Romans Road

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Join me this Thursday, the 23rd we travel the Romans Road.

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All right, we are live. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Open Air Theology.
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My name is Jeff Rice. I am one of the pastors of Covenant Reformed Baptist Church.
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We meet in Tallahoma, Tennessee. I also have a YouTube channel called
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My Two Cents with Jeff Rice, and I am one of the owners of Post Tender Breaths Lux Bible Rebinding, as well as Post Tender Breaths Lux Beard Care.
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And as you can see, Braden isn't here with me tonight, and so I got my good buddy
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Austin Hammers, and I'm gonna let him introduce himself in a minute. Me and Austin, we met from Facebook, just like me and all these other cats, and so the the plan is, as of right now, when
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Braden's able to be on, me and Braden will walk through Matthew 24 -25, and I think we'll do the book of Revelation afterwards.
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Whenever no one can come on with me, I'm going to do what I've been teaching in Sunday school, which
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I did Facebook Live of that last week. And whenever Austin can come on when
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Braden is not on, we're going to do the Romans Road. Not the Romans Road that you might be expecting, like here's how you evangelize.
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We're going to walk through the book of Romans, and so right now
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I want to turn it over to Austin Hammers and let him introduce himself. Hello, my name again is
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Austin Hammers. I'm just a student of the gospel, learning every day what it means to live by faith.
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Jeff and I met through Facebook and just have a lot of really good conversation about theology, and my goal is to relocate and become a faithful member of that church.
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I currently live in South Carolina and just looking forward to growth. Yeah, so Austin contacted me one day and said that he was going to be driving in town and wanted to shake my hand and have a conversation, and so we met up, and we've been talking most every day since by phone or text message, and just, you know, so we got lots of plans, and if you go on our
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YouTube channel, you'll see a video where it's just a recording of me and him having a conversation.
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This is where the whole My Two Cents kind of came into being. This was a creation of mine and his, and so I know most people probably don't know that, but this is kind of just be another set -off version of that because it's kind of hard to do everything that we want to do, and so we thought we'd combine the two and just have it on Open -Earth
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Theology being that Braden works as a real -life superhero, him being a fireman, so I think he's able to be on three podcasts, and then he's off one, well, then he's off two, but I do believe he's been off three now, but that's because he has some something to do with church, but anytime something like that happens,
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Austin Hammers will come on here with me, and if Austin's unable to come on, then I'll come on by myself, and we'll do some stuff that I've been teaching in Sunday school.
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So what do we know about the Book of Romans, right? Yeah, I mean, it's like I can remember whenever I started a reading system called the
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Professor Horner reading system. It's where you read ten chapters of the book, well, ten chapters of ten different books, and then they have some books where you repeat, and so one of the books that I put on repeat was
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Romans, and so I think I did that reading system for five years, so every 16 days,
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I was reading through the Book of Romans. So I've read through the Book of Romans more than I have any other book.
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Romans, James, and John. I mean, I spent 90 days in John reading the Book of John every day for 90 days, but Romans is one of those books, it's kind of like a, if Paul ever wrote a systematic theology, it is the
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Book of Romans, and Austin, I know that you've been reading a lot about it, its themes, and it's, you know, from the
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ESV Study Bible, I believe you said you were looking into it. Yeah, yeah, it's been fun, man.
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I'm more the barbarian myself, so it's... I'm a barbarian, okay? Yeah, yeah, no, it's just, it is what it is, man.
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I've got friends who are the Greeks, and I adore them because they get to teach me these things, and it's always a fun phone call, but yeah, the
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ESV Study Bible, the Reformation Study Bible, there's just so much, there's so much to talk about.
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It's such a cool book. I've been stuck in it myself for about a month now, and I can't seem to get past chapter six, so I'm still in chapters one to six, just soaking it in.
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Very cool. So I figure before we get into...
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yeah, let's just read through it. I mean, so you have a, you know, just kind of gives a little bit of background.
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You have, at the time in Rome, so you have
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Emperor Claudius was, when Claudius was the emperor, he chased out of Rome all the
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Jews, Christians, and just was persecuting, and then when Claudius died, you had these
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Jews coming back into Rome, and these churches that were established, kind of, you know, that were going under persecution, and then there was this animosity, which we see it all throughout scriptures.
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We see it in the book of Galatians. We see it in the book of 1st John of Jews, not being friendly, not welcoming their
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Gentile brothers, and so the book of Romans is one of these books where Paul comes in and lays the smackdown in this letter, and it's basically about how the
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Gentile is the brother, and that the Gentile does not have to keep the law, and as a matter of fact, they don't even keep the law.
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Everyone has broken the law, and because of that, they need a redeemer. Just to give you a little, you know, without being too theological right now, or going into too much history, and so that's just basically what's going on, but let's read it, and well, again, this is not going to be an exposition.
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This is just going to be, we're going to walk through it. We're going to try to cover everything, but not in depth.
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If you have any, if we come to something, you have questions about it, feel free to ask the questions. We'll give you the best answer we can.
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I don't plan on preaching through the book of Romans until I'm like 500 sermons in, right?
