Free Indeed

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern

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Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

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And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. The Holy Gospel according to St. John, Chapter 8, verses 31 through 36.

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So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in Him, if you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.

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They answered Him, we're offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say you will become free?

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Jesus answered them, truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever, the son remains forever.

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So if the son sets you free, you will be free indeed. In the name of Jesus.

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So Jesus says, if the son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

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Now I like movies. In general I like movies, but there's particular movies that I just think are classics and are epic.

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And those are the ones that tell of that pitched battle between good and evil. And the ones where it's actually believable that what's at stake is freedom itself.

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You think of the movie Braveheart. How does the movie end with that great line from William Wallace, freedom!

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And we can all relate to these stories. There's a reason why Star Wars continues to be, well, one of those movies that people go to and watch over and over again.

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Or the Lord of the Rings, the trilogy, and then the Hobbit trilogy. The reason why is because each and every one of us understands that we don't live in a safe world.

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You think of the tyrants of past decades and eras. Think of the dictatorships of Adolf Hitler.

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Or you think of the old Soviet Union. And what is it that we all fear as Americans? That somehow we're going to squander our freedoms and elect somebody who's going to put us into bondage, to take away our freedoms.

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That's always the big fear. That's the stuff that kind of keeps conspiracy theory websites churning.

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That there's this grand global scheme afoot that the Illuminati is working right now to put us all into bondage, to take away our rights.

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We all relate to these stories, or at least the concepts, because we know what human beings are capable of.

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We really are. And so we must understand this, that the reason why human beings are capable of such cruelty, of enslaving other human beings and putting them in bondage and making us do the work of building kingdoms and things like that, is because, well, each and every one of us, according to scripture, we were born under the dominion of darkness.

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We were born enslaved to the ultimate tyrant, the devil himself.

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In fact, Colossians chapter 1, verses 13 and 14 says that God has delivered us from the dominion of darkness and God himself has transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son in whom we have redemption and the forgiveness of our sins.

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And so in order to rightly understand good and evil and freedom versus slavery, we must ultimately understand and come to grips with what scripture teaches.

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That we all, well, were born in slavery. We were not born free.

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We were born under the dominion of a tyrannical ruler. In fact, Ephesians 2, 1 through 3 says, you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you once walked following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the devil himself.

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This is the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. We all fear that this may also be the spirit that is animating some political leaders among whom we all, not some, but all of us once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind.

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And we were by nature children of wrath, children of the devil, just like the rest of all of mankind.

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This was our state. Now, Jesus said, if the sun sets you free, you will be free indeed.

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And so Christians, all of you baptized here today, I need to remind you that you have already been set free.

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You've been to the font. You've heard the pastor say in the name of the father and the son and the

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Holy Spirit. And in Romans 6, the apostle Paul writes, do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus, we were baptized into his death.

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We were buried there with him by baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the father, we too might walk in newness of life.

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For if we have been united with him in a death like his, and we most certainly have, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

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And we know that our old self was crucified in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing so that we would no longer be, and here are the important words, enslaved to sin.

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You see, brothers and sisters, you have already been set free. You are no longer under the dominion of darkness.

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But believe me when I tell you the dominion of darkness is not satisfied with this outcome and is doing everything that it can to veto this freedom that we have as a result of the fact that Christ has buried us with himself, raised us with himself, washed away all of our sins.

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Think of it this way. When you were baptized, you went to be baptized with slave shackles on.

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And then when you heard those words and the water was poured or you were dunked, you heard the words in the name of the father and the son and the

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Holy Spirit, I baptize you and coming out of your baptismal waters, all of the slave shackles fell off.

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You were free. And that's what happened to you. You are already free.

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Paul continues. So we know that our old self, our old sinful Adam, was crucified with Christ in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.

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For one who has died has been set free from sin. You have died already.

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You've died in Christ. You are now free. Walk in that freedom.

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But remember these words of Jesus. There's a little bit of law in our gospel text today.

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Jesus says, if you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples and the one who abides in Jesus's words will know the truth and the truth will set you free.

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Kind of think of that continuing to live in freedom requires the abiding in God's word.

