Romans 9:30-10:4

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So, we have come to the end of Romans, chapter 9.
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You thought I was going to say the whole of Romans. We ain't done with Romans yet.
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But we've come to the end of chapter 9, and this one unfortunately is going to be a bit of a long one today.
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Because we're doing Romans, chapter 9, verses 30 -33, and chapter 10, 1 -4.
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The reason that we're doing it that way today is because Paul doesn't, there's no stopping point at the end of chapter 9.
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There's a chapter break, but not a stopping point. But as we normally do, we'll start back at the very beginning of chapter 9, so we can get what
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Paul is saying at the end in its full context. So starting in verse 1.
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"...and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh.
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They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises.
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To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race according to the flesh is the
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Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever, amen.
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But it is not as though the word of God has failed, for not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring.
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But through Isaac shall your offspring be named. This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.
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For this is what the promise said, about this time next year I will return, and Sarah shall have a son.
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And not only so, but also when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather
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Isaac. Though they were not yet born, and had done nothing, neither good nor bad, in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works, but because of him who calls, she was told the older will serve the younger.
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As it is written, Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated. What shall we say then?
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Is there injustice on God's part? By no means, for he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom
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I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy.
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For the scripture says to Pharaoh, for this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.
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So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.
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You will say to me then, why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?
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But who are you, old man, to answer back to God? Well, what does molded say to its molder?
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Why have you made me like this? Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?
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What if God, desiring to show his wrath, to make known his power, has endured with much patience, vessels of wrath, prepared for destruction?
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In order to make known the riches of his glory, for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory, even us whom he has called, not from the
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Jews only, but also from the Gentiles. As indeed he says in Hosea, those who are not my people
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I will call my people, and her who was not beloved I will call beloved.
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And in every place where it was said to them, you are not my people, there they will be called sons of the living
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God. And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved, for the
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Lord will carry out his sentence upon the earth fully and without delay. And as Isaiah predicted, if the
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Lord of hosts had not left us offspring, we would have been like Sodom and become like Gomorrah.
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What shall we say then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it?
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That is a righteousness that is by faith? But that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law?
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Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it was based on works.
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They have stumbled over the stumbling stone, as it is written, Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.
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Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer for God, for them, is that they may be saved.
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For I bear witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.
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For being ignorant of the righteousness of God and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness.
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For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
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Over the past several weeks, we have gone through chapter 9 as Paul lays out the doctrine of sovereign election, and how it has nothing to do with your ethnos or your ethnicity, where you're from, who your namesake is, but everything to do with who
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God has chosen sovereignly. As we come to the end of this chapter, he gives answer to what he has been saying previously in Isaiah, and he references
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Isaiah again in what we've read today. So going back to verse 30, what shall we say then?
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If you notice, Paul uses this phrase over and over and over again. It is a common thing with people who are very, very intelligent.
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If you ever listen to modern -day people speak, they tend to have two or three phrases that they continuously use over and over and over.
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But the other thing to notice is that Paul could very well say, therefore, and make a statement, but instead he frames it by way of question.
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What shall we say then? One of the things that it immediately does to your brain is cause you to think about the thing that he's fixing to say.
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Oh wait, he just asked a question. Let me hear the answer to the question. Versus the droning on of diatribe.
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This is one very effective way if you're sharing the gospel with people. Just ask them questions.
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If they ask you a question, answer the question, and then ask them another question. But what you do is you make them think about it.
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They come to the conclusion on their own. The gospel is extremely offensive, extremely offensive to natural man.
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And we shouldn't pat it or sugarcoat it or do anything like that.
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We should not do that. But you can by way of questioning a person and having them come to the conclusion, soften how their mind accepts the truth.
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Rather than pointing at someone and calling them a sinner, ask them if they are.
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More often than not, if you give a good or a decent law presentation in your gospel presentation, they will come to that conclusion on their own.
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But it says that Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness, the
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Gentiles, the Roman Gentiles that Paul is talking to, they had not grown up in the synagogues.
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They were not circumcised. They were not raised with the law. They had not memorized the
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Torah. As we spoke about before, the history of the church in Rome, these were
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Jews who had come back from Pentecost, most likely, and spread the gospel in Rome to pagans.
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They had never pursued God, and yet they attained something that the
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Jews had been seeking to attain for millennia. But Paul says that they attained it.
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And notice, after the very beginning of verse 30, what shall we say then, the question stops.
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If you go all the way to the end of the next sentence, there's a statement. What shall we say then?
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That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness attained it. That is a righteousness that is by faith.
