Reformation Day (Observed)

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 Rosebrook. The Holy Gospel according to St. John, chapter 8, verses 31 through 36.

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To the Jews who had believed in Him, Jesus said, If you hold to My teaching, you are really

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My disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. They answered

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Him, We are Abraham's descendants, and we have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?

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Jesus replied, I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family.

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But a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

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In the name of Jesus. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

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Now today we're liturgically cheating. And what I mean by that is that we are celebrating this day, the

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Feast of the Reformation. And we'll also have a little bit in here, in our service, where we will recognize the saints that have departed before us in the faith.

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But this, as we observe the Feast of the Reformation, our Gospel text and our

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Epistle text, take us to the wellspring, to the central doctrine of the Christian faith.

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The central doctrine by which Christianity either stands or falls. Here's what the Augsburg Confession says regarding this doctrine.

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It is also taught among us that we cannot obtain the forgiveness of sin and righteousness before God by our own merits, our own works, our own satisfactions.

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Instead, we receive the forgiveness of sins and become righteous before God by grace for Christ's sake through faith.

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When we believe that Christ has suffered for us and that for His sake our sin is forgiven and righteousness and eternal life are then given to us.

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For God will regard and reckon this faith as righteousness, as the Apostle Paul says in Romans 3, verses 21 -26, which we just read, as well as chapter 4, verse 5.

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Now, this doctrine, salvation totally as a gift. This is something that our sinful nature sits there and says, no, this can't be,

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I've got to do something. I've got to try hard. It can't possibly be saved by everything that God and Christ has done for me.

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I've got to do something. We all want to climb this ladder into heaven. But Scripture is clear.

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It's absolutely clear that by works of the law, not one single human being will be declared righteous in God's sight.

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Salvation is gift from beginning to end. It's Christmas. It's not

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Labor Day. See what I just did there? Now, this is the doctrine that got papered over by the

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Roman church in the medieval era. They hid it. They obscured it.

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And they did so with their man -made doctrines. And then, in the greatest moment of theological insanity recorded in the annals of church history, the

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Roman church at the Council of Trent did the unthinkable. They actually anathematized anyone who would believe that they are saved solely as a gift by God.

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Canon number nine of the Council of Trent reads this, If anyone shall say that by faith alone the impious is justified, so as to mean that nothing else is required to cooperate in order unto the obtaining of the grace of justification, and that it is not in any respect necessary that he be prepared and disposed by the movement of his own will, let him be damned.

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Let that sink in for a second. The official doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church is that if you believe that you are saved by grace through faith alone, you are damned.

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That's their official dogma. Canon 12 of the Council of Trent reads, If anyone shall say that justifying faith is nothing else than confidence in the divine mercy and pardoning of sins for Christ's sake, or that it is that confidence alone by which we are justified, let him be damned.

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Canon 14 of the Council of Trent, If anyone says that man is truly absolved from his sins and are justified because he assuredly believed himself absolved and justified, or that no one else is truly justified except for he who believes himself justified, and that by this faith alone absolution and justification are effected, let him be damned.

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This is theological suicide. Because if we're not saved by grace through faith alone, as Scripture says, then

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Scripture is wrong. And Jesus was wrong when Jesus said the Scripture cannot be broken. The apostles were teaching us lies.

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Because we just heard from the Apostle Paul, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that we are saved by grace through faith as a gift.

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So it's really sad that this has happened in church history. But I'm going to be blunt.

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It doesn't take an action of the Roman church to anathematize the gospel.

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In each and every one of us, our sinful Adam wants to believe that we can somehow save ourselves, or that we can somehow add to Christ's work, and that salvation is

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Jesus plus me working really hard, and then I'm saved.

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But that's not what Scripture says. So we foolishly do the same thing in our own hearts when we do not believe that salvation is a free gift, and we try to appease the wrath of God by our good works.

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It will never work. But let's return now to our gospel text. A fascinating thing is happening in our gospel text, and I want to clear up some of the confusion that you may have had while hearing it, and I'll show you what it is along the way.

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We're going to go back into the context, and we're going to go to the Gospel of John 8, and we're going to start at verse 21 so you can see what's happening here, because if you don't get this little bit of context, you'll be a little bit confused about what

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Jesus is saying. Verse 21, So Jesus said to them again,

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I am going away. You will seek me, and you will die in your sin.