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This deals with the first three commandments, does it not? First commandment, you will have no other gods.

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Second commandment, you do not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. And third commandment, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.

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You see, Jesus here and talking about abiding in his word is warning us, warning us against the sin of idolatry.

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To have another God is to listen to other words other than Jesus and believe that they are from God. So my question to you is abide in his word.

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Well, where can we go today to find the words of Jesus? Do I need to climb Mount Kilimanjaro and look for a holy man sitting in the lotus position?

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Do I go and visit the local prophetess? Where do I go to find the words of Christ today?

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You see, today we are celebrating the four hundred and ninety ninth anniversary of the

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Reformation, Martin Luther nailing the ninety five theses to the church door there in Wittenberg.

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And we think of this act of defiance. It was just a debate challenge and it just took off like wildfire.

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And so we're thinking this is a great thing. We're coming up on the five hundredth anniversary. But let me ask you a question.

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When Luther nailed the ninety five theses to the castle church door there in Wittenberg, was the devil defeated at that moment?

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Has the devil just said, oh, that's it, I'm undone, I'm going to walk off the battlefield and I'm going to go into the locker room and I'm going to cry?

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Not at all. So let us be careful in our celebration of the Reformation, lest we think that somehow that was the final victory.

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Think of it this way. We celebrate in the Reformation, well, the fact that God in his mercy allowed us once again to roll back human teachings that were obscuring the gospel and the gospel was able to come forth again so that the words of Christ might set people free.

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What had happened to the Christian church during the medieval period? All kinds of man -made doctrines and teachings and practices crept their way into the church, all piously smuggled under Christian words.

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Well, we pray to the saints now. We pray to Mary. We say the Hail Mary. We believe in indulgences and oh, and yeah, you want to get your dead grandma out of purgatory?

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Well, just give the church some money and we'll make sure that her sentence is lightened. All of these are man -made doctrines, but look at the state of the church today in Protestant circles, not in Roman Catholic circles.

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Look at what's happening on Christian television. Listen to what you're listening to on Christian radio.

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We all sit there and go, oh, the person who's praying to dead saints is believing something that is a man -made doctrine, but is it not also a man -made doctrine to believe that God manifests in glory clouds today or that he'll make you wealthy if you send in your money to that televangelist?

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And over and again, what's fascinating is that all of these man -made doctrines, you know what they end up doing?

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Putting people back in slavery and bondage. You see, these doctrines do not have their origin necessarily in man because 1

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Timothy 4, starting at verse 1, says this. Now, the Holy Spirit expressly says that in later times,

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I think we're living in those right now, that in later times, some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to, watch this, deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared.

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They forbid marriage, require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.

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Forbid marriage. Hmm, I know a major denomination within the visible church that forbids pastors to be married.

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I also know that the same denomination says that it's a mortal sin that if you eat anything other than fish on Friday.

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Mortal sin, this will send you to hell. But all of these are, well, they're not just man -made doctrines.

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According to 1 Timothy 4, these are the doctrines of demons. And why is that?

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Because the devil is hard at work laying snares and traps and all of these false teachings out there for people to follow so that they get their eyes off of Christ and get their eyes off of salvation by grace through faith and all that he has done for us and get people back to work trying to earn their salvation.

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You can kind of think of it like, well, Pharaoh in the book of Exodus, the ultimate tyrannical false god -king, what is it that the children of Israel are to be doing?

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Making bricks. Get busy building my kingdom. And if you complain, well, we'll take the straw away, but the quota won't be reduced.

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But Jesus comes along and he says, no, I will set you free. You will walk in freedom.

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You will no longer labor for somebody else. And he sets us free by grace through faith.

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And so all of these man -made doctrines ultimately are not man -made, they're demonic.

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They are the snares of the devil designed to put you back in bondage. But Jesus said, abide in my word and you will know the truth.

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And the truth makes you free. You see, Jesus doesn't set you to work making bricks.

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Jesus doesn't crack the whip and say, you want to be saved? Get busy.

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Try harder. Jesus says, come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

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And this is exactly what our epistle text says. And this is ground zero now for the

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Reformation, the rediscovery of the gospel. Romans chapter three.

