Reason for Joy – 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 (Pastor Josiah Shipley)

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Now, I want you to pay attention. It wasn't anything in Israel. It wasn't their military size.
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It wasn't the type of people. 1
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Thessalonians chapter 5, please. 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. I found out at 9 .30
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that I would be preaching. Luckily, I had started on this sermon a couple weeks ago.
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And I guess it's as finished as God intended it for it to be finished. So here we go. 1 Thessalonians chapter 5.
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Hear the word of the Lord. I will begin in verse 14.
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1 Thessalonians 5 starting in verse 14. And we urge you brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the faint hearted, help the weak, and be patient with them all.
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See that no one repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everybody.
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We'll come back to that phrase in a minute. To one another and to everybody. Here we go. Ready? Verse 16.
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Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances.
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For this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Let's walk through that.
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First off, we urge you brothers, admonish the idle, the disorderly, the unorganized.
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Admonish them. As we go through these commands, ask yourself, are you obeying that command?
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Admonish the idle. Encourage the faint hearted. Help the weak.
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Be patient with them all. And then verse 15. See that no one repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone.
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Now, if you think that is repeating yourself, please make sure you understand who 1
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Thessalonians is written to. It's not that hard. Who was 1 Thessalonians written to? The church at Thessalonica.
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That's not that difficult, right? So he's writing to believers and he says, do good to each other and to everybody.
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Do good to each other and to everybody. And then he says, one more time, rejoice always, pray without ceasing and give thanks in all circumstances.
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For this is the will of God in your life. Now, let me read that how
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I think maybe some of us just read that. So let me try to read that in the translation that I think some of us just heard that.
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Rejoice when good things are happening. Pray when you think about it and give thanks when you feel like it.
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I think is how some of us just read that. So I'm going to read it one more time. And then if you need some whiteout to change the
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Bible, you can go get some if you need to. Let's read that again. Rejoice always, pray without ceasing and give thanks in all circumstances.
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You realize he just used three different ways to say all the time. He said always, without ceasing and in all circumstances.
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That's just three different ways to say all the time for all three of those. You all follow me on that? Now, rejoicing always, let me help you figure that out.
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This is a Josiah definition and this has helped me so much. Understanding the difference between happiness and joy.
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Happiness and joy. Happiness is based on a circumstance. Joy is based on a foundation.
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See, there are many things that happen today that could affect my happiness.
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Nothing can shake my joy. Nothing can seal that from me. Because that has been given to me.
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That joy. That joy is the unshakable... And if you are not a believer, you have no idea what I'm talking about.
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If you're an unbeliever, you look at the state of our world, the state of our country, the state of options we have for a leader, and you see despair.
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Oh, but for a believer, there is nothing that can steal or shake that joy that was given to me by God Almighty.
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Nothing. Nothing. See, my happiness can change based on my circumstance.
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That word, circumstance. Circumference, that which surrounds me. The standing, the situations which surround me.
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My circumstance. Those change. Those come and go. My circumstance, the standing and the things happening around me change all the time.
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And if I base my joy on that, I will be what Jesus said.
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I will be tossed to and fro by every wind, by every teaching, by every new thing. I will have no stability in my life.
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I won't know what kind of day I'm going to have today because I don't know what's going to happen to me. But there is a much better way to live.
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Waking up every day knowing I don't know what's going to happen to me today circumstantially, but I checked this morning, and this is still the day
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He made. And I'm going to rejoice and be glad in it. Happiness is based on a circumstance.
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Joy is based on a foundation. See, there are things in my circumstances that bring me great happiness.
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Last night, Burkett just came up and mentioned this to me. I have been to a lot of fight shows.
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A lot. Probably more than most people in this room. They do not usually look like that.
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There is normally a lot of alcohol. There is normally, I mean, one of the last shows
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I went to, in the bathroom, there was fighting and police had to come and just a lot of ugliness.
