Jesus Christ And The Law - [Matthew 5:19-20]

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If any of the kids need to be dismissed for junior church, you could do that now. Righteousness.
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How often do you hear the word righteousness in our circles today? Wasn't that one of the main debate topics last week in the gubernatorial debate between Deval Patrick and Kerry Healy?
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Weren't they talking about righteousness a lot? How often do you even hear the word righteousness?
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Do we hear the word in society? At school? On the playground?
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On TBN? How important is righteousness? If you hung around Jesus long enough, you would quickly know that He valued and spoke about righteousness quite often.
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The Apostle Paul wrote one whole book on the topic of righteousness, 16 chapters of Romans all about righteousness.
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How important is righteousness? Is it nice? Is it needed? Is it required? Is it self -produced?
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How do we display it? Well in Christ's day, righteousness was misunderstood and righteousness was not that popular.
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And some things never change. One man who sells many books reflects the current attitude of righteousness, our lack thereof, when he said this,
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We're all about building people up at our church. We're all about helping people reach their full potential.
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We don't push some kind of religion. All we push is joy and peace and victory through Jesus Christ.
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Our message every single week is through faith in God you can live an overcoming life of victory.
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I believe that's the message this generation needs to hear. We've heard a lot about the judgment of God and what we can't do and what's going to keep us out of heaven.
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But it's time people start hearing about the goodness of God, about a God that loves them, a God that believes in them.
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That's our message here. And you preach messages like that every week and you will have to buy the
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Compaq Center in Houston to have 35 ,000 people to listen to it every week. And I say with sadness, in the context of Israel, but it could apply more broadly.
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For not knowing about God's righteousness and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God.
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Beloved, would you turn your Bibles today to Matthew chapter 5 and we look at this topic today of God's righteousness.
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The message really of the Sermon on the Mount could be encapsulated with one word, righteousness. And we want to know about the righteousness of God because we need the righteousness of God.
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There's no help without it. The theme of the Sermon on the
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Mount really is righteousness, the right standing in God's eyes and then right living because of that.
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And we want to do the right things with the right motives because we have the righteousness of Christ.
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Now you know here in the passage so far to catch you up, if you're new to the church, we're just preaching verse by verse through the book of Matthew.
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We're in Matthew chapter 5 verses 17 to 20. But before we get to 17 to 20, Jesus has been preaching.
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And if you look in chapter 4, you see the scope of his preaching. Verse 23,
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Jesus was going throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness among the people.
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The news about him spread throughout all Syria. They brought to him all who were ill, those suffering with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, paralytics, and he healed them.
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Large crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis, ten cities in Jerusalem and Judea and from beyond the
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Jordan. Chapter 5 verse 1, when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on the mountain and after he sat down, his disciples came to him and then what did he do?
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He gave the beatitudes, the eight sayings of how God approves behavior. Then he talked about salt and light and then he comes to this pivotal passage,
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Matthew chapter 5 verses 17, 18, 19, and 20. And I just love it that we as a church are sitting underneath Christ's preaching,
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Christ's message, week in and week out. And here he gives his audience two reasons why he came to earth.
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Now there are many reasons he came to earth, but this particular case, he gives two. Yes, he came to fulfill prophecy.
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Yes, he came to be our sin bearer. But here he gives two reasons why he came to earth.
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And if you see Matthew chapter 5 verse 17, right there in your Bibles, he says, but do not think that I came, stopping there, messianic implications.
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This is the reason why I came. You just don't talk that way. Jesus talked that way because as the Messiah sent from God the
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Father to us, he came for some reasons and then he gives two reasons. And both have to do with righteousness.
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Jesus came for two particular reasons in this passage. And the first reason he came is he came to bring full realization of God's righteousness.
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That is to say, to make sure everyone knew what God required in this new covenant.
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Chapter 5 verses 17 and 19. Let's just read those with a little review. Jesus came to talk about righteousness, and the first reason he came is to bring full realization of God's righteousness,
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God's standards for his people. Do not think that I came to abolish the law or the prophets.
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I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, unless heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest litter or stroke shall pass from the law until all is accomplished.
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Whoever then annuls one of these, the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven.
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But whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
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Jesus came so people could fully understand and realize God's righteousness for this new covenant.
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Part and parcel with that, he wasn't trying to abolish this, and you see that in the text in verse 17. By the way, last week when
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Jeremy was preaching, did you notice how many times he told you, do you see that in your text? Do you see that in your
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Bible? And I thought that was excellent. He did not, in verse 17, come to abolish the law.
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He wasn't relaxing God's standards. He wasn't somehow saying God wasn't the inspirer of the
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Old Testament. He wasn't coming to disannul what God taught to the Israelites.
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None of that. But he came to fulfill. Now when you think of the word fulfill, there's lots of things that Jesus did to fulfill, and this could turn into be a seminary class, and we can't have that.
