The Source of Strength

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Don Filcek; Romans 16:25-27 The Source of Strength

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to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsack preaches from his series in the
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Book of Romans, A Righteousness from God. Let's listen in. Well, good morning and welcome to Recast Church.
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As Dave said, I'm Don Filsack, I'm the lead pastor here, and just grateful for the opportunity we have to gather together.
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Just one quick note, there've been no slides going up here because we can't get the slides to work this morning, so welcome to a technological glitch, but we'll roll with it.
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We've got some guys who are printing out some song sheets so that hopefully you can still sing along, but God knows all things and works through all things, and so we never have the pretense here at this church of being a perfect church because we're imperfect people, and so I think it's kinda cool how
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God grants us from time to time those kinds of things to keep us on our toes. So I'm glad that God has been drawing together here at Recast people for his worship, and here in this place, it's been glorious.
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We're a church that's seeking to worship him as we find more worshipers for his name.
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That's actually our stated mission as a church, to worship him, that is to see him high, to see him glorious, to see him as majestic as he truly is, and then to worship him and find more worshipers for his name, and I hope that you've been worshiping him all week long in a variety of ways, in the way that you work, in the way that you interact in relationships with other people, in the way you drive your car, in the way you do all the things that you do, your chores around the house or whatever it might be, but then
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I hope that you're also, because I think this takes even more intention than that, and that is the seeking more worshipers for his name part.
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There are people out in our community, there are people out in our lives who don't worship him, that at the core of what they're designed to do, the core of what they're made to do is worship him, they just don't know him yet, and we might be the people to bring that message to them so that they in turn can become worshipers of his name, and so that's why that's our mission statement.
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Most of you know that our name, Recast, is an acronym for our core values, replication, community, authenticity, simplicity, and truth.
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And the last one of those, the T for truth, is not the least at all. Our core value of truth guides and directs everything that we do as a church.
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Certainly it guides what we believe, but even beyond that, it actually guides the way that we do the things that we do, and that's why we take a good chunk of our time each week to walk through a passage of God's word.
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That's why that's the centerpiece of our gathering. And this morning is fairly momentous because we have gone all the way, this is the last sermon out of 42 sermons in the book of Romans.
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So I just am grateful for you guys having just an attentive attitude to God's word, and I don't know if you realize this, but if you've been here for these messages, then you've listened to the reading, the public reading, of the entire book of Romans, and then you've also heard teaching on the entire book of Romans, and I think that's a glorious thing that we as a church have the opportunity to take on whole chunks of scripture, walk through it part by part, and be built up and strengthened in our faith through that.
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This morning we wrap up with the most logical application of any real understanding of the gospel.
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You see, the core of the letter of Romans is the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's really what it's all about, and so what would be the logical endpoint for a deep understanding, a deep theological understanding of the gospel?
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What would it be like for us to end a book that has walked us through a righteousness that comes to us from God?
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And what it is is that we wrap up with doxology. Doxology is a highfalutin word that just means praise.
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It comes from the Greek word doxa, which means praise, and it's gonna wrap up here at the end of chapter 16 of Romans with ascribing glory to the
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Almighty, and Paul's final statement of worship is saturated with practical hope that comes from the good news of Jesus Christ, from the gospel.
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It is the gospel that moves him to glorify God through Jesus Christ here at the end of our text, and I want you to think about this before we come to read the text this morning, and that is what would your relationship with God be like without the good news of Jesus?
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Well, you'd probably be basically a Jew at that point if you believe that there is a God, but you don't have a relationship with him through Jesus Christ.
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Without a righteousness as a gift from God, I personally, I think about my life and where I would be without that relationship with Jesus Christ and recognizing a righteousness that comes from him,
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I would be left with fear, and if you know what I'm talking about, a fear that's like have I done enough? Am I good enough?
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Am I okay enough? I would also be left with a lot of work, right? How many of you have been in that place in your life where you've recognized like I'm just trying to work to please
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God, I'm trying to work to please others, and it's a difficult place, and further than that, I think the way that I would roll would be to compete with all of you.
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All of you would be competition for me in the eyes of God, and I would try to out -give you.
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I would try to out -spiritualize you. I would try to out -read the Bible. It would be a competition among us, wouldn't it?
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How many of you think that that's the reality? It would be a competition with us if there was no cross, if there was no grace.
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To be honest, it often devolves into that with the cross, so how bad would it be without that?
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There would be no hope for unity among us without the gospel, and there would be no running to God in my life, but rather a hiding from him.