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It's not a question of if they did. Paul's making a statement that they most definitely have. But what?
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What did they attain? A righteousness that is by faith. They attained that righteousness that is out of the reach of natural man.
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And they weren't even looking for it. They were going to temples for Roman gods.
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They were lighting the incense on the thing for the emperor.
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But they attained it. A righteousness that is not achieved by works, but is imputed by Christ, by those who have a faith, that is given by God.
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Paul then says, but that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness, meaning if they kept it perfectly, did not succeed in reaching that law.
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No, they did not. The Israelites that had been given the law of Moses, and been given the prophets and the patriarchs, and been given the word of God to keep, they had been given all instruction.
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So why, after generations and millennia, had they not attained what they were looking for?
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Why? Paul says, because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works.
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They looked at the law given to them and said, oh, we have to keep that. And they ignored the fact that the sacrificial system was put in place to show them that you can't.
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You can't. And it's not a matter of how many you've broken, or how many doves, how many things of incense.
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You're a lawbreaker because you broke one law. But because of their own unrighteousness, they couldn't see it.
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If you look back through the Old Testament, the gospel is as plain a day on every page as it is in the
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New. It's there. The law points to justification by faith alone.
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The sacrificial system points to it. The commandments point to it.
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The historical narrative points to it. There is not a single page in the
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Old Testament that does not point to Christ. But they couldn't see it.
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And the reason that they couldn't see it is the same reason that Paul mentions earlier.
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Go back to Romans 1, verse 18. Paul says, For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.
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So it didn't matter how many times it was pointed out, they just suppress it. We also see at the beginning of the chapter,
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For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel. Not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring.
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As I said before, we've been talking as we've gone through chapter 9 about God's sovereign election.
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We see that the faith in and knowledge of Christ from the
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Scriptures is given by God and God alone. It's not something that a man can come to on his own.
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The means of salvation has never changed either.
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Ever. Since the fall, it has been in Christ alone.
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Seed of the woman. Everyone who has been or ever will be saved will be saved in the very same way.
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The Jewish people rejected Christ because they were too consumed with justifying themselves. They had suppressed the truth.
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They had, as Paul says, stumbled over the stumbling stone. Paul quotes
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Isaiah again when he says, Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.
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Paul has compressed two different verses from Isaiah into this.
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One is Isaiah 8 .14. The other is
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Isaiah 28 .16. 8 .14 says, And he will be a sanctuary, but to both houses of Israel a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, to the dwellers of Jerusalem a trap and a snare.
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28 .16 says, So this is what the Lord says.
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See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation.
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The one who believes will never be shaken. So the Jews, the
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Hebrew people, the Israelites, could not see Christ for who he was because of their own sin.
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Because of their need to justify themselves before God. So they stumbled over him, completely missing the fact that he was the cornerstone.
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They were as an ill man. As an ill man given something to manage his symptoms.
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Given something to manage the symptoms of his illness and told to seek a physician for the cure. And when the physician came, they told the physician to go away.
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We do not need you, our symptoms are gone. Just like today, if you ask a thousand professing
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Christians why they should make it into heaven, the rarest answer you will receive is because Christ and his work.
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Most likely you will hear, because I go to church, or because I'm a good person, I've led a good life, or I've tried to lead a good life,
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I give money to certain causes, I give money to the church,
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I do this or I do that. One of the scariest and most lovely passages in Scripture.
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And on that day, they will say to me, Lord, Lord. If you notice in that passage, what are they doing?
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They're pointing to their own works. We have done this in your name, and we have done that in your name.
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And I will say, depart from me, I never knew you. But this points out something that we will get into also next week as we cover chapter 10, 1 -4 again.
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And that is the difference, one of the differences between the greater visible church and the much, much smaller invisible church.
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We talked about that already last week and the week before. Because not all
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Israel are Israel. Not all who are children of Abraham, not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring.
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But Paul continues, he says, Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved.
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We talked about this at the beginning of the chapter. This is something that we can, on some level, identify with Paul.
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It's different with Paul because it's his countrymen, his kinsmen. Paul is a Pharisee.
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He is an Israelite among Israelites. But we can certainly identify with the fact that our kin will not all see the kingdom.
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And the sadness and the sorrow and how that weighs on our hearts. There are people in our lives, each and every one of us, that we know are headed to perdition.
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And our prayer is that they be saved. Even those that we've talked to again and again and again and again.
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And as yet the Lord has not seen fit to show them the truth.
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The sadness that you carry as a saint is the fact that the vast majority of people that you know and you love, people that you meet in your life and that you work with, the vast majority of human beings on the earth, similar to the
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Israelites, will never, ever, ever see the kingdom. The vast majority of people in the church will not see the kingdom.