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So I've been full -time preaching for two years now. I've probably missed seven or eight
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Sundays by allowing other people to enter the pulpit, and so once I get around 500 sermons,
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I plan on hitting the book of Romans, just because it is so deep, and I want to prepare myself as of the ground before I hit it running, and yeah.
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The goal here is not to necessarily be doing like an exposition or a deep dive or anything like that, but a layman's study.
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You know, we want to talk about general topics, things that are clear and simple to follow, because I prefer simplicity myself.
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I enjoy theology and the deep richness of it, don't get me wrong, but sometimes simple is just best.
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I'm not going to lie, I'll probably get a little deep on some things, but yeah, we're not going to expose it.
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I'm not going to read five commentaries on it as I walk through it. I don't have time for that right now.
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I'm already, you know, going through the book of Hebrews and preparing myself for the gospel of John, so I don't have time to read five different things on the book of Romans.
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I'm not saying I'm not studying on it, I just have to limit my study, and we're just going to walk through it and read it, answer some questions.
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You know, if I don't know something, I'm going to say, hey, I'm not sure, I'm not going to beat around the bush or anything like that.
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I'll read from, if you don't mind, I'll read the first half. I'll stop after 17, you can pick up at 18.
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Well, let's go ahead and by heading, because we have in the salutation here, the opening, something's very important that's stated here, and I definitely want to point out the benediction as well.
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I know the benediction is the last part of Romans, but I just want people to see the opening as well as the benediction.
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So if you don't mind, I'll start with the first seven verses, and I'll let you take the next section.
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That's interesting. Read it, talk about it, and then go to the next one. Yeah, yeah. All right, so to start with, we have
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Paul, so we know who Paul is, right? Saul of Tarsus. He gets knocked off his high horse.
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Jesus comes to him. He believes. He's baptized. He begins to follow.
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He is sent out by the church. Paul, he is an apostle. So Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God.
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So we see here that Paul is set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets and the
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Holy Scriptures concerning his son, now listen right here, who was a descendant of David according to the flesh, and who was declared to be the
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Son of God in power according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead,
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Jesus Christ the Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about, listen, the obedience of faith for the sake of his name,
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I mean, for the sake of his name among all the nations, including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ, to all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints, grace to you and peace from God our
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Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. So this is his opening. This is the salutation. I want to now go to the ending of the book,
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Romans chapter 16, and I want you to see how he ends it the way he began it.
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1625. Give me a second. It's hard to turn these pages with this microphone all up on me.
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Yeah, 25. So 25, this is where it begins the doxology.
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This is now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospels. We have the gospel mentioned again in the preaching of Jesus Christ.
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Remember, Paul was set apart to preach the gospel according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret from long ages ago.
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So if you just look right here at the very beginning, I, Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel, verse 2 of chapter 1, which he promised beforehand through the prophets and the
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Holy Scriptures. He's kind of reiterating this right here in chapter 16, verse 25.
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Again, 1625. Now to him who was able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret from long ages, but now has been disclosed to the prophetic writings and has been made known to all nations according to the command of the eternal
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God right here to bring about the obedience of faith to the only wise
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God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ. So he opens it up, proclaiming gospel, proclaiming that he is sent, proclaiming that this gospel is something that was prophesied, and he says that through it he received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith.
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That Paul, through God's grace of being an apostle, his mission was to bring about the obedience of faith, and he closes by saying, according to the command of the eternal
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God, to bring about the obedience of faith. The theme of the book of Romans is the obedience of faith, right?
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It's not obedience to the law, it's the obedience of faith.
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And if you will go on our church page or our church YouTube page, I just started preaching on Hebrews chapter 11, and Hebrews chapter 11 is on the obedience of faith.
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You'll see how the Hebrews 11, the
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Hall of Faith, those that were credited with righteous, those who live by faith in the
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Old Testament, it kind of highlights their life and their obedience and faith.
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Not their law -keeping, but what they done in faith.
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And that's what the book of Romans is. So at the very beginning, we have the salutation and the benediction.
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These two being the bookend, it bookends with the obedience of faith.
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And so as we walk through the book of Romans, that's what we're going to see. We're going to see
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Paul teaching the obedience of faith. Not the law, but the obedience of faith.
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Those that are in Christ following their Lord. We see it in Acts 10 too, don't we?
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Yeah, we can. I mean, it's beautiful.
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So what are you Peter has the dream where everything that was common is now clean.
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Don't call it common. And that it's applying to not just food, but Gentiles. And you see it carried out because Peter's waking up and those men are there to pick him up.
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What is the Cornelius? Cornelius, because an angel, so Cornelius is praying and the
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Lord sends an angel. And it's kind of similar to what we see with Daniel. As Cornelius is praying, the angel shows up and the angel tells him that, you know, send your men to go get
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Peter and tells him where Peter's at. And basically Peter just had this vision and his job is to come and explain to Cornelius how he no longer has to be in the outer chamber in the
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Gentiles area. He gets to come into the fold like he's part of the family now. And it's all because of the obedience of faith,
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Christ's active obedience, right? I mean, yeah, so you have the because of the act, which we'll get into this because of the act of obedience of Christ, you and I live under the obedience of faith.
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So Christ was actively Christ, actively obeyed and kept the law.