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Do you know what I'm talking about? I wouldn't be running to him with my problems. I wouldn't be running to him for mercy when
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I fail, but instead, I would be running and hiding from him like Adam in the garden, but now that this righteousness from God has been made clear, we are left to the one thing that makes sense this morning, the one thing that makes sense, a life of praise, a life of glorifying
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God, a life of worship, a life of declaring the great and awesome and glorious worth of our
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God, a life lived in thanks. So let's open our
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Bibles, if you're not already there, to Romans chapter 16. We're gonna be looking at the last three verses, 25 through 27, not a long passage, but a passage that packs a punch in terms of helping us to recognize the glory of God in our role in ascribing glory to him.
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So let's follow along and read this doxology of praise here that ends the book of Romans.
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Recast God's precious and holy word, declared in our midst. Now to him who is able to strengthen you, according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages, but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal
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God to bring about the obedience of faith to the only wise
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God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ, amen. Let's pray.
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Father, we do desire to give you praise and worship and you are worthy of it. As a matter of fact, in all honesty,
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I make that statement that we all desire it, but we all desire it in various levels and various degrees. We, to be honest, are very easily distracted.
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We're easily knocked off course when our best of intentions may have been to wake up this morning and come in here and worship you and we can easily be knocked off of that by an hour less sleep last night or the
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PowerPoint isn't working or whatever it might be that could easily distract us. Father, I pray that you would allow those things to be stripped away, those things to vanish in light of your glory and your majesty, in light of your gospel, in light of a righteousness given to us that we don't deserve, so that whether we were sitting on wooden benches with no backs or padded seats, whether we were in a place of comfort or a place that was too cold or a place that was too warm or a place that was too jam -packed with people,
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Father, that we would worship you because of you, not because of our circumstances, not because of the people surrounding us, not because of all of the other things, the good that's come to us this week, but at the end of the day, just because you're worthy.
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Father, we have nothing to give. We don't even have glory in our hands to give. All glory belongs to you and so I pray that we would recognize that now so that we would realize that we're giving you nothing in these songs.
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We're only declaring what is true of you. You are glorious.
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Move in our hearts now as we have a chance to corporately sing your great worth and your glory.
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Let's pray as Don comes forward. Lord, we are so blessed to be called your people. We are excited to gather together this morning.
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As this text remind us, we are called to worship you and Lord, may the meditations of our heart and our mind this morning be glorifying to you.
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Lord, may all that we do this week make much of you in our interactions with one another, interactions with the community.
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May people know that you are a great God who loves us, who chose us, who called us and who bestowed your spirit upon us so that we might in turn make much of you.
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Lord, be with Don as he speaks. May he bring your word forth through the power of the spirit and may we have attentive hearts and listening ears as he preaches this morning.
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We're thankful for Jesus and we're thankful for the spirit that dwells inside of us. We pray in his name, amen. Amen. Yeah, you're gonna go ahead and be seated but if you can do me a favor and keep your
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Bibles open or reopen your Bibles or your devices or whatever you use for the Bible there to Romans 16 verses 25 through 27.
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That's our text this morning and that's gonna be really providing the structure and the framework for what we're gonna talk about this morning.
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And then also just, I say this every week, if you need to get up and get more coffee, juice or donuts, you can take advantage of that.
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If you need the restrooms, they're out the barn doors down the hallway on the left hand side if you don't know where those are at. So again, our goal as much as possible is to focus in on what
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God desires to say to us this morning. The book of Romans, I think it's a good time to wrap it up and here we are at the very last paragraph of the entire letter that we've gone through and this letter has, we've kind of followed a general outline for it.
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Interestingly, in Bible college, I took a three credit class on the book of Romans and the professor said, there's one thing you're gonna walk away from and you're gonna remember this outline and he was on every test, every quiz, you had to spit out this outline and it wasn't until I started preparing to preach the book of Romans that that outline was still lodged in there.
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So it's sin, salvation, sanctification, sovereignty and service.
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And that's the outline, that's a big picture outline of the book of Romans. And so we've been looking at that and the letter began with an extensive teaching that God has a just wrath toward all ungodliness and unrighteousness.
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That's in verse 117, in case you're wondering, right in there, 117 and 118, clarify that God's wrath is right and just to be poured out on ungodliness and on unrighteousness.
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And then the text leads us for the first three chapters of the book of Romans into a pretty dark news.
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Like I would say the darkest news possible because if what I just said is true, that God's wrath is rightly expressed towards ungodliness and unrighteousness, he then goes on to explain that we are all what?
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Unrighteous and ungodly. Placing us squarely, rightly, justly under the wrath of God.
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How many of you think that's bad news? Like that's really bad news, that's really dark news. But then in chapter four, he begins to move into the good news.
