We All Deserve Coal

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. Our reading for this first Wednesday in Advent is taken from Peter's first epistle chapter 1 verse 1 through chapter 2 verse 10.

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Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who are elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia.

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According to the foreknowledge of God the Father and the sanctification of the Spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood.

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May grace and peace be multiplied to you. Blessed be the

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God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to his great mercy he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

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To an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you.

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Who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

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In this you rejoice. Though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

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Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

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Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the

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Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories.

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It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preach the good news to you by the

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Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things to which the angels long to look. Therefore, preparing your minds for action and being sober -minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

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As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all of your conduct.

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Since it is written, you shall be holy for I am holy. And if you call on him as father who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the feudal ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.

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He was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but was made manifest in the last times for your sake.

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Who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory so that your faith and hope are in God.

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Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart.

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Since you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and abiding

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Word of God. For all flesh is like grass, and all of its glory like the flower of grass.

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The grass withers, the flower falls, but the Word of the Lord remains forever, and this

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Word is the good news that was preached to you. So put away all malice, all deceit, and hypocrisy, envy, and all slander.

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Like newborn infants long for the pure spiritual milk that by it you may grow up into salvation, if indeed you have tasted that the

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Lord is good. As you come to him a living stone rejected by men, but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

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For it stands in Scripture, behold I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.

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So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone, and a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense.

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They stumble because they disobey the Word as they were destined to do. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

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Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

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This is the Word of the Lord. I remember the very first time I did something really naughty during the

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Christmas season, and by naughty I mean actually figured out how to remove the scotch tape from a present and carefully unfold the wrapping and see what my grandparents had given me for Christmas.

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I must admit that in so doing I was riddled with guilt, but I never let on that I knew that they had chosen to give me my very first Mickey Mouse watch when

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I was five years old. And every time on my Apple watch

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I put the Mickey Mouse face on for my grandson, it always reminds me of that moment, that time when

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I used to have on my wrist a shiny silver Mickey Mouse watch with his hands moving and things like that.

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But the thing is is that I knew very shortly after Thanksgiving, almost immediately after it appeared underneath the

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Christmas tree, what it is that my grandparents had chosen to give me. And so I kind of look back on the moment with a little bit of guilt and a lot of nostalgia.

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This text that we are looking at today, notice we only have three midweek services for Advent this year, such is the weirdness of how sometimes the church year kind of falls in strange ways.

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This text before us, think of it like, well Christmas isn't here yet, but let's take a look under the tree and see what

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God gave us. That's kind of what this is about. It's a wonderful text. It's a text that many scholars believe was written on the occasion of, well, a baptismal service coming up for the churches in this area.

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And so this is a baptismal sermon, if you would, by the Apostle Peter. But in it, it is so rich with illustrations, and it is amazingly dripping with the blood of Christ and the gospel and the good news, that in dark days such as these, even though it is

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Advent and this is a penitential season, I think it behooves us to take a look under the tree and consider what the present is that we will be receiving in the package of what

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God has sent to us, our Savior born of the Virgin Mary. So with that, let's return to our text.

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Here's what it says. Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ. And there's a lot that you can preach about that, but we've talked about apostles, and you'll note that it was

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Christ who sent them. And he says to those who are elect, and then he lists off all of the different Christians in the dispersion.

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Yeah, dispersion is like taking all of these seeds and scattering them into the winds in Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia.

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And then notice this. According to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the

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Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ, and for sprinkling with his blood. That foreknowledge thing is kind of important.

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If you think about the prophet Jeremiah, he says, before you were born I knew you.

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And that same thing is true about us. Before we were born, God foreknew each and every one of us.

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Knew that we would be here tonight, knew when we would be born, even knows the day that we will die.

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We all have half of a date written on our tombstones already. Mine says

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May 11th, 1968. Who knows what the next portion is going to read, right?

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But God foreknows even all of that. But more importantly than when you were born, or when you will die, is this foreknowledge that you would receive the sanctification of the

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Spirit, the obedience to Jesus Christ, through the sprinkling of his blood on you.

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And so to you, the Apostle Peter writes and says, may grace and peace be multiplied to you.

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I like multiplication. Numbers get big really quick when you multiply. And so you'll note that here he's not saying may grace and peace be added to you.

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He's saying may it be multiplied to you. Here's some grace. Let me multiply that times a thousand.

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And while we're at that, let's multiply it again times another hundred thousand. And all of a sudden grace gets bigger and bigger and bigger.

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That is the nature of the gift that we have in Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our

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Lord Jesus Christ, according to his great mercy. Notice it isn't chintzy mercy, it's great mercy.

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According to his great mercy, and watch the verbs, he has caused us to be born again.

