Episode Transcript
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Well, let's continue on in our
reading and preaching of Romans Chapter Two.
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This is the end of Romans Two, verses twelve through twenty nine, Romans
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Chapter Two, verse twelve, for
all who have sinned without the law will
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also perish without the law, and
all who have sinned under the law will
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be judged by the law. For
it is for it is not the high
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hearers of the law who are righteous
before God, but the doers of the
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law who will be justified. For
when gentiles who do not have the law
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by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves.
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Even though they do not have the
law, they show that the work of
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the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness and
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their conflicting thoughts accused or even excuse
them on that day when, according to
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My Gospel, God judges the secrets
of men by Christ Jesus. But if
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you call yourself a Jew and rely
on the law and boast in God and
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know his will and a proove what
is excellent, because you are instructed from
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the law, and if you are
sure that you yourself are a guide to
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the blind, a light to those
who are in darkness and instructor of the
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Foolish, a teacher of children,
having in the law the embodiment of knowledge
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and truth. You, then,
who teach others, do not teach yourself.
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While you preach against stealing, do
you steal? You who say that
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one must not commit adultery, do
you commit adultery? You, who abhor
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idols, do rob temples? You, who boast in the law, dishonor
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God by breaking the law. For, as it is written, the name
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of God is blasphemed among the gentiles
because of you. For circumcision indeed is
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a value if you obey the law, but if you break the law,
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your circumcision becomes UNCIRCUMCISION. So with
a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts
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of the law, will not his
uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision? Then he
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who is physically uncircumcised but keeps the
law, will condemn you who have the
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written code and circumcision but break the
law. For No one is a Jew
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who is merely one outwardly. Nor
is circumcision outward and physical, but a
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Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision
is a matter of the heart. By
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the spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but
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from God. God bless this word
to us may be seated well, Paul
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has been. I'm bringing before us, as I've mentioned in the last two
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sermons, these examples for us to
be reminded of. He brings before us
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these particular kinds of people, to
have us look at them and thereby look
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in a mirror, to look at
our own hearts and see the way that
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sin and the flesh are working within
us and in each of these examples.
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Now, coming to the third one, we will see, as we have
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seen, that sin is not good, that we who sin are not good,
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that we, in our sin,
in our sinfulness, disobey God rightfully
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come under his wrath and his curse. So, of course, is not
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a happy message. So the kind
of thing that you might struggle to like
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if you are posting such a thing
on facebook. It's a it's not something
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that you just immediately say, yeah, that sounds great, but it's it's
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so true, and the truth should
always be liked loved. We love it
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because it exposes something within us so
that we can turn to something else.
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Using that old analogy, it's the
doctor who points out the disease so that
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we can know the cure. One
Who doesn't believe they have a problem isn't
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going to go talk to the doctor, isn't going to believe the doctor when
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he offers a remedy. And here, at the beginning of Romans before,
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Paul really brings forward in a robust
detail the remedy to the problem, namely
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Jesus Christ dying on a cross to
forgive you of your sins. He's telling
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you that you have sins deep inside, sins that are deeply rooted and not
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easily brushed away. Paul's been showing
us these different examples, each of these
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different kinds of people that we see
in ourselves. The first person was a
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sinner whose conscience is conscience is seared, who knows God's law, knows what
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he requires, know the word,
knows the worship that God requires, and
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then simply says I don't care,
I want something else. And not only
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does the does he want something else, but he even approves of others who
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likewise disobey with him. Then last
week we considered those who openly recognize God's
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law. They say it's a good
thing and even judge others by it,
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but you'll yet at the same time
or self contradictory. They say don't commit
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adultery, and yet commit adultery.
They say don't steal, and yet steal.
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Now those lines that I just quoted
also come from this passage and there's
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definite overlap. But the difference is
this. Here Paul is not just addressing
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people who know the law, but
people who know, in particular the law
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of God as it is revealed by
Moses, who have, in particular,
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received the holy scriptures and have heard
it and have been told the stories of
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God's redemption, of the requirements that
they have. He has first and foremost
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in his mind the Jews and he
addresses them directly. He first addresses them
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directly by pointing out sort of the
contrast. It's sort of an argument from
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the lesser to the greater. Later
he's going to say, you who have
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the law, you should know these
things, you should do you do them.
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Well, if that's true of you, that's true, because the gentiles
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who don't have the law do these
things on themselves. But before we come
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to that, we'll just make this
simple point that having the religion, or
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true religion, having religion that's from
God is most certainly better than not.