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Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may be held accountable to God.

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That's right. The purpose of the law is not for you to be saved by keeping it. Instead, the purpose of the law is to get you to be quiet, realize that you stand guilty before God and that you're a sinner.

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For by works of the law, no human being will be justified in God's sight, since through the law comes the knowledge of sin.

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So every time I open up God's law to you, you're going to sit there and go, ouch, that hurts.

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And it should, because you are guilty, I'm guilty, we don't keep it perfectly.

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And that's the standard perfection. But see, this text goes on to say, but now the righteousness of God, this is his righteousness that's given to us as a gift.

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It has been manifested apart from the law and the law and the prophets, they actually bear witness to it. This is the righteousness of God that is through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe, for there is no distinction.

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All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and all are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom

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God put forward as a atoning sacrifice by his blood to be received, listen to this, by faith.

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It is for freedom that Christ has set you free. Salvation is given to us gratis.

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It's received by faith, not by works. Now, this was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance he had passed over the former sins.

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It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in him.

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And all of this grace is a gift. And in fact, kind of think of it this way.

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The devil, well, he wants to get you busy working hard for something that is free. Isn't that always the way of it?

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He's like a telemarketer scammer trying to, you know, take what doesn't belong to him by making you work hard to work for him.

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But well, true Christianity, it's like Christmas. It's just like Christmas.

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There you are Christmas morning and you're a kid, not an adult. You're a kid, remember it? There you are

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Christmas morning and you've been fascinated by the tree and all the presents and there's Jesus saying here's one for you.

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Here's another. Here's another. And you open each one up and the gifts keep getting better and better and better.

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And just when you think it can't get any better than that, Jesus says, let me look behind the tree.

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Oh, look, here's another one. That's real freedom. That's love. That's the gift of salvation.

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Not earned. It's given. It's received. And it's received with joy, being seen for the precious thing that it is.

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So if it's all gift, what becomes of our boasting? And here's always kind of the fun part.

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Those who are trying to earn their salvation, they sure do talk a lot about themselves. I have been out there conquering the devil.

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I've been out there conquering my sin and you too can, well, live the victorious Christian life like I have.

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I mean, it's been months since I've sinned. And here's my five easy steps that you can apply to your life to make it so that you can be as holy as I am.

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You know, when somebody's talking like that, hide your wallet. They want something from you.

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And it's your money. But see, because salvation is a gift, what becomes of our boasting?

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Is there anything to boast about when you receive a gift? Well, Paul says, well, it's excluded.

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And then he asked, by what kind of law? By a law of works? He says, no, but by the law of faith where we hold that one is justified.

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That's right. Declared righteous by faith apart from the works of the law. And here's the best thing.

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We all got the same gift. And it's a gift. You got that gift too. I got that one too.

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That's right. It's like, it's the G .I. Joe with the kung fu grip. You got that. I got that also.

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It's the best thing ever. In this case, it's not G .I. Joe though. It's salvation. It's knowing that we have a right standing with God.

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You see, the devil wants to make you work for and pay for what God has already given to you for free.

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Nonsense. And that's why it's demonic. That's why it's slavery. So don't think for a second that because you have already been set free that the devil isn't trying to figure out how to snare you and enslave you once again.

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And so Jesus warns, the one who is my disciple abides in my word.

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You see, come back to the words of Jesus. Because his words teach you the truth.

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His words keep you free. And his words remind you over and over and over again that you are loved.

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That you are forgiven. That you are washed. That you are baptized. That you are fed with the body and blood of Christ.

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That you have a right standing with God despite the fact that daily you fall short grievously.

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Because he continues to richly forgive you. And so the son has set you free.

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You are free. You are free indeed. Remember that.

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Believe that. Abide in that. Because you can take it to the bank. In the name of Jesus.

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Amen. If you would like to support the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, you can do so by sending a tax -free donation to Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

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Avenue Northwest, Oslo, Minnesota, 56744. And again, that address is

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Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

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Avenue Northwest, Oslo, Minnesota, 56744. We thank you for your support.

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All of our teaching messages may be freely distributed as long as you do not edit or change the content of the message.