Where Do Christians Come From?

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern

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Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

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And now here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. The Holy Gospel according to St. Luke chapter 10 verses 1 through 20.

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After this the Lord appointed 72 others and sent them on ahead of him two by two into every town and place where he himself was about to go.

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And he said to them, the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the

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Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. Go your way behold I am sending you out as lambs in the midst of wolves.

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Carry no money bag, no knapsack, no sandals. Greet no one on the road. Whatever house you enter first say peace be to this house.

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The Son of Peace is there. Your peace will rest upon him but if not it will return to you.

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And remain in the same house eating and drinking what they provide for the laborer deserves his wages. Do not go from house to house.

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Whenever you enter a town and they receive you eat what is set before you. Heal the sick in it and say to them the kingdom of God has come near to you.

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But whenever you enter a town and they do not receive you go into its streets and say even the dust of your town that clings to our feet we wipe off against you.

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Nevertheless know this that the kingdom of God has come near. I tell you it will be more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town.

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Woe to you Chorazin! Woe to you Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon they would have repented long ago sitting in sackcloth and ashes.

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But it will be more bearable in the judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you. And Capernaum will you be exalted to heaven?

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You shall be brought down to Hades. The one who hears you hears me. The one who rejects you rejects me.

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The one who rejects me rejects him who sent me. The 72 returned with joy saying

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Lord even the demons are subject to us in your name. And he said to them

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I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy and nothing shall hurt you.

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Nevertheless do not rejoice in this that the spirits are subject to you but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.

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You may be seated. If you turn to the insert in your bulletin we have the sermon hymn which is entitled lift high the cross.

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Lift high the cross the love of Christ proclaim till all the world adore his sacred name.

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Come Christians follow where our captain trod.

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Our king victorious, Christ the son of God.

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Lift high the cross the love of Christ proclaim till all the world adore his sacred name.

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Led on their way by this triumphant sight the host of God in conquering ranks combined.

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Lift high the cross the love of Christ proclaim till all the world adore his sacred name.

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All newborn soldiers of the crucified bear on their brows the seal of him who died.

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Lift high the cross the love of Christ proclaim till all the world adore his sacred name.

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O Lord once lifted on the glorious tree as thou has promised draw us all to thee.

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Lift high the cross the love of Christ proclaim till all the world adore his sacred name.

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Let every race and every language tell of him who saves our lives from death and hell.

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Lift high the cross the love of Christ proclaim till all the world adore his sacred name.

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So shall our song of triumph ever be.

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Praise to the crucified for victory.

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Lift high the cross the love of Christ proclaim till all the world adore his sacred name.

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In the name of Jesus. All right now as a parent I have always dreaded that awkward question from my children.

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All three of them asked it. It was really awkward. Here's the question. Daddy where do babies come from?

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Man how I wish each time I was asked that question that I could have said go ask your mother she'll explain everything.

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But it didn't work out that way. So let me ask you a question. Where do Christians come from?

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Where do they come from? If you don't know the answer to this question then you're never going to reproduce as a

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Christian and as a result you me whoever doesn't understand this will actually fail to do our part in bringing in the

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Lord's harvest. And so with this thought in mind we're going to again return to our gospel text and work our way through it and we will see in part where the answer to this question what the answer is in this.

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Luke 10 verse 1. After this the Lord appointed 72 others sent them on ahead of him two by two into every town and place where he himself was about to go and he said to them the harvest is plentiful the laborers are few.

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Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. Go your way behold

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I'm sending you out as lambs in the midst of wolves. Let's summarize what's going on here.

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In our gospel text we read about Jesus sending 72 of his disciples. This is 72 other than the 12 right.

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And he's commissioning them for missionary work and evangelism. You can think of this as a training mission in preparation for the great missionary work of the

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Great Commission. This is how the Great Commission is fulfilled. This training mission teaches us by the way how evangelism is done.

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And by the way yes in case you were wondering you are one of the workers who have been sent into the harvest.

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You're thinking really? Me? Send into the harvest? Sounds like hard stuff.

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Well let me prove this by the way. You see in Christianity we have to understand there's kind of two classes all right.

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And I mean it this way. You have the kingdom the priesthood of all believers. They're in the top the top tier.

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And below them are their servants the pastors right. Now not everyone who is a member of the priesthood of all believers holds the pastoral office.

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But the pastor is also one who holds the priesthood of all believers. But he's the servant of the ones at the top right.

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You see how that works in hierarchy. Now if you're thinking well I'm in the priesthood of all believers.