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There is good news to be found here. You aren't righteous, you aren't godly, and no matter whether you were raised in a religious upbringing, where you were taught and trained to cross every
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T and dot every I, or raised in a house where everything was as crazy and chaos and there were no rules and you kind of tried to fend for yourself and make it up as you went, regardless of what context you were raised in, you're unrighteous and ungodly.
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But the good news is that he sent his only son to take on himself that very wrath that you and I deserved.
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So that by faith in Jesus Christ and his death on the cross for our sins, we can be declared righteous according to God.
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Declared righteous by the almighty one. And now by the power of his spirit, he goes on throughout the letter, later into the section on sanctification, that the power of his spirit is leading us into a life of love toward others, and then it gets into the service side of things.
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A life of love towards others and unity in his church and gratitude toward him for his sovereign work in our salvation.
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And so the weight of all of that message, by the way, it's a pretty technical book. How many of you found it to be a bit technical over the last year?
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It's rich, it's deep, it's good, but it's very technical, and so the weight of all of that glorious gospel, the weight of all that reality that we can be declared righteous, pressed down on Paul here by the end of his book.
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And the weight of that glorious and deep theology squeezed Paul until worship and praise flowed out of him.
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And I find this is true in my life, and I have a hunch that you do too. In my life, if I find myself in a season where I'm lacking zeal for God, any of you ever found a dry spot like that?
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You're just lacking the passion. It doesn't feel like there's a connection. It feels like I'm praying and it doesn't get past the ceiling or whatever it might be.
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I would suggest to you to just check this meter in your life, check this gauge.
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Where is your mind going? What is the expression of your mental activity toward him?
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So I see in my life, I'm lacking zeal, I'm lacking passion, I'm lacking connection. I don't feel like I'm there, and what happens is
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I realize I'm not thinking about my sin, so I've gravitated towards thinking
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I'm okay, or I'm at least better than most. I don't,
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I go through these phases, I don't give the cross the attention it deserves in my life, so I forget the severity of my sin, and the immense grace and love given to me there at that cross at Calvary.
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Or I stop thinking about his power, so I cease to pray and connect my day to him.
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Without the weight of truth, worship won't be squeezed out of you.
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Without the weight of the truth of who he is, we will not be moved to a fervent love for him, a genuine giving of glory to him.
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You see, I wanna suggest to you that as we've gone through a pretty technical and theological book, a lot of people think, when they hear the word theology, they think a lifeless and cold study.
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They think of guys with long beards, with dusty tomes in the back of a library just kinda studying lifeless truth, or just propositional truth, or something like that.
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The question comes to us here at the end of Romans, why are we studying? Why are we going through all of this technical stuff?
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Why not spend the majority of our time every gathering just singing and praising God? Or what about even just going and doing stuff, which is what
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I hear so much recently. I increasingly hear people say, it doesn't really matter what you believe as long as you're doing good.
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How many of you have heard that? It's increasing in our culture, that's increasing mindset. Just do the right things, it doesn't really matter what you believe.
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As long as you're doing the right things, you're on the right track. But how many of you know that without right thinking, our actions go sideways?
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Without right thinking, without right theology, without the truth of God, our singing goes sideways.
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How many of you know that you can sing really good worship songs without thinking about God at all?
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Without a mind towards him? You can do really good things for a whole ton of different motives.
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So the primary reason we read the Bible before we sing songs here at Recast is intentional. The reason that I get up and I introduce the
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Bible before we sing is that we believe that the truth of God prepares us to worship the true
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God. Without the truth, we will fabricate all kinds of false notions about who
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God is and then worship that. Do you know what I'm talking about? So we need the truth before we come to give him glory.
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We need to encounter him as he has revealed himself in order to genuinely be people of worship and praise.
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So Paul begins to offer praise to God, but then spends the bulk of our text here at the end explaining who that God is that we ought to be praising.
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It's like the capstones, the beginning of his paragraph and the end of his paragraph is praise, but in the middle, he wants to make sure that you and I know who it is that we should be giving glory to.
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And the first three words, he starts towards worship, he starts towards praise, and then he, like in Pauline fashion,
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Paul just seems to distract himself a lot. Some of you can relate to that. I think Paul had ADD or something, but he's like, oh, look, squirrel, oh, look, and he just follows these rabbit trails all over the place.
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But he starts off with these three words, three powerful words, now to him, now to him, presently, now after all that we've read, after all that we've studied, after this deep and rich gospel that God has given to us, now, that's the present tense, now, right now, he says, to him.
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And I want to ask you a question, what can you give to him? Kind of talked about it a little bit earlier, but what can you give to him?
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You see, the prepositional phrase, and I know that's kind of English, some of your eyes rolled back in your head just briefly because I mentioned a part of speech, but the prepositional phrase to him gives direction.
