The Primacy of the Gospel

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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Let's pray and then we will get started. Lord Jesus, again, as we open up your word, we pray that through the

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Holy Spirit we may rightly understand what you have revealed there. Recognizing that we too, that we deserve nothing but your wrath, but you have promised us forgiveness and mercy in Christ.

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And as we study out the prophet Jeremiah, we pray that we can see your grace and mercy even in the midst of strong threats of judgment from you for those who persist in sin and unbelief.

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We ask all this in Jesus' name, amen. We have been working our way through the book of Jeremiah and I'm gonna open up the chat window over here real quick to make sure that I don't miss anything.

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Let's see here, where is my chat? Oh, there you are right there, voila. All right, so I don't see any questions that came in regarding the sermon.

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You'll note that when it came to the money sermon, we didn't basically say make your check payable to Pastor Chris Rosebro, send that seed offering in and got nuts.

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This is nuts, I still cannot believe that avarice and greed are so prevalent in the church and people don't blush.

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What is it again, I get rebuked for pointing it out. Okay, all right. So we've been working our way through Jeremiah and last week we teased out some of the themes here and we made it partway through chapter four.

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And so we noted last week that in this portion of Jeremiah chapter four, verse three, that the command here to circumcise yourselves and remove the foreskin of your hearts, that's a procedure that seems a little bit dicey.

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But thankfully, again, what God is demanding of us and what is demanding of the people who are reading the prophet

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Jeremiah, that Christ himself does that in the waters of baptism, which is such a comforting thing.

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And so you'll note that God's wrath doesn't burn against us all because of what

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Christ has done for us. And that's one of the major focuses then, if you would, of Lutheran preaching is on the mercy of Christ and on the activity of Christ.

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The idea being is that we say that God's word is performative and what the gospel demands, then the gospel provides.

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We heard today in our epistle text that God's word is living, active, sharper than a double -edged sword, piercing between soul and spirit, joints and morrow.

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And so Isaiah 55 is a good example then of also this.

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Let me show you this real quick here. I'm gonna go to Isaiah 55 because this is one of our categories is that God works through means.

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He works through his word. And his word, for lack of a better way of putting it in better English, it does stuff.

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God's word does things. So you'll note that in Isaiah 55, here you have this

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God making his appeal. Incline your ear, come to me. Hear so that your soul may live.

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Hear me. These are words of life. Again, you think back to the liturgy.

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Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Alleluia, right? And so his words does things, right?

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Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, the unrighteous man his thoughts.

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Let him return to Yahweh. So Yahweh may have compassion on him. Again, when we think about the mercy of God, you know,

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I don't know if you guys have noticed this, but we're all kind of screw -ups. You know, and that's the nice thing about starting the divine service with confession and absolution.

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Nobody gets to come here with the pretense of, you know, I've really got my act together. No, you know, we don't, we don't.

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I don't have my act together, you don't have your act together. And so we'll note that always and again, our fear, our anxiety towards God is because we know that we've earned his wrath, that we know that we've earned his judgment.

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We fear that if we return to the Lord, that rather than have compassion on us, he's gonna say, oh,

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I'm so glad you're here because you've saved me the trip. You know, now I'm gonna toss your carcass into the fires of hell, you know.

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But instead, it's something completely different. It's that same picture that we see in the story of the prodigal son, you know, who foolishly, foolishly remains so long, you know, away from his father, you know, because of his shame and his guilt.

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But in returning, what does the father do? He forgives him. So the Lord says, forsake your way.

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You know, let him return to Yahweh so that he may have compassion on him and to our

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God so that he, for he will abundantly pardon. Love this.

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My thoughts are not your ways, God says. Neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. My thoughts are not your thoughts, your ways are not my ways, right?

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For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts higher than your thoughts. And you're gonna note here, the direction that God points to when it comes to higher thoughts is in the opposite direction that we would expect.

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When we think about higher, you know, we think about the hierarchy. We think about the person who's at the top, the person who's got all the power, has all the money, has all the, and everyone's got a certain, no, no, no.

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You know, God's thoughts being higher, God demonstrates his love for us in that while we were at sinners,

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Christ dies for us. Christ comes, you know, the King of kings, Lord of lords is a servant, born in poverty, born under, you know, under difficult circumstances.

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And so the higher ways of God, again, are love and joy, peace and patience, kindness, gentleness, self -control.

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Oh man, goodness. I love that list of the fruit of the Spirit. But you'll note that when we examine our lives, you know, how are our lives spent?

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In conflict, okay? Conflict with yourself, conflict with your coworkers, conflict with your spouse, conflict with your children.

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Your children are in conflict with each other, all right? Conflict in politics, and that all comes over to church.

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Everyone seems to think that conflict is the way in which things are done. You know, and what does

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God say? Come to me, all you who are heavy laden. I'll give you rest, rest for your soul.

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God says, come back to me, and I will pardon you. And so you'll note the higher ways of God, that the words that are used are so different, so different than the words we experience in our life, you know, because what do we experience in our life?

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Anger, malice, ambition, pride, arrogance. It's horrifying, and then all the anxiety of not having enough, and then, you know, and it's like,

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I just think, you know. And you'll note that in today's world, there's a whole lot of shame and blame being flung around, right?