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Where I am going, you cannot come. So the Jews said, Will he kill himself?

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Since he says where I'm going, you cannot come. He said to them, You are from below. I am from above.

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You are of this world. I am not of this world. I told you that unless, I told you you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am, you will die in your sins.

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Now, your translation might say something, unless you believe that I am he. But to see that it's not what the

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Greek says. If you do not believe, Ego eimi, that I am. Jesus is referring to the divine name for God, found in Exodus 3.

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When Moses is speaking to the burning bush, that is not consumed, and God commissions him, and sends him to go to tell

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Pharaoh, the Lord Yahweh says, Let my people go. And Moses, when he's commissioned by God, he says to God, Who should

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I say sent me? What's your name? And God says, I am. So in this text, in the

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Greek, it literally says, if you, unless you believe that I am, you will die in your sins.

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Which is a terrible and foolish thing to do, by the way. You don't want to die in your sins. You don't need to die in your sins.

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So they asked Jesus, Who are you? He just said it, by the way. He says,

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I am. So who are you? Jesus said to them, Just what I've been telling you from the beginning.

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I have much to say about you, and much to judge, but he who sent me is true, and I declare to the world that I have heard from him.

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Now they did not understand that he had been speaking to them about the Father. So Jesus said to them,

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When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am.

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How will they know that Jesus is the I am? Oh, you'll know when I'm lifted up on the cross. That's what he's referring to.

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When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am, and that I do nothing on my own authority.

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But I speak just as the Father taught me, and he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him.

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Now as he was saying these things, many, doesn't say all, it says many believed in him.

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So you'll notice what we've read so far, there's a little bit of a heated discussion going on.

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And some of the Jews that Jesus is talking to, they're kind of looking for any little excuse to kind of argue with Jesus.

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But while Jesus is teaching, while he is speaking, while he is answering them, many begin to believe in him.

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And so now we have two groups. We have those who believe in Jesus and who are believing his words, and Jesus knows that they now believe that they've miraculously been brought to death, from death to life.

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And then you have those who sinfully and obstinately are working against and resisting the work of the

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Holy Spirit, and they are continuing to argue with Jesus. Keep the two groups separate, and you'll see now what's going on in the text.

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So we continue, verse 31. So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, if you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

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Now Jesus is not saying here that abiding in his word is the thing, the one thing that you've got to do in order to be saved.

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That's not this kind of conditional sentence. There are different kinds of conditional sentences, and let me give you the kind that this is.

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If I were to say to you, if you go outside and you look at the sidewalk and the sidewalk is wet, then you know it's raining.

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Okay? Does a wet sidewalk cause the rain to fall? No. Not unless you need to go to that little hospital with the white coats, right?

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Okay? We know this. Okay? So Jesus is saying the same thing. If you abide in my word.

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The one who abides in his word is the one who believes, and is the one who is already saved.

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You see the difference here? So abiding is not the thing that saves you. It's the thing you do because you are saved.

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So. And they already believe in him. If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples.

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By the way, he's here speaking as if he's God. Because, I mean, Jesus is basically saying, yeah, my words, they're the word of God.

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You abide in my words. And it's like, the Jews are freaking out about this. So here

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Jesus acknowledges that these men, that they are now in his word.

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In other words, that they now embrace his word by faith. If you abide in my word,

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Jesus says. The word of Jesus, then, is this. It's the gospel. So if you want to get a picture, just a little picture of what this looks like, to abide in Jesus' words, we see this in the book of Acts, after the great day of Pentecost, when all these thousands of people repent and are baptized for the forgiveness of their sins.

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We read in Acts 2, 42, that they then, these new disciples, these new Christians, devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, the fellowship, the breaking of bread, and the prayers.

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And you'll notice this there. To abide in Jesus' words requires us to, well, abide in the teaching of the apostles.

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How many books did Jesus write, by the way? Not one. At least not with his own physical hands, did he?

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No, we are left to believe in Jesus based upon the writings and the teachings of the apostles.

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This is why we confess in the Creed, one holy, Catholic, and apostolic. The word there, apostolic, means we abide in the apostles' teaching.

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So, that's what it means to abide. The opposite of this, by the way, would be to drop the word that they have taken up, to leave it again, and then, by doing so, return back to unbelief, which is really foolish.