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Something is coming from us and going to him. Paul is suggesting that something should leave us and rest on him.
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What is it that should be leaving us? What is it that should leave us and go to God?
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You see, the single word to, think about it, the single word to will be found on every Christmas present I've ever wrapped.
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To someone, to Linda from Don, to Adam from Dad, to, you guys get the picture, and yours do, too.
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How many of you have, put a little tag on there or at least write it on the wrapper? To, from, to him.
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Something is going out from Paul, and he, by implication, by bringing us into this discussion, he also means for it to go out from us to God, too.
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But what could we possibly give to him? Well, you'll see that at the end. But we won't find that until verse 27 because Paul first wants to make sure we understand who him is, to understand who
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God is and why we should be giving to him what Paul believes he deserves. So which him is
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Paul referring to? Well, he tells us, the him who is able to strengthen you.
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I love that title. That is a glorious title. That is an immensely encouraging title for my
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Monday, and my Tuesday, and my Wednesday, and my Thursday, and my Friday, and my Saturday, and my Sunday, and all throughout the week, every day of the week, all month long.
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That is encouraging, him who is able to strengthen you. That's who we're talking about here.
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I love this title primarily because a confession moment, I'm weak, and how many of you know that's not popular to say in today's culture?
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Maybe some of you are like, man, I'm in the wrong church because I want a strong leader. I mean, isn't that kind of what we,
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I mean, really, that kind of betrays us a little bit because I think that's kind of true in a lot of ways. But I would confess that I'm weak, and I just encourage you to join me.
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Confess your weakness to, to a person in this room. I know it's true of you.
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You know it's true of you. You see, we are weak morally. We are weak physically, and some of you are starting to get your hackles up.
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I'm not weak physically. But watch the news when a microscopic virus can put someone in a hole.
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I'd say that's pretty weak. We are weak emotionally. We are weak mentally.
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And you may beg to differ on any one of these points or become offended by any one of these points, and I'd suggest because it's, that would only be because you're spiritually weak.
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Because you then, in turn, are betraying that you don't believe what God says of you. God is clear that humanity,
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His words, are as weak as a morning mist that's gone by mid -morning. Like a breath.
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That's our strength. That's what we bring. Gone. How many of you ever just watched, been out in the woods to watch a morning mist rise and the sun to burn it off?
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It's good to see the morning. Some of you are here, you're maybe in college, you haven't seen a morning in a while.
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I'd suggest, I'd recommend it, I don't know. Mornings are great. Golly, did
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I just pick on a whole group? I'm sorry, you guys. That wasn't kind. God is the only source of any strength.
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He is the only source of any strength. And He is able, according to this text, He is able to strengthen
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His people. He can strengthen you in the midst of a terrible diagnosis. He can strengthen you in the midst of taxing mental challenges.
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He can strengthen you in the midst of your battle with sin and addiction. He can strengthen you emotionally for the relational turmoil that swirls around every single person here.
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Every single one of you has some level of emotional turmoil in your life. I know it, because you're alive on this planet.
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He is able to strengthen you. If I could say every name in the room,
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I would say your name in there. He is able to strengthen, and I want you to say it. He is able to strengthen me.
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I want you to think that yourself. He is able to strengthen me. But His strength is not some mystical, invisible injection that suddenly is like a steroid, an invisible steroid in your arm that just pumps you up and gives you all the strength.
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There are three things in this text that God uses to strengthen His people, and He wants us to be aware of them. He wants us to take advantage of them.
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He wants us to be cognizant of these three things. They're here for us to tap into.
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And it's not enough, church, it's not enough to know that God is able to strengthen us, but He wants to go on to say that we ought to know the things that He will use to give
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His people strength. And that helps us, in the end, to glorify Him more deeply.
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So these are all closely related and somewhat parallel, but there's three things that God has given us to strengthen
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Him, and here we go. The first, Paul says, that God is able to strengthen us according to my gospel.
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Paul speaking, my gospel, he uses a possessive pronoun. The gospel that I have proclaimed, the gospel that I've been given to share to the nations.
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Paul is saying that the good news is able to provide us strength. Think about it. Not just any good news, but the good news that Paul proclaimed is able, the good news found in this book is able to give you strength.
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There were other false gospels going around during the lifetime of Paul, and there are other false gospels going around today.
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Are you aware of them? Do you know that there's false gospels? There's false good news that, at the end of the day, are really no good news at all.
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There's currently a gospel of pluralism that is all but accepted in the world today.
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A gospel that says that all roads lead to God. Have any of you ever heard that gospel? It almost seems like that ship has sailed in the general culture around us, hasn't it?