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Or can we? Remember, some teaching is just easy. When was the last time you walked away from a sermon and said, that was a hard saying?
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Well, sometimes it should be very easy, and sometimes it should be very hard, because sometimes Jesus taught easy things, sometimes hard ones.
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This is a little more technical. And so when Jesus says he didn't come to abolish but to fulfill, there's lots of ways we could think of fulfillment.
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Did Jesus come to fulfill Messianic prophecy? Yes. We could think about prophecies in Isaiah 9 -6,
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Isaiah 7 -14 about the virgin birth, Micah 5 -2, born in Bethlehem. Did Jesus come to fulfill those prophecies?
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Oh, absolutely. But that's not really what he's talking about here, although I'm glad the prophets prophesied until John about these things.
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Did Jesus fulfill his Messianic duties by dying on the cross and therefore satisfying
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God's righteous demands of a sin bearer? Did he come to die in our place, in our stead, on our behalf?
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Well, of course. I'm glad for that. But that's not the context here either. Did Jesus come to earth to obey all of God's law, to live perfect life, so that when we believe on Christ, Jesus pays for our sins, and then we get treated like we perfectly obeyed because we get
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Christ's obedience? Yes. Was that a fulfillment? Jesus obeyed in our place? Well, that's true.
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He was born under the law. He was there to fulfill all righteousness in Matthew 5 -3 -15.
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But that's not what it means here to fulfill either. You say, well, what does it mean? I'm glad you asked the question.
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The context here is teaching. Even the great reformer from Geneva. Where's Fred?
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Is Fred here yet? Fred's gone. Fred was in John Calvin's church last week. Calvin said the issue here is not life but teaching.
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It's not that Jesus came in his life to fulfill something, although he did, but the context here is he came to fulfill teaching, to bring full realization of the law of God.
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Now, has God always had a law? Was it wrong for Cain to kill Abel? Yes. God had a moral law.
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This is not what you should do, and it was even imprinted in man's heart before there was a written law. Is it true that God tells
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Moses for Israel, thou shalt not kill? Yes, it's a moral law of God.
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Thou shalt not do that. And now for this people, this new people, the church, the new covenant,
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God is coming to fill up full what he had told in the hearts of Cain and Abel, what he had told specifically through Moses in the old covenant, to tell these new covenant people.
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All right, here's a trick question. Was Israel redeemed? You say, what's so hard about that?
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Your first question should be, what do you mean by redeemed? Very good. Was Israel as a nation taken up out of Egypt?
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Were they ransomed out, redeemed out, taken out? Yes, they were redeemed.
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Was everybody that was redeemed believers? That is to say, were they all regenerate?
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Were they all born again? Were they all going to heaven when they died? No. You've got a redeemed people, but in that redeemed people, the nation of Israel, some were saved and some were unsaved.
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Follow me so far? Some were redeemed, all were redeemed out of Egypt, yet some were,
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I don't want to say Christian, because there's no Christian before Calvary, but some were saved and some weren't.
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And God had a law for those people. And it was always God's moral best for those people to live under a law that was not just external, but also what?
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Internal, to obey from the heart, from the mind, to say, you know, I'm just not giving you lip service, God, I'm obeying from my soul.
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It was always God's best for that. And you can see some hints in the old covenant, in Mosaic law, where you shall not what?
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Your neighbor's wife. Covet your neighbor's wife. Internal driven.
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And that was always God's best. I want you to obey, not just with your externals, but also from your internals.
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And you all that have children, know what it's like when one of your kids obey you, strict obedience, letter of the law obedience, but you know their heart is not.
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You tell them to stand up and their body's standing up, but their heart's sitting down. So God has this law, this
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Mosaic law, and he's always intended, his best is always obey from the internal. Now let's fast forward a little bit to the new covenant.
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Jesus comes in an environment where there are lots of scribes and Pharisees and hypocrites and others, and they are law teachers, yes?
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They are the preachers. They are the expositors. I always start getting nervous if I get too far over here.
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I see these guys on TV, they're walking back and forth like this. I just have one question. Where is their
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Bible? Be close to the Bible. Just have a little chain here, link me here, so I'm right there to the Bible.
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I've got to keep your attention if I walk back and forth. If I can't keep your attention with the Bible, I don't know what else to do.
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Take a nap and be blessed. I'm not sure. Where am
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I? There is a redeemed people, temporally, physically, that's called
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Israel, but not all of them are Christians, so they can't even obey from the heart, many of them, but it's always been God's standard to love me from your heart, and it will show with your actions.
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Fast forward to the new covenant, and here we live in this environment where there are Pharisees and scribes and others who are saying,
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I obey, and the only obedience required is what? External. It's all external.
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And Jesus now comes, and He is going to not abolish the law, He is going to fulfill it, and He is going to, this is key,
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He is going to take what was implicit in the old, obey from the heart, and make it what?
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Explicit in the new. Yes, there was a few verses in the old that talked about heart attitude, but there are not very many of those found.