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But this is why you do not share the gospel out of spite or out of pride, but out of love for those who are lost.
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That they may hear the call of their shepherd and respond as the sheep ought to go running to their master.
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While we're on that subject, we all know that it is hard to talk to a lost relative. It is even harder to talk to one who professes faith.
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And oftentimes we are more apt to talk to strangers and share the gospel with strangers in person or online than we are to even talk to our own kin.
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Now there are different things that come into play on that, relationships and so on and so forth.
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But as we have had the example of Christ, love is not a feeling that you have.
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It is a thing that you do. Is there anything that you can do for a person that is more loving?
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Is there any love greater than to share the gospel with someone who is lost?
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There is not. Because ultimately at the end of the day, all of the things, all of the relationships, everything that they've done in their life, everything that they own, it all counts for nothing.
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You can't take it with you. The only thing that matters is either their eternal life or death.
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Think back to something that someone who's not even in the church said one time that has stuck with me.
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In those moments that God gives us to share the gospel with people, what he said was is how much must you hate a person?
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To have the opportunity to share the truth with them and not do it. To know that they are standing in front of the gates of hell and not warn them.
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Paul says in verse 2 of chapter 10, For I bear them witness that they have zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.
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We're going to get much heavier into zeal next week, this part, Scripture. But zeal is indeed a wonderful thing to have.
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It is. It is an absolutely wonderful thing to be zealous, but not if it's not informed by Scripture.
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It is a dangerous thing to have if it is not set within the confines of God's Word.
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Paul says that he testifies that they had great zeal for God, abiding in the law, meeting in the synagogues, sacrificing in the temple, wearing the phylacteries around their neck when they prayed in the mornings.
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Those are little boxes that you would put Scripture in and wear around your neck. They did all those things and were very zealous.
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There's no doubt about that, but it was not informed by Scripture. It points back to Job.
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Job is finally at a point of asking
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God why. One of the first things that God says is,
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Who darkens counsel with words without knowledge? This is one of the reasons why their laws took precedence over God's law.
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They set before God's law their own Torah, the spoken
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Torah, their own laws, the washing of hands and certain prayers that you would say. And we see through the
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Gospels Christ calling them out on these things consistently as we read before in the reading.
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But Paul says, For being ignorant of the righteousness of God and seeking to establish their own righteousness in place of God's righteousness, they did not submit to God's righteousness.
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The Jews pursued God, but they did so by the keeping of the law for works.
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And when it was shown to them that they were incapable of keeping the law, but rather trusting in the work of the
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Messiah to free them from the enemy, not their enemies, that was too much.
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It was too much for them to handle. They could not trust in God's work.
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As I said before, because of their unrighteousness and hearing that, they could not keep the law, it was outrageous to them.
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They had grown so accustomed to being preferred, to being
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God's people chosen and kept, they could not handle even being told that they were insufficient in comparison to God.
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One more statement on zeal. As I said, zeal is a wonderful thing to have, so long as it is informed by Scripture.
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But if you read all the way to the very end of the book, which most people don't, you see this in Revelation 3, 15 and 16.
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What that you were either cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot,
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I will spit you out of my mouth. Christ does not care for lukewarm
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Christians. Be hot or be cold.
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And by that, I mean either stop coming and stop trying, if you're not already, because we believe that, we confess that Christians are indwelt with the
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Holy Spirit, that He is the one who lives our Christian life, who urges us toward Christ and is the cause of our sanctification.
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We don't get a choice to not be hot. But if you're cold, if you're lukewarm, prefer to be cold over lukewarm.
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Don't pretend. The punishment for those who pretend that they are
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Christians will be far greater than those who deny Him outright. Just like the punishment for those who are lukewarm in their preaching, who would rather skip -a -dee -doo -dah through the
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Word, keeping everyone happy, people in my position, because they would rather keep everybody together, unity over truth, they will face far greater punishment because they're lukewarm.
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But we are to be on fire for the Lord. As I said before, not outside of the confines of Holy Scripture.
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Your zeal should be for Christ. It should be for God's Word. And in that, also recognize that one of the most, as I said before, one of the most difficult mission fields that you will encounter, whether you're zealous, or whether you're getting there, or whether you were super zealous and your zealousness has calmed down.
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The most difficult mission field that you will face is inside the visible church, because as I said before, the majority of people that you talk to will rather give you a summation of the law than the actual gospel.
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I challenge you, talk to them. Be zealous and go talk to them. Ask them, what's the gospel?