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But where's mercy and the grace, you know? The SJWs, you white people are guilty, you know, right?

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Are, we got systemic problems here, okay, fine, what's your solution?

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You guys need to pay, you know. What's the solution that Christ gives?

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I'll forgive you. I'll forgive you. I want to forgive you. Christ wants to be reconciled to you, you know?

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Rather than seeing you rotting in jail, Christ wants to, like, invite you over and you can chill with him watching

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Netflix, you know? Relax, settle down. Come, let's have some, let's have some

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Tostitos and some salsa, you know? Watch a game, hang out together.

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Relax, have some peace in your life, right? As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, my thoughts than your thoughts.

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And then here's the part, then, about God's word being performative. For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and they do not return there, but they water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower, bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth.

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It shall not return to me empty. It shall accomplish that which

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I purpose, and it shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it. And so you'll note, this is a beautiful picture.

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This is this idea of God's word performing the very things that it does. So the gospel comes to us, and we hear the voice of God in the preacher who takes up the scriptures and proclaims the gospel to us.

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You know, God is making his appeal through that person, because we are all ambassadors of Christ. I'll show you that in a second.

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And the voice of God comes to us, and God says, repent and believe the good news.

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But when God arrives and that voice comes to us, we're dead in trespasses and sins.

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We're not able to do the thing that the gospel says to do, and that is to believe.

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But God's word accomplishes the thing for which he sent it. So what the gospel demands, the gospel provides.

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So the gospel then works in us, repentance, and faith.

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It's a regenerative word. And you'll note the metaphor here then. You'll note, have you ever wondered what happens to people when they hear the good news and they walk away, right?

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I always tell people, don't despair when that happens. You know, because sometimes, and we here in North Dakota really know this for real.

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I've never lived in a place where like six months out of the year there's snow on the ground. That's just crazy, right? But here in North Dakota and Minnesota, when the snow arrives, after a particular day, it just don't go away, all right?

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It just stays there. And so sometimes, during the wintertime,

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I look at that and go, well, that's the down payment, the deposit that I'm gonna need to start getting my lawn going when things start to warm up, right?

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So thinking of God's word in that way, since God is the one who does things through his word, we preach the word, we preach the gospel.

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And sometimes that gospel is gonna come on super hard, cold, frozen, you know, 50 below zero frozen hearts.

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And it'll sit there like snow. And God has a funny thing that he does when that happens.

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And that is that he'll cause that snow to thaw and then it'll do those things.

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But it sits there, it'll accomplish the thing for which God sends it. And sometimes

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God does send his word for the purpose of hardening. It's a very fascinating thing. I've watched in my pastoral ministry,

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I've seen the word of God gather the saints to come and hear the gospel.

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The brokenhearted who want a word of assurance, of forgiveness, of mercy, of reconciliation, they need a good word from God because they're broken.

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And I've seen the gospel gather people. And I've also seen God's word rightly taught drive away people who refuse to believe rightly.

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It's amazing what it does. I note that those who do not believe the word of God are annoyed by it.

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They literally hate it. It's a very fascinating thing. But you'll note that the invitation is for all.

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The invitation is for all to come and be forgiven. I've been doing a lot of work on secret societies.

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And there's a video that I keep referencing. And in this video, a fellow who claims to be a former

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Mason says that the New World Order, that they're forming a New World Order and you're not invited.

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That was a direct quote from this guy. They're forming a New World Order and you and I are not invited. Yay. Yay.

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But I know that Jesus is the exact opposite. Whosoever believes. The invitation to come to the wedding feast of the

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Lamb is given to everybody. Everybody is invited. Doesn't matter if they're rich or poor.

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It doesn't matter how much pigment they have in their skin, whether they appear dark or light.

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Doesn't matter if they have brown eyes, green eyes, blue eyes, hazel, purple, blue.

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You know, it doesn't matter, none of that. Doesn't matter if they have long hair, short hair, if they're short, fat, tall and skinny.

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Doesn't matter if they're educated or uneducated. Doesn't matter, none of that matters.

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Everyone is invited. Doesn't matter if they had respectable jobs, worked for a company for 40 years, retired, and got the gold watch at the end of that.

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Does anyone do that anymore, right? Doesn't matter if they did that or if they live scoundrelously.

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Is that the right word? Can you do that with the word scoundrel? Scoundrelously. You know, they live like a scoundrel, right?

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You know, always sketchy and doing bad things, always scheming to cheat the system.

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It doesn't matter. Whether they're thieves or adulterers, murderers, idolaters, we're all in that same group anyway, the ungodly, and so the invitation goes out to all, to everybody.

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So, as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, do not return to it void. It watered the earth, making it spring forth and sprout, giving seeds to the sower, bread to the eater.

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So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth. It shall not return to me empty. It will accomplish that which

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I purpose and it shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

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Consider then in that same context what we read in Romans chapter one. Important words that we hear.

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I'm not ashamed of the gospel, verse 16. I am not ashamed of the gospel. Good news,

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Christ died for our sins. Rose bodily from the grave on the third day. I am not ashamed of the gospel.