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So many different ways. The image is that God is at the top of the mountain, and how many ways are there to the top of the mountain?
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You got the Hindu way, you got the Muslim way, you got the Jewish way, you got the Christian way, and all roads lead to heaven is the idea.
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But I love how David Platt said this in a video that I watched recently. David Platt, a pastor, and I think he's involved in the
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Southern Baptist Convention now, but all other religions propose, he said, a pathway to God, and he was talking with people from different religions in this context, and they were talking about all these different pathways, and he said, but listen, folks, what
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Scripture shows, what the Bible says, is that this is not another way to God, this is a book that explains that God blazed a trail down the mountain to us.
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God rushing to our rescue, God coming down to us, not us finding a way and then doing the hard work of climbing a mountain.
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How many of you think that climbing a mountain, have any of you ever climbed a mountain, or gone up at least a mountain trail to a peak? That's hard work.
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And God has come down to us. There is significant spiritual and emotional strength found in that truth.
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Crazy strength. That God loves us enough to come down to rescue us, that God came down and loved you enough to rescue you.
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He made a beeline for you in your moment of need. He heard you in your distress and met you at the point of your deepest need.
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We who were unrighteous and ungodly, worthy of wrath, worthy of condemnation, we have been rescued by the only one who could save us from our greatest of enemies, sin and death.
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By the way, your greatest enemy is not oppression. Your greatest enemy is not a lack of wealth.
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Your greatest challenge is not unemployment. Your greatest challenge is your sin and separation from God.
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And that is the very thing that God came and made a beeline to you to rescue you from.
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He's able to strengthen you according to that gospel, to that good news.
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Further, he's able to strengthen us more specifically. So generally, the gospel, according to the gospel is the way that he strengthens us.
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But further, he is able to strengthen us according to the preaching about Jesus.
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Now this is very parallel to the gospel of Paul because what is that gospel about? What's the centerpiece of the good news?
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What's the centerpiece of the gospel? Nothing else other than Jesus Christ himself. That's really the good old
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Sunday school answer, right? When in doubt, answer Jesus. That's what the little kids do and it works for them.
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Who parted the Red Sea? Jesus. Who made the ark? Jesus. Who gathered all the animals? Jesus. Right, like any of you ever,
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I taught Sunday school. I know, that's always the answer, right? And it's not far off, okay?
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But Jesus the Christ, Jesus the Messiah, the Holy One of God is the center of our faith.
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He came and he showed us that he has the power over sin by himself living a sinless life according to the law.
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He showed us his power in forgiving sins by literally forgiving people's sins here while he was here.
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He showed us his power over the evil one by casting out demons. He showed us the power over nature by calming the storm and walking on water.
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He showed us his power over diseases by healing the sick and the blind and the lame.
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And he ultimately showed us his power over our greatest enemy. To sin and death by rising from the grave on the third day.
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Glory, glory, glory to him. The message of Jesus is a powerful life -changing message when you really come into it.
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And God is able to strengthen us through the hope we receive in our Savior. In the preaching about Jesus, we find hope that the grave cannot hold us.
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We also find hope that the enemy cannot have us. We find hope that no illness has the final word in the life of a believer.
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We find hope that sin need not own us any longer. How does the message of Jesus Christ and his good news impact you, not on Sunday, but on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday, throughout your week?
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How does it impact you? Thinking about Jesus and what he has done in our lives unleashes the power of a forgiven life.
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A forgiven life is one that's able to forgive others. It unleashes us from performance and competition with others so that we can love and sacrifice for one another.
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This message of Jesus gives us a bold hope that lets us, let's go of the grip of fear on our lives.
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You want a strong life? How many of you want a strong life? You want a strong life? A strong life is a gospel -centered life.
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A strong life is a Jesus -centered life. And lastly, thirdly, we see that God is able to strengthen us according to the revelation of his word.
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A strong life is also a word -centered life. And you might be thinking right now,
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Don, how can I center my life on three things? This sounds like a off -kilter kind of wobble here.
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How am I gonna rotate around these three things? Well, these three things are all consistent with one another, like a nucleus at the center of an atom.
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They're like the protons and neutrons of the Christian life. They're all one thing. They're so utterly and immensely consistent with one another, the gospel,
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Jesus, and his word, all three, just different ways of saying that centerpiece of our life, the things that our life ought to be revolving around.
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And here at the end of verse 25, through the end of verse 26, Paul makes much of the revealed word of God as the final source of our strength.
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He starts off declaring that God is able to strengthen us according to the revelation of the mystery, he says, that was kept for long ages.