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Now if you have been in class or heard the sermons that I've preached on John chapter 3, where Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night and Jesus says amen amen, truly

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I say to you, no one can be saved unless he is born anothen, from above or born again.

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But here it's a different word altogether. It's not anothen. This one literally means to be born again.

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It's not like John 3. So according to his great mercy, he has caused each and every one of us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

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This is not some dead hope. This is not some, well, pie in the sky. I hope it all works out.

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Roll the dice and hopefully it won't come up boxcars. I don't really know much about playing dice, but I've heard that's bad, right?

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No, this is a firm hope. This is the hope that is grounded in the resurrection of Christ from the dead to an inheritance that is imperishable.

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Now I don't know about you guys, but I happen to know a few people who have estates and they have large sums of money.

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And the one thing I've learned about people with estates is that you never know if the stock market is going to go up or if it's going to go down.

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You don't know if the estate is going to increase in value or if everything is going to tank.

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And the next thing you know, that thing you were hoping on, that inheritance has disappeared because it's gone goodbye in the stock market.

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Well, that's not the inheritance that we have. We have been given an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, unfading, kept in heaven for each and every one of you, untouched by the stock market.

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There is no politician who can write a law or change the economy of heaven that would cause this inheritance to go down.

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And it's kept in heaven for each and every one of us, who by God's power, we are being guarded through faith for a salvation that is ready to be revealed at the last time.

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And so you'll note that even God in His power, He's guarding us, protecting us, so that we can receive this inheritance.

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And it will be revealed. The day is just around the corner. And then He says, in this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials.

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And which of us can say, I don't know what that looks like. We all know what these various trials are like.

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They're dark, they're difficult to work through. And the trials that we experience, it seems like the older we get, the more complicated they become.

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These are trials that don't seem to have solutions. Where every day you're trapped in them, and they don't ever seem to go away.

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So He's giving us hope. Hope that we can rejoice in, even though for now we have to suffer different various trials.

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And all of this is so that the tested genuineness of your faith, your faith which is more precious than gold, even though that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

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Though you have not seen Him, you love Him. And that is the amazing thing of faith.

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We love Jesus, even though we don't even know what He looks like. We have no idea if He has a wry smile, or if He has a twinkle in His eyes, or if He has a long nose, or a short nose, or what exactly the color of His beard is.

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Even though we have not seen Him yet, we love Him. Though you do not now see Him, you believe in Him.

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And you rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, which is the salvation of your souls.

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It's sad that so many pastors I've heard today talk about how it is impractical and irrelevant to talk about our faith in such a way.

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That somehow what we need to do is we need to talk about the outcome of our faith having some kind of relevance for today and now.

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And if all we're doing is pointing people to the salvation of their souls in heaven, that somehow this is to miss the mark in Christianity.

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And yet Peter knows nothing of this. He knows in this earth we face various trials, suffering, temptation, all kinds of persecution and evils.

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And yet the very outcome, the thing that we are hoping for, is not an addition to our house, a bigger bank account, or even a bumper crop next year.

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The thing we are hoping for ultimately is the salvation of our souls.

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Now concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the

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Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories.

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And a few years back we actually looked through and considered many of the prophecies as they related to Christ, written in the

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Old Testament, that he would be pierced for our transgressions, that he would be born in Bethlehem, that John the

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Baptist would be his forerunner, that he would do many of the things that he did. They're all prophesied ahead of time.

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And here Peter says that it was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves, but they in fact were serving me and you.

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In the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things to which even the angels longed to look.

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And that's kind of the amazing thing about this particular gift. Now keep in mind we're looking ahead a little bit, we're cheating, looking under the tree.

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And this gift that we have been given is so amazing, so amazing that the prophets of old strove to try to figure it out, so amazing that even the angels themselves longed to figure it out, longed to open up the wrapper to see what the gift really was.

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That's how precious our Christmas gift from God is. So therefore, preparing your minds for action and being sober -minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

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And so this forces us to realize that the gift that we get on Christmas morning, the babe of Bethlehem, come to earth to bleed and to die for our sins, that that is not the fullness of the gift.

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The fullness is still yet to be revealed. More is coming.

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Think of it this way. In the ancient world, Christmas was a 12 -day long affair.

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Don't you remember how the song goes? On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me a partridge in a pear tree.

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On the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me. It goes on, and everybody knows the part, five golden rings, right?

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Four calling birds, three French hens, two turtle doves, and a partridge in a pear tree.

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Twelve days of Christmas. So here, note, setting our minds fully on the grace that will be revealed at the revelation of Christ, that there is still an outstanding gift that has yet to be opened for us to see.

