Revive Us Again, Week 11 | Acts 13

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January 21, 2024 Covenant Reformed Baptist Church Tullahoma, TN Pastor Jeff Rice

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Revive Us Again | Week 12 | Acts 14

Revive Us Again | Week 12 | Acts 14

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If you would just stay in Acts chapter 13. Our verse that we're going to be focused on today is verse 48.
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Acts chapter 13, verse 48. This is the 11th message in this series.
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Let me pray. Oh God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
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Lord, you are in control of all things.
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Our being here today is by your hand. And Lord, we are grateful that you have gathered us together to worship you.
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Please, in Jesus' name, I ask you this day, Lord, to speak through me, your servant, your slave,
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Lord, your manservant today to your people. Help me,
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Lord, to speak clearly and please allow your people to feast on your word, your truth.
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We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. So let's read that verse.
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Acts chapter 13, verse 48. And when the
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Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the
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Lord. And as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.
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So the overarching theme through this book has been revive us again.
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And why is it that we're going through a series about revival?
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It is because I want to experience revival. And I know you as well.
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If you're a Christian in your heart, you truly want to experience revival, right?
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We have these great books that are written about Jonathan Edwards. And then this time of the first great awakening, when
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God used a revival to launch a movement in our world.
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And you've heard me say it several times, I don't just want to read about it. I want to be about it.
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I want to see it with my eyes. I want to see revival as something tangible, something that can happen again in our day, no matter how dark our day seems to be at the moment,
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I want to be in a revival. And I am convinced that it's by God's people doing what
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God tells us to do in his word. Jeffrey R.
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King, who was one of the translators of the King James Bible, says this concerning revival, quote,
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Revival is a sovereign act of God upon the church, whereby he intervenes to lift the situation completely out of human hands and works in extraordinary power, end quote.
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I've been saying, like I said earlier, that revival is when God's people do what the word of God tells them to do.
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This quote by Jeffrey R. King seems to contradict what
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I have been saying. If faith is by grace, I mean, excuse me, if we are saved by grace through faith, in which we are, and if faith comes by hearing the gospel in which it does, then the only way this statement by Jeffrey R.
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King can be true is if this extraordinary power of God that Jeffrey is speaking about here is
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God causing, through the Holy Spirit, God's people to do what
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God's word tells them to do. And I think that's how it has to happen.
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You and I, in our own strength, cannot keep God's word.
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The Holy Spirit within us is what keeps God's law.
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Now, we can cover the mouth of the
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Spirit. We can silence the Holy Spirit. But we need
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God's sovereign hand in our life that drives us to the cross and drives us to his word and drives us to keep his word.
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And that can only be done through the Holy Spirit. Revival is when the
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Holy Spirit of God moves upon the church. If the Holy Spirit of God does not move upon the church, then
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God's people are not going to do what the word of God tells God's people to do.
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And I think sometimes in the reform camp, we are guilty hiding the
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Holy Spirit in our lives. Right? Now, there was a book written called
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The Forgotten Trinity about the Holy Spirit. Now, I don't agree with the author on everything or with that book on everything, but parts of that is true.
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The Holy Spirit has been manipulated through other denominations that we are afraid to say, thus says the
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Lord. We are afraid to say, you as a Christian are called to be world changers.
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You as a Christian are called to, with that Holy Spirit in you, go out and change the world.
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We're afraid to say things like that because of another denomination who we believe abuses the
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Holy Spirit. And I say that's to our shame, to our detriment.
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Our theme for this Lord's Day... Now, I told you last week that last week's theme was part one.
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And really it is, and so this is part two of last week's message, but I had to change the theme.
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I didn't think that the theme was going to go with it. So our theme for this Lord's Day is the sovereignty of God in evangelism.
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The sovereignty of God in evangelism. For however many weeks now, so this is the 11th, so for 10 weeks now
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I've been up here talking about evangelism and evangelism, and we need to go out and preach the word of God.
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And again, I want to make this clear that that's not just on the streets. If you hear me tell you to preach to yourself the gospel, and I was explaining this to Julie yesterday,
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I'm not telling you to go into your bathroom, look in your mirror and say, you're a sinner, you've lied, you've stolen, but guess what?
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Jesus Christ lived a life that you could not live. I'm telling you to live a life in the awareness of what
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God has done for you through Jesus Christ. And so preaching in that sense is not you actually voicing it.