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It is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. What's the it there?

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It is the power of God for salvation. What's the it? The gospel.

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The gospel, the good news, is the power of God for salvation. Paul says in 1

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Corinthians, I chose to know nothing among you except for Christ and him crucified. Nothing, nothing.

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I am not ashamed of the gospel. It's the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the

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Greek. For in it, in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, the righteous shall live by faith.

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So the idea then is to say, stop, listen to the word of God. Listen to what God is saying to you. And don't harden your heart against it.

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Listen intently and hear. And the Holy, God promises by virtue of the preaching of his word, which is living and active, that he will do stuff.

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And then I'll show you a passage here. Ambassadors, yeah, there we go.

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And I'm gonna look in the epistles for this. I know it's in 2

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Corinthians, but here we go, 2 Corinthians five. Listen to this, verse 20. Therefore, talking about we

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Christians, we are ambassadors for Christ. And this is a way in which we can all talk about, the way in which, you know, all the talk out there today.

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Are there prophets today? Is God still speaking? Of course he's still speaking, okay?

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You know, he speaks every time you hear the word preached. Even you have the ability to speak prophetically because you have a word from God to share with the whole world.

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It's written down. And the nice thing is, is the person you share that word with can follow along and you can walk them through it.

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But God is still speaking for sure. And then you'll note then, that when we preach the gospel, when we call people to repent, when we teach our kids to fear

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God and to love him and to believe and trust in him, we are behaving as ambassadors.

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Now, a little bit of a note here. I love this word because there's so much you can do if you unpack it. Are ambassadors allowed to set policy or ambassadors only allowed to announce what the policy is?

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They can only announce, ambassadors. So ambassadors are sent by a sovereign, a king or a head of state.

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So here in the United States, we don't have a sovereign. We do have a head of state. And he sends out ambassadors.

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And the president is the one who makes policy. President makes policy. Ambassadors don't get to, right?

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So if we're ambassadors, I love that role. And I've said it before. And in fact, we've made a change here at Kongsbinger months and months and months ago, a subtle one, a subtle one.

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And the subtle change is this. If you look up at the altar, the American flag is gone. Where is it?

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It's right there. It's okay, it's right outside the door. And so that's a visual.

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So if you were to visit Kongsbinger, as you first walk in, you have a place to take off your coat and get the mud and the snow off your feet.

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And maybe change your shoes because sometimes that's necessary depending on the weather, right? But you can go to the bathroom.

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But once you come in through the double doors, the flag being on the outside is a visual reminder that we meet together here as ambassadors, ambassadors of the kingdom of God.

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And as ambassadors of the kingdom of God, whoever the president is has no bearing here.

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None. We are ambassadors for King Jesus. So this is an embassy.

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I remember over and again when I travel, and we all see this because we see it in the movies, right?

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An embassy on foreign territory. Okay, embassy on foreign territory.

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So if you were to travel to Washington, D .C., and you go to the embassy for the

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United Kingdom, once you get on their property in that embassy, whose rules are in place?

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The United States or the United Kingdoms? The UK. The UK's laws.

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So if you're ever traveling and you're overseas and you find yourself in dire straits, right?

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Get to the U .S. embassy and on the U .S. embassy you are on American soil, you're not on foreign soil.

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Same thing here then. You walk into the doors of Kongsvinger, you are not on U .S.

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property anymore. The United States has no bearing about what goes on here. We have, and you will note over the years, we have had ambassadors from other lands come here.

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And the thing we all have in common is that we are citizens of the same kingdom, regardless of where we live.

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And those of you joining us online, I can see that we have someone joining us from the UK here today. So I see that.

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But you'll note then that what we're doing here has to do with kingdom stuff, has nothing to do with the queen, the crown, with Joe Biden, the

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Democrats, the Republicans. We are all ambassadors of King Jesus.

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And that you'll note then as ambassadors when we preach the word, when we open up God's performative word, or we take his words up in our mouth and we call people to believe in Jesus, to repent and forsake their evil, that you'll note that God himself is making his appeal through us.

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That's what this text says. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ. God making his appeal through us.

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So we employ you then on behalf of Christ. Be reconciled to God. And then we get these wonderful words, these words that are so just rich with the gospel.

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For our sake. That's for yours. So that you can be pardoned, forgiven, and live rather than die.

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So that you can have an inheritance in the new earth rather than being cast into the lake of fire.

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For our sake, God made Jesus to be sin, who knew no sin.

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So that in Christ, we might become the righteousness of God. Beautiful words, right?

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Beautiful words. And this is at the heart of what's going on in our readings of Jeremiah.

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Jeremiah isn't sitting there going, oh man, you've really ticked God off now.

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Just wait, just wait. It's gonna be terrible for you. Okay. And boy, when he acts in judgment, oh, you guys are toast.

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He's gonna nuke your town from orbit and watch as the mushroom cloud rises and the smell of your burning corpses will be a pleasing aroma inside of his nose.