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You usually get two questions. Do you think you're a good person?
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Most of the time the answer is going to be yes, or I try to be. The second question to ask them is, what is the gospel?
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And more likely than not, most of it is going to be some sort of summation of the law.
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Well, to love God and love your neighbor. That's the same mistake that the
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Israelites made. There was a person just the other day.
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On the town Facebook page, they were looking for a church, and my lovely wife pointed it out to me, because I don't see everything that comes across the town
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Facebook page, Facebook in general for that matter. But she pointed out to me, and this woman wanted, not my wife, this lady on Facebook, what she wanted was a robust children's program.
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She was looking for a church with a robust children's program, a non -judgmental environment, and a preacher who would not preach to her, but would rather have a modern conversational style sermon.
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In short, what this woman was looking for was not a church, because if that's what happens when you go to church, that is not church.
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Church is prescribed. We have a prescribed order of worship. That is why we do the things the way we do them here, because God said so, and we don't get to pick and choose what we do in the worship service.
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But what she was looking for was a Christianized social club where she could drop her kid off, have a break from them, and where she could be patted on her head along with everyone else.
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As I said before, she skippity -doo -dahs her way straight to hell. I at least want to be comfortable while I'm going.
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That's what most people do. Guaranteed, at a place like that, the rarity will be a person hearing the gospel and coming to Christ.
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When it does happen in those places, it isn't long before they're gone.
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He says in verse 4, For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
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Christ is what the law points to. It shows our works are insufficient because of our unrighteousness.
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It shows God's righteousness and His glory. And as Isaiah says in chapter 64 verse 6,
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Every good thing that you will do in your life in comparison to the righteousness of God is like a soiled woman's garment.
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That is what the words mean in Hebrew. Think about that for a minute.
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Really think about it. The greatest thing that you've ever done in your life in comparison to God's righteousness is a soiled garment.
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We were reading in the confession before the separation from creation and Creator being so vast that in the person of Christ, God condescended
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Himself and took on human flesh. The chasm between man and God is so great that there is no achievable means by which man can attain righteousness.
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None. The only way was for God, the
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Son, to come in the person of Jesus and do it Himself. It says this.
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God says this in Exodus. And I'm going to read it, short version, because if often you don't read it, you should, so that you remain humble.
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You shall have no other gods before me. And an idol is anything at all that you set above God.
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If you have a doctrine that you talk about and think about and wonder about and learn about more than the gospel and Christ, it is an idol.
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You have set it first. Stop it.
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Sports, politics, economics, anything that you set as more important has become a god, has become an idol.
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You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a card image to worship.
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And I point that fact out, that that is in there, to worship, because that doesn't mean you can't go and carve a bird or carve another thing or make paintings.
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This doesn't outlaw art, though a lot of people say that it does.
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But what he's saying is you shall not make for yourself a carved image or any image of anything in heaven or on the earth or under the earth to worship.
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Golden calf come to mind. You shall not take the name of the
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Lord your God in vain. Now, many people take that in many directions.
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But ultimately, you should not use the name of the Lord in any profane way, in any way other than is appointed by Scripture, with reverence giving glory to it.
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You shall remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. Honor your father and your mother.
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Everyone in here at some point was a child, was a teenager. You broke it. I know you did, myself included.
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We were all unruly children. Every child is. That is also the first one with a promise.
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A lot of people struggle with that one. How do you do that when you're an adult and they're an adult and they say go do this and you say
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I've got a 530 appointment? That's not what it means. Honor their position.
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You honor the position, not the person. You shall not murder.
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That is murder, not kill. It's a different Hebrew word altogether. The Ten Commandments does not advocate pacifism.
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It says do not murder. You shall not commit adultery. If you remember in the
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Sermon on the Mount, Christ elevated that from a physical sin to one of the mind.
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You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
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You shall not covet. Don't mistake covetousness.
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Covetous is separate from envy. It's also separate from aspiration. It is okay to aspire to bigger things.
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If you have a job, you want a better job, go get a better job. It's not okay to want something another person has.
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It's not I want a wife or I want a car. I want my neighbor's wife and my neighbor's car.
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That's what leads to the other ones, theft, adultery, murder. How many of all of us in this room broken?
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How often do we still break them? It really gets my goat that there is a church right down the road from us who preaches that it is achievable in this lifetime that you can get to a point where you no longer break them.
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That is a lie from the pit of hell. And if anyone ever says that to any of you, tell them that.
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You will stop sinning when you die. But we are all lawbreakers.
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We are all guilty. We all deserve eternal punishment for offending an eternal
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God. The law shows us that. It shows us that we are not enough.