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You know what we had last night? Prayer circles. Did you all see that? Do you see what happens when you take the same event, and one is based on glorifying
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God, and the other is based on glorifying man, and the results of what happens? Maybe apply that to your own life,
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Christian. The ones that are set forward as God is in charge, and I will do this event, thing, job, relationship, whatever, how he says to do, not how
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I say to do it, and then I do not have to be surprised on how it turns out, because he works all things in accordance with the counsel of his will.
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Happiness is based on a circumstance, because sometimes I do not have days like I had yesterday.
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I start thinking about my grandmother's health. So many negative things.
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Stresses of life. Goodness gracious with our wonderful economy that our illustrious leaders have given us in the past four years.
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I am sure we are all doing wonderfully financially right now, yeah? If I base my joy based on my circumstances,
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I am toast. I am toast. But if you base it based on something that cannot move, an unshakable foundation, life is a lot sweeter.
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I want to, but we will return here, I want just if you could, would you please turn with me real quick to 2
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Corinthians. I know you had to actually turn your Bible, and I know that is a lot for some of us, but if you could just turn to 2
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Corinthians 6 just for a moment. I want to show you something. I know, it was me.
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It was not you, it was me, I know. 2 Corinthians. That too,
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John. That will work. Yeah, that will work. Alright, now I want to show you all something in chapter 6.
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And I am going to start in verse 3. We put no obstacle in anyone's way, so that no fault may be found in our ministry.
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But as servants of God, we commend ourselves in every way, by great endurance and afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonment, riots, labor, sleepless nights, hunger, by purity, knowledge, patience and kindness, the
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Holy Spirit, genuine love, by truthful speech, in the power of God, with weapons of righteousness for the right hand and the left.
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Before we continue, just that word in verse 6. Genuine love.
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A lot of the guys that were here last night, like I said, they didn't have anyone here, they didn't have a coach or whatever.
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And it took them about 30 minutes to get comfortable. And this is what one of them told me. And maybe some of us can relate to this.
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Why are those folks being so nice to me? What do they want from me? Anyone relate to that? It took them a minute to realize there was somebody who actually cared about them, who just met them and needed or wanted nothing from them.
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How rare is that to find? How rare is that? And the guy afterwards, the guy that learned his fighting from YouTube and did not do very well for obvious reasons.
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By the way, if you are under the age of 18 and you think everything can be learned by YouTube, life is going to be pretty tough.
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Just put that out there. But when
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I asked him, so man, where do you train?
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He says, I don't. I got to find a gym. Money, blah, blah, blah. Because, you know, a gym is about $150 a month.
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An MMA gym. It ranges. I said, you can come here, man. He goes, all right, how much is it?
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I said, it's not. He said, well, how much is it per class? I said, it's not. He goes, all right, so how much is a month?
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I said, you're not hearing me. It's not. It's free. And he said, how?
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And I said, because 200 people in that brick building, we were over at the gym, in that brick building over there, pay for you to do this and they don't know your name, they don't know who you are, they don't know what you look like, they know nothing about you.
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They pay for you to do this. The equipment, the lights, they pay for you to do this.
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And they don't know you. And they need or not want nothing for you. They don't need a Facebook shout out. They don't need nothing from you.
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Because what they're looking at is that soul inside of you that needs a little bit of Jesus.
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That's what they're doing that for. Yeah, genuine Baptist church.
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There you go. GBC, that's Germantown. Yeah, we'll figure something out. So genuine love.
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But then it says this, verse 10. Sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.
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Oh, don't miss this. Oh, don't miss this. Sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.
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I'm going to put a test for you. This actually happened in group this morning before I knew
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I'd be preaching. And this is for all of us, myself included.
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I'm putting myself out there on this one. This is how you know if you let outside circumstances dictate how you are doing with God.
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If someone asks you how you and Jesus are doing, if someone asks you how you're doing spiritually, and you reply with,
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I'm tired, or this happened, or this event happened, and you realize you start talking about work, you start talking about everything else, you recognize ten minutes later, the question was how are me and Jesus doing.