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Doesn't say any of that, right? So one of the things you'll see then as we work our way through Jeremiah is that every single step of the way, every single step of the way, when

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Jeremiah proclaims God's judgment and that he will act in wrath against their impenitence, every single time you will hear

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Jeremiah offer them a way of escape. Every single time.

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And one of the things you'll see as we get farther and farther into Jeremiah, every single time God offers them a way out, offers them mercy, offers them life rather than death.

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You know what they do? They don't listen. They don't listen. So the patience and the mercy of God will be exemplified as we work our way through this.

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So just pointing out then that last week we noted that God says circumcise your hearts.

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Well, we can't do that, so Christ does that for us in the waters of baptism. All right, so declare in Judah, proclaim in Jerusalem.

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Say, blow the trumpet to the land. Cry aloud and say, assemble, let us go into the fortified cities.

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Raise a standard towards Zion. Flee for safety. Stay not, for I bring disaster from the north and great destruction.

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A lion has gone up from his thicket. A destroyer of nations has set out. He has gone out from his place to make your land a waste.

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Your cities will be ruins without inhabitants. For this, put on sackcloth, lament, wail, for the fierce anger of Yahweh has not turned back from us.

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In that day, declares Yahweh, courage shall fail, both king and officials.

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And we'll see the fulfillment of this in the later chapters of Jeremiah. We'll see the fulfillment of this.

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Priests shall be appalled. Prophets astounded. Then I said, ah,

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Lord God, surely you have utterly deceived this people. And Jerusalem saying, it shall be well with you, whereas the sword has reached their very life.

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And at that time, it will be said to this people and to Jerusalem, a hot wind from the bare heights in the desert toward the daughter of my people, not to winnow or to cleanse, a wind too full, for this comes for me.

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Now it is I who speak in judgment upon them. Behold, he comes.

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He comes up like clouds. His chariots like the whirlwind.

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His horses are swifter than eagles. Woe to us, for we are ruined. Oh, Jerusalem, wash your heart from evil so that you may be saved.

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How long shall your wicked thoughts lodge within you? For a voice declares from Dan and proclaims trouble from Mount Ephraim.

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Warn the nations that he is coming. Announce to Jerusalem, besiegers come from a distant land.

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They shout against the cities of Judah like keepers of a field. They are against her all around because she has rebelled against me, declares

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Yahweh. Your ways and your deeds have brought this upon you. This is your doom.

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It is bitter. It has reached your very heart. Now real quick here, note the ambiguity of this section.

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Who's coming? Whose chariots are like a whirlwind?

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Whose horses are swifter than eagles? Because on a first read, we

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Christians sit there and go, well, I think this is talking about Nebuchadnezzar. But it kind of sounds like Jesus.

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Because you'll note the imagery here of Nebuchadnezzar coming in judgment is a, it's the same language used of Christ when he returns in glory to judge the quick and the dead.

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You can almost hear the later portions of the book of Revelation and Christ on his horse and him acting in judgment and him and the blood coming up to his bridle on his horse.

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You can almost see it. It's almost, it's this weird thing like have you ever looked at, you guys remember those really kitschy things that they used to sell at like Christian bookstores?

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And I'm talking way back in the day where it was kind of sort of like 3D, but if you look at it like one way, it has a picture this way, and then if you twist it, then it goes, then it's kind of, it changes.

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You remember those things? Okay, hang on a second here, I gotta do this. Let's see. All right, sorry about that.

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It picked up my hand movements. I thought this was a great internet purchase. It's annoying. But the nice thing is it does follow me.

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So if I go over here, let's see. Hang on a second here, it's not doing it. There we go.

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There we go, let's see here. Yeah, it follows me.

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I like that part. The other day when I set it up, the other day when

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I set it up, I had to go to the bathroom, and when I came back from the bathroom, it was looking at me. It's one of those things.

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Yeah, that's right. We pastors have to do a couple of things in order to use facilities.

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Number one, make sure the microphone's turned off. Number two, make sure everything's tucked in and zipped up properly, and that no pieces of toilet paper are hanging out in awkward spaces.

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Because once that happens, you have to take a different call. you have to go to a different church. Thank God, no.

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Yeah, I know. Now that I've said this, you know, when I, when I, when, you know, when I'm surfing through Instagram, I'll see ads for Charmin or something, you know, because it listens, it knows.

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All right, now let me, let me check questions real quick. Holy guacamole, the chat went crazy.

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Hang on a second here. All right, okay,

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Lily says, the weirdest thing is when Christians hate the gospel. A friend of mine told me this week, leave me alone with this, these basic, this basic stuff.

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Yeah, so I would note that the, the

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Bible is written for kids, you know, let's just be blunt, and we never graduate from the basics, and the person who gets annoyed with the gospel and thinks that it's baby stuff is wrong, and not only that, they, they believe that they're pleasing

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God by obeying a watered -down version of the law, okay, and there are many different watered -down versions of the law, and so, you know,

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I'm gonna please God, I'm gonna pull this off, and so when I was in Nazarene, the way we pleased God through a watered -down version of the law was we didn't dance, drink, smoke, chew, play with, you know, you can't play with cards at all.