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Does that mean I have to go into the harvest field? The answer is yes. Here's the reason why.

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First Peter chapter 2 verses 9 and 10. This is

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Peter writing to Christians. This is a baptismal epistle by the way. He says to the

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Christians he says you are a chosen race. You are a royal priesthood.

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Think priesthood of all believers right. You're a holy nation a people for his own possession. Is it describing you?

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Yeah that's us. So that you watch this. You may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

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Yeah that's right. You as a member of the priesthood of all believers are commissioned by Christ and you can even say commanded to proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

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And what are his excellencies? Well that he bled and died for your sins. That he rose again from the grave on the third day.

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That he is saving sinners by grace through faith alone right. You can proclaim his excellencies in fact that's what you're called to do.

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So to kind of summarize we're going to look at four facts today that kind of rise up from our sermon today.

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Fact number one that we just covered just like these 72 that we are reading about we too have been sent out as lambs in the midst of wolves.

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This does not sound like a good deal okay. I don't know if you know this about sheep. Sheep have like no natural defenses right.

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So the sheep versus the wolves. In that baseball game the wolves always win right by devouring the sheep.

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Now it gets even worse because Jesus doesn't say that we're sheep in the midst of wolves. He says we're lambs in the midst of wolves which is like even worse okay.

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We are defenseless little lambs okay. And I like and think of the word as lamb chop right.

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Now that being the case and since we're lambs in the midst of wolves this means that if we're going to survive the ordeal of evangelism yeah it's kind of seem like an ordeal right.

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If we're going to survive this ordeal we're going to need to rely 100 percent on Christ the good shepherd for all of our needs and for all of our protection right.

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So evangelism 101 lambs in the wolves.

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Sign me up right. So fact number two this is an important one.

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Lambs are utterly powerless to transform wolves into sheep which by the way that's really the goal and the result of true evangelism.

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Wolves magically turn into sheep I should say miraculously right.

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But we as lambs are utterly powerless to do this. So the question well coming back to it where do

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Christians come from. The sub question to this is how does a wolf transform into a sheep right.

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Now nowadays we live in a world where apparently you can just self -identify as whatever you want but it doesn't work this way okay.

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Some wolf comes up and says I now self -identify as a lamb. No no no no no.

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We need some miraculous transformation to occur here. Change of species doesn't happen via self -identification.

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Now Luther helps us out in getting us in the ballpark here. If you remember your catechism on the portion regarding the creed third article right.

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I believe in the Holy Spirit. Here's what Luther says about that article. I believe that by my own reason or my own strength that I cannot believe in Jesus Christ my

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Lord nor can I even come to him. But the Holy Spirit has called me listen through the gospel has enlightened me with his gifts and sanctified and preserved me in the true faith right.

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So how does a wolf transform into a lamb. Well the Holy Spirit is the one doing that work and he does it through the means of grace.

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Now let me give you an example of like bad teaching on on evangelism.

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All right I'm going to give you a bad example and for that we're going to have to mix up the metaphor a little bit. Right now we've been talking about lambs and wolves unbelievers being the wolves.

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Well there's another metaphor used by Christ and that's the metaphor of fish right.

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Now to kind of help this out a little bit we're going to create our own species of fish. We're going to call it the wolf fish so that way we're not mixing metaphors well like changing channels too much.

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There's a little bit of a crossover here. All right so with that I'd like to read what I would consider some bad advice regarding evangelism that is actually very popular nowadays made popular by Rick Warren.

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In an article he wrote a few years back called to catch fish you need to learn how to think like them. That's the name of the article

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Rick Warren wrote says if you're going to be a good good at fishing you've got to learn to think like a fish.

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All right if you're going to be an effective fisher of men you've got to think like a lost person and here's the problem unfortunately the longer you're a

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Christian the less you think like an unbeliever. I don't think like a non -christian

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I think like a Christian in fact I think like a pastor and that's even worse. It's two generations removed from the people that I want to reach and you sit there and go well wait a second here if what he's saying is true then the longer you're a

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Christian the less effective you're going to be at evangelism. Does that sound right to you or even worse if you actually make the fatal mistake of becoming a pastor well now you're totally incapable of telling anybody about Jesus right.

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Something's wrong here something's wrong here. So Rick Warren continues he says you can tell just how differently pastors think than lost people when you look at church advertisements.

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In the newspaper you'll see advertisements like quote preaching the inspired inerrant word of God.

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Who will that appeal to? I know what the inspired inerrant word of God is in fact

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I believe in it I'd die for the inspired inerrant word of God but non -christians don't care about your view of inspiration.