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You know why you're saying all that stuff? Because you're letting that stuff affect how you and Jesus are doing. Did you not just read the list we just read?
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Riots, imprisonments, beatings, sleepless nights, hunger, truthful speech, power of God, weapon.
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Ladies and gentlemen, let me help all of us. There is a phrase I would like us to remove from our brain.
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Set it on fire and never use again. You're like, well, in my spiritual life
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I'm doing this way, in my work life I'm doing this way, in my family. Ladies and gentlemen, if you don't recognize that your spiritual life permeates through your whole life, you have it backwards.
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You have it backwards. And let me give you some hope. When you view the world that way, it gives you a purpose, and no matter what you're doing, turning a wrench, vacuuming, teaching children, selling cars, and no matter what you do, when you recognize that there is a spiritual mandate of how you are to conduct yourself and carry yourself and wherever you're at, you realize that is your spiritual life and it gives you a purpose beyond the physical means that this world says it's there for.
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Does that make sense? Guys, there's no such thing as, well, spiritual life over here, work life, that doesn't exist.
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Every single situation in your life has spiritual significance and a way to make it meaningful beyond the 60 years you have left to live.
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The Bible says, let this be recorded for a future generation so that a people yet to be born may praise the
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Lord. What we did yesterday, what we do every day, determines what a future generation of believers will be doing.
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That's how you build something. And you do that, ladies and gentlemen, no matter where you're at and no matter what you're doing.
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I don't care if it's a nurse, I don't care if it's a school teacher, I don't care if it's at the house with the kids,
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I don't care if it's as a pastor, I don't care if it's as a used car salesman, I don't care what it is. If you recognize the spiritual significance of every interaction you have and every job you accomplish, you recognize eternal matters instead of just physical mundane matters that after about two years you're going to say, what am
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I doing with my life? Yeah? Sorrowful yet always rejoicing is not a contradiction because one is based on a circumstance, the other is based on a foundation.
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When horrible things, death, happen to people we love, the biblical call is not to be happy.
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That's impossible. The biblical call is to be joyful. The biblical call is to be joyful.
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Back in Thessalonians, it says rejoice always.
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Rejoice always. It says pray without ceasing.
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In Luke chapter 18 we have an amazing story. And if you've never read it, you don't have to turn there.
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I'm just going to read just a brief part of it. And it says this.
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Jesus told them a parable to the effect that they ought to always pray and not lose heart.
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Jesus is about to teach a parable. I need a tissue. Jesus is about to teach a parable about them to not lose heart and to always pray.
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So the parable we're about to read has that purpose. By the way, remember what a parable is. What's a parable? Oh my gosh.
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It's a story that teaches a lesson of spiritual significance. You said what? No, he didn't say with his chest it don't count.
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That's a man. If you don't say with his chest it don't count. Jesus would agree.
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Let your yes be yes and your no be no. Come on. That's right, that's right. But Zoe... Oh, okay.
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She's a girl. I'll let it go. So a parable is a story, a story about something that happens in everyday life in order for spiritual significance to be drawn from it.
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That's what a parable is. So he tells them a parable to the effect that they ought to always pray and not lose heart.
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Now, sometimes pastors mess this parable up because they tell you the judge is God. The judge here is not
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God. The judge we're about to read about does not believe. He is an unbeliever. Okay, so let's go.
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He said in a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man.
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Talk about a double whammy. Not only does he not fear God, he has no respect for other people. And this is just a side note.
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But if I may, as you write this down, for anyone married, you need to have
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Ephesians 5 .33 memorized. If you are married in this room, you need to have Ephesians 5 .33
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memorized if you ever plan on being married. Ladies, the Bible says very clearly what a man wants more than anything else.
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Who was I talking to? Marissa. You were the one. What a man wants more than anything else. The Bible tells us.
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You know what it is? Respect. Respect. The Bible also tells us what a woman wants more than anything else.
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To feel loved and secured. That's what the Bible says. Isn't that true?
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Men want respect so much they even want it from other men. Much less their helpmate. That's the most important thing.