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Preaching can be used in many different ways. And so when
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I'm telling you to go out and preach the gospel, I'm not necessarily telling you to stand on the side of the road like I do sometimes.
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I'm not telling you to stand on the side of the road like I do sometimes.
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God is not obligated to save anyone, and everyone deserves the wrath of God.
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Everyone deserves the wrath of God. He's not obligated to save anyone.
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He's saved just for you to hear. There's no such thing as a
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Christian who thinks he's a great person, a Christian who knows how rich they are, they know that they deserve condemnation, and they also know there's no condemnation for those people.
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We're living the same sin of reality. In our outline, we're going to see how
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God, excuse me, we're going to see how the sovereignty of God works in the saving of those who need it most.
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We're going to see that salvation is through Jesus Christ. Salvation is through Jesus Christ.
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Salvation is through Jesus Christ. Salvation is through the work of God. So point number one, for those of you taking notes, salvation is through Jesus Christ.
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Point number two, salvation through Jesus was plan A. Point number three, salvation is the work of God.
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And as we transition in the book of Acts, we see that God has moved on the people whom he chose to bring about the message of Christ in order to save a people.
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And my prayer today is that God will move on me in this way.
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He will move on me in such a way that he will use me to save his people through his word.
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And I pray that your prayer as well. So point number one, salvation is through Jesus Christ.
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Last week we saw that salvation was through Jesus and not Moses. Salvation was through Jesus and not
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Moses. Other ways to say the same thing would be, salvation is by grace through faith and not by keeping the law.
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Or that salvation is through the new covenant and not through the old covenant.
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We believe that as covenant theology teaches, particularly
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Baptist covenant theology, that all those who are saved were saved through the new covenant that was established and inaugurated through the blood of Jesus Christ.
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Abraham looked forward. However, we are looking back at one event, the life, death, burial, resurrection of Jesus Christ.
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I make this comparison because Moses, law keeping, and the old covenant can say,
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No, they are synonyms. Oh, Jesus.
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This is what we get from the New Testament scriptures, that Jesus Christ alone brings salvation.
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The law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
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Salvation is through the life, death, burial, resurrection of Jesus.
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We believe that outside of Christ, none of us, no one can be saved.
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Let's read the scripture passage from last week, just two of the verses, verses 38 and verse 39 of Acts chapter 13.
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Again, Paul speaking, he's speaking to a synagogue. They have allowed him to stand and to say some words.
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And this is the core of what he says. He says, Let it be known to you, therefore.
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So the therefore here, he's speaking about how this prophecy of a coming son of David would bring salvation.
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Let it be known to you, therefore, brothers, that through this man, speaking of Jesus, forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you.
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And by him, everyone who believes is free from everything from which he could not be free from by the law of Moses.
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In order to be saved, you must believe. It's not that you must give all your money.
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It's not that you must go and knock on doors. It's not that you must name whatever the must do that false religions teach.
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The Bible tells us that we must believe. But in order to believe, repentance is a part of that.
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You have to turn on whatever it is that you're trusting in, and you trust alone in Jesus Christ.
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That is how we are to be saved. After Paul had preached this message, salvation through Jesus and not
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Moses, and was leaving, Paul was asked to come back the next Sabbath.
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Let's read that, verses 42 through 43.
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And as they went out, the people begged that these things might be told to them the next
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Sabbath. And after the meeting in the synagogue broke up, many
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Jews and devoted converts to Judaism followed
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Paul and Barnabas, who, as they were speaking with them, urged them to continue in the grace of God.
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Some commentators that I read this past week and heard believe that these
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Jews and these devoted converts, these Gentiles who converted to Judaism, were saved during Paul's preaching because Paul and Barnabas, as they were leaving, told them to continue in the grace of God.
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I personally believe that this was nothing more than a process.
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A process, kind of like when 9 -11 happened, and I picked up the Bible for the first time and began to read.
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A process was taking place. Look at verses 44 through 47.
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Before I read that, the reason why I believe this is because in the same text, it tells us that they were devoted.
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In another word, they were devoted to Judaism. Look at verse 44.
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The next Sabbath, almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the
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Lord. But when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy.
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They were filled with jealousy and began to contradict what was spoken by Paul and revile in him.
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And Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly, saying, it was necessary that the word of God be spoken to you first, since you trusted aside and judged yourself unworthy of eternal life.