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You could do Uno, because that wasn't, that wasn't evil, but you couldn't use playing cards, and you sit there and go, yeah, okay, this

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Christian thing is doable, because all I have to do is not dance, drink, smoke, or chew, or play with playing cards, or dice, or things like this, but all that is is a watered -down thing, and, and so they literally would preach that, you know, once you hear the gospel, and in their way of thinking, you know, you would, you would need, you know, they would preach the gospel maybe a couple of times a year, you know, you'd hear it, and when

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I was at Pasadena Nazarene, they would, they would at least have one Sunday every year, they called it

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Evangelism Sunday, where the, where the pastor promised to preach the gospel, and, and so you were supposed to bring your unsaved friends, because they were gonna hear the gospel, right, and so, and I remember, you know,

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I think it was my junior year in high school, you know, Evangelism Sunday, hearing the gospel message, and thinking, dang,

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I wish I was an unbeliever, because that would really be nice to apply, because at least they were hearing it, you know, they would always preach the gospel in such a way that if you were already a

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Christian, this really, you didn't need to really hear this, you just kind of endured it, okay, and, and the issue here is a, is a, is an improper distinction between law and gospel, and so the person who gets annoyed by the basics, gets annoyed by hearing about Christ and Him crucified, they are under the delusion that they're keeping

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God's law, and that the meat of the Bible is in the rules, it's in the rules and the regulations, and so, and so they, you know, they're, why are you preaching the gospel to me?

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I, I heard the gospel years ago when I, before I gave my life to Jesus, and now that I prayed the sinner's prayer,

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I don't need to hear the gospel, and I just sit there and go, are you, are you out of your mind, okay, and then you wonder why they despair, and so, so much of Evangelicalism, the, the effort is in figuring out a way to hide your sin, okay, it's, it's, and here's the thing, it's never safe to confess your sins to somebody who isn't gonna then point you to the forgiveness of Christ or give you an absolution, so you know, so the ladies get together, and you know, and one of them, in a moment of sheer panic and trying to be, you know, honest and authentic, says, you know ladies,

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I've been really struggling with, and then she'll lay out whatever the sin that she's struggling with, I've been overspending, and, and I've been worshiping money, and I've racked up a huge credit card debt, and I'm, I'm in a lot of trouble, you know, or you know, maybe

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I'm guilty of gossiping, or you know, I'm cheating on my husband, or what, you just name the sin, right, and so she, she lays it bare, and without the gospel, none of her so -called

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Christian friends are able to help her one bit, in fact, they don't, not only do they not do it, they end up condemning her, and then as soon as she's out of their presence, what do they do?

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They get on the phone, and they start sharing her dirty laundry with other people, right?

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Guys are no different, the guys are no different, and the thing is, is that everything in that type of religion is designed to apply paint to the facade of self -righteousness, and the part of the reason why people are annoyed by the gospel is, at its heart, they don't believe it.

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They don't believe that salvation is truly a gift. They do not believe that we are literally counted righteous because of the merits of Christ.

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It, the gospel's too good to be true, and I remember hearing it as a Nazarene for the first time, really hearing it preached to some, but you know, to actual

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Christians. It was Dr. Rod Rosenblatt, my professor at Christ College Irvine, and you know,

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I tell the story from time to time, and you know, after we came out of the latter rain movement, we were, we were hurting.

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We didn't know who we could trust, and you know, I remember telling my wife, she said,

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I, what do we do? You know, where can we go? You know, who can we trust?

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And I said, I think we can trust the Bible, but I don't think we know what it means, and so we, we, we ended it back in the

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Nazarene Church after the, our stint in the latter rain, and that's when I started getting involved in countercult apologetics, and then the late

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Walter Martin, I had one conversation with him before he died, and he told me to pack up our bags, we were living in Seattle, and move back to California, and attend

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Christ College Irvine, and study apologetics under Dr. Rod Rosenblatt. I didn't know who

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Rosenblatt was, and I didn't know, what's a Rosenblatt, right? Where's Christ College, right? So if Walter Martin says to do it, you do it.

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So we packed up our stuff, you know, got out of our, the lease that we were in, in our apartment, took our, our son, we only had one child at the time, moved back to Southern California, I applied at Christ College, was accepted, went to class, and that was the first time

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I was ever confronted with a man who was obsessed with preaching the gospel to Christians, and he continually reiterated, we do not merit the forgiveness of Christ, it's given as a gift, and that we

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Christians need to hear that Christ has died for us. He even talked about the fact that in the book of Romans, Paul makes an appeal, he says that I'm really looking forward to coming to you, so that I could preach the gospel to you in Rome, and he pointed out, it's a, if Paul was excited about preaching the gospel to Christians in Rome, why is it that so many people nowadays think that it's wrong to preach it to Christians?

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It doesn't make any sense, and so he kept talking about salvation by grace, through faith, apart from works, and I thought this man was crazy.