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And that word mystery needs some explanation. You see, we borrowed the word mystery from the
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Greek language and then changed it. That's what we like to do. So we borrow a word, then we change it, and now it doesn't make a whole lot of sense when we go back to the
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Greek and we're trying to understand it, you see, because in English, a mystery is something confusing or hidden that needs to be figured out and solved, like Sherlock Holmes and his magnifying glass, and oh, the dog didn't bark, and so now we know that he knew him, and all of those kinds of things here.
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You're trying to sleuth it and figure it out. But mystery here in the Greek language is an obscured or hidden truth that has now been made known, an ancient hidden truth that has been revealed.
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So another way to think of this is that a Greek mystery has already been solved. An English mystery needs yet to be resolved or solved.
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But this mystery is that the gospel and the preaching about Jesus leads us to an obedience of faith, something that they didn't understand in Old Testament times and in ancient times, something that's been brought forward in Jesus Christ and in this new revelation.
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This mystery was kept secret for long ages, but has now been revealed to us through the prophetic writings, the text says.
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What are the prophetic writings? Well, they're the very words of Scripture that reveal the gospel of Jesus Christ, he says, to all nations.
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It is a message for all people, not just for us, not just for Jews, not just for that first century, but for all peoples.
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It is a message for all of us. The Bible is the means by which the gospel and Jesus Christ have been made known.
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I had this amazing, amazing privilege. My wife and I, Linda and I, were on our way to the mission field.
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We weren't even sure what field we were gonna go to. I had just wrapped up a master's degree in Islamic studies, so we were considering going to North Africa, so we went on a scouting trip to Morocco.
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We had the privilege of sitting at this little outside cafe with a Christian who had been threatened with death.
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He had to be, he was basically in hiding, but he came to share his testimony with us. I mean, literally, if the right people found him, they would put him to death, and the government wasn't gonna do anything about it, okay?
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This was a young man who never had met a Christian in his life, but because his father went over to visit family in Europe and came back, he received a copy of the
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New Testament. This is his uncle. His uncle had received a copy of the New Testament. They think it's a holy book. They don't necessarily read it, they don't necessarily like it, but they can't do anything about it, so once it's in their hand, they can't throw it away, they can't trash it.
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This uncle put it on the top shelf with all their Korans and left it there. Well, this little boy, about the age of nine or 10, went over to his uncle's house, saw this book he had never seen.
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It kept just boring a hole in his mind. He's like, I gotta get the, stole the New Testament from his uncle.
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How many of you think, wait a second, is that a way to start a Christian life? Stole the New Testament, hid it under his mattress, read it every night, never met a
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Christian, never been to a church, never heard the gospel aside from reading that book, and was radically saved in his own bedroom.
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I mean, just talk about the power of the word of God. Now, you didn't probably hear it that way. Someone faithful shared the message, and unfortunately, most likely, you had a hard time from the beginning, even as you think back to your own testimony, where is the word in it?
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Now, some of you, they have a very word -saturated testimony. Some of you, it was just like, for me, it was like an
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Awana leader, basically, telling me that I needed a savior, with not a lot of the
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Bible involved in it. Do you know what I'm talking about? But this guy shows us the power of the word alone in saving a person.
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Do you believe that the word has that kind of power? Thank you, Katie, I like that.
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Awesome. That's, so she was faithful.
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Your grandmother was faithful. That is awesome, Katie. That's really encouraging. Awesome. The means of this revelation.
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This is a point that can bring us into the faith, and that is a source of strength for us.
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You gotta ask yourself, how has the mystery of obedience, of faith, how has that been revealed to us?
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It's ultimately been revealed to us through his word. Now, regardless of how you came to faith in Christ, it was only through the word that those truths that the
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Awana leader expressed to me that I came to understand it. So it was only in as much as they understood the truth from the word that I received the gospel.
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So at the end of the day, regardless of what your testimony looks like, it always ties back somehow to the word, to Jesus Christ hanging on a cross.
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By the way, if you think back to, what is my testimony? How have I come to faith in Christ? And there is no cross at the center of that.
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You're like, what does Jesus have to do with that? I mean, I just, I heard a message, and I just thought, man, I really need to get my life in order.
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I've got all these problems, and I just kind of, you know, like fixed myself. But then I would love to talk with you, because you need the good news of Jesus Christ.
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The word needs to be a part of that, and the centerpiece of the gospel in Jesus Christ. But we don't receive this power without the prophetic writings.
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The disclosure of God's plan, the revelation of his good news, the knowledge of Jesus Christ comes to us and goes to the nations only through the word.
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And let me clarify that the strength of this revelation is found in the glorious truth that faith is the obedience that God desires.
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Faith is the obedience that God desires. This is made clear in the gospel. It's made clear through the cross of Jesus Christ, where he did the work for us.
