The #1 Reason the Church is DIVIDED and BITTER...

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There's a negative side of this, but avoid foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels about the law.

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They are unprofitable and worthless. And boy, do we quarrel about the law,

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Justin. You talk about Christian Twitter. That's all that stuff is, man. It is an absolute food fight over the law and quarreling over all this stuff, controversies.

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And so no wonder God's people are suffering because they're not hearing and insisting on a trustworthy thing called the goodness of God's love.

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The prodigal son, right? We know it well. The father sees him coming, runs to him, embraces him.

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The son goes in on his stick. You know, I've sinned against heaven and before you. I'm no longer worthy to be called your son.

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But then the father doesn't even let him finish the whole like, hey, can I work for you? He just says, bring the best robe in the house.

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Put it on him. Put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet and let's kill the fattened calf. Let's celebrate because my son was dead and he's alive.

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He's lost and he's found now. This is the posture of the Lord. He says, for we,

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Titus 3, 3, for we ourselves were once foolish. Sounds like the prodigal. Disobedient.

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Sounds like a prodigal. Let us stray slave to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy and hated by others and hating one another.

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What a passage this is. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God, our savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and the renewal of the

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Holy Spirit, who he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ, our savior. So that being justified by grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

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Now, this is the verse I couldn't wait to get to. This is trustworthy. This is trustworthy.

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Paul's like, listen, you can trust what I'm saying. Why would he say that? Because people are struggling, Justin. They're struggling to believe it.

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This saying is trustworthy and I want you to insist on these things. So that what? So that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works.

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What is he saying? Good works come from what? The insistent on the trustworthiness of the statement.

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Yeah, they come. Good works come from the heralding of Christ. They come from the gospel. They come from regeneration.

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They come from God. God works these things in and through us. This saying is trustworthy. All that beautiful presentation of the gospel, like you just said, and I want you to insist on these things, that these things you're going to insist on is the gospel.

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That's right. Christ for us and regeneration. And like we have been made alive together with Christ by God almighty, by grace, not merit, by faith and not works, the whole thing.

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You insist on that so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works, far from promoting lawlessness and antinomianism.

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Yeah, well, then he goes on to say, and he says, these things are excellent and profitable for people.

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Holy smokes, man. I mean, what a passage that is. Don't tell me to not point to the goodness of God.

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He says, I must insist on it. So we're here to pound the table and say, let's insist on it.

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Yes. And like, Father, we believe, help our unbelief. May we trust that you are this way.

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And I promise all of us, I mean, if we thought more about the goodness and the love and the grace and the mercy of God, if we thought more about the excellencies of Christ and the fact that he is such a sufficient and mighty savior, how could we ever be lost?

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If we thought more about that than we did all this other nonsense we fill our heads with and listening to the lies of the enemy and the accusations of our consciences, we would be far better off and we would not sin more.

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I have been listening and we've been fighting against pietism and browbeating preaching. You cannot produce affection and love and obedience by the law.

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That's his point. Affection and obedience is produced by insisting on a trustworthy statement, which is the goodness of God in the gospel.

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God was our judge, but he's not our judging. He's now our father.

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He says, you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but have received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry,

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Abba, Father. A child with boldness, confidence, without weary, without fear, let me rephrase it, without being afraid, come in here and I'll give you mercy and grace.