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You and I, you know, like we are in him, we have been united in him, the life that we live, it's no longer us that lives,
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Galatians chapter 2, verse 20, but it's Christ living in us. And so and that's what
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Paul's calling us to do. Again, if you listen to the message that I have in Hebrews, going through Hebrews, the call are living by faith, the righteous shall live by faith.
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It's pointed to Hebrews 10, beginning in verse 22, where it deals with faith, hope and love, that we draw near in faith, that we hold on to the confession of our hope, and we stir up one another to love and good works.
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Now, how do we do that? By not neglecting to meet together as some are in the habit of doing. So every
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Christian, now, I think this needs to be said in this post -COVID era.
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If you are a Christian, you have a ministry. I don't care if you were born again last
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Lord's Day. This Lord's Day, you have a ministry, and it is to encourage one another to love and good works.
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We are to draw near to God in faith. We are to hold on to the confession of our hope, and we are to stir one another up to love and good works, and we do that by not neglecting to meet together as some are in the habit of doing.
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So this is the context of Hebrews, where He's calling them to live in faith, and then in the next chapter,
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He shows those in the Old Testament their life that they lived in faith.
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Amen. I mean, He says it right here, too, in Romans 1, 11, and 12, for I long to see you that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you, that is that we may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith.
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Yeah, so I want you to go on and read from, which I'm sure we'll come back to, that verses 1 through 7 over and over, but go on and read from chapter 8 to 15, if you want to, or you can go a little further, it don't matter.
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No, we'll go right there. First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world.
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For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing
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I mention you always in my prayers, asking that somehow by God's will I may now at least succeed in coming to you.
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For I long to see you that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you, that is that we may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith, both yours and mine.
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I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that I have often intended to come to you, but thus far have been prevented.
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In order that I may reap some harvest among you, as well as among the rest of the
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Gentiles, I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish.
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So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. Yeah, so verse 14 is probably one of mine and Austin's favorite verse, because it mentions the
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Greek and the barbarian, and he as well as myself, we consider ourselves to be a part of that barbarian clan, right?
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Without question. Yeah, we're just some street kids, you know, some woodpeckers and peckerwoods on the streets, and you know, that God chose to save, you know, and God chose to grant to us faith to believe.
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And little by little through studying God's words and being educated, I don't want to say that we're turning into Greeks, but we do have an understanding.
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That's right, it's been palletized. I still have to wear my helmet when I walk around, but it's getting better.
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Right, right, right. Yeah, yes, I like how you pointed out verses 11 and 12 whenever I was speaking about Hebrews 10 beginning in verse 22.
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Paul tells them that he longs to see them, that he might impart some spiritual gift to them and to strengthen them.
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And I did believe, when you look here in my Greek verse, so I'm reading from the
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ESV, but I got my Greek over here just to kind of sometimes keep me on track.
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So the spiritual gift to impart. Yeah, yeah, so it could also mean to share, as if they're sharing with one another.
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Not just to say that Paul's going to give them something without receiving something.
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Right, I don't know, like when I first started in ministry, I don't know if a lot of people know this, but I started in ministry preaching in jail, in the jails.
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So down here in Nashville, there's a jail called, it's CJC, and it was kind of like a hoding center.
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So if you had to go and spend 15 years, you could spend three years in this jail before they haul you off to do the remaining of your time.
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Well, the longest stint of your time. Or let's say you just got done spending 15 years, and you have three more years left, then you could go to CJC as kind of a transitional.
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It's kind of like a transitional period to where, you know, from there you would get. So I would get them going into spending a long term, and I would also get them as they were coming out from spending a long term.
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And listen, I don't know how many times I go there ready to share the
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Word, to share a spiritual gift, like to share what I have, and they would share with me.
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Like I would leave there blessed. You know, I don't even know if I blessed them as much as they blessed me.
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Like it was beautiful, right? Being, you know, locked into a room, you know, sometimes just me and or a few of us with, you know, it could be 20, 40, 60 inmates, and it was just a wonderful experience.
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You know, these guys are wonderful. When I read that, that's kind of what
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I'm thinking. You know, he he longs to be with them so that he can share with them his gift, but also that they could share with him their gift.
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It's a give -and -take, right? It's Christians. It's relationship.
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It's intimate. We sit around a table. We eat a meal. We share what we have.
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Does that make sense? Absolutely. I mean, amen. As iron sharpens iron, we have to, and I mean, bearing one another's burdens, absolutely.
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It's a community wealth. Right. Which is why,
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I mean, it's so precious. It's, and Scripture regards it as such. It's the church is the bride of Christ, and that's why,
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I mean, it's special. I had a question for you, too.
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You have something written down. It's in here in my notes, but I'm trying to find it.
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If you want to keep going, I can come back to it. Forget me. Well, just think about it. I'll touch on verse 8.
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Verse 8 talks about, first, I'd like to thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith, he's speaking to the faith of those who are in Rome, is proclaimed in all the world, and so I'm not trying to turn this into an eschatological study, but again, so the word here for world is
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Cosmo, right? It's the order. It's earth. Paul's saying that their faith has been proclaimed in all the world.