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It's clear through the life of Jesus who fulfilled the law for us, a law that we couldn't complete.
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So when a person asks the Apostle Paul, when a jailer says to Paul, what must
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I do to be saved? How does he answer? Believe in the
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Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved. The question was, what must
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I do? What actions? Should I give away a lot? Should I go to church a lot? Should I clean up my act?
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Should I follow all the washing rituals of the Jews? What should I do to be saved? And he says, believe.
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Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved. So how can you find strength? Think about this in another term.
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How can you find strength when you failed him again? He said, I'm not gonna do that thing, and then you did it again.
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We turn back to scripture to remember that our salvation is based on trust in his work on the cross, and not on our performance.
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A life of strength is never a life of guilt and burden. He wants to take those off your shoulders.
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Without a Savior, we remain in our weakness. Without the revelation of a Savior, we remain dead in our sins, and we have guilt before a holy and a righteous
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God. But through the prophetic writings, we come to know our Savior, and we come to know that what he asks of us is trust and faith.
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And he calls us into a life of faith in him that leads us into an obedient relationship with him.
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A life of love and obedience to our Savior. So we see in this text three interrelated sources of strength in the
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Christian life. Let me reemphasize them again. We see the good news, that God came to rescue us. We see the preaching about Jesus.
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He has fulfilled the law and sacrificed himself to cover our sins. And thirdly, we see the revelation of his word.
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He has disclosed himself through the prophetic writings, calling us all to a faith that leads to a loving obedience.
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And all of this was to help set the context for what Paul is offering and is suggesting that we offer to God.
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What are we to give to God? And after explaining the strength that God supplies, he finishes his opening thought from verse 25, and he finishes it in verse 27.
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He started off with this. Now to him who is able to strengthen you. Diversion into the details of how he strengthens you.
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And now he concludes the thought. Back at it. To him, the one who can strengthen you.
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To the only wise God be glory. To the only wise
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God be glory forevermore. To the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus.
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Glory forevermore through Jesus Christ. Glory forevermore through Jesus Christ.
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Amen, and so be it. What is he offering to God here in verse 27?
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What is it that he wants us to offer to God? Glory. Glory.
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And I would suggest to you a recognition of glory. You see, we cannot in any true way give something to him that he doesn't already possess.
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Did you already know that? You can't give anything to him that he doesn't already possess. He has all the glory, whether we recognize it or not.
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So in our worship, what are we giving to him? And I would suggest to you, we aren't giving to him as much as we are agreeing with the truth about him.
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We are giving him our assent. We are giving him our faith. We are giving him our trust. We're agreeing with the truth about him.
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We cannot worship him without the knowledge of him. This is vital. But the true knowledge of him leads us to lay all glories down at his feet.
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Not allowing any glory to rest with us, but any time that we would even receive a shred of glory, passing it all along to the one who alone is worthy of all praise, the one who is the source, the origin, and the finality of all glory.
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And that's why Paul pauses in the middle of an outburst of praise to point to his character.
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He is able to strengthen you with the gospel. He's able to strengthen you through the knowledge of Jesus. He's able to strengthen you through his word.
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That is the God that we need to glorify. He is the only God. He is the wise
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God. And he alone deserves all glory. And we glorify him now through Jesus Christ because the only way to the father is through the son who came down to rescue us.
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And so in applying this text to us this week, let me encourage you to genuinely ask his spirit to guide you.
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What is he trying to correct in your thinking this morning? What is he trying to correct in your behavior and your weekly patterns this morning?
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Think about it. The first thing is that the foundation of a strong life is the gospel. So the first application is fundamental and I'm talking to all of us.
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This is not for a visitor who might have wandered in that doesn't know the gospel. It is for all of us a challenge to continue to believe the gospel.
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Continue to lean wholly on his grace and his mercy. Do you believe the gospel that Paul proclaimed?
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It is an exclusive gospel. It is a gospel about salvation from our sins. It is not a gospel about health, wealth, or gains in this life.
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It is a gospel of forgiveness and hope for an eternity with Jesus. So if you're not yet a follower of Jesus, take a risk.
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I'd encourage you. Be bold and come up to this area by these front doors over here. And there will be people here who would love to talk with you, would love to pray with you at the end of the service.
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But maybe you're here and you're just having a hard time believing the gospel and you have at some point in your life, but it's like I just don't feel it anymore.
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I'm just not feeling that connection with God right now. That would be a great time to just come up and pray with somebody too. Maybe it's for some of you, it might be the first time that you've ever explored this.
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For some of you, you've been around for a while, but you've kind of lost that fire. And come up here and we would love to pray and talk about that and really work through that together.