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Right because non -believers don't come to church. You know why? Because they're non -believers right.

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Okay he then says this or you'll see a church advertise we have holy spirit services.

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Well that's going to scare people away. Non -christians don't know what you mean by holy spirit. Is that Casper the friendly ghost?

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You must learn how to think and communicate like a non -believer if you're going to communicate the gospel to them.

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This doesn't make any sense. He then goes on and says to catch fish you've got to know their habits, their preferences, their feeding patterns.

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Certain fish like smooth water others are bottom crawlers, some like rushing waters, others hide under rocks.

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You've got to know what the fish you're trying to reach like to do if you're going to understand and reach non -christians.

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You've got to begin with their mindset. Sounds to me like the fishing that he's advocating when it comes to evangelism is the kind of fishing well that many of us are familiar with right.

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All right if when you go fishing for walleye you use a particular bait in order to trick the walleye into believing that this is their favorite food right.

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Now if you're fishing for trout you use a different lure or if fishing for bass you use something completely different but the the premise is still the same.

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Deceive the fish into believing that the fish is getting its favorite meal but of course it's not because there's hooks and once the fish bites on it it realizes its mistake but it's too late right.

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Is that how evangelism is done? Is that what Jesus meant when he said that I will make you fishers of men?

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I will make you the greatest deceivers on earth? No. Wrong metaphor.

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Little exegesis helps out here. Matthew 4 18 and 19 says this while Jesus was walking by the sea of Galilee he saw two brothers

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Simon who's called Peter and Andrew his brother casting a net into the sea for they were fishermen and he said to them follow me and I will make you fishers of men.

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You see the type of fishing that evangelism engages in is not deception it's not lure fishing it's net fishing.

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In other words you don't have to learn how to think like a fish at all you just got to know how to throw out a net and that net is the gospel and the more you know the gospel and the longer you're a

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Christian the more effective you become at evangelism not less right. So I will say this

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Rick Warren did understand correctly that we do need to know something about the mindset of unbelievers so let me tell you a little bit about wolf fish from scripture all right this helps.

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Romans 3 verses 10 through 18 says this none is righteous no not one no one understands here's the important part no one seeks for God no one all have turned aside together they've become worthless no one does good not even one their throat is an open grave they use their tongues to deceive the venom of asps is under their lips their mouth is full of curses and bitterness their feet are swift to shed blood and in their paths are ruin and misery in the way of peace they have not known there's no fear of God before their eyes there you go so when you go out and you do evangelism as a lamb among wolves keep in mind the wolves are quite content and very happy to be wolves and they're not even looking for God at all they're just happy doing wolfy things right

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Ephesians 4 18 says they are darkened in their understanding they are alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to their hardness of heart and Romans 8 7 says for the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God it does not submit to God's law indeed it can not and we all know this experientially have you ever told somebody about Jesus who wasn't it on who wasn't a believer and you were well soundly rebuked for doing so or made to feel awkward or stupid right there's a reason for that it's because they're dead all right so fact three wolf fish are transformed turned into lambs through the means of grace two passages will bear this out

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Romans 10 14 through 17 Paul writes he says how then will they the wolf fish how will they call on him whom they have not believed how are they to believe in whom they have never heard how are they to hear without someone preaching and how are they to preach unless they are sent as it is written how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news but they have not all all obeyed the gospel for Isaiah says lord who has believed what he has heard from us so faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ you see that word of God is living and active and the spirit the holy spirit works in the preaching of the gospel in his word and through the preaching of the gospel wolves are miraculously transformed into lambs another one of the means of grace by which this happens

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Titus chapter 3 verses 3 through 7 describes it here's what Paul writes he says we ourselves were once foolish disobedient led astray slaves to various passions and pleasures passing our days in malice envy hated by others and hating one another sounds like a great life doesn't it yeah sign me up here's what he says but when the goodness and the loving kindness of God our savior appeared he saved us not because of works done by us in righteousness but according to his own mercy by the washing of regeneration right through the washing of regeneration and the renewal of the holy spirit whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our savior so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life so how are dead sinners wolf fish transformed into lambs through the preaching of the word and the mixing of the water and the word in the waters of baptism the holy spirit works through the both now here's fact number four let me prepare this for you since you are all good harvesters now you realize that this is part of your duty get ready for this part when you proclaim

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Christ and him crucified for our sins some are going to believe some will not don't panic this is normal okay let me give you an example from the text we were just listening to luke 10 starting again at verse 3 go your way behold i'm sending you out as lambs in the midst of wolves carry no money bag no knapsack no sandal greet no one on the road whatever house you enter first a peace be to this house if a son of peace is there your peace will rest on him and by the way what does this mean what is our peace in fact who is our peace