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So just for y 'all people to think, you know, and if you tune in for our eschatology discussion on Matthew 24, 25, and Revelation, well, that verse will probably come up.
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Did you think about that question? Yes. So at verse 15, so I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.
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When Paul's saying this, yeah, in context, he's talking to the church. So is he saying that he wants to come and worship with them in church and bring the message, or is this a statement of he's going to go out and preach in the streets?
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What does Paul mean there? Well, he says to you, so he's speaking to the church, the recipients of this letter, so he's not speaking...
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yeah, yeah. I think the church can learn a lot from this right here, because most churches, you know, like say, so we have a small church, right, and we're renting a building.
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We can only have signs up for the time that we are in the building. So I get to the church early, set up, put the signs up.
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It is no fun. When I leave for the day, yeah, when I leave for the day, I take the signs with me. That's no fun either.
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Yeah, so for the most part, people don't know that there's a church meeting where we're meeting at, because, you know,
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I mean, only if you're driving by at a certain time that we have the signs up, right?
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And so our church is pretty small, but every Lord's Day for the last two years, there's not been one time that I've preached without an in -depth proclamation of the gospel.
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Now, to a lot of people that might seem silly, but not to me, and not to my congregation, right?
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Simply because not only does the gospel save, but the gospel saves, right?
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The Bible says that we are saved. We will be saved.
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We are being saved, and we will be saved. So if you look at it, it's kind of like a justification. We're saved.
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We are being saved. Sanctification, and we will be saved.
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Glorification. The gospel is for all that, right? The same gospel that gives you faith to believe keeps you with faith, right?
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So at our church, being Reformed, we believe that God grants repentance, and that God grants faith, and He faiths you.
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God grants repentance, and He repents you. So this is an ongoing process of growth throughout your
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Christian life, and we believe that the main thing that God uses for our salvation is the main thing that God uses for our sanctification.
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That is the gospel, the message of what Jesus Christ has done. So the gospel is not just for the lost.
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I would say it's more so, I hate to use the word more so, but for the believer.
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The believer needs the gospel. God has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, and it's through the gospel.
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It's through the means of grace. So this is what I think Paul is speaking about, just coming to them and proclaiming the gospel.
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One of Paul's gifts is the gift of proclaiming the gospel. Whenever he talks about sharing with them,
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I think this goes back to verse 11, where it talks about that he might impart in them some spiritual gift to strengthen them.
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I think this impartation of a spiritual gift is Paul's gift of speaking the gospel, preaching the gospel.
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I think we really get deep into that in chapter 3, the righteousness of God unto salvation.
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It's amazing where Paul digs into it deeply.
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Even in the next set of verses here, if you don't mind me moving forward, because it goes with what you're saying.
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Let me read 16 and 17, and I'll let you read from 18 to 31, because I think 16 and 17 is going to bring us right back to the salutation, his welcoming.
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Okay. All right, verse 16, Paul says, it's coming off of the hills of 15, where he says,
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I am eager to preach to you the gospel, to you also who are in Rome.
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So he says, for I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the
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Jew first, also to the Greek. For in it, speaking of the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, for the righteous shall live by faith.
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So we have from faith, this is where I see this justification, this belief, this trust.
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From faith, for faith, this for faith would be the obedience of faith, the righteous shall live by faith.
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Now he's speaking the word gospel, but what is the gospel? We see that he's not ashamed of it, we see that it is the power of God, we see that it is for everyone, to the
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Jew first and also to the Greek. So he's hammering down, look, you
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Jew, you Greek, it's not just for you, as well as it is for the
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Jew, it's for the Greek, as well as it's for the Greek, it's for the Jew. But Paul had already preached the gospel in the opening part of this letter.
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Again, let's go back to verse 1. He says, Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets and in the
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Holy Scriptures, right here, concerning his son. Notice with me, it says, who was a descendant of David, according to the flesh, and was declared to be the
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Son of God in power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by his resurrection from the dead,
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Jesus Christ our Lord. So right here we see the hypostatic union, right?
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We see that Jesus was truly God, he proves it by his resurrecting from the dead.
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So this is through the Spirit of holiness, and we see that he was truly man, he was a descendant of David.
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And so Paul begins with the gospel, that this
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Jesus, by saying he was a descendant of David, he's pointing out that Jesus is the
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Messiah, his messianic birthright, that he's the one who sits on the throne of David, the one who, you know, and he proves this by resurrecting from the dead, because he's also the
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Son of God. I really don't want to go where it's not touching, but if you but if I was to exposit this portion of text, of course
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I would go to, you know, 10, 20 other texts to show the hypostatic union and how
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Jesus was born according to the flesh, but he's also, him being
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God, the Creator entering creation took upon the human nature that Jesus is both truly
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God, truly man, and yet one Christ. And so this gospel that he is professing, that's the power of God, it's pointing back to what he was declaring right here, that Jesus was a descendant of David according to the flesh, and he was declared to be the
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Son of God in power according to the Spirit of Holiness by his resurrection.
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By his resurrection, speaking of that he was dead, buried, and he rose again.
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And so I would say that it takes God, it takes Jesus being truly God in order to to keep the law, and it takes
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Jesus being truly man in order to die, because the gospel's clear, man cannot keep
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God's law, and God cannot die. Jesus had to be both truly God and truly man.