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So, Jesus is going to take the law of God, and God always has a law, whether that's in the hearts of people, through Moses at Sinai, or in the new covenant, and He takes this law, and He says, what used to be implicit, obey from your heart.
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I'm now going to apply to a new covenant people, who have the Spirit of God in them, who are able to obey from the inside, and I'm going to make explicit in this covenant, what was implicit in the old.
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I'm going to give them things of commandment, that it's not just don't kill, but don't what?
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Hate. Of course, in Mosaic law, they weren't to hate. But you've got the swirling
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Pharisees around here, saying it's all external, and I'm doing the right thing. Jesus takes what was implicit, and He makes it explicit.
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Don't commit adultery, but also don't what? Don't look at a woman with lust in your heart, and He makes it very explicit for this new covenant people.
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They can obey. They're able to obey. Hebrews 8 says that they have the law of God written in their heart.
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So Jesus comes to bring full realization to what the Old Testament anticipated. That is to say, if the
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Old Testament was pointed to the new covenant, do we now, since we're in the new covenant, look back at the
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Old Testament and go, that's lame. That's weak. That's horrible.
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I don't want that. Let me ask you this question. John the
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Baptist. What was his job in life? What a great job, by the way. To take a machete in the jungle of Israel, as it were, and chop through a straight path.
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So everybody goes, John, you're wonderful. Everybody would say, there is the
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Messiah. He makes straight this way for the Messiah. Everyone, John says,
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Jesus is coming. I want to decrease. I want Jesus increased. And John points to Jesus.
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Yes? What is your attitude of John the Baptist today? Oh, man, he's a has -been.
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He's a nobody. He's just back there, and you know what John said, we're not under John's law, and intertestamental stuff, and he's saying all these things, repent you brood of vipers, and everything else
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John said. Well, Jesus said, by the way, that there was no one born of a woman who was greater than John.
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And when we look back at John, we don't say, I've got to have a baptism like John did, and go under his law, his prophetic word, but we say
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John was a great pointer. John anticipated what is now realized, and we look back with great satisfaction saying,
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John was pointing to who Jesus was, and now we say, that's good. That's right.
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We don't despise the old covenant. We don't look down upon it. We don't abolish it, but we say it was pointing to the new covenant.
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The new covenant can't be the new without the old. They're pointing to the new. Jesus came to fulfill the law, to bring full realization of what the law ultimately intended.
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He was the goal, and his teaching made explicit what was implicit in the old. It's not just about our actions, but it's about our attitudes as well.
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Also, if you look in the text, something else is happening.
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Something else is happening. Not only is he here to fulfill all righteousness, but he's here to correct the common teaching of what righteousness was.
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But before I get into that, you may have this question. Matthew 5 .18
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Well, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass away from the law until all is accomplished.
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You're saying things about the Old Testament now that are somehow negative. I am not. The text here is every jot and tittle, not just the
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Ten Commandments, but all of the Old Testament together is not going to pass away until it's accomplished.
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I think it is accomplished, and it's accomplished in Christ and his New Testament teaching. Jesus isn't contradicting the
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Old Testament, but he's saying it pointed, and now we've arrived. I could put it this way, and I know the analogy breaks down.
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Have you ever driven a long way? I've driven from Omaha to California several times, and sometimes
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I would see this sign. It would say Salt Lake City, 384 miles. You just think,
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I see 384 divided by 85 kilometers an hour.
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Boy, attributing bad motives to me. And you divide it all out, and you finally get to Salt Lake, and you don't despise the sign and the pointer, yet you don't go back and hug it either and want to be under it.
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You're there. There's nothing wrong with Mosaic Law. It intended its purpose. And Hebrews says, now it's obsolete because the new has come.
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And as God always had a moral law to give pre -Moses, through Moses, and now he gives it to Moses, we are a new covenant people that can obey from the inside.
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We are all redeemed. We are a people who all have the Spirit of God, and so Jesus gives laws to us that demand fulfillment on the inside.
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You say, well, this is just kind of, it's hard to get. Well, let's go to the second way Jesus' righteousness is displayed, and that is found in Matthew 5 .20,
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and this you will all get. Somebody came up to me two weeks ago and said, most of the sermons you give,
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Pastor, I understand. I didn't understand that one. It's good to go home and study.
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It's good to grab some of it. I was talking to Louis. I thought this was really insightful. I said, Louis, I struggled a couple weeks ago because here's this intense subject, and I want to do justice to it, but I don't want to just make everyone have to learn
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Greek and Hebrew to understand it. And he said, you know, lots of times when preachers get up and they preach some really tough doctrine, you ask a kid, a 10 -year -old kid or a 14 -year -old kid, what did you think of that sermon?
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What was that sermon about? And the kid answers this way, to paraphrase Louis, Jesus Christ is awesome, but this part
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I think you'll get. Jesus came to talk about righteousness. Number one, to bring full realization of God's righteous commands, external and internal.