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So, if you take the last
two examples, having a sense of morality
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and openly acknowledging it, even if
you're contradictoring it, is better than not
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opening will openly acknowledging it. It's
better than hiding it or pretending that there's
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no law or standard by which we
live and likewise having religion, so to
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speak, being a spiritual person,
is better than not. Of course,
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that doesn't save us, as Paul
says, but the truth still stands,
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and there's all kinds of studies that
show this kind of thing, what a
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benefit it is to grow up among
like minded people, to have a bigger
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perspective on life, to have direction
and guidance on how to live. These
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are the kinds of things that religion
offers to be able to be of help
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to someone in need and to help
someone at a time when you need to
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be helped. But at the same
time, when we talk about the religion
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of God, we talk about Christianity, when we talk about the old covenant
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that came before the new, we're
not just talking about religion in a general
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sense or spirituality in a general sense. Are we we're talking about the Lord
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God of the Universe delivering these things, particularly in a very specific way,
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to his people, reading the Ten
commandments there on Mount Sinai. These aren't
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just principles that people come up with
and ideas, but these is what we
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might call true religion, true spirituality. And when we when we when we
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think of it that way and we
see it as God gives it to us,
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we realize that the church, Christianity, religion, is not just a
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neighborhood of people or a community organization, and the ways that all these other
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benefits I mentioned earlier might also fall
under, because we're a people not just
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centered around ourselves as a community,
but we're people centered around God. As
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I mentioned earlier, we are a
worshiping people. We are a people who
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are are gathered around his throne.
We're not just linked up against one up
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and with one another, or,
to use the metaphor of a body.
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We are many members and we belong
to one another, but all under the
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head of Jesus Christ. And so, first and foremost, we're not just
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a community, but we are a
community, a people, a body of
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worshippers of God, and that means
that, like the Jews. We are
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those who have been entrusted with worship. We have been entrusted with, what
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Paul will say in chapter three,
the oracles of God. We have been
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given the things of God. We
don't protect God like an idol or a
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golden calf or something like that.
We protect the things he has given us,
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his worship, his people. But
what Paul is saying here is,
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though, that is a very good
thing, and he'll make that point explicitly
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in chapter three when he asked this
for corps of rhetorical question. Then what
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advantage has the Jew or what a
value is circumcision? And he says much
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in every way and explain some of
that. So these things have value in
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and of themselves. But his point
here is that it's not enough to just
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hear these things. It's not enough
to stand at the bottom of Mount Sinai
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and see the clouds and watch the
lightning striking and the thunder crash and can
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be trembling in your boots at hearing
the law of God. If you turn
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right around and begin making a calf, what's the point? It's not enough
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to be known by God in this
way, to have his law revealed and
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impressed upon you in such a way
that you are fearing for your life if
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you don't do anything, if you
don't actually do the things that he is
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commanded. When God gives the law, he gives it in his way to
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impress upon us his Great Holiness and
authority, that he is the one who
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gives life and takes it away.
I will not hold him guiltless who takes
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my name in vain. I am
a jealous God, visiting the Iniquity of
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the fathers on the children, to
the third and fourth generation of those who
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hate me. Or is we read
in the call to worship? God will
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not forget those who are harmed and
and and oppressed, but he will avenge
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their blood. Over and over throughout
scripture, God reminds us what a what
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a weak word God impresses on us. God pounds it into us that he
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is an authority, that he is
a king, he is powerful and he
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does not accept no for an answer. He does not accept a mere hearing
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of the law, of being in
his presence, of knowing the things of
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God. If we simply turn around
and walk away from him, lip service
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is not good enough, for it
is the hearers of the law who are
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right, for it is not the
hearers of the law who are righteous before
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God, but the doers of the
law who will be justified. Here Paul,
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Throughout this section, is speaking in
very black and white terms. You
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do the law, you will obey
and you will be justified, and rightfully
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so. You will be one who
was obedient, one who did the right
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things. But if you do not
obey the law, then you will not
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be justified. And what is the
opposite of justification? Condemnation and all the
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penalties of God that come with it. And so that's God's point here.
