WWUTT 872 Judge with Right Judgment?

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We have been told to rejoice in God in the midst of all circumstances, to give all glory to Him.

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This is His will for us and it is a message that you will not find in any false teaching when we understand the text.

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You're listening to When We Understand the Text, committed to the sound teaching of the Word of God. For questions and comments, email whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

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And don't forget our website, www .utt .com. Here's our host,

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Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. We continue our study of the Gospel of John, Chapter 7.

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And as with yesterday, I'll read verses 14 through 24. The Apostle John wrote,

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The one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory.

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But the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and in him there is no falsehood.

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Has not Moses given you the law, yet none of you keeps the law? Why do you seek to kill me?

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The crowd answered, You have a demon. Who is seeking to kill you? Jesus answered them,

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I did one work, and you all marvel at it. Moses gave you circumcision, not that it is from Moses, but from the fathers.

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And you circumcise a man on the Sabbath. If on the Sabbath a man receives circumcision, so that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry with me, because on the

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Sabbath I made a man's whole body well? Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.

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It's in verse 17 where Jesus said, If anyone's will is to do God's will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority.

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Indeed, all of us should be doing all things to the will of the Father. We worship

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Christ because it is the Father's will that we would do so. We know the Father through Jesus Christ, and we know that Christ is the

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Son of God because it was the will of the Father that we should know that. I just started teaching through Galatians in my sermon series on Sunday.

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So as you listen to the Sunday edition of the podcast, you'll start to hear those sermons popping up here in the near future.

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Galatians chapter one, verses three through five, Paul gives kind of a brief gospel here where he says grace to you and peace from God, our

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Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our

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God and Father, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

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It is by the Father's will that the Son died for our sins and was risen again from the grave, according to the scriptures, so that all who believe in him will have eternal life.

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We come to know Christ by the will of the Father, and we must worship Christ because it is the

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Father's will, and it is our delight to do so to the praise of his glorious grace, as Paul put it in Ephesians chapter one.

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So we know Christ because it is God's will for us to know Christ. We know his words are from God because it is the

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Father who has revealed it to us. Remember that Jesus asked his disciples in Matthew chapter 16, who is it that you say that I am?

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And it was Peter that spoke up and said, well, you are the Christ, the Son of God. And Jesus said, blessed are you,

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Simon Bar -Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my

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Father who is in heaven. So we know Jesus Christ because it was the

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Father's will. It was the Father who showed us who the Son is, that we may know him and believe and be saved.

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Jesus goes on in verse 18 to say, the one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory, but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true and in him there is no falsehood.

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So again, doing all things to the glory of God. And as I said yesterday, this is a passage, a qualification that Jesus has used that we may use to test other teachers as well.

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What is their motivation in their ministry, the things that they do, what they are saying?

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Is it to glorify God or is it to glorify or honor themselves or oppress others as the

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Pharisees were doing with the things that they taught? They placed a burden on people that the people simply could not bear.

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And the two examples that I used yesterday was the social justice gospel and then also the prosperity gospel.

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So in the social justice gospel, you have those teachers are oppressing Christians, placing a burden on them.

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There is no resolution to, there's no end game to the social justice movement.

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It's constantly going to be paying penance. It's constantly you owe me.

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There is no forgiveness, no end to that agenda, bringing the whole woke church thing into evangelicalism.

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And then you have the prosperity gospel where glory is for the self.

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It is everything that you can have all that you can name and claim, and it will be yours like binding

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God's hands to be obligated to have to give you the stuff that you just say it.

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You say it and you're commanding God to give it to you. That's essentially what name it and claim it is. And then there's also prosperity light.

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And I didn't necessarily mentioned this one yesterday. I said the prosperity gospel, and then there's a prosperity light where all of the verses are still kind of about you.

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It's just not as far as going a, that mansion is mine in the name of Jesus. I declare that mansion to be mine or that sports car to be mine.