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Behold, we are turning to the Gentiles. For the Lord has commanded us, saying,
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I have made a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvations to the end of the earth.
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Again, we see something being repeated here, and that is the
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Jews were supposed to be the light to the Gentiles in order to bring about salvation to the end of the earth.
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And this salvation is not through Moses. You have these Jewish believers and these
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Gentile converts devoted themselves to Judaism.
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Paul tells them to continue in the grace of God, and that when they left, the people becomes jealous because of this great crowd.
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And they hear, and then Paul tells them that they, the Jews, are supposed to be a light to the
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Gentiles. And we get this from Isaiah 49, verse 6, which says, this is
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God speaking. God says, is it too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribe of Jacob to bring back the preserved of Israel?
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And I will make you as a light for the nations that my salvation may reach the ends of the earth.
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And we know from John 8 that Jesus is the light of the world. And he says that whoever believes in Him is to follow
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Him. We know from Revelation 1 that the churches are the lampstands.
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And we know from the New Testament that we as the church are called to take
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Jesus to the world. And listen, ladies and gentlemen, if you support missions on the other side of the world, but you don't support missions in your own neighborhoods, something is wrong.
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Something is wrong. There's nothing wrong with supporting missions on the other side of the world. I say, yes, please do so.
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But first, we must worry about our nearest neighbor. We must take, you and I must.
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Not to pay someone to do so, but you and I, because Jesus is the light of the world, and we are the lampstands.
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We now, as true Israel, are called to bring the light of the world to the world because salvation is through Jesus Christ.
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Point number two, salvation through Jesus Christ is plan A. I feel at this point, this is a point of contention between Christians today, as it always has been throughout church history.
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Was Jesus and the gospel, plan B, a byproduct of the fall, or was
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Jesus, plan A, and the fall of man necessary for the story of redemption?
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And as Reformed Baptists, and I would say Presbyterians also, we would hold to the latter, that Jesus and the gospel was plan
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A, was and is plan A, and the fall of man was necessary for the story of redemption.
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Now, as Calvinists, or as Reformed folks, we're kind of asked all the time about how is it that God knows things, right?
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This is what's called foreknowledge. How is it that God has information?
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And we would echo our confessions by saying that God knows all things because God has determined all things.
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The reason why God has knowledge of things is because He has determined the things of which
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He has knowledge of. And I'm sure when the conference comes, we'll get a whole lot more deeper into that, but trying to bring this message into 45 to 55 minutes, we can't go any deeper.
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But as we transition, we're going to spend the rest of our time in the third point.
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And the reason for that is because this third point will go with our main text.
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Point number three, salvation is through the work of God.
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Look at verse 48. And when the
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Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the
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Lord. Rejoicing and began glorifying the word of the
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Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.
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Now, there's not a whole lot to work with with this text and the surrounding context concerning this verse.
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So in order for me to do justice to the subject, I'm going to bring in a verse or three where Paul better explains the subject.
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But I want to start off with a question. Does the
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Lord appoint people to eternal life prior to belief?
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What would we say as a church? Yes, turn with me in your
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Bibles to Romans 8. Just to get a little preview of the conference that's coming up.
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Romans 8, beginning in verse 28, we'll read to verse 30.
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And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good.
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For those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom
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He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers.
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And those whom He predestined, He also called, and those whom He called, He also justified, and those whom
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He justified, He also glorified. Now, go back to verse 28.
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Paul's saying, And we know that for those who love
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God, all things work together for good.
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For those who are called according to His purpose.
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Notice the word love. And we know that for those who love
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God, all things work together. 1 John 4, verse 19 says that we love because He, speaking of God, first loved us.
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Why do we love God? Because God first loved us.
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If God did not first love you, you would not love
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God. This verse, verse 28 in Romans 8, gives to the believer an assurance of God's sovereignty in our life.
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If you love God, all things work together for good.
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We can have, as Christians, you and I, we can have faith that no matter what may come, rather caused by us and our sin, or caused by someone else imposing their sin on us, that all things will work together, and that its working together is for our good.
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And then I wrote out this long sentence about all things that could work together for our good, but this morning as I was studying,
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I scribbled it out. And I said, you know what? Romans 8, verses 31 through 39, says it better than I could.
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So let's read that. Verse 31. Paul says,
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What then shall we say to these things about all things working together?
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If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all.
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The all here is for all those who love God. How will he not also with him graciously give us all things?
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Who shall bring a charge? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect?