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Amen. And so verse 17, that is the righteousness of God revealed from faith, this is what saves you, and it's for faith.
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This is, this message is how the righteous are to live by faith. That's right.
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If you don't have any other questions, you can go to verse 18. No, it's just, it's beautiful.
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I love all this. All right, so I'm just gonna go ahead and read through this. There's a lot said here.
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We're gonna come back and talk about it, believe me. Yeah, if I stop you. Yeah, no, feel free to stop me too.
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Like if you want to stop and cover something, just go ahead and catch my attention. No worries, I'll pick up when you're done. 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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For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world.
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And the things that have been made, so they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened, claiming to be wise.
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So there's a lot of information right there. First, we see that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of man.
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And it says, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. And I know that y 'all probably heard this before, but listen, this is probably the best analogy that I've heard dealing with the subject.
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And if you've heard it before, use it, okay? It's wonderful. There is no such thing as an atheist, right?
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There is absolutely no such thing as an atheist. There's only those, Bible's clear, that suppress the truth and unrighteousness.
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And so the analogy is given of a beach ball being held underwater. And we've all done this.
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We've tried to hold the beach ball underwater. That's called suppressing. You're suppressing the beach ball underwater.
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You let go, the beach ball does what the beach ball naturally does, pops out.
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And so the Bible says that the unrighteous, the ungodly, suppress the truth in unrighteousness.
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Who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. They know there's a God, but because of their sin, they suppress the truth.
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And this also goes back to what I preached on last week. Hebrews chapter 1,
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I mean chapter 11 verses 1 through 3. Let me read that real quick.
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Hebrews 11 verses 1 through 3. Speaking of faith, it says, now faith is the assurance.
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This also can be translated as substance. Now faith is the assurance, the substance of things hoped for.
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The conviction, the word conviction, the Greek word can be translated as evidence of things not seen.
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So your faith is the substance, it is the assurance of things hoped for, and it is the evidence of things not seen.
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For by it, speaking of faith, the people of Ode received their commendation.
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Right here, verse 3. By faith we understand that the universe was created by the
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Word of God, so that what was seen was not made out of things that are visible.
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And then you get right here in our text, verse 18. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.
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What is seen gives evidence of what is unseen. Your faith gives evidence of your birth.
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So if you tell me you're a Christian, but you're not living, this is where James 2 picks up, but you're not living in the obedience of faith, you're basically denying your birth, your being born again.
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And Paul, which I believe wrote Hebrews, we can argue that, that's fine, he brings it to creation.
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Creation reveals this. We know that there's a creator, not because we can see him, but because of what he's created.
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And that's the evidence that the writer, who is
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Paul also, was given in Romans. He says, for what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.
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Right here, for his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and his divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world.
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Things that have been made, they are without excuse. Now right here, it's kind of tricky, so it says, for although they knew
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God, so hear me out, so right here, for although they knew
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God, this speaking of the whole world, everyone knows there's a God, they're suppressed in truth and unrighteous, remember the beach ball, they're suppressed in truth and unrighteous, although they know
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God, this know God here is not an intimate knowing of God.
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It's clear the only way you can truly know God the Father is through Jesus Christ.
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If you don't know, if you have not received Jesus Christ by faith, you do not know
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God intimately. So where it says, although they knew God, this is not saying that they know him, it's kind of like I was preaching a couple weeks ago on the side of the road, and I had mentioned this verse, and I said, just like you, sir,
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I'm talking to a guy in a car, I said, I know that you are a man and you are driving this car.
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I said, but I don't know you, I can't walk up and do a fist bump, like we don't know each other like that, but I know you are a man and that you are driving a car, but I don't know your name,
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I don't know your parents, I don't know your your wife, like I know nothing outside of the fact that you're in a car and you're driving, and so when it talks about them knowing
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God, it's speaking of it this way. They know there's a God because of creation, but when it says that they know
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God, it's not talking about they know him as their
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God, it's just that they know that there is a God, and a lot of people get very confused with that, because if you read the book of Galatians, Paul speaking to Gentiles tells them that they did not know
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God, and when he tells them that they did not know God, he's not saying that you do not know there's a
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God. At the creation of the clergy's glory, he's saying that you do not know him relationally, but then you were brought to faith in Jesus Christ, then you know
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God. That's right. Sorry. No, no, I mean it's a good point. Really, the only question that it leaves is, where does the faith come from, right?
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And I don't know if this is something we could talk about lightly, but I mean how would you answer that,
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Jeff? Yeah, so faith, again, everyone has faith in something, but saving faith is something altogether different, right?
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Saving faith is believing something that's scientifically impossible.
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That's why as Reformed Christians, we emphatically stand on the fact that no one conjures faith, right?
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No one wakes up and decides to believe. I know there's a listener not long ago, when
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I said those words, they typed in Romans chapter 12, verse 3, where it talks about each man has a measure of faith, but that's dealing with Christians.
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It's not talking about each man, but I would say that each man does have a measure of faith, but it's different.
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It's a different faith. It's not faith in Christ. Again, I'm pretty sure you're sitting down, right?