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Secondly, Jesus came to correct the common misconceptions about God's righteousness.
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That is to say, Pharisees and scribes were teaching one thing, and Jesus came to correct it.
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He brings full realization to the covenant, then he also talks about what was going on at the day.
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And if you look at verse 20, you see that. For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.
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If you haven't highlighted that in your Bible for the Sermon on the Mount, you need to. Yes, it's true that Jesus gives full realization in the new covenant.
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The way the old covenant was pointing, and we look at the old covenant, and we should teach it and learn, and learn about God's attributes, and use it for reproof and correction.
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And it has its full anticipation in the new. So we need the old to fulfill the new.
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But also he comes to correct misconceptions, and here he's after what the local teachers have been teaching.
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External righteousness alone. And if you see the text, let me just pick it apart a little bit.
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For I say to you, there it is again that Jesus says, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the most religious people you know, you will by no means double negative enter, by no means you will ever enter the kingdom of heaven.
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So let's just make it for kind of today. Let's just say Gandhi was alive, Billy Graham, Mother Teresa, pick a pope of your own pleasure, some other kind of, who's one of the other religious leaders?
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I don't know, just pick a bunch of religious leaders. You take all their religiosity and spirituality, and put it all together, and if you want to get into heaven, you've got to be better than them, more religious than them, or you will never enter.
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Matter of fact, the text says it's got to surpass that of the scribes and Pharisees, not just equal to, but surpassing.
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I love the word surpass. It just means there is a river that overflows its boundaries, it surpasses it.
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Katrina. Katrina flood comes in, hurricane comes in, and it just goes over the what?
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The levees are just blown away because there's too much. And so your righteousness that you have to get into heaven, has to overflow more than the scribes and Pharisees have.
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That would get your attention. Scribes taught the law, they interpreted the law.
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Pharisees, we know more about them. Josephus, the Jewish historian, during Bible days said, a body of Jews known for surpassing the others in observance of piety and exact interpretation of the laws.
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How many people know the Bible Answer Man? The Pharisees were the Bible Answer Men. 1 -800 -Pharisees, 88.
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They sacrificed, they fasted, they prayed, they gave tithes, and my favorite word for the
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Pharisees would be, punctilious. They were exacting.
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Let's flip over to Luke chapter 18, and let me give you a little description of a self -righteous, punctilious
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Pharisee. Luke 18.
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Jesus is the speaker, but he's speaking in this parable, and just jumping into the parable, speaking for the
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Pharisee, Luke 18 .12. I fast twice a week. By the way, how many times did they have to fast?
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Once a year? But Moses went to Sinai on a
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Thursday and returned on a Monday. So between certain feasts, you better be fasting twice a week, instead of once a year.
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Let's pick the days Moses went up and came back, and we better fast on those. Twice a week between Passover and Pentecost, between tabernacles and the dedication of the temple.
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Their word was, besides punctilious, more. Whatever you were supposed to do, they did more.
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And by the way, isn't that the legalistic trend? If you want to be holy, you say,
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I'm going to try to keep God's laws. But if you're not a Christian, and you're in some kind of legalistic system, and you want to be more holy, how can you be more holy when you already keep what
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God says? So to be more holy, you have to do what? You have to add tradition.
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You have to add things. Why do you think you have religions that have the Bible that's that big, and then have the
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Bible and all the other books on top? Because if you want to be holy, and you already think your righteousness surpasses that of the
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Scribes and Pharisees, you better come up with a thing of traditions this big, so you can be holier than the other guy who thinks he's holy.
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Why do they add all these extra things? Because they want to be holier. Fasting twice a week.
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They didn't have to do that. They wanted to do more. Above and beyond. How much more?
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I don't know. More. Whatever that other person does, you just do more. It's the insidiousness of trying to work your way to heaven.
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Give more. Run more. Fast more. Be better. They gave tithes, too.
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Do you see that in Luke 18, 12? I pay tithes of all I get. All I get. You don't have to pay tithes of all
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I get. But when you want to be righteous, self -righteous, they even started tithing seeds.
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For a long time, I walked outside by the reservoir, and I would like to get little sunflower seeds.
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Salted. It takes a while to kind of manipulate the seed in your mouth, and get the kernel out, and everything else. And then I thought, but that's probably no good.
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There's too much salt. So I can't just keep eating all this salt. Can you imagine if I thought, I'm the holy one of God on my prayer walk.
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I have my sermon in my back pocket. Even extra holy. And for every ten sunflower seeds
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I get from Dole, I have to save one for the leaders of the church.
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Dave, Lewis, and Steve. You were to tithe to support the
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Levites, among other things, but they would tithe mint, and anise, and cumin, and other things.
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You should tithe crops, yes, but they even tithe the herbs. Nine poppy seeds for me, one for the
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Lord. See, here's the insidious nature of all this.