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It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn?
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Christ Jesus is the one who died. More than that, who was raised and who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.
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Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?
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As it is written, for your sake we are being killed all the day long.
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We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.
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Ladies and gentlemen, is that true of us? No. In all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
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For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor death, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our
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Lord. Nothing, nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God.
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And that can only be true if you are called according to His purpose.
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If you are not called according to His purpose, these things are not true of you.
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But on the other side of that coin, if you are, these things are true of you.
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God's purpose is to save a people through His Son.
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Now what I want to do right now is I want to give you two extremes. One of them you're not going to think is extreme.
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I think it's extreme. And I'm going to use my daughter as a way to explain this in a second.
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So there was a time throughout history where the father would choose for his daughter her husband.
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Does that sound extreme to you? Right? The father, the parents, would choose for their daughter the husband.
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Like this has been the way it was for the majority of all existence. This idea that a woman can choose her own husband is barely new in history.
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Now that might sound extreme to you that a father chooses for his daughter her husband.
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But the other side of that extreme, and the daughter wouldn't be able to have any say -so in it. The daughter wouldn't have any say -so.
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The other side of that extreme is that the daughter can choose for herself her husband, and her father has no say -so.
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You say, well that's not extreme. You say that because we're raised in that culture to where that's how it's always been.
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Right? She can go, Trinity could marry anyone she wants when she leaves my house and I cannot say anything about it.
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Of course I will. It just won't matter, right? It won't matter. I can say things, but I cannot do anything about it.
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I cannot force my will upon her for her to choose a godly Christian man.
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Ladies and gentlemen, if Calvinism is anything, it is this.
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The father chose for his son a bride. The father chose for his son a bride.
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If you was to say, Jeff, put Calvinism in one statement, one sentence, it would be, the father chose for his son a bride.
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Look at verse 29 of Romans 8. For those whom he foreknew, let's just look at it right there, stop right there.
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For those whom he foreknew, foreknew, foreknown, foreknown.
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For those he foreknown. Foreknown here is not speaking about foreknowledge.
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We talked about that earlier. How is it that God knows things, right? He knows because he has predetermined all things.
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This is, the foreknown here is not speaking about foreknowledge.
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Foreknowledge, again, being how is it that God knows things. Foreknown here is speaking about persons.
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For those, that's persons. For those he foreknew, foreknown.
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So, whatever it is that's said after those whom he foreknew, foreknown, however your translations will say it, can only include those he foreknown.
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So whatever he's about to say after, for those whom he foreknown, it's only for those whom he foreknown.
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Let's finish reading that verse. For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
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The image of the son here is speaking about the resurrection of the dead.
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So let's look at that again with that in mind. For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son.
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Right here. In order, speaking about the son, that he, his son, might be the firstborn among many brothers.
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This firstborn, is speaking about the resurrection of the dead.
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And we, those whom he foreknew, the Christians, are predestined to be raised from the dead just as Christ was raised from the dead.
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Those whom he foreknown, he predestined to one day be raised from the dead as Jesus was and clothed in the man of heaven according to 1
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Corinthians chapter 15 where it lays out the resurrection of the dead. It says that there's coming a day when
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Jesus will return. Our confessions talk about the, in that day that he comes, he's going to judge the living and the dead, the resurrection of the bodies.
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And it mentions that there's going to be some who are raised and they're gonna be covered in the earth, covered in Adam.
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Think about it like this. Adam was created from the dust. You're going, some people who are not in Christ are gonna raise on that day and they're gonna be covered in dust, covered in Adam.
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Then it says that there's another group who are gonna be raised and it says that they're gonna be clothed in the man of heaven.
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They're gonna be clothed in Christ. We talk about that righteousness, right? How once you believe you are made right with God and we're gonna look at that here in a minute also and that you are, you have the righteousness of Christ.
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And so right now we, I can't, you know, like I'm looking at you, I look at you,
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I can't see Christ bear hugging you, right? He's not, I don't see his arms around you, holding you.
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But in faith because of your profession, I trust that he is. And in faith because of my profession,
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I trust that Christ is around me. But the resurrection of the dead, that which we cannot see without our eyes of faith, we'll be able to see with our eyes.
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There's coming a day where we are going to be raised from the ground covered in Christ.
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And this is speaking about our resurrected bodies. So we are those whom he foreknew are predestined to be conformed to the image of his son.