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Christ is our peace and our peace with God comes through the forgiveness of sins so when these preachers go out and preach peace peace from God through what

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Christ is doing is done some will hear and receive some will reject this is what

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Jesus is saying and that's why he says your peace will return to you says your peace will return to you but if not if they don't receive it it will return to you and remain in the same house eating and drinking what they provide for the labor deserves his wages do not go from house to house whenever you enter town and they receive you eat what is set before you heal the sick say to them the kingdom of God has come near but whenever you enter a town and they do not receive you go into its streets and say even the dust of your town that clings to our feet we wipe off against you wow look at that notice that Jesus didn't say it now if they don't receive you what you need to do is totally rethink your whole evangelism strategy okay clearly you're doing something wrong so maybe what we need to do is we need to you know stop talking about sin maybe we can instead talk about slipsies oopsies and mistakes and things like that or hurts habits and hang -ups and maybe not talk so much about the crucifixion and you know

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Jesus dying for sinners and stuff like that instead we need to make them maybe maybe we need to make things more relevant you know rather than saying behold the kingdom of God is near repent and all that kind of stuff maybe we can say hey

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Jesus has come to make your life incredible you know notice he doesn't say change the message when they don't receive

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Jesus when they don't receive you as somebody who's proclaiming the gospel shake off the dust from your feet and you say even the dust of your town that clings to our feet we wipe off against you nevertheless know this that the kingdom of God has come near I tell you it will be more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town and you sit there and go that's not a very

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Norwegian way of handling things I know right Jesus was not

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Norwegian okay okay but I will say this that this takes some wisdom on the part of Norwegians who are adverse to being bold and creating conflict you're you have dual citizenship as Christians in the kingdom of heaven and also here on earth and you have a heritage of being

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Norwegian and when those things are in conflict the citizenship of note is your king is your

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Christian kingdom citizenship that's where you have to behave according to that culture and let the other culture fall away right now let me show you what this looks like on the ground okay if this isn't enough okay now we can go forward into the book of acts and let's take a look at what this looks like on the ground we've got our facts here lambs among wolves the transformation happens through the means of grace some are going to believe some are not so don't panic right acts 13 verse 13 here's what it says let's take a look at this you can see this all happening in this text now

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Paul and his companions set sail from pathos came to Perga and Pamphylia John left them and returned to Jerusalem but they went on from Perga and came to Antioch in Pisidia on the sabbath day they went into the synagogue sat down and after the reading from the law and the prophets the rulers of the synagogue sent a message to them saying brothers if you have any word of encouragement for the people say it now keep in mind

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Paul is on a missionary journey this is a missionary an evangelistic sermon that you're about to hear watch how it starts

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Paul stood up motioning with his hand men of Israel you who fear

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God listen the God of this people Israel chose our fathers and made the people great during their stay in the land of Egypt and with uplifted arm he led them out of it and for about 40 years he put up with them in the wilderness and after destroying seven nations in the land of Canaan he gave them their land as an inheritance all of this took about 450 years and after that he gave them judges until Samuel the prophet then they asked for a king and God gave them

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Saul the son of Kish a man of the tribe of Benjamin for 40 years and when he had removed him he raised up David to be their king of whom he testified and said

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I have found in David the son of Jesse a man after my heart who will do all of my will now you may be thinking well

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Paul when are you going to get on to evangelizing these people huh what's all this filler stuff it's not filler you see

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Paul in bringing to mind salvation history in the old testament knows that God is acting through human history to bring the messiah the old testament's all about Jesus all right so this isn't throwaway filler

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Paul continues of this man's offspring God has brought to Israel a savior

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Jesus as he promised before his coming John the Baptist had proclaimed a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel and as John was finishing his course he said what do you suppose that I am

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I am not he no but behold after me one is coming the sandals of whose feet I am not worthy to untie brothers sons of the family of Abraham and those among you who fear

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God to us has been sent the message of this salvation for those who live in Jerusalem and their rulers because they did not recognize him nor understand the utterances of the prophets which they read every sabbath they fulfilled them by condemning him and though they found in him no guilt worthy of death they asked

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Pilate to have him executed and when they had carried out all that was written of him they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb but God raised him from the dead and for many days he appeared to those who had come up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem who are now his witnesses to the people and we bring you the good news that what

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God promised to the fathers this he has fulfilled to us their children by raising