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I thought he was a dangerous heretic. I thought I had made the worst decision of my life, and then to make matters worse, after class, you got to understand, this is the early 90s, so actually, we got there in, yeah,

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I think we started in 89, so late 80s, in the beginning of the 90s, we graduated,

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I graduated in 91, something like that, but 92 or 93, so yeah,

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I think, yeah, I think I have to look at my thing, a long time, but you got, you got to remember, this was a long time ago, after class,

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Rosenblatt, every time he'd finish class, he'd head out to a balcony, and he'd light up a cigarette, and I'd sit there and go, this guy can't be a

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Christian, because he's not trying, okay, and then, yeah, and if you know

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Rosenblatt, from time to time, Rosenblatt gets going, and when Rosenblatt gets going, he is, can be pretty colorful in his language, right,

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I'm thinking, this guy, from time to time, is getting colorful, he smokes, he clearly doesn't work out, you know, he's, you know, it's like, how can this guy be saved, and over, and over, and over again, every single class, without fail,

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I heard that Christ died for my sins, I heard the gospel, and I, and I went up to him one time, because I was skeptical,

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I was absolutely annoyed by this man, and I said, Rosenblatt, if what you're saying is true, that we're totally saved by what

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Christ has done for us, and not by any of our works, then you're saying, I can do whatever I want,

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I saw it as a license to sin, and his response was, of course, Chris, now that Christ has set you free from slavery to sin, death, and the devil, what do you want to do?

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I had to think about that, not the answer I expected, so literally, I would point this out, is that your friend who is annoyed, and considers the gospel to be basic, they are suffering from a form of self -righteousness, and they do not believe that salvation is by, a gift by grace, they are focused in on their self -improvement, as if somehow their self -improvement is going to result in their salvation, that's, that's like one of the clear signs of dealing with this, and the, the difficulty here is that they're gonna need to suffer, they're gonna need to hear the gospel, they're gonna hear, need to hear the law, they're not ready to hear the gospel, that you, you got to take the law, and they've got to get to the point where they recognize, through the law, that their situation is utterly hopeless, it is not difficult to be saved by the law, it's impossible, in fact, that's what we heard in our gospel text, who then can be saved?

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With man, it's impossible, and, and so the person annoyed by hearing the basics of the gospel is, is enamored with their self -improvement, and wait for, pray for them first, and then wait for a time when you can just do the law with them, and ask them, are you tired yet?

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Because you're not doing this, you know, every time I hang out with you, you think you're holy, but you're just like a jerk, you know, it's always easy to point out the faults of the self -righteous, because they're so evident, but they're so, you know, they're so blind to it themselves, so, yeah, that,

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I would go that route with that, okay? Okay, and we never graduate, the most important class

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I teach, and I'm teaching it like so many times a week, most important class I teach, catechism, it is absolutely the richest course material

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I've ever studied in my life, and it is a joy to teach the catechism, okay?

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The more I study the catechism, the better pastor I am, the more I understand God's Word, we never graduate from the basics, you know, never, so, all right,

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I need to hear the gospel, spent years in church not hearing it, yeah, I know, I need to hear, in case you guys haven't figured it out,

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I preach the gospel for myself too, you know, so it, you know, first person I worry about, you know, when

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I'm writing a sermon, all right, what do I need to hear? And then

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I kind of work out from there, you know, and go, yeah, I think Elliot needs to hear that too, yeah, and Jen and Louise for sure, you know, and Bill, maybe a little bit, but, you know, and Elizabeth, yeah, and then we already get started with Mikey here, so, you get the idea, we all need to hear this, all right, all right, let's see,

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I don't understand how you can say that you're a Christian and can't stand to hear it, that's because you're not a Christian, if you, and I would know, you want to see people get really upset, okay,

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I've done this before, I'll show you the text, it's 1 Corinthians 2, hang on a second,

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I got to spell it right, 1 Corinthians 2, I'll tell you a little story with this, okay, all right, let's see here,

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I'm gonna back up into the context just a little bit, and that's gonna require this, okay, there we go, all right, so check out this argument that Paul writes, it's so beautiful, okay, this 1

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Corinthians 1 18, and watch the development of this, the way he works this, the word of the cross, it is folly to those who are perishing, stupid, it's utterly stupid, the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it's the power of God, for it is written,

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I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discerning, the sermon of the discerning,

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I will thwart, so you'll note that when somebody despises the cross, the message of the cross, it shows that they're buying into the wisdom of the world, and the wisdom of the world always has to do with self -improvement, all right, and you know, and doing stuff in order to placate

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God, so that you can merit his favor, you can merit a better outcome in your life, and at the end of the day, when you've merited, then all glory goes to you, man, right, so you get the idea, but the word of the cross completely flips everything upside down, for God says,

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I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, the discernment of the discerning, I will thwart, and then he says, where then is the one who is wise, where's the scribe, where is the debater of this age, has not

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God made foolish the wisdom of the world, for since in the wisdom of God, the world did not know

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God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach, to save those who believe, why do you keep talking about that crucifixion, man, how many times are we gonna hear about that, really, it annoys you, that says a lot, right, right, so it pleased

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God through the folly of what we preach, to save those who believe, Jews demand signs,

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I would say charismatics in the NAR do too, okay, we kind of, they're that general,

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Greeks, they want wisdom, right, but we, here it is, we preach

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Christ crucified, and who's he talking to, Christians, he didn't say we preached