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He's impressing this on us. If
we go before God and we say,
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Hey, I know things are good
between you and me because you've spoken to
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me, you've told me your requirements
and I openly acknowledge them. I think
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that these ten commandments are very important
and I want to put them up in
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my house and I want to teach
them to my children and I want to
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belong to a church that that requires
these things and teaches these things and preaches
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these things. I know that we're
okay. And God says it's not enough
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to do all that. You must
actually obey the law. He points this
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out by saying in verse Seventeen,
if you call yourself a Jew and rely
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and boast in God and know his
will and approve what is excellent because you
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are instructed from the law and I
if you are sure that you yourself are
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a guide to the blind and a
light to those who are in darkness,
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and instructor to those who are foolish
and a teacher of those who are children,
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having in the law the embodiments of
knowledge and truth. You, then,
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who teach others? Do you not
teach yourself? You hear the expectation
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that Paul has. In some ways, Paul is both mocking them but also
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putting before them exactly what should be. He's no way saying that they shouldn't
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be teachers, or that they shouldn't
be lights in the darkness, or that
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they shouldn't be instructors. That's what
they should be. They've been given the
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law of God, the Oracles of
God, the word of God. The
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problem isn't that they have them.
The problem isn't that they've been given these
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responsibilities and privileges. The problem is
that they're not obeying them. The problem
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is that they're not doing them.
Yesterday, someone was telling me a story
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about an English teacher who wrote badly
worded and punctuated emails. It begins to
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a discount the authority of the person
to do these kinds of things, doesn't
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it? If you say that you
are something but you are not acting in
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those ways, what does that say? And you we can ask this of
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ourselves. Do we punctuate our lives
according to the grammar of God and all
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the divisions and parts and thoughts and
the beginnings and ends of how we live?
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Is it according to his syntax and
diction? Is it according to the
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way that he has taught us to
express ourselves? Do we live our lives
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with him? The grand story that
he is telling US is true? Do
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we think of ourselves as those who
are under him and obligated to obey him?
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If you are Christian, do you
think of yourself as one who has
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been forgiven, one who has been
rescued, one who has been bought with
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the very blood of Jesus Christ?
Do we live this way? Do we
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are we lights in the darkness,
the lights that we have been made to
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be? Well, I think all
this undoes us. It reminds us of
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our sin. The gentiles in a
sense have knowledge and experience. They look
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at the world, they see and
feel the law of God in a sense
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written on their hearts. They don't
need the Law of Moses to tell them,
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though, obedience that they have.
Paul says this. They do by
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nature of the things that are required. They have these things by knowledge and
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experience. But the Jews have even
more, as do we. Not only
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do they have knowledge and experience,
but they're credentialed, so to speak.
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They've been given the certification of God, they've been given his special attention,
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his oracles, his writings, his
mentoring. But that's not enough. It's
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not enough to be religious, it's
not enough to know the one true and
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Holy God and to know him in
this very intimate way, because, as
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we all know, living our lives
only in obedience to God is very,
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very hard, even impossible. Think
about it really, consider and examine your
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lives at each and every point of
the law of the ten commandments and ask
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yourself, am I obey or am
I doing exactly what the Israelites did,
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exactly what the Jews did, and
professing to be one who walks in the
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light and yet doing deeds of darkness? Believing things we ought not to believe,
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hiding things that they might not be
exposed. We know from our lives
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the sin is always lurking around the
corner, isn't it? Pride is always
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wanting to take us in an opposite
direction. There are lusts, passions,
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misordered and disordered loves that pull us
again and again and again into sin.
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What we see in the world is
that people face this reality, the reality
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that sin is buried deep within them, that their consciences have a problem,
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that their souls are malformed, deformed. Some people just give up, don't
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they? Maybe you have a certain
times you just give up and decide you're
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not even going to try. I
know the rules, but honestly, I
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don't care. It's just too hard. I've wanted to maybe do something,
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but I want something else too.
Have you ever wanted something so badly that,
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though you knew with a hundred percent
clarity that this was the wrong thing
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to do? What you're going to
do, you didn't that it and you
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do it anyways, even when the
consequences of sin are right there, right
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around the corner. You know that
if I do this thing, I very
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likely will lose my job, lose
my marriage, hurt my children, and
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yet there you are doing it.
That's this power of the flesh. It
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is very powerful in such a way
that scripture tells us that we cannot merely
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acknowledge it, but required to be
at war with it, to put it
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to death. And some don't do
that. They simply give up. They
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stopped trying, and we meet people
like this. We've been people like this,
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people that just don't care and they're
going to do what they want to
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do. Others don't go quite so
far. Instead, they don't live their
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lives in open rebellion, but they
they pretend. They send just as much,
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but they try to cover it up, they try to convince themselves in
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all kinds of ways that they're okay. That some people, some of us,
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we lower God standards and we say, well, yeah, life is
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hard and complicated, it's not all
black and white, surely this will excuse
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away my sin. Or, if
we don't lower the God's standard, we
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raise up our own righteousness and we
say, well, I know this thing
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is bad, but look at all
these other great things I've done this week.