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Look at verse 30. And those whom he predestined, he also called. And those whom he called, he also justified.
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And those whom he justified, he also glorified. This beginning from foreknowledge and to glorification, this is what's called the golden chain of redemption.
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Foreknowledge is those whom he foreknew. This is speaking about election. God in eternity past chose to save a people.
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This brings in the covenant of redemption. Jesus in time comes into time to redeem the people that he has chosen.
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And through the preaching of the gospel, the Holy Spirit applies God's purpose to save a people.
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So the next word we're going to look at is predestined. And so it comes from that word predestination.
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Pre means beforehand. Destination is where it is we are going.
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And in this text, it is the image of Christ, which is the resurrection of the dead.
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So those whom he foreknew, he has predetermined where we are going to end up.
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And that is in the image of Christ. If you, the foreknown, are predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ.
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Conformed here is speaking about our sanctification. Right? I mentioned last week that if you profess to be a
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Christian and you live as if there's no law, you are a false convert.
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There's no sanctification going in your life. If you are, you know, if you tell me that, you know, that at 20 years old, you became a
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Christian and here you are 60 and you're acting just like you did when you were 20.
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There's no sanctification taking place in your life. There's nothing about you that resembles
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Christ at all. Guess what you are? You are a false convert. You are not being conformed to the image of Christ.
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Me and my wife were having this conversation and she was mentioning how what was the word that you used?
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About my transformation? Extreme? That my sanctification has been extreme.
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Right? Because of where I was and where I'm at. And I pointed out to her that she's probably more sanctified than I am.
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It's just not as extreme because she didn't have the wild and crazy gangbang in life that I had.
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And so let's just say that she is ahead of me in her sanctification. Hers doesn't look as extreme because for the most part she just sat in her room and read books.
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As for me, I was running the streets and playing guns and doing things that I should have never been doing.
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And so where I'm at now, it looks extreme. But really, the sanctification process between me and her, it's the same.
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She's being conformed to the image of Christ. Mine, you can tell, especially if you knew me back then or if you trust what
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I say back then on how I'm not that same person. My wife isn't also that same person.
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So sometimes we cannot just go by the way things look because every testimony, although it's extreme, you are dead in your sins and now you're alive in Christ, but there has to be some kind of sanctifying thing that's taking place in your life.
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And it's probably not something that others can see as well. It's probably something that you have to know about yourself.
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And so don't just think, you know, if you've been in Christ for 20 years and other people may not be able to see it.
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You know yourself. You have to judge for yourself. Are you truly saved? Are you truly in Christ's sanctification taking place in your life?
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Because if it is, you are going to be conformed to the image of the Son. And if it isn't, you are not.
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And I would beg you today to repent. This image, again, is speaking about the resurrection of the body.
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Those who are predestined to be in the image of Christ are called.
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That's the next step in that chain of redemption. The called here is speaking about the effectual calling, otherwise known as irresistible grace.
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This is where regeneration takes place. Through the preaching of the gospel, someone is preaching the
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Lord calls you to be born again. This is the new birth.
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Unless a man is born again, he cannot see, that's with your eyes, or enter in the kingdom of God.
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The new birth, excuse me, in the new birth, the gospel must be, listen, preached and heard.
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Preached and heard. The preachers or the evangelists must preach the gospel and call men and women to respond to the gospel in repentance and faith, and simultaneously, at the same time, as this is taking place, as the preacher or the evangelist is preaching the gospel and calling men and women to respond to the gospel in repentance and faith,
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God himself must give that man or that woman the new birth.
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We, you and I, cannot cause man to be born again. But we have been given the power of God that causes man to be born again.
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And that is the gospel. And in the new birth, we are given faith to believe.
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I would argue that in the new birth, we are given repentance to turn from our sins, to turn from trusting ourselves to believe in God and to trust in Jesus Christ.
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Ladies and gentlemen, this is why we argue, as Reformed folk, that faith is a gift of God.
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It's not something that we can conjure up. And those who have been given faith to believe, they are justified.
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To be justified means to be made right or righteous. We were speaking about that just a few minutes ago.
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And in the case of the Christian, it is both. It is both.
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Romans 5, verse 1. We've been reading this a lot, so you should be able to recite it to me. Therefore, if you go out straight preaching with me, this is the verse
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I love to use. Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our
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Lord Jesus Christ. This is telling us that we are made right by faith and given the righteousness of Christ.