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They think they not only upheld the law of God, but they surpassed it. They did more than God required, and they were almost thinking to themselves,
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God is up there going, thank you. Right on. It's like Tolstoy, spiritually, he said this.
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This awoke in me the conviction that I am a remarkable man, both as regards capacity and eagerness to work.
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I have not yet met a single man who is as morally good as I am. I do not remember an instance in my life when
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I was not attracted to what is good, and I was not ready to sacrifice anything to do it.
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Stuck in my thumb and pulled out a plum, and gee, what a good Tolstoy Pharisee am I. Let me quickly give you five words that describe the
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Pharisees' righteousness, and you can ask yourself if you have the same kind, or you have the opposite.
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Five words that describe what their righteousness was like, and if people aren't careful today, they are trusting in the same kind of unrighteousness.
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The first word that will be helpful for understanding is sufficient. Sufficient. They thought their righteousness was sufficient.
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I've got enough, because I do more. But Jesus, we're going to see soon enough, is not talking about the quantity of righteousness.
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He's talking about the what? The quality. It's of a different kind. If you want to be righteous in God's eyes, you can do as many things as you want, but it's got to be the right quality from a heart of someone who is right in God's eyes.
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To surpass the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, it can't be talking about numbers, quantity.
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It has to be quality. It has to be a different kind. It's insufficient to have anything less than the right quality of righteousness.
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The second word that described them, and I hope it doesn't describe you when you think about why you should get into heaven, is that righteousness for them was not only sufficient, they had enough, but also, number two, obtainable.
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Obtainable. They thought in and of themselves they could do it. They were Pelagians. They thought they would do something and God would be pleased.
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They did not remember that God requires perfection to get into heaven. And Jesus says that in 5 .48
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of the Sermon on the Mount. Peter quotes Moses' law and says, You shall be holy for I am holy.
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Jesus demands perfect righteousness to the law. And he pronounces to the
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Pharisees and scribes in another account, Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men, for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.
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You can't obtain it. By the works of the law, how much flesh will be justified?
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None. You can't get to heaven. Whitefield used to call getting to heaven by climbing up a rope of sand.
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That's how you get to heaven. A ladder or a rope of sand, if you can climb it, you can get to heaven.
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They thought they could obtain it. With Hindu prayer wheels or Muslims' prayers towards Mecca.
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Christians attending church, joining the church. I made the grade. I did it on my own.
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And all that, friends, is insidiously blasphemous because the cross says it is finished and you say, comma, but I've got to add.
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I'm adding something. It wasn't quite good enough. I need the sacraments. I need to have communion.
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I need to have the pastor. As he told me when I was a kid, I would come up for communion. I'd have to hold my hands just right so I wouldn't spill anything.
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And I'd have the cup. And then the pastor would say to me, by the authority vested in me, I now pronounce your sins forgiven.
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Go in peace. Serve the Lord. And I thought by doing that, I could get to heaven.
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Not only sufficient and obtainable, but let me give you another word that we've covered. External. External.
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Christianity has always been a religion of the heart. God has always required it, whether it's Cain and Abel or in Moses' law.
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And now Jesus makes explicit in the New Covenant. It's a heart religion. It's the mind.
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It's all you have to worship God. It's not artificial. It's not external. It's not external observance.
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Matthew 23, Jesus just blasts and says, You clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and self -indulgence.
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The fourth word that's good for us to understand, the scribes and Pharisees, and hopefully not us, is comparative.
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Sufficient, one. Obtainable, two. External, three. Number four, comparative. In here, while you're seeing in Luke 18, the
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Pharisee found the tax collector, the publican, somebody bad, and he said, compared to his righteousness, mine is what?
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Better. That's why people love Jerry Springer today. Because there's some kind of whack -out person there, and you think, well, compared to them,
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I live a pretty normal life. I know I've got relationship problems and work problems and all kinds of other issues, but compared to them, compared to Osama Bin Laden, compared to Pol Pot, compared to somebody else or my next -door neighbor,
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I'm pretty good. That's exactly what happened here in Luke 18. The Pharisee, Luke 18, 11, stood and was praying this to himself,
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God, I thank you I'm not like other people, swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.
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Comparing himself always. On the other hand, do you see the right way to do it? If you want to compare yourself to someone to know whether you should get into heaven or not, compare yourself to the thrice holy
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God. Luke 18, 13, this tax collector did it. But on the other hand, it says in verse 13, the tax gatherer, standing some distance away, if he was
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Jewish, he could be in that proper court. If he was a Gentile, he'd have to be in the court of the Gentiles.
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He was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, to God, but was beating his breast saying,
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God, be merciful to me, I'm not as good as the Pharisee. No, he was so conscious of his unworthiness, he felt shame, he was feeling what
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Jesus preached on in the Beatitudes, blessed are those that mourn because of their sin, the text says with a double negative, he would not, never lift his eyes to heaven, he refused.