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It doesn't quite go that far, but it's still seeing yourself in all of the stories. Like all the stories are about you.

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The story in Ezekiel chapter 37 of Ezekiel speaking to the dry bones in the

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Valley of dry bones. And they stood up and became an exceedingly great army. Well, that's about how I can speak to the troubled situation that I have going on in my life.

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And I can speak Jesus into it. And what was once dead will come back to life again. Now that that's name it and claim it light.

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So you're not necessarily calling upon mansions to yourself, but you still think that by the power of a word, you can make your situation better.

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All of these things are imitation gospels. They aren't the true gospel. The glory is not given to Christ. It's all about how this can benefit me, how

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I get something out of this. And your Christianity just basically becomes a slot machine game.

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You're sitting there at a slot machine with a bucket full of things into the slot machine and pulling the lever and hoping eventually you're going to hit the jackpot.

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But sooner or later, you're going to run out of nickels. You're going to run on empty. And here's what will end up happening for you.

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One of three possible scenarios when you don't get the thing that you thought you were going to get out of Christianity, how it was going to benefit you when you don't get the thing that you expected out of that slot machine.

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Here, there's one of three things that could happen for you. Number one is that you become a Christian in name only.

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You fall into nominal Christianity. You say you're a Christian when asked, but your heart's completely disconnected from God.

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Maybe you even still go to church, but there's no passion in your heart for Christ because you were not getting the things that you thought

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God owed you or you thought you were going to get out of this religious experience. So therefore, you're only saying that you're a

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Christian to keep up appearances, but your heart is not really for God. So that's one possible scenario.

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Second possible outcome is that you even outright abandon the faith. So it's not just that your heart's disconnected from God.

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You're even saying, I used to be a Christian, but I'm not anymore. In both of those scenarios, really the same thing has happened.

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Your heart is no longer for God. But in the second scenario, you're even verbally expressing that you're not a

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Christian. Yeah, I used to believe in Christianity, but then I found out it was all just kind of a bunch of fairy tales and mumbo jumbo.

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And so, you know, I'm a humanist now, or I don't really have a religion or I'm spiritual, but not religious.

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You know, it might be something like that. Then the third thing that could end up happening is that you just shaped

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Christianity into something else that doesn't look like biblical Christianity, but it probably shares a certain spirituality that you have with other things.

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So you're now like a universe seeker or somebody that is seeking a transcendental meditation somehow, which all of that is very self -serving.

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But that's the way you thought about Christianity in the first place, that it was going to serve you somehow, that you were going to get a certain expectation out of that.

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And when it wasn't met, then Jesus became just one of the spiritualities that you're after.

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But I'm going to have to seek some other spiritual things to do here because Christianity just didn't cut it for me.

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This is a person who is seeking their own will instead of God's will. And so they seek their own glory instead of the glory of God.

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But Jesus goes on to say, but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true. And in him, there is no falsehood.

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In James 1 verses 2 through 4, we are told, count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness and let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

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That kind of outlook, that kind of understanding of one's faith, you won't find in any of those false gospels that I just mentioned, that I gave examples of.

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You won't find it in the social gospel. You won't find it in the social justice gospel. You won't find it in the prosperity gospel or prosperity light.

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You will not find an understanding of counting it all joy when you face trials of many kinds, because in the prosperity gospel, what they're going to tell you is whenever you face a trial, well, it was because of negative thinking.

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You just weren't thinking positively enough. So if you think more positive, then you won't have these negative experiences.

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That's not what James is saying. You are going to meet trials. There will be tribulations that you will fall into, and they are going to be of various kinds.

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It could be anywhere from stubbing your toe to having someone murder a member of your family, something extreme, something drastic.

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You become paralyzed. You lose a limb or anything else that could happen in the middle in there.

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You lose your job. You get sick. You come down with some sort of serious illness.

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You just get older, and your body's just breaking down, any of these things. These are various trials, and we count it all joy when we face these things, for it is the testing of our faith.