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Respect. We'll talk about that in another sermon about what that is, what actual respect is. But we'll talk about that in another sermon.
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For here, this guy, he doesn't fear God and he doesn't care about anybody else but himself.
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Sounds like a lot of our politicians. Verse 3. And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, give me justice against my adversary.
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Give me justice against my adversary. And while he refused for a while, afterward he said to himself,
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I don't fear God, I don't respect men, I don't care about God or none of that prayer stuff that she's doing.
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But to keep her from bothering me, I'm going to go ahead and give her justice so she will not beat me down with her constant asking.
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Scott, this is not a sermon about Vicki. Just hold on. And it says this. And the
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Lord said to her, hear what the unrighteous judge says and will not
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God give justice to his elect who cry out to him day and night.
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Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily.
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Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth? In other words, when he comes back, will he find people like that?
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With that type of persistent prayer, is he going to find anyone like that? That's what the question is.
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Is he going to find that faithfulness right there? She kept on and kept on and the unbelieving judge yielded.
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How much more the Heavenly Father for his children that cry out to them day and night.
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I'm writing a sermon on why I don't have what I want.
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And I just have to give you a preview here. There are six reasons why
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I don't have what I want. We can talk about unconfessed sin. We can talk about not working for it.
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We can talk about lots of other things, but in general, I haven't asked for it.
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I haven't asked for it with the right intentions. I don't need it, or I don't need it yet. Those are the six reasons.
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God taught me a very silly, from a human standpoint, lesson with this little wallet a couple weeks ago.
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And I've told some of you all this, haven't I? And I'm just going to share it, just very quickly.
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And this is a small sample. And I know that some of us in this room, I know,
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I'm looking you in the eye, because I am fully aware. We have talked. I know some of us in this room are in the middle of it.
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That's all I can say, right? I want to show you the lesson He taught me with this. I lost my wallet a couple weeks ago.
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Do any of you all get unnecessarily angry when you lose something? Okay.
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It's not like I had that much money in it. Right? But, you know, the
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DMV, and the credit cards, and you know what I'm saying? And the bank, and when you call
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Bank of America, and the person answering tells you their name is John, and very clearly by their accent, their name is not
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John. So then you're like, I did this one time, I'm like, hey man, look, give me the respect.
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What's your name? And then he says it, and you're like, John. Because I can't pronounce that, and I'm like, all right, never mind,
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I'll pass that. So, and you know,
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I'm praying, I'm like, Lord, please help me find my wallet.
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Please. I can't find it anywhere. I'm getting so irritated about it.
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So I'm calling, I went to Home Depot that day that I lost it. So I called the customer service, and they looked very hard for my wallet for the three seconds they put me on hold.
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And by put me on hold, I mean set the phone down and just talk to a friend about whatever she was already talking about, pretending that she looked.
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You know what I'm talking about? Yeah. Yeah, she cared a lot. Anyway, after about a week, this was on Labor Day.
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Rachel, I mean, Naomi, Ava, and I got in the car, and we were driving to Dick's Sporting Goods so that Ava could buy
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Band -Aids. I don't know, that's what she wants to buy with her money, whatever, right? And I have a little gift card, and I have to go there anyway.
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So I'm going, and I get to Germantown Parkway, and I turn north instead of south, and I said, hey, girls,
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I'm going to go to Home Depot. I'm going to walk in there and see if I find my wallet. I've been praying nonstop. Maybe I'll go right to the place where it was, and it'll be right there, right?
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You know, I mean, it's not like anyone else the past week has looked through the lumber, right? I walk in,
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I go to the customer service. It was exactly the same in person as it was on the phone. She pretended to look in the box. It wasn't there.
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I go to the lumber, and I'm like, God, please let it be here. And I walk around, and I look, and it wasn't there.
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Well, before we turned into Home Depot, there was a dude sitting there at the light begging for money.
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My backyard is Sycamore View, so Ava and I have had many conversations about this. And she goes,
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Daddy, should he be doing that? And I look at him, able -bodied, both arms, both legs.