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Shame and the sorrow, no self -righteousness, no self -trust, couldn't bring anything to God, and he said, compared to everyone else,
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I am what? Sadly, the text doesn't give you the definitive article, the definite article, the sinner.
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Not a sinner, I'm not a sinner, God, I'm the only one that exists, and compared to you, I am what?
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The sinner. Compared to the holy one of God, I'm the sinner, not just any sinner,
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Bengel says he thinks about no other man, he's drowning in his sin, no bell curve, and then the fifth word that helps us understand the
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Pharisees, and hopefully not us, we've seen sufficient, obtainable, external, comparative, and number five, they thought it was theirs,
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T -H -E -I -R -S. But do you know what, beloved?
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The righteousness that God requires, is the righteousness that God must give. I just turned myself off,
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I think, maybe I didn't. There's a thing down here, and I just put my foot on it.
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Should have been walking back and forth, I would have stayed away from that. The righteousness that God requires, is the righteousness that God must give.
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It can't be your own righteousness, because you won't get into heaven. It has to be the righteousness that God gives, because He gives it through His Son's righteousness.
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Romans 3 says, But now, apart from the law, the righteousness has been manifested, being witnessed by the law and prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Christ Jesus for all who believe.
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That's why the tax collector, do you see there in Luke 8 .13? He said, God, be merciful to me, the sinner.
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God, be merciful. God, be propitiated. God, take your anger out on another. Let your anger be removed.
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God, you be my mercy seat. I need Christ's righteousness. I can't do it. Jesus comes, and He has many reasons to come as a
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Messiah. But the two here are, one is, I came to fill up or bring full realization to what the old covenant laws demanded for both believer and unbeliever.
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And now I'm going to demand them of the believer especially, applying to the unbeliever, yes.
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And then I'm going to correct what these Pharisees thought. If everyone's telling you, here's how you get to heaven, because you can have an obtainable righteousness, a righteousness of your own compared to that other guy, you're in big trouble.
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And I love the illustration, if you'll turn to Philippians 3, of a Pharisee and of righteousness and a good way to summarize this whole message.
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Philippians 3, one of the favorite sections of Scripture that I wish congregation to drive you towards.
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You need somebody else's life to go to heaven. And you need somebody else's life of obeying the law and somebody else's life of dying on the cross for your sins.
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And it comes from Christ and Christ alone. And Paul knew it, and that was Paul's song.
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Philippians 3, verses 1 and following. Here's a good summary of a Pharisee and of righteousness and where we need to trust.
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Finally, Philippians 3, one. Don't you love Paul? Finally, and he's 60 % into the book.
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He's got 40 % more to go. Finally, and I'm half done. Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the
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Lord. The context of Judaizers, law people who would have to obey to get righteousness.
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Instead of rejoicing in yourself and what you do, I give, I pay taxes,
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I tithe, I do all these other things. We are to rejoice in the Lord. And then he says it's not a big deal to write.
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Verse 2, three times he says beware. Beware of the dogs.
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Beware of the evil workers. Beware of the false circumcision. You know, when people go around and tell you you can work yourself to get into heaven and if you're just good enough or you get baptized or you get circumcised or you get dedicated or consecrated or irrigated or whatever you get, right?
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These people, Paul says, they should be avoided. Beware.
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Your eternal soul is at stake and they are teaching the exact opposite of what
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God teaches. God says it's all by grace, I have done it all and I even give you my own righteousness so you're acceptable in my kingdom and these dogs and these evil workers, they work, yes, to try to get into heaven but they are evil.
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They're exactly opposite and they are false circumcision. It's not even the word circumcision there.
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He calls them mutilators. It's one thing to be circumcised. It's another thing to say you've got to be circumcised to get into heaven and Paul says they are mutilators.
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Watch out for these people. Run. And then he gives in verse 3 a great definition of someone who's the opposite of that.
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Someone who trusts not in his own goodness or her own works but in God.
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What a great definition of a Christian. Verse 3 of Philippians chapter 3. For we are the true circumcision of the heart is what he's talking about who worship in the spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put how much confidence in the flesh?
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Everyone else is putting confidence in the flesh because they are trying to work their own righteousness. They try to obtain it.
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They try to get it by comparing. They thought it was their own. Here there is no confidence in the flesh. No confidence in obeying their own rules, tradition.
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Verse 4. Oh, this gets just so good. Although I myself might have confidence even in the flesh.
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Was Paul pretty religious? Was Paul one of these guys that if you wanted to kind of show your friends that you knew somebody pretty high up in some religious circle?
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Bring Paul in. He says, if anyone else had mind to put confidence in the flesh,
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I far more. You guys want to go around saying I have more righteousness than what
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I really need? Well, I was right there too. I have plenty of righteousness. I've got lots.
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Here's my personal testimony. Here's my CV. Here's my resume. If you think you can do things to get into heaven, well, you can't do more than Paul.
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Your righteousness has to what? Flood the levees of a guy like this. Forward by birth.