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You are not enough. Indwelt with the Holy Spirit, you're not enough.
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The Holy Spirit is. You're not. That's why. Be grateful that you have the
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Holy Spirit. But what it does do is it...
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The other thing that it does is it drives us to the one who is enough. It drives us to Christ.
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As Paul says, it is the end of the law for all who believe. So when you sin and you're convicted of it, and you pray and you repent a true repentance, move on.
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Stop dwelling in it. There is no reason for you to try to be keeping the law in that manner.
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While I sin 15 times a day, and I sin 5 times the day before, and I sin 25 times the day before,
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I gotta do this, and I gotta do this, and I gotta do... We're not Catholics. Stop it. And I know everybody in this room has done that at some point.
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I know you have. You might not remember doing it because it was a long time ago, but at some point you have done it.
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You're going to sin. There is no point in having constant regret over it because you can't do it on your own.
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You can't. That's the point. When you sin, and you repent, and you have that moment of regret and grief, godly repentance over this sin that you've just committed, take that.
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When it tells you, I'm not enough, and say, I'm not. Praise God that I have the
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Holy Spirit. Praise God for Christ who is enough. Through Him, everyone who believes is justified from everything you could not be justified from by the law of Moses.
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Paul and Barnabas preached that to a synagogue in Acts. It's in Acts 13, 39.
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How could one man do this? How could one man justify millions of people?
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Because of who he was. Because he's God the
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Son. He's the second person of the Trinity, condescended into human flesh, and kept the law perfectly.
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His value is greater than all of creation. All of it.
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Just as difficult as it is for you and your mind to conceive of nothing, and try for a second.
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It's impossible. If you think of a black void, that's not nothing.
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That's just a black void. As difficult as it is to conceive that in the human mind, it is more eternally difficult to think of the value of Christ.
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But he did it. He did it for us. Those he loved.
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And he continues to give intercession for us. Matthew Poole says on this section, he says,
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He perfected the ceremonial law as being the substance whereof all the ceremonies of the law were shadows.
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They all referred to him as their scope and end. He perfected also the moral law, partly by his active obedience, fulfilling all the righteousness thereof, partly by his passive obedience, bearing the curse and punishment of the law, which was due to us, whatever the law required that we should do or suffer, he hath perfected on our behalf.
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And if you're a person sitting here, or you're listening, and you recognize that you can't, that your righteousness is nothing, your works are nothing, run to the one who is.
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Run. Call out to him.
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For what sheep who runs to their shepherd is not picked up. I'll leave you with this.
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Well, I got one more, and then I'll leave you with something. If you already profess
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Christ, don't you ever for a second take your eyes off of him.
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Not for one second. That may be hard through your day to day, and it's not required of you that Christ be in your mind every second of every day.
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But in the grand scheme of things, do not take your eye off of him. Because he is the only reason that you're going to make it there.
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If you have not read the Pilgrim's Progress, I suggest that you read it. I prefer the long version, the original version.
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Some people may prefer a smaller version, like the children's version. Either way, the point is the same.
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The gate is small, the path is narrow, and it is a straight path, but there are fences and ditches on either side.
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So long as you keep your eyes on Christ, when you stray, you will not stray far.
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Now I'll leave you with this. You better know these words. Nothing in my hand
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I bring. Simply to thy cross I cling. My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness.
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I dare not to trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name.
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On Christ the solid rock I stand. All other ground is sinking sand.
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Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you again for this time that we can come together, that we can worship you, that we can sing songs of praise, hear your word.
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We ask that at the end of this service, you would put a great conviction on us to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with those that we love, those that we hate, to those that we in our flesh think aren't deserving, because Father, we know that we are undeserving.
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And yet, from before the foundations of the earth, you set us aside. We pray,
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Father, that we do not lose sight of that purpose, that our chief end is to glorify you, to serve you.
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Father, we ask, we ask for wisdom, and we ask for strength, and we ask for zeal for our
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Lord Jesus Christ and for the gospel. Father, as we move into a time of fellowship, we also ask that you would keep our minds centered on Christ, and that in the conversation that we have, you would cause us to make it edifying to each other, that we as a group, as a congregation, as fellow believers, as the elect, we would aid each other in keeping our lives
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Christ -centered. We ask also, we give thanks also for everything that we have, for we understand that it is all a blessing, that even in this life, as we live in corrupt flesh, what we deserve is hell, but you have given us opportunity to live lives with people that we love.
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You have given us great blessing. Father, we ask that you would not let us lose sight of our joy and thanksgiving in Christ Jesus, our