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Can we place our faith in God even in the midst of these struggles, knowing that the promises have been given to us in Christ Jesus, which is every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, according to Ephesians 1, 3, all of that has been given to us in Christ.

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So we are lacking in nothing. We know that in Christ we have been delivered from the domain of darkness, that our sins have been forgiven, that when we die, the grave will not conquer us, but we are more than conquerors through him who loved us, and that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ.

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So on the day that we die, we will go to be with him in glory, and we will become fellow heirs and inheritors of the very kingdom that the

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Father is giving to the Son. These things are our hope, not anything in this world, which we know is transient and perishing, but our hope and our glory is from above, and we are awaiting from it a

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Savior who is going to redeem us from these lowly bodies and transform us to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him to subject all things to himself.

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This is our hope and peace. And so we have rest, even as we go through this life, and we can rejoice knowing that the trial is making us rely more on Christ.

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That's what Paul said in 2 Corinthians 1 .8 or 1 .9, that he went through a trial so serious he thought he had been given the sentence of death, but this was to make us rely more on God who raises the dead.

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So you're going through this trial, you're going through this circumstance to make you rely more on God.

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It is a testing of your faith. And this kind of outlook, this kind of understanding or attitude is not present in any of those false gospels.

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It's never about rejoicing in trials. And you consider the social justice gospel, it's just all about complaining and bickering over what

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I don't have or what this people group deserves or whatnot. It's another form of the prosperity gospel when you think about it, that you're prospering,

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I'm not, so it's your fault and you owe me. But what about counting it all joy, my brothers, when you face trials of various kinds?

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What about grace? What about mercy and forgiveness? Where are those subjects and those concepts in any of these false gospels?

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It is the mercy of God that we have been forgiven of our sins and we have been clothed in his righteousness.

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And Jesus said to us in Matthew chapter six that we must show forgiveness to others.

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If we don't forgive others their trespasses, then neither will our heavenly father forgive us our trespasses.

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So if we have the forgiveness and mercy of God, we must therefore show it to others, not tying one another's hands and obliging them to have to give something to us.

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And we can't actually be reconciled as brothers and sisters in the body of Christ until you give me this thing that I say that you owe me.

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That's not the gospel. That's not extending grace and love and mercy to one another in Christ Jesus mercy that we did not deserve.

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We can do nothing to merit the favor of God and his grace and the love that he shows us in Christ.

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He gives it to us out of his own free will. And so therefore we must, as recipients of this grace, be gracious with one another, forgiving each other's sins and realizing that this circumstance, no matter how difficult it is, whether it's some sort of emotional wounding or it's something physical that you're struggling with, or maybe it's uncertainty of future events, whatever it might be, you give praise and glory to God because this is a testing of your faith and it is producing in you steadfastness to make you cling all the more to Christ who raises the dead so that your faith may be complete and lacking in nothing.

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And James goes on to say in James 1 5, if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God who gives generously to all without reproach and it will be given to him.

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Matthew chapter 7 verse 7, Jesus said, ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and it will be open to you.

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For everyone who asks receives and the one who seeks finds and to the one who knocks it will be open.

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Or which of you, if his son asks him for bread will give him a stone or if he asks for a fish will give him a serpent.

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If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father, who is in heaven, give good things to those who ask him?

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Our God loves us and he wants to give us good things, but it must be with the desire that his will would be done and not our own will be done.

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1 John 5 14, this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us and if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask him, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.

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If we ask according to his will, God will give us good things and has already given us good things, every blessing in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

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This is for the one who seeks the will of God. If anyone's will is to do God's will, he will know the word of Christ and the one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory, but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true and in him there is no falsehood.

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Jesus goes on to say, we're back in John 7 verse 19, has not Moses given you the law yet?