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And then we'll see the other three. I was what? Number 1, found in verse 5, circumcised on the 8th day. When were you supposed to get circumcised?
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7th day? 8th day? He got circumcised on the 8th day. Paul could be saying, I've even got it so arranged that my parents did the right thing for me.
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Circumcised in accordance with the law. Leviticus 12 .3 On the 8th day, the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised.
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If you were a convert to Judaism, you could be circumcised in your 13th year if you were an
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Ishmaelite. Paul says, I'm not a heathen and I'm not an Ishmaelite. I'm obedient.
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My family was obedient. Number 2, look at this resume. I was of Israel. I'm not from Abraham and Ishmael.
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I'm not from Abraham, Isaac, and Edom. I'm from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
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I'm from Abraham, Isaac, and Israel. I'm a Jew from the cradle.
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My dad was a Jew. My mother was a Jew. I wasn't a convert. Matter of fact, out of all the tribes of Israel, number 3,
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I was in the tribe of Benjamin. The tribe of Benjamin. Small tribe, yet how many sons of Jacob were born in the promised land?
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Benjamites alone. The first lawful king of Israel was from the tribe of Benjamin.
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Saul might even have been named after Saul. Jerusalem, the holy city, was in what tribe's area?
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Benjamin. The monarchy was being destroyed in the house of David, but Benjamin remained loyal.
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I'm a Benjamite. Matter of fact, I am a Hebrew of the Hebrews. My language, my tradition, my mother, my father, all genuine.
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And now he gets into something more. He gets into choice and training and conviction and what he did.
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I mean, this guy, God certainly would accept, wouldn't He? He's a Pharisee.
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Strictest sect. He's not a liberal. He's not saying there's no such thing as eternal hell and everything else.
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He's a separated one. He adheres to the law. He observes the law. He defends the law. Acts 26 .5,
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Paul says, since they have known about me for a long time previously, if they're willing to testify that I live as a
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Pharisee according to the strictest sect of our religion. But it gets better.
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As far as Paul's concerned, if you're going to brag, you tell the kids, it's show and tell today at school.
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It's bring and brag. Here we go. As to zeal, a persecutor of the church.
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I put my money where my mouth is. When I saw this anti -Jewish religion, at least
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I thought it was, I tracked people down. I pursued them. I chased them. And Paul, in a little nuance here that you can't really notice in English that well, but he called himself a persecutor of the church.
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Paul was not persecuting the church any longer. But he was so sad for what he did that he saw himself persecuting.
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He saw the action right before his eyes that he would kill people. Acts says he ravaged the church, entering house after house, dragging off men and women and would put them in prison.
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Breathing threats. And here we come to the drum roll. And the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.
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Number seven, I was blameless. I did everything. What the Old Testament said, I just made all external and I just did it all.
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We could do the same thing. We could come up with a list that says I have Christian parents, been baptized,
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I go to Bible study, give once in a while, serve on occasion, good neighbor. But what did
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Paul do with all that? And if you are trusting in who you are, here's my plea to you today.
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Verse seven, Paul said, but wherever things were gained to me, let's just get a little
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T squared deal there, gain, assets, things that were good, plus, profit.
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He said, whatever things were gained to me, those things, plural, I take all those things, one big plural heap.
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It's a big old heap of things. I have counted as singular loss for the sake of Christ.
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Here's what Paul said, I've been living my life as a Pharisee and one day I was pretty much minding my own business, but he was really going to do horrible things.
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And I met someone on the road to Damascus 25 years ago and he turned my world upside down.
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And then I said, everything I love in my life, I hate. Who else can take you and make you hate everything you used to love and love everything you used to hate?
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You want to know if you're a Christian? I hate things that I used to love and I love things that I used to hate. Paul said,
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I counted them as loss, past tense. I went back and said, with deliberate judgment, it's all gone. The day
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Paul was saved, he said, they're all loss. And over here is the loss and over here is
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Christ alone. That's it. Christ stands in the credit column now. One single big loss.
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Paul didn't leave the good to go to the best. He abandoned it all and said, they're all liabilities.
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They're all disadvantages. Do you know the most religious people in the world can have their religiosity as their largest liability because they think they're religious?
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They think they're moral? If I were to meet two people and I were to meet a heroin addict and I were to meet an 84 year old sweet old grandma that bakes you cookies,
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God can do whatever He wants and they both have hard hearts. But if they're both unbelievers and the one thinks she's good and the other one knows he's rotten, you get the point.
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And it takes the glory of God to come take someone like that lady, in this case it's
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Paul, to let him see who Christ is and then he says, it's all loss.
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One of the times this word is used and don't turn there but let me just read it to you. It's about the boat trip.
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Men, in Acts 27, I perceive that the voyage certainly will be attended with damage and great loss.
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Not only the cargo of the ship but also of our lives. And when they had eaten enough they began to lighten the ship by throwing out the wheat into the sea.
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You're going to die. This cargo was going to make them money. This cargo was food for them.