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Jesus as also it is written in the second psalm you are my son today I have begotten you and as for the fact that he raised him from the dead no more to return to corruption he has spoken in this way

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I will give you the holy and sure blessing of David therefore he says also in another psalm you will not let your holy one see corruption for David after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation fell asleep and was laid with his fathers and saw corruption but he whom

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God raised up did not see corruption so let it be known to you therefore brothers that through this man through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is now proclaimed to you and by him everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses there's the gospel pretty bold in your face loud proclamation of the forgiveness of sins

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Christ crucified and risen from the grave for our sins right now everybody knows if you've spent any time in American evangelicalism that the next thing that's supposed to happen right now is that the keyboardist for the praise band supposed to come up on stage right and he's supposed to be gone begin strumming lightly in the background right and at this point the minister is supposed to say now any of you who would like to invite

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Jesus into his heart I we're going to invite you to do that right now so everybody close your eyes and bow your heads and if you would like to make a decision to ask

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Jesus into your heart go ahead and raise your hands right now I see that hand right there I see that one over there right with all eyes closed and head bowed let's pray the sinner's prayer that's not what

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Paul does faith comes by hearing hearing by the word of Christ he's just preached the word of Christ Paul knows full well that God has already the

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Holy Spirit has already transformed literally wolves into lambs and there are some who are believing already and some who are not right so watch what he says so let me back up just a little bit so let it be known to you therefore brothers that through this man the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you and by him everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses beware therefore he ends not with an altar call but with a warning beware therefore lest what is said and the prophets should come about look you scoffers be astounded and perish for I am doing a work in your days a work that you will not believe even if one tells you the worst altar call ever right and there is a reason for that is simple the altar altar calls not necessary the

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Holy Spirit's doing his work through the preaching of the word and here's what it says as they went out the people begged that these things might be told them the next sabbath and after meeting the meeting of the synagogue broke up many

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Jews and devout converts to Judaism followed Paul and Barnabas who as they spoke with them urged them to continue in the grace of God we have a church now do we not right the story continues so the next sabbath almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the

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Lord but when the Jews saw the crowds they were filled with jealousy and began to contradict what was spoken by Paul and they were reviling him to be expected some believe some don't right and Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly saying well it was necessary that the word of God be spoken first to you and watch this the fault is not with him the fault is with them watch what he says since you thrust aside thrust it

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God's word aside and you've judged yourselves to be unworthy of eternal life behold we're turning to the

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Gentiles for so the Lord has commanded us saying I have made you a light to the Gentiles that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth look at that no excuses oh

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I'm sorry for offending you oh let me change the message up let me tell you one that you like no the fault's with you since you consider the word of God to be awful you were violent and you consider yourself to be unworthy of eternal life we're going to go talk to the

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Gentiles ta -ta who does this right but isn't this exactly what

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Paul is doing because Jesus taught his disciples to do evangelism this way right so when the

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Gentiles heard this they began rejoicing glorifying the word of the Lord and as many as were appointed to eternal life they believed and the word of the

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Lord was spreading through the whole region but the Jews incited the devout women of high standing the leading men of the city and they stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas and drove them out of your district but they shook off the dust from their feet against them and they went on to Iconium and the disciples were filled with joy and the

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Holy Spirit sending you out as lambs among wolves when you preach the gospel some will believe some will not the ones who don't will well they'll act quite violent this is to be expected they're behaving like wolves and we're the lambs leave the woes there's

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Jesus though back to our gospel text verse 13 Jesus calls down woes on those towns who rejected him woe to you

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Chorazin woe to you Bethsaida for if the mighty works done in you have been done in Tyre and Sidon they would have repented long ago sitting in sackcloth and ashes but it'd be more bearable on the judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you and you

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Capernaum will you be exalted to heaven nope you'll be brought down to Hades and listen to these words the one who hears you hears me the one who rejects you rejects me you see when we bring the gospel we proclaim

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Christ and him crucified for our sins call sinners to repent and to be forgiven through the shed blood of Christ the one who rejects you is not rejecting you they're rejecting

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Jesus the one who rejects Jesus rejects the one who sent him who is

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God the Father their rebellion is not against you it's against God and since they hold a grudge against God don't be surprised when they reject you but in so doing they're not rejecting you they're rejecting

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Jesus or as the saying goes don't take it personally I'm just the messenger right so the 72 returned with joy after their evangelism training mission and they kind of have the emphasis a little bit wrong and Jesus gently corrects him and he says

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Lord even the demons are subject to us in your name great exorcisms right so he said to them