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Yeah. So you have faith that that chair holds you. I got faith that this chair holds me, and so there's a certain amount of faith that we have daily.
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I got faith that when I hit the brakes in my car, it's going to stop, and you know there's been times in my life where I've had that faith in my brakes, and my faith failed me.
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That's a scary feeling, right? Yeah. You know, but that's faith, right?
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Now, faith in God, saving faith is different, because we're saying that in order to be saved, that you have to have faith in Jesus Christ.
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You have to believe that Jesus, who is God, entered creation, took on flesh, lived the life that you could not live as a substitute, and died in your place.
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The punishment that you deserve as a substitute was in the ground for three days, three nights, and came about the ground in a glorified body, was seen for 40 days, and ascended into heaven, and is at the right hand of the
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Father right now making intercession and prayer. We're saying that that's what you have to believe. Amen.
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And we live in a world where we don't see dead man coming about the grave, so it's scientifically impossible what we are to believe, and yet you and I and millions of people believe this, and what we're saying is we don't believe this because we've convinced ourself it's true.
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We believe this because we've been born again. God has given us a supernatural faith to believe, and nothing can change our mind.
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I believe this more than I believe anything else. Amen. I was going to take us to Ephesians 2, 8 through 10.
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For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.
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For we are his worksmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which he predestined beforehand, just—I'm sorry, beforehand—that we should walk in them.
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All right, and that's speaking of the obedience of faith, verse 10. Exactly. So just to kind of reiterate on your question, how does someone get faith?
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Well, that message that I just spoke about Jesus, that is
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God's power. Again, verse 16, for I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, the
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Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it, that message, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith.
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That means it gives you faith for faith, as it is written, the righteous shall live by faith.
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That's beautiful. And it's so simple. I think we're really good at over -complicating this today.
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I mean, I heard it first from you. The gospel is the spout in which all doctrine must flow.
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And I mean, it's it. Yeah. If you hold to theological doctrine that contradicts the gospel, leave it.
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You're slipping. Yeah. Leave it fast. Cut and run.
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All right, so you want to continue to read? We'll try to get through chapter one. Yeah, we got a we got a we're almost there.
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Yeah. All right. Claiming, just let me know when to stop. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal
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God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
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Therefore, God gave them up in their lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies amongst themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the
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Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions.
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For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature. And the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
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And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a devised mind to do what ought not to be done.
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They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness.
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They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, isolate, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.
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Though they know God's righteous decree, that those who practice such things deserve to die.
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They not only do them, but give approval to those who practice them. So let's start at verse 32, unless you want to say something.
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Yeah, just it's that, you know, in the first half of this we got, we've got the just the beautiful image of the gospel and what it does and what it offers and just what what it is, right?
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And then and then we get the contrast of it. We've got the counterfeit which is here, the world. And so it's like it's,
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I've been in, I've sat in sermons especially with like, and really heard stories of like just people who have been in recovery ministries and stuff like this really gets preached in a way of Hellstone and Brimfire, you know, and it's not a list for us to judge one another by.
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It's, it's just a general collection of nastiness, right?
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I mean, am I wrong in there? Yeah, I mean, it names off a lot of, a lot of things.
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I think my favorite one is Inventors of Evil, just in case it's not on this list.
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Yeah, mine is a summation. I mean, mine is disobedient to parents, like who doesn't fit into that bracket?
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Yeah, it's everyone. I know a lot of people, they try to single out. I mean, it,
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I mean, it took a lot of time, you know, explaining, you know, homosexuality, women with women, men with men, and I've explained this before as this being an identity.
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Then it goes into two things, you know, like, like of course he's laying this out in such a way to where, you know, they're looking at it with, you know, maybe disgust, but then he turns and punches them in the stomach, right?
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Gives them a right hook by saying stuff like, they are filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetous, malice, like he just starts, you know, laying it out.
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And then he says they are gossips, right? I mean, like, and he says slanders, haters of God, ice and halty, boastful, boastful, you know, like, like, he's putting this on the same plane, right?
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Like, this is an inventory that's being shipped somewhere separate from homosexuality.
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This is on the same plane. Inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless.
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Now, that one right there is probably the one. Heartless, ruthless, though they know
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God's righteous decree. So right here is where I wanted to look at, because up here
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I pointed out that it says, although they knew God, what verse?
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Verse 21, for although they knew God, speaking of what he has revealed in nature, that they know there's a
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God, whenever, you know, you see a building, you know there's a builder. Buildings give glory to the builder.
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I cannot, if I was strong enough, I could not take a couch in one hand, a love seat in the other hand, rub it together and produce a chair, right?
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Non -life, non -life cannot produce life, right?
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But if a man and a woman rub together in a certain way, they, and only they, can produce life.
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And so it's that concept that life comes from life.
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They know there's a God because of creation. And right here, verse 32, it says, for although they know
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God's righteous decree. So this, speaking of the transcendent law, this is not speaking of the judicial penal code given to Jerusalem, right?
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This is not what was written on the back of the
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Ten Commandments, but this is what was written on the front of the
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Ten Commandments. I like to tell people that, you know, like we're living in a day and time where even this acknowledgement of a real human being is fading away.