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God's terms for peace is to be justified by faith. And when we believe
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God, we are given righteousness. So whenever we believe, we are made right.
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And also, when we believe, He gives us righteousness. We believe we are right with Him.
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We're not His enemy. He's not going to destroy us. And He gives us the righteousness of Christ.
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And that righteousness, we cannot see right now. But trust me when
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I tell you, if you're in Christ, you're already, right now, clothed in the man of heaven.
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It's an already, not yet, just like the kingdom. The kingdom is here, but it's not yet here.
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We have already seen it through the new birth. We have entered it through the new birth, but it's not tangible.
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I was telling some people this week, I can't walk up to Abraham, who is also in the kingdom, and tap on one side of his shoulder and turn around and act like I didn't do it.
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Right? It's not tangible. But one day, what we believe in faith will be sight.
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It will be tangible. We'll be able to touch it. You'll be able to talk to Abraham. You'll be able to talk to David. You'll be able to have these conversations.
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We'll be able to fellowship with our high priest, Jesus Christ. But right now, we have to take these things by faith.
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And that's not something you can conjure up. You're believing and you're being made right with God is a gift.
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And if you are justified, you will be glorified.
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To be glorified is again, to be glorified is to be in the image of Christ, the resurrection of the dead.
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The resurrection of the dead bookends the golden chain of redemption.
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The golden chain of redemption begins with those whom he foreknew. He also predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ.
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Resurrection of the dead. Those whom he called or those whom he foreknew, he predestined, those whom he predestined, he called, called, justified.
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Those who he justified, he glorifies. That's the resurrection of the dead.
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Are being predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ. Now, how does that play out?
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You have to be called. That means that a preacher has to preach to you the gospel and simultaneously
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God grants you the new birth, the effectual call. You have to be justified, which is by faith in the finished work of Christ and you will be glorified.
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Paul in Acts chapter 13, so let's get back to our main text.
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Paul in Acts chapter 13 preaches Christ and when this glorious message that Paul preached was spoken and heard, guess what?
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It was spoken and heard. When Paul spoke those words, when he preached, the gospel was spoken and it was heard and those who heard it spoke it.
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They, the hearers, could not help themselves but to speak about this
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Jesus, the son of God. I want you to think about that. Remember earlier I said that I didn't think that they were believers.
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I didn't. I think they were in process. Because it says that they were devoted to Judaism.
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And so we have here men and women who are only in process, I believe, hear the word of God and they go back to their village and that week they told everyone they knew.
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They told everyone they knew. It was spoken and heard and it was spoken and heard.
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The one who can save them, this is the message, the one who can save them from everything from which the law of Moses could not save them from.
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That's the message they heard. They heard that someone has come who can save them from what the law of Moses could not save them from.
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I want you to think about this. Their thoughts process is this. No more lambs.
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No more birds. No more goats. Probably today it would be no more chickens.
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Imagine that. You have these Jews who are devoted to Judaism and then you have these
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Gentile converts who have entered into Judaism and they're being told that they have to sacrifice from their flock and then
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Paul comes and he preaches that through this man Jesus, you don't have to sacrifice anything.
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Believe, trust, look to him. I'm up here saying it but I don't know how that feels.
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I don't know how that feels. I've never been a part of a cult. I don't know what it's like to have that feeling that I have to do something in order to make myself right with God.
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But I'm just imagining that these people, that that's what they're hearing and as they're going back to their village, they're telling everybody, you won't believe this.
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This man came and he started talking about that there's a Messiah that came, he's the son of David and that he saves us and that's where the law of Moses cannot save us.
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And through that message, the word spread so much that almost the whole city came out to listen to this word.
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Look at verse 44. The next Sabbath, almost the whole city gathered together to hear the word of the
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Lord. They wanted to hear the word of the Lord. And then as we saw in the
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Scriptures from verses 45 to verse 48, that jealousy had came upon the leaders because almost the whole city had come out to hear this message.
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First, they wanted them to come back the next Sabbath, but when the word was spoken and heard and those who heard it went out and spoke it, and almost the whole city came, those leaders knew that they had messed up.
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Jealousy started to fill their heart and they ran them off. They ran them out of the city.
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Jesus' own people did not receive him. But when the
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Gentiles heard that Jesus was for them as well, the text tells us they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the
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Lord and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed those whom he foreknew, he predestined, he called, he justified, and they will be glorified.
