accomplishes it by saying, let me
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boast in my weakness. He says. The signs of a true apostle were
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performed among you. Pay attention to
them, but nevertheless, let our boasting
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finally be in Christ, he says. He says in he says in Verse
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Nine of Chapter Twelve. But he
said to me, my grace is sufficient
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for you. My power is made
perfect and weakness. Therefore, I will
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boast all the more gladly of my
weaknesses. Make Fun of me, bring
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it on, I'll take it,
he says, so that the power of
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Christ may rest on me. For
the sake of Christ, then I am
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content with weakness, insults, hardships, persecutions and calamities, for when I
355
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am weak, then I am strong. Why is that the case? Why
356
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is it that when Paul is weak, when Paul is in prison, when
357
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Paul's drying up on a beach after
a shipwreck, that's when he's strong.
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When Paul sitting in an a prison, that's when he is strong? His
359
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point is is that it's because in
his weakness God is working through him,
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and in that God is magnified,
exhaust halted. And so that's why Paul
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boasts in his work, in his
imprisonments and his hardships in his preaching that
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isn't as eloquent or wonderful, but
is plain and full of wisdom. Nevertheless,
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he boasts in it because he knows
that it's God at work in him,
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the spirit of God. Well,
how do we apply what Paul says
365
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here, in in Romans fifteen and
in other places in scripture? How do
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we apply his confidence to our own
situation, in our own hearts? Well,
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for one, it gives us a
means to test our own or a
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reason or an opportunity perhaps, to
test our own conscience, consciousness, conscience
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has to think about our own pride. What are we trusting in? Are
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we putting our confidence in our strength
and our ability and our ability of speech
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or education or leadership or friendship,
or the things that we have or the
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place we came from or the church
we belong to, whatever it is is
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this is this where our confidences or
it isn't. Is it in Jesus?
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Isn't that just wonderfully simple? This
is how we determine these things, is
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how we test our hearts. Another
thing is it, of course, sets
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before us this very holy example.
We can see how this question about pride
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and confidence and boasting connects with how
we live our lives. Paul is amazingly
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courageous. He's this navy seal of
Christian missionaries. He goes into sort of
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any situation, no matter what,
with this great confidence and courage that it's
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all going to turn out okay and
the Gospel will be done. Where does
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that confidence come from? Well,
if you like his example, then listen
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to his testimony. What does he
say? Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,
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Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. This is where it comes
384
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from. It always comes from there, it only comes from there. Christ
385
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Jesus, in Christ Jesus, I
have reason to be proud. I'm not
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going to venture to speak anything except
what Christ has accomplished through me. He
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keeps coming back again and again and
again, and we should as well.
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But most importantly, this passage teaches
us that God is doing his work,
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as we see the apostle of God
at work, this one who has been
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sent out, called empowered by the
spirit. This ought to strengthen our faith
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in God, because it is God
who is doing the work. We hear
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of God, of his salvation that
he brings to us in Christ, the
393
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forgiveness of our sins, the newness
of life, a chance to boast and
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have confidence in pride again, in
Jesus. We have the chance to stand
395
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up straight, to look God in
the eye and know that we are no
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longer fighting, but we're reconciled to
him through what Jesus has done on the
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Cross. This is Paul's message,
it's God's message and we ought to hear
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it. And if we doubt it, all we have to look at is
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the example of Paul, the salvation
of the gentiles, the existence of this
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church ourselves. The Gospel is the
power of God under salvation for all who
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believed. Be Confident in it,
be proud of it, do not be
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ashamed