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The second thing that God uses to give us strength, the first was believe the gospel. The second thing that he uses to give us strength is the proclamation or teaching about Jesus.
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Focus on him, focus on Jesus. How he lived, how he set us free, how he has loved us is key to the
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Christian life. How often do you think about Jesus throughout your day? I think if we're honest, probably not as much as we should, not as much as he deserves.
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Is his forgiveness having an impact on you? You may need to make some tangible changes in your life to jog your mind into considering him throughout your day.
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Maybe it's even as, we've got technology for things like this, maybe it's set a reminder on your phone that goes off and a notification that just reminds you, and it just says on your phone once in a while throughout the day,
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Jesus loves you. Jesus died for you. Jesus has forgiven you, you can forgive others.
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You don't have to drive like that, but hopefully you're not looking at your reminders while you're driving, but I know some of you are, so might as well have a reminder there that tells you to drive right.
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That's convicting. Maybe it's something tangible like that.
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I remember when Lynn and I were counselors, I'm gonna date myself here, in 1993 when we were counselors at Camp Barachel, the director, who's the now director, he wasn't the director at the time, but he handed out, at the first week of counselor workshop, at the start of a really rigorous 10 weeks of hard ministry to little urchins, he handed out these sticker sheets with dots on them.
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And he said, I just want you to put these dots all over camp. I mean, I'd find those dots on faucets in the bathroom.
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I'd put one on my cleats, so that when I was putting them on to play soccer, I was reminded, and he said, I want you to take whatever you're thinking, when you see one of these dots around camp,
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I want you to take whatever is in your mind at that moment and give it to God. I want you to just release that to God.
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And that was a powerful summer. It was a summer of thinking about God throughout the week. Do you get what
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I'm saying? We sometimes have to be creative, because I think our greatest enemy, my personal greatest enemy, in my walk with Jesus, is my forgetfulness.
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My forgetfulness. That God is with me, not that, God is with me, watching over me, he's gonna smite me if I do this.
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God is with me for strength. God dances and delights over his people.
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And he loves us. What do you need to do to remind yourself of that throughout your week?
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Hopefully you're thinking about it more than just Sunday mornings. The third thing is related to that, and that is, thinking about it more than Sunday mornings,
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I would encourage you to start your day with the word. The scriptures are given to us for our strength.
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People will come to me and they'll say, I just don't feel that connection. And it sounds like the pastor's supposed to say this, but it's a genuine question.
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Where are you at with the word? Are you filling your mind, are you starting your day taking in God's word and believing it and trusting it and then going out to live it?
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I was never a morning person until I changed my mind and decided to be one. I had to,
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I'm serious, I had to change my mind about that. It was not an easy transition.
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In my 20s, I was a night owl and proud of it. And I was working on campus at Western with international students, and so I had nothing to get up for until 10, 11, whatever.
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All of that life happened later anyway, so I kind of prided myself in that for a while. And I even would go so far as,
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I think I was self -justifying, but I would even go so far as to say, there's nothing magical about the morning. I'll just read the
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Bible at night. But now, I actually am telling you, I challenge you to think it through.
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There is something that is powerful in my life about starting my day with the word of God. It's just helpful.
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It just sets me on the right trajectory. It's not magical, it's not mystical. I didn't, like I said, it's not a vaccination that just vaccinates me against all the bad in the day or anything like that.
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It gives me the right attitude. It starts me on the right heart frame of mind to work towards loving others and trying to act like Jesus to others around me.
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I need that. Maybe you're here and you're strong enough and you don't. I have to have that.
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So reading the Bible, by the way, reading the Bible merely as an obligation or as a checkbox, that's not it.
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It's not gonna get there. It's only reading and studying to know him and how he loves us and how he rolls with us and what he desires of us.
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It's in that knowing him that we find power. Reading to check off a box rarely results in any strength in our lives.
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So only go out from here with a plan to read scripture if you wanna know him and you wanna know what he desires of you day by day.
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Lastly, don't let these things rest as academic attempts. I can make anything academic, but don't let it rest as an academic attempt to obtain strength or power.
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Don gave us three things. Check this, check this, check this, then I'll be strong, then I'll have power. What is the point of this text?
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As you do these things or think this way, remember that God is the one who is able to strengthen you.
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What happens if you go out and you do these things and you gain in strength? And you go, let me suggest one thing must be applied and that's give him the glory for it.
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Give him the glory for any gains in your life, for any strength that you find in your life. Worship him with your entire lives, not merely on Sunday morning and not merely by singing, but let's glorify our great
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God. Let's glorify him forevermore. Spencer's gonna come and lead us into communion now.