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None of you keeps the law. Why do you seek to kill me? Remember all the way back to John 5, because Jesus healed a man on the

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Sabbath and because he said that he was from the father, that God was his father and that he was his son, the

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Pharisees, the teachers, they understood that Jesus was equating himself with God and so they sought to kill him for this.

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So Jesus says, why do you seek to kill me? And the crowd answered, you have a demon who is seeking to kill you.

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Now there's a couple of possibilities here with John 7 20. Either this crowd is the people who are outside of Judea who have come to Jerusalem for the feast or they're just simply trying to deny that they indeed want to kill

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Jesus, though he knows their hearts. Jesus said in John 7 21, I did one work and you all marvel at it.

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Of course, that was healing the man at the pool in John chapter 5, the lame man whom he healed on the

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Sabbath. Moses gave you circumcision, not that it is from Moses, but from the fathers. Of course, this was the covenant that a covenant sign that God made with Abraham and you circumcise a man on the

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Sabbath. If on the Sabbath, a man received circumcision so that the law of Moses may not be broken.

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Are you angry with me? Because on the Sabbath, I made a man's whole body. Well, whole body.

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Well, okay. So, so Jesus is, he's making a comparison and he's going from the lesser to the greater.

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So the lesser command is circumcision. The greater work is this healing that Jesus has done of this man whose whole body he has made.

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So the law of Moses was that a male was supposed to be circumcised on the eighth day.

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All male children were to receive a circumcision eight days after their birth. If that eighth day fell on the

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Sabbath, they still were supposed to circumcise him on the Sabbath in keeping with the law of Moses.

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So if you circumcise on the Sabbath, so you do that with a part of the body, you know, the male anatomy, the male part of the body, you do that on the

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Sabbath. Why is it worse than if I've healed an entire man's body, his, a man's entire body on the

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Sabbath, that's even better than circumcision. And yet you're seeking to kill me over this.

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You're angry with me because on the Sabbath, I made a man's whole body. Well, do not judge by appearances, but judge with the right judgment,

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John 7, 24. And in the context of that verse, Jesus is saying, use some logic, people be reasonable.

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You are being absurd. You are sticking with laws and commandments and not understanding the weightier matters.

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As Jesus put it in Matthew 23, 23, the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faithfulness that we would seek in summary, the righteousness of God, Jesus said,

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Matthew chapter six, seek first his kingdom and his righteousness. And all these other things will be added to you as well.

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The things that God knows that we need, he will give to us if we seek first his will above all else.

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Let's close with prayer, our wonderful God and savior. We thank you that it was your gracious will.

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We would be saved from our sin. You have transferred us from a kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of your marvelous light through Jesus Christ, who loved us the light of the world who came and exposed our sin.

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He showed to us the evil that we had done against God. And this was necessary for us to see so that we might repent of it and know that we need a savior and that savior is

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Christ by faith. We have been forgiven our sins and we have been guaranteed every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

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Praise the Lord. And so God, if there is any hidden or secret way in us that is preventing us from worshiping you in a way that is worthy of you, then

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I pray that you would expose that to us, that we would weep and be bitter over our sin so that we might be cleansed of all unrighteousness and be clothed in the righteousness of Christ, being shaped more and more into his image.

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As we go throughout our day, as we're going to face trials and struggles, some little, and maybe some folks out there experiencing something really, really big today.

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In the midst of our worst circumstances, may we give all glory to you and not just putting on a mask to hide the pain or the hurt that we feel because some things are certainly going to hurt our feelings and we're going to feel pain.

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But in the midst of that, knowing that you are shaping us into the image of Christ, that we share in his sufferings and that the suffering that we go through here does not even compare with the glory that awaits us if we endure to the end.

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Keep us steadfast and perfect this steadfastness in us as we continue to traverse this world.

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And may we do so in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you for listening to When We Understand the

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Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. If you'd like to support this ministry, visit our website at www .wutt

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.com and click on the Give tab in the top right corner of the page. Join us again tomorrow as we continue our