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Now, what you and I should do in evangelism, which
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I find as someone who's been going out 2010, 2011,
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I can't remember exactly. I think it's 2010. So I've been doing street evangelism since 2010.
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I did some in 2005, but not a whole lot. But in 2010, since 2010,
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I find myself sometimes disheartened because I don't see God working.
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There's times I do and there's times I don't. I have to remind myself when
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I go out and evangelize that the word of God is not going to return void.
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I have to trust that the word of God does what the word of God was supposed to do according to his sovereignty, whether someone comes to Christ or they reject
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Christ. The word of God does not return void. And what you and I have to do in evangelism, again,
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I sometimes find it hard to do. I've been doing this for many years and I still find it hard to do.
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And that is this. We are to trust in the sovereignty of God.
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And listen, it's easily said, right? It's easier said than to do.
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If God has appointed them, you, to eternal life, they, you will believe.
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And let's finish reading this section and we'll close.
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Verse 49. And the word of the Lord was spreading throughout the whole region.
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But the Jews and the devout women of high standing and the leading men of the city stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas and they drove them out of their district.
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I like this verse. Verse 51. But they shook off the dust from their feet against them and went into Iconium.
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This was a sign that they were done. And then verse 52, it says, and the disciples were filled with joy and with the
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Holy Spirit. This was a sign, they're shaking their dust, that they are going to the
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Gentiles. They are going to go to the
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Gentiles and to preach this message. They're going to go to the Gentiles because they, as Jews, are supposed to be the light, are supposed to bring the light to the
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Gentiles. I want you to see that Paul here, as a Jew, is being obedient to the
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Old Testament commandment to go to the Gentiles. Jesus' own people,
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Paul's kingsmen, according to the flesh, rejected it. He shakes off the dust from his shoes.
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Okay, we're going to the Gentiles. And then verse 52. This is where I have trouble with in my life.
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And the disciples were filled with joy and with the
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Holy Spirit. They're being kicked out. They drove off that land and they were filled with joy.
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After this experience, I asked myself, how were the disciples filled with joy and filled with the
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Holy Spirit? The answer is this, because they're doing something that I have trouble doing.
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Because they trusted in the sovereignty of God and salvation. Salvation did not depend on them.
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And as Calvinists, we need to understand that we should rest in that. And it's hard to do, especially if you're out there doing the work.
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It's really hard to do. And so I have these questions I'll leave you with.
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Are you praying for someone's salvation? And if so, have you spoken to them about your faith?
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And if so, have you told them the gospel? Is there someone in your life that you're close to that you're praying that the
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Lord will save them? I would remind you to tell them about your faith.
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But don't tell them about your faith in mistelling them the gospel.
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A lot of times people give testimony of how they were saved in their faith in Christ and they never tell them the gospel.
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That although they have broken God's law, God has paid their fine. That they are not worthy to be saved, but God sent
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His Son. They're worthy of condemnation, but God sent His Son. Brothers and sisters, this is what we must do when we do that.
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We must trust in Christ. We are available to anyone who wants to talk. Pastor Kyle and myself.
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Let's pray. Father, we know that it is
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Your joy, Your purpose,
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Your plan to save sinners. And God, we pray that although this world seems dark and it's really easy for the
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Christian to feel all alone, Lord, You gave us the church where we can gather together and not feel that silence, right?
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You give us this group of people to where we can know that we are not alone.
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And Lord, we ask that You give us strength, Lord. We ask that You give us boldness.
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We ask that You give us courage to pray, to speak to those that we're praying for, to be a witness, to be a light, to take this light of the world,
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Jesus Christ, and as the lampstand to go out into the world and to shine that light and to not put it under a basket,
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Lord. Lord, help us as Your people to be brave and to preach the gospel, to be bold and to stand in the face of tyranny and say, thus says the
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Lord. To understand that we have the Holy Spirit and that we are called to be world changers.
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We are called to turn the world upside down just like the twelve disciples did.
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We have that same power, Lord, but help us to understand and help us to understand how to use that power.
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Help us to study and to understand the gospel. Lord, we pray right now for the supper.
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We pray that You use it for our growth, our sanctification as You conform us to the image of Your Son.
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Lord, I pray that if there's anyone here that has been living in sin and they're unrepentant,
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Lord, that You grant to them repentance, that they confess their sins to You, Lord, and if they're stubborn and hard -hearted, that You will prevent them from the table.