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Absolutely foolish. A friend of mine puts it this way. She says, if I don't go to church, I become a pagan.

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And I think we all know that that's true. Something happens to us when we stop hearing and abiding in the word of God. So, to believe

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Jesus equals to believe what he says. So, we now come back to our text then.

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Now, it says, They answered him, we are offspring of Abraham. This is the other group, the ones who still don't believe.

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Not the ones who are believing, but the other group, the unbelievers in the group. They say this, We are offspring of Abraham, and we've never been enslaved to anyone.

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How is it that you say you will become free? And all the Norwegians said, Oofta. It's like, really?

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Yeah. So, Jesus has to do like Anthropology 101. So, here's

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Anthropology 101. Jesus answered them, Truly, truly, amen, amen, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.

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See, Jesus isn't talking about being slaves to other human beings. He's talking about slavery to sin, to death, the devil.

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This is the slavery that we all encounter. And Jesus is saying, No, really, you all are all slaves.

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And by their persistence and resistance in their sin against the message and the words of Christ, they are showing that they are truly slaves to sin.

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And Jesus says this, A slave does not remain in the house forever, but the son remains forever.

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So, if the son sets you free, you will be free indeed. And you'll notice here, that Jesus here, in talking about slaves set free, isn't just saying,

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Hey, listen, slaves, I'm setting you free, and good luck to you. I've just paid your redemption price.

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Here's a couple of bucks for your wallet. Maybe you can catch a train. And who knows where you can go. The sky's the limit.

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Off into the sunset with you. That's not what he's saying. What Jesus is literally saying is that the slaves he's setting free, he's also adopting them as his own sons and daughters.

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This is quite the freedom. The freedom that gives us the inheritance, the very inheritance of the kingdom of God.

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So, when Jesus sets us free, we are, of course, freemen. And yet, we are far more than so -called freemen.

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In the old Roman Empire, or even in the American West or South, we ourselves are turned into sons, adopted into the household of God, children of the

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Father, and joint heirs with Christ. And notice, if the sun sets you free, it doesn't say, if you buy your own freedom.

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If you work really hard, then maybe, maybe, just maybe, I'll set you free. No. The sun is here to set us free, and we will be free indeed, and we are free indeed.

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Now, this all then hooks into our epistle text, which we'll review again. Romans chapter 3, 19.

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Now, we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped.

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You can even kind of in a way say that the law is speaking to those who are slaves, slaves to the sin, slaves to the law.

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And the purpose of the law, why did God give us the law, the Ten Commandments? Why? Was it so that we can now have a ten -rung ladder that we can climb our way into heaven with?

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Is that the reason why? No. Absolutely not. Primary reason why

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God gave us the law is to show us that we are sinners. And that's why Paul says that we now know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped.

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One of the purposes of the law is to get you to shut up. And shut up in this way. Stop saying to God, but God, I'm a good person.

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No, you're not. Let's review those Ten Commandments again, right? No, really, you're not.

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Christ only died for the ungodly. And the law shows us that I am one of those. And so are you.

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So the purpose of the law is to get us to shut up so that the whole world may be held accountable to God.

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And then we get these words from Paul. For by works of the law no human being will be declared righteous in God's sight, since through the law comes the knowledge of sin.

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You look into God's law and you go, Man, I'm not measuring up.

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I know what I'll do. I'll go grab some paint. You know, put a little fresh coat of paint on my tomb here.

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That'll spritz things up and I'll look really great then, right? That's not going to solve the problem, is it?

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Not at all. Because here's the solution. Paul then says this, but, it's an important but, because buts usually have a way of erasing things that come before it.

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So all of that law stuff, but. But now, the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law.

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Notice it doesn't say your righteousness. It says God's. It's His. It's been manifested apart from the law.

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Although the law and the prophets, they bear witness to it, this is the righteousness of God that is through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.

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Oh, that's right. If you believe that Jesus has bled and died for you, you don't have your own righteousness.

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You are covered in the very righteousness of God and that's given to you as a gift and it doesn't get more righteous than that.

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It's perfectly sinless. Perfectly righteous. All for you. All given as a gift.

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For there's no distinction. Here we go again. Watch this. For all have sinned.

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And you're sitting there going, yeah, but, I didn't sin that bad. I haven't done that sin.