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Because, you know, like if you were to go and survey people today in colleges, college campuses,
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I'm pretty sure most of them should know who Hitler is, but I'm fairly certain that some don't.
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You know, Hitler was an evil man. I'm sure Hitler lied, stowed, right?
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He was a murderer, like, like, like he can commit these heinous acts without the conviction of God, right?
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He can break God's law and not be under any conviction. But, hear me out, if someone in Hitler's circle was to lie to Hitler and Hitler found out about it,
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Hitler would know without a doubt that lying was wrong, because it was done to him.
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Oh yeah, he'd put an SOS on him. Yeah, he wouldn't say it's wrong if he'd done that to everyone else, but if you did that to him, he'd kill you, right?
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Right. Why? Because they know God's righteous decrees.
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They just apply them to others and not their self. They apply them to others and not their self.
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That's where being a Christian is different. When you're a Christian, you apply
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God's righteous decree to yourself, and you forgive others.
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70 times 7. Now, something else
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I want to mention, and I know it's going to get into chapter 2, but I think it'll be good to mention it, and we can just leave it at that if you want to.
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I don't think we have enough time to go to chapter 2. Let me take my meds. So, chapter 2 begins, therefore, therefore, because of all this stuff that he has just said, they know
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God, His righteous decrees. Yeah, they're, you know, kind of going backwards.
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Ruthless, haters, faithless, foolish, boastful, vendors of evil, you know, disobedient to parents, they murder or strife, like all the stuff that he's named and all, men having sex with men, women having sex with women, worshiping gods that crawl on the ground, stuff that they created.
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Therefore, you, oh man, have no excuse.
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So, right here, this therefore you, oh man, have no excuse. He is speaking to the
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Jew. So, right here, it seems to be in our text that we've been reading from 18, excuse me, onward, that it seems to be speak, it seems to be speaking to the
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Jew, like it, I mean, excuse me, to the Gentile, like he's calling out these, the evilness of the
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Gentiles, because they know there's a God, but they're not following Him.
01:00:05
And Paul says, therefore, you, speaking to the Jew, have no excuse, oh man.
01:00:12
No, he's speaking, yeah, well, so chapter 2, he's speaking to the Jew. Therefore, you have no excuse, oh man.
01:00:22
Every one of you who judges, for in passing judgment on one another, you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things.
01:00:36
In the context of chapter 1, beginning in verse 18, all these evilness that you read,
01:00:47
Paul is saying that the Jew practices the same thing. That's, I never picked up on that, but it's so good.
01:00:55
Yeah, if you break out, so if you have a, so this Bible that I'm reading from, this is my preaching
01:01:01
Bible, it doesn't have cross -references, but if you break out your cross -references and you reference these sins that it's pointing out, it's gonna take you back to the
01:01:14
Old Testament where the Jew broke them, right? The Jew was worshiping animals.
01:01:22
They were, they were, you know, dancing around a calf, right?
01:01:28
And so Paul is letting them know, you're looking at these
01:01:34
Gentiles, who I'm telling you to receive as brothers, and say, how can they be in the covenant?
01:01:40
They are not Jew, and he is saying to them that, you know, you're looking at them to discuss, because they haven't been living for God their whole life, when you, who's supposedly living for God, you have done the same things.
01:01:58
You've been disobedient to your parents. You've been faithless. You've been heartless. You've been ruthless. You've been haters of God. You've been all on and so on.
01:02:07
You danced around a goading cow. You delivered your children up to Balaam.
01:02:16
And so Paul is just letting, you know, like I can just see the
01:02:23
Jew over there as he's going through verses 18 to 20 over like, Yeah, you tell them
01:02:29
Gentiles. You tell them. You tell them. And you. And you,
01:02:38
Jew, have no excuse. You're just as bad.
01:02:44
I mean, you know, Jesus lays it out on them, you know, Matthew 24,
01:02:49
I mean, 23 -24. Upon this generation, you know, all the blood shed from Cain, righteous
01:02:58
Cain, to Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, it will fall on this generation,
01:03:06
Gania, the near demonstrative. I mean, like you, this, like it's, you know,
01:03:15
Jesus makes it clear that this generation of Jews are going to face the punishment for all the generation of Jews.
01:03:24
And so whenever he points to them, you have no excuse for you have done the very same things. He's pointing back all the way to the goading cow and everything that they committed throughout their history.
01:03:40
It's pretty, pretty interesting. It is. Romans is a cool book. Yeah, it is.
01:03:47
Like it leaves no one justified within themselves.
01:03:54
Everybody will get poked here. Yeah, everyone, especially me. Oh yeah.
01:04:01
Like I said, I can't make it out of chapter six yet. Chapter six is one of my faves.
01:04:11
Yeah, I'm still hunting for the conviction. Yeah, that's good. Well, I don't see any questions on the screen.
01:04:22
I got a hearty amen. Amen. He said, so this is a comment from YouTube.
01:04:32
Faith is totally a gift of grace from God. He says, believe me,
01:04:38
I never planned in my life to become a believer. Exactly.
01:04:44
But he removed the scales from my eyes. Amen. The gospel makes, man, the gospel makes so much sense, brother.