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It was all in the gain column and they knew they were going to lose their lives and so what was gain they threw overboard as loss.
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So too, when we think our religious righteousness is gain, Christ opens our eyes and we say, what used to be good,
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I now think it's bad and I'm throwing overboard all my righteousness. He rejects it with horror.
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He just doesn't say, I'm indifferent. He can't stand it. But it gets worse, verse 8, and we're almost done. More than that, yes indeed, therefore at least even
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He just stacks stuff up like a trumpet blast. Staccato five particles just to make a point.
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I count, I'm currently counting all things to be loss. I didn't just count my old religious heritage but I'm currently counting everything
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I have as loss. It's still, whatever I've got that's good, it's still loss because I'm trusting in Christ alone.
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Whether it's my parents or relationships or money or fame or prestige, whatever I have, it's still all loss.
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Why? The rest of verse 8. Because when you see the Son, you see everything properly in view of the surpassing value of knowing, knowing
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Christ Jesus my Lord, the beauty of Christ, the desirability of Christ, the matchless name of Christ for whom
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I have suffered the loss of all things and I count them but rubbish in order that I may gain
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Christ. It's worth it all. The great exchange, it's worth it. The very thing he used to live for, he detests.
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And I think Paul does it on purpose. He shocks the readers. You don't talk about this in public and you don't write it under the inspiration of spirit unless it's for a reason and he uses the revolting term for refuse and he says, what
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I had and I thought it was good, what I count is what? Rubbish. Garbage.
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I have a question for you congregation. Do you cry when the garbage man comes and takes away all your rotten trash?
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What do you do? Oh, I'm just so... You know, you had some chicken that you didn't cook it and you thought,
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I just better throw it away and it sat in that green kind of Christoph and Son's waste management dump bin there in the hot sun and you went to go move something and put some other things in and you just smelled a little bit and you think, just take it away, it's all trash.
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But then you realize, you know what, I've got to trust in my own self -righteousness because what I've done is going to get me to heaven and so what you do is, you quick jump into the trash can and you begin to bedeck yourself and bedob yourself with all that stuff that is all gross and you know, maggots get into trash by the way too and you just think, oh, it's just good and you're just piling trash all over your head and dressing up with all this old stuff and you just go, oh, just the odor, it just smells so good and your dog is just looking at you like this.
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Friends, if you're trusting in your own self -righteousness, you're like that lady that my sister would go to the hospital as a nurse and she had lost her mind and as Paul gives revolting,
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I so too will. She found the lady in the bathroom taking her own fecal matter and spreading it all around the bathroom tiles, all on herself and when asked by my sister what she was doing, she said,
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I'm making cookies. It is either the dung of self -righteousness,
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I'm good, I'm baptized, I'm circumcised, I've kept the law or it is the spotless, barest
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Lord Jesus and His perfect righteousness and there is nothing in between.
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By the works of the law, no flesh shall be justified. Christ gives us a righteousness from the law and He credits to our account through faith to all who believe and the
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Father is pleased because of the resurrection. We can't be right enough so Jesus had to be our rightness for us, our righteousness for us and you can be rest assured that if you look at your old life and once in a while you dabble with a memory of a sin and take pleasure in it, you can certainly know for sure that it is a sign of God's saving you that when you look at your old life, you say, you know, it was all and I'm thankful that I'm a new creation in Christ Jesus.
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I'm thankful I'm not who I am. I'm thankful that I love what I used to hate and hate what I used to love and Jesus comes at this time as a
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Messiah and He says, here's what Moses was originally looking towards and I'm going to fill it up for you people that will have the law in you and I want you to know that the
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Pharisees and other people think it's only external and it has to be internal and you get internal righteousness by first being righteous in God's eyes and then acting out who you are.
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Jesus was very concerned about righteousness and that's why Paul said in Philippians chapter 3 -9 as Jesus gave him the words under the inspiration of Jesus' Spirit that we may be found in Christ not having a righteousness of my own derived from the law but that which is through faith in Christ Jesus the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith that I may know
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Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings being conformed to His death in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead to God be the glory that He would save people like us by His righteousness bow with me please in prayer
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Father I think of the unknown Him upon a life I did not live upon a death
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I did not die another's life another's death and I might add another's righteousness
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I stake my whole eternity Father thank You for the perfection of Christ thank
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You that He perfectly obeyed the law on our behalf whether it was John the Baptist proclaiming a baptism or Torah whatever it might have been
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Jesus perfectly gives us His righteousness and we are cloaked in it because of the faith that You have granted and then we have believed
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Father we would pray today for those of the church somehow trusting in their own righteousness that You would let them see the utility of that and the deceit of that and Lord we would also pray for us that You would give us a joy knowing that we are a different people
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You've changed our hearts we get to follow Christ Jesus He is our all in all and we get to have
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Him as our King and our champion and our advocate because if we do sin we know that there is a righteous one