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It's still coming. So therefore, as obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance.

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You see, Christ has come to save us from slavery, to sin, death, and the devil. Therefore, we must recognize that our sinful passions within us must be drowned, must be dealt with.

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We must not conform to them any longer. That was the thing that was the problem. We must now, as those who have received the

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Holy Spirit, no longer be conformed by those passions. But as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all of your conduct.

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Since it is written, you shall be holy, for I am holy. And if you call on Him as Father, who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile.

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And that's a good way to talk about the here and the now, as our time of exile, longing, waiting to go home.

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Knowing that you were ransomed from the feudal ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but you were ransomed with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.

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He was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but was made manifest in the last times.

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And listen to this, for your sake. Who, through Him, you are believers in God, who raised

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Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God. Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, therefore love one another earnestly from a pure heart.

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And see, this is the outflow of joy and forgiveness. Having been forgiven, having been cleansed by the precious blood of Christ, having been reconciled to God, receiving this great salvation that even the angels long to look into.

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Our response is joy at the receiving of such a gift, and then that results in overflow of love towards others.

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Having had our hearts been purified by Christ. Since you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable through the living and abiding

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Word of God. For all flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flower of grass.

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The grass withers, the flower falls, but the Word of the Lord remains forever. And this

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Word is the good news that was preached to you. And so each and every one of us,

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I hate to say this, having been here at Kongsvinger now for more than three years, you all are looking worse than ever.

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Me too. Me too, right? And this is the nature of things in this transient world.

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All flesh is like grass, the grass is withering, and the flower is falling, and some of our grass is withering, and the flowers are falling a little faster than others.

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But still, we are admonished to note that the Word of the Lord remains forever. The Word of the

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Lord is the good news, the gospel, that Christ has bled and died for you, that was preached to you.

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Therefore, put away all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, slander.

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None of those are appropriate. Instead, like newborn infants, long for pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation, if indeed you have tasted that the

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Lord is good. As you come to Him, a living stone rejected by men, but in the sight of God, chosen and precious.

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You yourselves, like living stones, are now being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

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For it stands in Scripture, behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in Him will not be put to shame.

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The picture is beautiful and wonderful, that each and every one of us are being built into this holy temple of God.

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Each of us a precious stone, and being a precious stone, the promises of the forgiveness of sins are right there.

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Whoever believes in Him, anybody who trusts in Christ for the forgiveness of their sins, not a single one of them will be put to shame, because He has pardoned us and given us mercy.

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So the honor is for you who believe. Sadly though, for those who do not believe, the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone, and a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense.

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And they stumble because they disobey the Word as they were destined to do.

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What a tragic, terrible thing. Here the good news of the forgiveness of sins reaches somebody's ears, and they disobey the

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Word. And what does the Word command us to do? To believe, to repent, to be forgiven, and they say, bah humbug.

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Sad, very sad. And now the closing thought for a meditation tonight, that you, you brothers and sisters here tonight, you are a chosen race.

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And I'm not talking about the Norwegians, just want to make that clear. Talking about those who've been grafted into Israel, you and me.

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You are a chosen race. You are a royal priesthood.

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And this is what we talked about when we looked at Romans 12 earlier this year. That we offer our bodies as a living sacrifice.

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This is what priests do. They pray and offer sacrifices. Not for the forgiveness of their sins, in this case for us, but because we are forgiven, we pray for others, which is our priestly duty.

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And we offer ourselves and our good works for our neighbor's sake, as a priestly duty. So you are a chosen race.

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You are a royal priesthood. You are a holy nation.

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You are a people for God's own possession. And listen to this, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.

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And notice, it doesn't say so that your pastor may proclaim the excellencies of Him.

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It says so that you can proclaim the excellencies of Him. Brothers and sisters, this gift that God gives us at Christmas time is so precious and so amazing, that God's expectation of you is that you can't keep your mouth shut about it.

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That you have to go and tell everybody, look at what Jesus gave me for Christmas, and proclaim the excellencies of this gift of salvation and of the one who gave it.

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The one who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are

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God's people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

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And it is this mercy and this love of God that cleanses us and makes us holy.

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Takes us from obscurity, takes us from chaos, takes us from a time when we were not part of a real tribe, and makes us part of the chosen nation, the holy nation of spiritual

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Israel. What a gift. What a gift. We cannot even begin to thank

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God for this gift that He has given us. But we've gotten ahead of ourselves. We've peaked under the tree.

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Maybe we should cover it up for another week. But next week, let's come back and take a look at it again and see what this wonderful gift is.

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In the name of Jesus. Amen. Oslo Minnesota 567 -44.

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