01:04:55
Yes, it does. But when, you know, before we were converted, the gospel made no sense at all.
01:05:05
You know, like a lot of people that they don't understand what, you know, the new birth.
01:05:12
What is the new birth? What does it mean to be born again? And I hear so many people preaching on the new birth.
01:05:20
And brother, let me tell you something. Everything I hear, it's, for the most part,
01:05:27
I got to stick my finger in my ears. Like it's just so bad. It's so bad.
01:05:33
The new birth is simple. It's easy to understand. There's nothing complicated about it.
01:05:39
Right? It's that you go from not believing, and you hear the gospel, and now you believe.
01:05:50
That is the new birth. You go from not believing to believing. So what is that?
01:05:56
That means that you went from not having faith, the gospel is preached, and now you have been given faith.
01:06:03
You have been given new life. It's Ezekiel 36.
01:06:10
He has removed the heart of stone, given you a heart of flesh, sprinkled you with clean water, and he put his spirit in you to obey his law.
01:06:21
This is the righteousness of faith. The obedience of faith. He has done something that you had no control over.
01:06:30
You heard the gospel. He birthed you by giving you faith to believe.
01:06:38
So whenever someone says that they've been born again, all that means is they have been given faith to believe.
01:06:45
If someone teaches anything else, listen, the Bible don't support it. The Bible doesn't support it.
01:06:52
It's actually really, really simple. I went from not believing to believing in a matter of seconds.
01:07:00
I went from hating God, shaking my fist at him, to looking like a seraphim, telling people how holy, holy, holy is.
01:07:11
Then you hit cage stage, where you just don't play well with others. That was me.
01:07:19
Now it's like I look... The Lord's brought me to a point in sanctification to where I look forward to the generational wealth in my family.
01:07:27
I'm blessed to have four children. The Lord's blessed me to be a father. If that's what
01:07:32
I'm called to do in this lifetime, I will do the best I can and see the next generation raise up their own.
01:07:41
He talked about cage stage, man. I remember... I don't even think I was a Christian, man. I was just reading the
01:07:48
Bible and started going to church. I was witnessing to my brother and ended up hitting him in the head with the
01:07:54
Bible. I love it. I was blessed.
01:07:59
I really was. I was blessed in my cage stage to find some good brothers. It's when I started talking to Haps. I met
01:08:06
Haps Addison during my cage stage. Then he introduced me to a bunch of brilliant men.
01:08:11
I was able to learn there. Then he connected me with the church in Greer, Haven Ridge, where I was able to work with guys like Matt Brock, Alan Birchfield, and Austin Jowers.
01:08:22
Just phenomenal men of God who dealt with a lot of my stupidity. That's the whole point of the church, man.
01:08:29
We uplift one another as iron sharpens iron, right? Hopefully Haps Addison, Pastor Happy, I don't know if he's pastoring anymore, but hopefully he'll be on,
01:08:44
I don't know, whenever he wants to. Whenever he feels like he wants to come back home.
01:08:53
He's better at this. He also cut some of his beard.
01:09:00
He cut like four inches of his beard off. You guys are giving me time to catch up, man.
01:09:07
I need all you to trim like eight inches and send it to me in a Ziploc so I can just... Yeah, you got a little chin strap going.
01:09:15
It's all I can do. This is years. Is it a on your chin or do you have it going up your jawline?
01:09:26
Well, I mean it was, but like I'm all patchy and it just looks, it looks all curly.
01:09:32
You gotta oil it, man. Every machine needs to be oiled.
01:09:38
A beard needs to be a fine oiled machine. I think it also has to do with sanctification.
01:09:45
So, you know, you and Happy have glorious beards and I'm just sitting here waiting. And it comes with age, too.
01:09:53
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. One day.
01:10:00
Yeah, one day. Well, if there's no questions, I think we'll sign off. And I do believe, if I'm not mistaken,
01:10:11
Pastor Brayden, correct me if you hear this, if I'm wrong or I'll touch base with you,
01:10:16
I do believe next week we'll be back on Matthew 24. And if not, then we'll be in Romans or we'll look over the
01:10:33
Sunday school message. So this Lord's Day, I will be teaching, I will be doing both the
01:10:40
Sunday school lesson and preaching the service. So I will be ready the next time
01:10:47
I have no one to come on with me. Yeah. And for those of you who are praying, man, please be praying for Jeff's church and as they are growing and they're looking to make some decisions that are big decisions.
01:11:03
So if you guys would be praying for Reformed Covenant Baptist Church in Tullahoma.
01:11:10
Covenant Reformed Baptist Church. Thank you, Jeff. And that they, you know, can make good decisions and that the
01:11:18
Lord grows his church and however he sees fit. All right, everybody.
01:11:26
Austin, you have any last words? No, sir. Thank you for having me on. This was fun.
01:11:31
I look forward to doing it again. Yeah, absolutely. Well, everybody, y 'all know that I love you. And if you're not from the trailer park,
01:11:39
I don't know what's up. You know, you need to go live in a trailer for a couple years and get on my level.
01:11:47
Anyways, I do love y 'all. If you're ever in Tullahoma, Tennessee, please stop by and visit us at Covenant Reformed Baptist Church.