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I said no. He shouldn't. But Ava, let me tell you something.
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That doesn't make me better than him. I'm not actually talking to you right now. That doesn't make me better than him.
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That don't make me better than him. And it doesn't mean we can't show kindness. And she said, well, can I give him one of my dollars?
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She had $2 .50. And I thought for a minute. I said no.
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I don't normally give money, but I'll tell you what we will do. Keep in mind, I don't have a wallet, so I can't go to Wendy's.
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And I said, I've got a $25 gift card to Dick's Sporting Goods. We'll go and get your Band -Aids, and whatever food they have, we'll get it, and we'll bring it to them.
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All right? Okay, Daddy, that sounds good. And the sun started to come out. It was getting hot, so we go to Dick's Sporting Goods, Gatorade, and you know those peanut butter
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Cliff bars? Several of those, whatever, right? Gatorade. Drive all the way back down.
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He's still there. He's very grateful. We give it to him, and we go on our way, and she's smiling. And I said, now,
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Ava, that's how you show kindness and think of somebody besides yourself. That's how you do that.
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You thought of someone besides yourself. It was an excellent teaching moment. Naomi, I rewarded them, and Naomi wrote the coattails of Ava's kindness, is what basically happened.
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It was an excellent way to teach how to think of someone besides yourself, and an excellent example. She got the C for herself, right?
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Not just reading out of a storybook, actually doing it. You know what I'm talking about? She's never going to forget that. The next day,
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I come to work, and I walk upstairs and find my wallet immediately.
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The whole time, I'm writing this sermon on prayer, not this one, a different one, and I'm like, why do
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I not have what I want? It wasn't unconfessed sin. It wasn't anything about I haven't worked for it.
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I looked everywhere for it. It wasn't that I didn't ask for it. I didn't ask for it with the right intentions. It was that I didn't need it, and I didn't need it yet.
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Because if I'd had that, I wouldn't have turned to go to Home Depot and seen the man I had the opportunity with Ava.
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Y 'all follow me on that? Now, that can be true in a little silly example like this.
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I started applying that to the very big problems I'm having in life, as I'm sure many of us have.
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And you know what, guys? He's the sovereign God of the universe. He doesn't owe me an explanation.
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And yet, He gave it to me in one moment to remind me that not only is
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He in control, He has a wise purpose for everything, and how arrogant of me to think that He needs to give it to me when
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I say at my beck and call. Because this says right here,
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He won't be withholding that which I need. His children that cry out to Him day and night,
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He won't be withholding it from me. So either I don't need it, or I don't need it yet. And I'm okay with that.
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And I'm learning to live with that. Okay, rejoicing always, praying without ceasing.
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Ladies and gentlemen, prayer is communication with God. Let me explain this to you.
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This right here is the sovereign Word of God.
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And I fear that it's a phrase we use often and still don't know what it means. When I say this is the
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Word of God, I literally mean it contains the words of God. This right here is not a book.
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This is not a book. This is a collection of 66 different books slash literary works written by 40 different people in four languages on three different continents over 1500 years.
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All speaking the same truth because they are all inspired by the sovereign
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God. Think about that chemistry and that makeup. We can't get two politicians to agree in the same city, in the same language, over the same issue.
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Forty writers. 1500 years. Three continents, four languages.
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That type of unity only happens when there is someone working over that. And that would be God. When I read this, when you read this, that is quite literally the words of God speaking directly to you.
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Jesus holds people accountable for words written hundreds of years before to a different people group and says this was
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God speaking to you. So that I can open up 1 Thessalonians and say, David, this is God talking to you.
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Ben, this is God talking to you. You all understand that? Kylie can say, Josiah, this is
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God talking to you. Because it is. Prayer is me speaking back.
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Ladies and gentlemen, if you pray and never read, all you're doing is talking and not listening. All you're doing is talking and not listening.
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If you read and don't pray, you're listening and not responding.