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Christ crucified, and now that you've heard it, we can move on to the way to your stuff, we preach, present tense,

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Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews, folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both

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Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God, for the foolishness of God is wiser than men, the weakness of God is stronger than men, so consider your calling, brothers, not many of you were wise, not many, according to worldly standards,

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I know I fit in that category, yeah, you'll know, no one's buying my philosophy books, you know, not that I've written any, and if I did, no one would want it anyway, you know, maybe for some expensive toilet paper, but you know, you know, not many were of noble birth, no,

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I come from a completely sketchy group of people, all right, but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise,

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God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised in the world, even the things that are not, in order to bring to nothing the things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God, and this is a big theme in Paul's letters, one of the major aspects of the gospel, as far as the motivation as to why

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God chose to save us this way, is to cut human beings off from the ability to boast in his presence, if you merited the forgiveness or favor or mercy of God, oh my word, you would just be an insufferable, arrogant, boastful jerk,

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I know, I tried this, it's horrifying, it turns you into something ugly, or maybe it just exemplifies the ugliness that is already there because of sin, so you know that the foolishness that we preach rules out all boasting, the whole thing, in fact,

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I would note this, that the entire Roman system of how they deify saints, that whole system is nothing but boasting, and it's as if the entire

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Roman religion is designed to make it so that if you try hard enough, you too can become a saint, and Rome will recognize you, and they'll put a statue up in St.

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Peter's of you, and people will pray to you, listen,

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I don't even answer my emails, why would I want anyone praying to me, okay,

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I hate emails, I barely tolerate text messages, you know, it's like, do you imagine receiving prayers, oh, how long would it take to answer all of that, okay,

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I'm not a deity, neither are you, right, so because of him, and these are important words then, so no human being might boast in the presence of God, and because of him, because of Christ, because of God, because of what he did, because of him you are in Christ, not because of you, note the him there, because of him you are in Christ, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption, so that as it is written, let the one who boasts, boast in the

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Lord, let me tell you about how great Jesus is, right, me, I'm the problem, oh, but man, he's a great solution, in fact, he's the only one, and then he goes on, and when

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I came to you brothers, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom,

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I decided to know nothing among you except for Jesus Christ and him crucified, nothing, so every single time

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Paul preached, what was he preaching about? Christ and him crucified,

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I chose to know nothing among you, so years ago on social media, I loved this text, it just, you know, you know,

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I remember, you know, working through and trying to sort out what's wrong with these sermons that I'm reviewing on fighting for the faith, and one of the things

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I realized pretty early on is that they don't preach the gospel, or if the gospel makes an appearance, it's like the sprinkles on top of a donut, you know, but the donuts made out of dog poop, you know, and these are gospel flavored sermons, not actual, they're not actually preaching the gospel, and so at that time,

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I, you know, I put this text up, I said, we need to do this, we need to only in our church preach

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Christ and him crucified, I chose to know nothing, I quoted the actual text, I chose to know nothing, this is what we need, and people said, there's more to the

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Bible than that, there's more, you can't do that every

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Sunday and expect to keep people's attention, but log not, right, from, you know, and when

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I was a kid, I drank homo -guineas and milk too, so, sorry,

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I'm off topic, right, so you'll note, Paul writing to Christians reminded these

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Christians that when he preaches, he chose to know nothing except for Christ and him crucified, and I was with you in weakness and fear and much trembling, my speech and my message were not plausible words of wisdom, and here's the thing, if I were to stop preaching

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Christ and him crucified every Sunday, what's the first thing that's going to start happening inside of you, growing anxiety and fear and doubts as to your own salvation?

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Right, all that, all the fear, I'm not quoting you, I just heard what you said, yeah, but you're right, okay, but the thing is, is that if you stop hearing the gospel every

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Sunday, you know what's going to happen inside of you? Complete fear and anxiety, growing fear and anxiety and uncertainty as to your own salvation.

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Same with me, I remember years ago, somebody who used to attend here, afterwards came up, after a sermon came up to me, says, you know, pastor,

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I just figured this out, you preach to everybody here as if they're Christians, and I said, yeah, because if I preach to you as if you weren't a

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Christian, then I've been preaching you into unbelief rather than belief. We're saved by grace through faith, and you'll note then that if you come here and you're not a believer, you're gonna want to believe, right, you know, because it's all about that, and so when somebody despises the gospel, despises the good news, that's it, that's a terrible sign, and that is indicative of that they are actual adherents to a different religion, a religion based on works, okay.

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They may give lip service to the gospel, but when you're annoyed by it rather than relieved by it, then there's a problem, there's a big problem, but the gospel is only for those who recognize the situation isn't bad, or the situation isn't, you know, serious, that the situation is hopeless, okay.

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Because of what God's law preaches and what it says, my situation is on my own.

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There is not a single shred of hope. The only thing I have to look forward to is darkness and hell and the wrath of God.

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There is zero hope but Christ, and that's where the gospel comes in, but Christ.

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He's taken your sin upon himself. He became sin so that you might be the righteousness of God.