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Yeah, no. Okay. Here's the idea. Sin is missing the mark, right? That's actually kind of the analogy of the word sin.

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It means to miss the mark. It's kind of an archery term. So you take your bow and arrow, shoot for the target, and you shoot wide and you're off by a foot or two off to the side, right?

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That's missing the mark. But here's the deal. None of us have actually hit the target. We've all missed the mark.

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And some of you might be saying, yeah, but my arrow's closer. Okay. Now, what do they say?

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The close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. Doesn't count regarding sin. Okay.

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You either hit the mark dead center or you don't. And if you don't, well, to hell with you.

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That's the penalty. The wages of sin is death. Not just the first death, but the second. So we've all shot wide of the mark.

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And some of you are a little closer. Mine, well, okay. Over here.

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Yeah, right? Okay. I don't even think I hit the hay bale. So all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

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But listen to this. And are declared righteous by God's grace as a gift.

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God says, yeah, I know you missed the mark. So you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to come to earth, born of the

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Virgin Mary, become incarnate, humble myself. Humble myself to the point of death, even death on a cross.

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And I'm going to take all of your penalty for missing the mark on myself. And I'm going to bleed and die for it.

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I'm going to propitiate the wrath of God for you. And then I'm going to give you my righteousness free.

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Gift. Total pardon. All grace. What do we do? We just believe.

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There's no work in belief. All there is, is receiving. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified, declared righteous by His grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

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And there's a big word there. Redemption. Redemption. It's a slave term. It means to purchase somebody off the slave block.

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Not just to purchase them so that they can go to work on your plantation, but purchase them in order to free them.

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That's what a redemption is. Through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus by whom God put forward as an atoning sacrifice by His blood to be received by faith.

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Now God did this. This was to show God's righteousness because in His divine forbearance He had passed over the former sins.

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It was to show His righteousness at the present time so that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

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Now, Paul then asks this question. So then what becomes of our boasting? Now think about this for a second.

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If you think that you are saved by your good works, you're sitting there counting up all of your good brownie points.

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Well, I gave a sandwich to a homeless person. I was really close to cursing that one time.

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My mom said that on the phone. But I didn't, so that's a good work. And then I told my mom I love her.

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And then, you know, I went to church. Yes, I went to church. And then I prayed yesterday.

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Click, click, click, right? And then you start looking around. You're looking at your scorecards.

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Boy, I'm so happy with this. And then you start looking at other people's scorecards.

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Ooh, yeah. Boy, I'm so glad I'm not like that person.

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Did you see that scorecard? I got nothing on it, right? When you start thinking of the law in these terms, this is what you do.

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You start boasting and bragging because you think that somehow you're climbing the ladder. Look how high

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I am. Oh, you little peons over there. You're so down low. If only you would be like me, right?

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This is all idolatry. And this is the equivalent of what

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Rome did at the Council of Trent in anathematizing the gospel. But Paul says, where then is boasting?

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Based on what he said, since salvation is totally by grace through faith as a gift for the ungodly, for the ones who missed the mark?

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There's no boasting. Look, it's Christmas. We all got gifts from God.

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And it's the same one. A full and complete pardon, one by Christ. There's no room for boasting in that, is there?

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Look, Jesus forgave all my sins. Yeah! What a great Jesus I have.

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Right? Not a great person I am because without Jesus, I was heading to hell.

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So then what becomes of our boasting? It's excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works?

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No, by the law of faith. For we hold that one is declared righteous by faith, apart from works of the law.

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Totally. By grace, through faith. Believe, and you're saved.

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But it can't be that simple. No, really, it is. That's what the Word says. Because if the

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Son sets you free, then you're free indeed. It is that simple.

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But see, the thing is, it wasn't simple for God. It wasn't simple for Him at all.

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When you look at Christ on the cross, and you see Him there gasping for breath, and bleeding, and crying out, my

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God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He's doing that because He's suffering the penalty for your sin and mine.

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He's the one who did all the work. Every last bit of it.

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He's the one who suffered our condemnation down to the dregs.

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It wasn't simple for Him at all so that it can be the gift given to us.

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Because if it were up to us to work for it, then we'd all be in hell.

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But if the Son sets you free, then you are free indeed.

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In the name of Jesus, amen. We thank you for your support.

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