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The Scripture is God speaking to us. Prayer is us talking back. And it is a communication with God like no other.
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Notice the order here. It says rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances.
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I'm going to read a quote from Charles Spurgeon. When joy and prayer are married, their firstborn child is gratitude.
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When joy and prayer are married, their firstborn child is gratitude.
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When we joy in God for what we have and believingly pray to Him for more, then our souls thank
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Him both in the enjoyment of what we have and the prospect of what's yet to come. Let me help some of us in this room.
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Because you recognize this is God's Word. But you also recognize it is about that thick.
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And you do not know but a percentage of it, right? So in your brain, you'll do something like this.
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Jeremiah, Pastor Jeremiah read that if you love me, you'll keep my commandments. Isn't that what he read this morning? I only know a few pages worth.
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So how can I love Him if I haven't had the time? Now some of us, it's the effort.
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But for some of us, the time to learn this. How do I start when
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I'm not even through this one book? Reading it, much less understanding it and applying it, right?
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This is what God did. This is what the sovereign God did. You ready for this? This changes lives.
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He took this entire book and said, all right, I'll tell you what. Every single command in that book is in one of two categories.
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And I'll tell you the categories. And if you obey these, you're at least passing. You at least have a 70.
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You at least will pass the class. You ready? Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.
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And love your neighbor as yourself. Every single command in the Bible fits in one of those two.
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Every single one. You know how? Do not steal. Love your neighbor. Do not worship other idols.
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Love God. Do not murder. Love your neighbor. And whatever you do, glorify God. Love God.
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You can't name one command that does not fit in one of those two categories. So what
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God did was said, you obey those two. You are by accident obeying every single command in this book.
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Ain't that something? Does that not give you a little hope that, OK, if I can just focus on two things.
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You know, George is not what we would call a genius. Does everyone agree with that? Lauren agreed? Yeah. But he can remember two.
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Two. It's the number after one. Two, right? Love God with every fiber of my being.
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And love my neighbor as I love myself. And I am by default obeying every single command in this book.
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Every single one. That is how we show God love. Give thanks in all circumstances.
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Read with me again. Verse 16. Rejoice always.
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Not circumstance, foundation, right? Pray without ceasing. Communication with God.
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Persistent communication with God. Give thanks in all circumstances.
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If I were to say, Josiah, give me one attribute of humans that separates the visual of the godly versus the ungodly,
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I would probably tell you thankfulness. I would probably tell you gratitude. That is probably the visual for me that most quickly identifies, for me, someone who loves
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God and someone who does not. For me. In this room,
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I could shut up and just let person after person.
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I mean, I'm looking at you. Come up here and show you with a smile what
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God has done in the life that would break every other person you know.
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And it's not because they're a strong person. It's because they serve a strong God. Thankfulness in the midst of those circumstances is only brought about by the
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Holy Spirit. It is impossible. Impossible. Not unlikely. Impossible to have that type of gratitude in the midst of that type of circumstance unless the
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Holy Spirit is driving that individual. Give thanks in all circumstances.
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Here it is. You ready? For this is the will of God in your life. Oh, how many times.
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How many times am I asked, what is God's will for my life? Your sanctification.
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That you love God today more than you did yesterday. And ladies and gentlemen, let me tell you something.
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I know 100 % that I am a believer and that if I died right now,
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I'd go to heaven. And I don't know that for any other reason than this. Not because I'm trusting a moment 25 years ago that would bring doubt to my soul now because I would start thinking maybe
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I imagined it. You know what I'm talking about? But I love
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Jesus right now more than I did a year ago. Right now. More than I did one year ago.
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And I can see that in my life. I can see that in my attitude. I can see that in the way I talk to people.
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That doesn't happen by natural circumstances. It doesn't.
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In fact, to tell you the truth, people normally get more bitter as time goes on. Gratefulness is a constant remembering of what
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God has done for me and what He is doing for me. What He has done for me and what
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He is doing for me. And let me start with what He has done for me. Let me very quickly summarize the gospel for you, if I can do that real quick.