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You believe because of Him. He has done these things for you, and He wants you to hear and be assured week after week after week that though your sins be as scarlet,

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He's made you white as snow, that in Him there is real forgiveness. At the conference

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I was at, the subject of the conference was the subject of assurance of salvation.

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You know, and you'll note that that's something that we all like, okay. It's something we need to hear about, this assurance concept, right.

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And the reason being is because, I don't know if you guys have noticed, but living life as a Christian ain't nothing easy about it, and I am my own worst enemy.

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So are you, right. So is there any word of assurance, and one of the speakers, he opened the conference with this text, and I thought it was brilliant.

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And listen to the list. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?

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Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Okay, it's a good question, right.

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There's something in the list that we all worried about. Shall tribulation? I'm pretty convinced that real, the most true believers in Christ, tribulation, we're expecting it, and no, that's not going to separate us from the love of Christ.

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How about distress? No. Persecution? No. Famine?

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No. Nakedness? No. That might get me arrested, but that's not going to separate me from the love of Christ, right.

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How about danger or sword? Huh. No. As it is written, for your sake we're being killed all the day long, we're regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.

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No. In all these things we are more than conquerors, and note the conquering is in the persecutions, through him who loved us.

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For I am sure that, and watch the list now, I'm confident that neither death, will death separate you from God and the love of Christ?

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No. In fact, most of us really truly believe, and rightly so, that when we finally die, then we get to finally see

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Jesus for the first time face to face. Death doesn't separate us from the love of Christ. In fact, it takes us to being able to walk with sight rather than just faith, right.

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I'm sure that neither death nor life nor angels or rulers or things present or things to come or powers nor heights or depth, anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of Christ that is in Christ Jesus our

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Lord. Now in the list there, I just ran through it without commenting on it, there's one that always worries us.

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Because if you think about it, the thing we're not worried about, we're not worried about death. We're worried that our lives are going to separate us from the love of Christ.

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It's the living part that we're worried about. But watch he says, I'm sure that neither death nor life, not even your life as bent and as crooked and sinful as it is, is going to separate you from the love of Christ.

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That's a good word, you know. Because I just look at my life and go,

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I have no idea why God even puts up with me. No clue whatsoever. But that is the great mercy and grace of the love of Christ.

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It seems like I've kind of overdosed on the gospel today. But yeah,

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I think we all, I really like to hear this, you know. So yeah, so Jen says,

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I struggle with witnessing to Christians and family members. It's a strange thing that we need to do that, all right.

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And I will say this, Jen, and that is that, you know, I've kind of made a career of preaching, of witnessing to Christians.

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You know, people who attend churches but aren't hearing the gospel, knowing that they need to hear it just like I do. So what, okay, what

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I don't understand is how you can say that you're a Christian but can't stand to hear it, yeah. Okay, let's see here.

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Basic but their foundation. Without the basics, everything crumbles. That's right, yeah. The Word of the

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Lord does not come back void, my pastor said. Hardens hearts. It's amazing what those basics can do.

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Yeah, God has mind -blowing patience and mercy. It's quite amazing.

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I know, my life and your life are a testimony to that. Even the Apostle Paul, his last letter that he writes, he said this is a trustworthy saying, that Christ died for sinners of whom

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I am the chief. That's not the last words that he wrote but very close to it, right.

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My thinking is if I speak about the gospel and the person is already a Christian, they'll rejoice and say amen.

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But they get annoyed that I know we have a problem. Yep, exactly. And you might point that out. Are you annoyed by the gospel?

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Do you know that 1 Corinthians 1 says that the gospel's folly to those who are perishing?

57:14

You know, are you among that group? That's a good question. So one must avail oneself of the foundation one's home daily in order to experience all the joy and pleasure that home has to offer.

57:25

Good point, Chuck. Yeah, my house is on a foundation and it stays on that foundation.

57:31

If it moved off the foundation, then we have to take the house down. That's how that works, right.

57:37

So when I grew up in Southern California, I remember when they first passed the legislation that required homes to be bolted to the foundation.

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Prior to that, when you get a good six or seven coming through in Southern California, always the aftermath would be you would have houses that would shift off the foundation.

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And once that happened, the house had to be demolished. Putting it back on the foundation was a good thing.

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And so I remember the first time, you know, this is, golly, all the way back in the 70s when they started requiring houses that were being built had to be bolted to the foundation and bolted in a particular way so that they stayed on the foundation in an earthquake.

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And I would note that any Christian who's off the foundation of Christ, that's a house we're waiting to be demolished.

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Alright, so Lily, he may be avoiding you. Pray, pray. Alright, you know, you can only avoid

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Jesus for so long. If Jesus wants to have that conversation with you, he's going to have that conversation with you.

58:46

So Sylvester says, so are you saying the Catholics are trying to be Bruce Almighty? Yes, yes, that's what

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I'm saying. I think that's right. Okay, they also want to add to perfection.

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Yep, all right. All right, very good. Okay, I like the homo guineas in milk comment.

59:08

That's almost the way a Puerto Rican would say it if they did not know any better. That's how I said it when I was a kid and I didn't know any better.

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So, all right, we're finished up here today. Y 'all have a great week and Lord willing, we'll see y 'all next time.