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I was so nice to her yesterday
and I help that guy at work
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we think of all these various ways
in which we really extended and maybe dead
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truly extend ourselves. But really will
one or two decent and human acts cover
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up all the ways in which we
have destroyed others, hurt others, ways
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in which we find ourselves entirely unable
to repair a relationship, to bring healing
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even in our own souls? Or
if we don't pretend that God standards are
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lower than they are or that we're
better than we are, we just sort
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of try to wash away the whole
problem. We think that we can cover
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it up with sort of being involved
in a system of religion. I go
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to church every Sunday. I look
Nice, not too nice, I have
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a Bible, I know some hymns, maybe even some from memory. I
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can dry name drop of theologian or
two. I'm checking the right boxes,
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I'm doing the right things. People
know that I'm serious. But is it
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real? Does it touch the heart? Does it translate into action, or
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is it all just a Sunday dress
that gets taken off as soon as you
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get home? Self sacrifice, I
commitment. Love with all of your heart,
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with all of your mind, with
all of your soul, with all
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of your strength. That's what God
requires. And if you're a Christian who
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has this law written on your hearts, that the Holy Spirit has worked in
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your lives, you have two things
going on simultaneously within you. On the
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one hand, this deep love for
the law. Yes, that is what
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I want, I love it,
I desire it, I want to be
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that, I want to please God, and yet, at the same time,
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this sense of I am not doing
that, and that hurts so bad
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and you feel guilty and ashamed.
When we feel these things, when we
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feel the weight of the law,
when we see how tightly sin is wound
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around us, wound around our hearts, that's when we are to call on
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God and to say I can't do
this, so help me, I have
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nowhere else to turn. My friend
next to me, my brother, my
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friends, My Enemies, they're in
the same position that I am. The
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governments that we make, the communities
that we organize, the plan ends that
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we go after, it's all organized
by the same sinning people. We need
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something that's different, something that's truly
holy, something that's without impurities, something
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that is righteous and good in every
aspect. And that's why God, in
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all of His grace, offers US
Jesus. He gives us himself in the
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son of God, who dies on
a cross, not to just show us
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how bad sin is, which it
certainly does, but to forgive our sins,
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to be a sacrifice for sins,
to endure the wrath and condemnation of
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God for all these things that we've
been talking about, to take the guilt
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and the shame that we feel in
our hearts and to heal it and to
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say it's okay, not because your
sins okay, but because I've taken care
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of your sin problem and I declare
that you are justified. Now, in
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my sight, as one who has
put their faith in God through the a
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son on the cross, trusting in
him and in his gracious promises, you
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don't stand before God is one who
is burdened down by all this guilt and
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shame and sin. You stand boff
before God, is one who has been
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washed and cleansed. That's what we
believe. When we believe in Jesus,
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we're believing in the sacrifice of another
to take care of our sin problem and
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to make religion, which is the
worship of God, as centered in Jesus
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Christ and seeking to live our lives
in a way that is obedient to him.
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And it takes all of that.
And it's not just US standing alone
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with the law, but it's US
standing in Christ, who has freed us
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from the burden of the law so
that we can be set free to do
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it, to love it, and
even in our sin and even in our
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imperfections, he continues to be there, interceding for us, praying for us,
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cleansing us, making us holy.
If we don't turn to this Jesus,
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this one who has been given to
us by God, where are you
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going to turn? I asked that
in all seriousness. If you're not going
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to rest in this savior that has
been given to you by the God who
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also gave the law, where are
you going to go? Are you going
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to ignore the problem? Are you
going to just keep feeling miserable and ashamed
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and guilty? Are you going to
just try harder? Maybe one more crack
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at it, maybe one more week, and you'll finally get it together?
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No, you won't. It's going
to be the same old story again.
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My friends, there's nowhere else to
turn but to Jesus, and that's not
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a grin and barrick kind of message. It's not just a thing that we
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have to do because there's nowhere else
like Jesus is a dead end or something.
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He's the doorway to eternal life.
He's the way that we go through
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so that we might enjoy all the
blessings and promises of God, and he
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gives it to us all freely.
Come, he says, without money,
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without righteousness, without anything, just
come to me. This is the good
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news of our Savior. May God
help us to believe it. Let's pray