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Can I do that? I'm going to, so. You know what the standard is to get into heaven?
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Now listen, every time I say this, I get an email, a text, a phone call, or a look.
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But let me just do this one more time. And I beg you to let me finish and hear this.
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If it's for the first time in your life you hear it with spiritual ears, I'm begging. The standard to get into heaven is absolute perfection.
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Do you hear that? That is called worry. And I have good news for that.
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That's why it's called the gospel. That standard has never changed and will never change.
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And when I say absolute perfection, I don't mean good intentions. I mean absolute perfection.
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If you don't believe me, if you don't believe me, a dude taking a bite out of a piece of fruit ruined that for him.
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Did you just hear me? How do you stand against that? How do you stand against that?
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Absolute perfection is the requirement to get into heaven. There is no exceptions. The next question you should ask is, then how is heaven not empty?
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Right? Wouldn't that be the next question? How is heaven not empty? And that's the gospel.
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You ready for this? Watch this. Creatures made from dirt defied the orders of a sovereign
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God, said, get off the throne, that's where I belong. That God said, on the day you take a bite of that, you will die.
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And they lived 900 years after that. And I've said this before.
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Listen guys, those who ask how could such a loving God dot dot dot, they are asking the wrong question.
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The question is, how is God not a cosmic pushover? The question is, how does a sovereign
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God forgive sin? How does a God who already said on the front end, who already said on the front end, perfection is the standard and I'm not changing it.
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How does that God forgive? That's the question of the Bible. And here's how.
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He said, alright, I already said I'm going to punish sin. And I will. That's what he did.
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That God from heaven came to this planet and did something amazing.
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Don't start with, yeah, he died. I'm not there yet. He lived an entire life where he obeyed every single command in this book.
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The do nots and the do. In other words, not just he didn't steal, he also honored his father and mother.
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Not just do not murder. He also should love the neighbor. You understand that? He obeyed every single one of those commands, his own rules.
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And then this is what he does. If all, listen, if all God did was forgive you of your sins, you would still not go to heaven.
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Oh, man. You see those faces right there. I wish you could see the faces I'm seeing. I am not the most liked person in this room right now.
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And that's okay. But listen, this is the most beautiful thing you'll ever hear. If all God did was forgive you, you would still not go to heaven.
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See, that's like if someone has a debt of ten, and I'm using money just for an example here, ten billion dollars.
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Some of us have had this in our account, that little dash before the number, because you're in the negative, right? If someone forgives that, all it does is bring your account back to zero.
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Right? You're still broke. That keeps you out of hell. That don't get you into heaven. What Jesus did was transfer his perfect life of obedience to the
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Bible, to God's Word, to the Father, and gave it to me. If right now
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I died, it doesn't really work like this, but if I walked up to heaven's gate, or as it were, my entrance is absolute perfection.
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Not because of me, because it's the perfection of another that was given to me. The standard is perfection.
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And that perfection, those obedience, those works of righteousness, are not mine.
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They were given to me, and to all who believe. So, perfection is the standard, but it's not mine, it's the perfection of another.
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And he loved me so, and everyone who calls on his name, that not only did he forgive me my iniquity, and take the credit for my sin, and then was punished for my sin, then he gives me the righteousness he earned by obeying
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God's law, so that I enter heaven free of my guilt which is placed on Jesus, and I take on myself the righteousness that he earned from the
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Father by obeying. Isn't that something? See, he did what Adam didn't do. He obeyed all the way through.
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Every single command. And then credits that to everyone who believes. Perfection is the standard, and it was given to all who believe.
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Isn't that something? He forgives sin, he gives credit, and then he works out that gratitude and thankfulness in those hearts on the back end.
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That's salvation. That all who bow the knee of their heart in submission to him receive the benefits of salvation based on faith alone in what he has done.
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That's the gospel. When I remember that, it is very difficult to not be grateful.
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Oh, it's so difficult. I find ways sometimes, but it is difficult not to be grateful.