Systematic Theology (part 16)

Bethlehem Bible Church

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Lord Jesus Christ, we thank you for your amazing grace and as we wake up this morning to read your word to Hear about your word being proclaimed

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To even remember your finished work on the cross We gather today in memory and as we remember your resurrection as we remember the

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Lord's Day We celebrate it with joy. We celebrate it with gladness With for the praise of your name and even

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Lord to do it corporately such a joy such a privilege We pray as always that you would be glorified today in this session

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But also throughout the other ministries in BBC today Father we ask that you would help us to put on the armor of God and to stand firm in the battle so that you would get all the glory and then

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Subsequently it would increase our joy and our effectiveness to ministry We thank you for this opportunity to be together in Christ's name.

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I pray. Amen Turn with me to Ephesians 6 10 to 18. I'll start reading it and We will finish up Lord willing the rest of this armor

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Ephesians 6 10 to 18 Finally be strong in the

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Lord and in the strength of his might Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil

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For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood but against the rulers against the authorities

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Against the cosmic powers over this present darkness against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places

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Therefore take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand firm verse 14 stand therefore having fastened on the belt of truth and having put on the breastplate of righteousness and A shoes for your feet having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace in all

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Circumstances take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one and Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the

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Spirit, which is the Word of God praying at all times in the spirit with all prayer and supplication

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Two weeks ago we defined why what the battle is who the enemy is how for most the time for the charismatics the

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Enemy is just binding up Satan casting him to hell Fighting with him by using words and that the whole armor of God is just focused on that We corrected it.

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We define who Satan is who the enemy is what exactly the battle is Last week we dove into four areas of the armor

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We started by looking at prayer Which is extremely important because it shows dependence on the

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Word of God and as we said last week Paul uses it in a very prominent manner in that section of Scripture He says he uses the word all four times to stress the manner in which you need to pray the regularity which we need to pray in and The things you need to pray for We looked last week about the breastplate of righteousness at the belt of truth and the shield of faith

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Today, we're going to look at the rest With I'll give you an example of Someone I think often wears the armor of God.

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Well, I'm not saying that in a light manner But we like examples and I'll use an example and then

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I also clarify some things about the breastplate of righteousness There was some Confusion and some questions last week as to what it really means and whether it is forensic righteousness or not

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So we'll go into that this week I did some studying actually most of my week went in studying and making sure that Armor was correct the shoes of the gospel of peace so the

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Roman panoply reference is a Caliga which is a half boot that the

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Roman soldiers used to wear particularly for long marches Needless to say no army at that time had anything like this and it was one of the reasons why they succeeded so much

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Paul doesn't say to put on the shoes, but what does he say? He says put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace

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Where does he get this from where does he get this reference from it's Isaiah 52 We went through this last week, but there's

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Isaiah 11 I say 18 and then Isaiah 52 for the armor. This is what Isaiah 52 7 says

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Actually, can somebody read that Isaiah 52 7 Isaiah 52 7

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In Isaiah The lone messenger would bring what he would bring good news to Jerusalem and just as he was getting close to the city

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He'd stop and he would shout peace good tidings salvation your

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God reigns and he would say it loudly and repeatedly and That's what he that's why it says that his feet are beautiful But what do we see in?

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Ephesians how does Paul use this? Read with me Ephesians 2 14 to 18

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Let's put Isaiah 52 Ephesians 2 14 to 18 Ephesians and Ephesians 6 15 together in Understanding what this piece is and how we are to put on the readiness bought on by this piece

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Ephesians 2 14 to 18 Can somebody read that? That's Steve, thank you

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There are two kinds of peace that we see Paul is talking about here. One is horizontal and one is vertical

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What is the horizontal piece? between Jew and Gentile Okay, that's between Jew and Gentile Christ You know every he brings any everything to him.

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That's the focus of Ephesians Completing everything in him. He's the sum of all things here

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What he's doing is he brings unity in his body between Jew and Gentile So definitely there is peace that is spoken about here between Jew and Gentile between people that God brings

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But the primary peace that this is talking about is the peace with God through the reconciling work of the

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Lord Jesus Christ a Person who experiences within his own heart the peace of God that surpasses all understanding

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The very peace which the gospel proclaims has been delivered from a great burden

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Agreed. I mean, how do you have peace if you don't have peace with God if you don't have forgiveness from God How do you fight the fight you have this burden of what the burden of your sin on you?

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So if you don't understand salvation and the gospel and now God we are at peace with God through the work of Christ It's going to affect your battle.

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It's going to affect how you fight The conviction of being reconciled with God through the blood of Christ gives us the believer

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Courage and zeal to fight the good fight If you want to study on this more you can you can study

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Ephesians 2 15 and 17 the passage We just read and you can also do Romans 5 1 and in context

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You can do Romans the whole of Romans 5 which will show you how the readiness that the believer has

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The readiness for the battle comes from is derived from the gospel whose message or content is peace

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Okay, so these are some passages you can study if you're not clear about that The next is the helmet of salvation.

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The panoply reference is very obvious here. What is it? It's the helmet to protect the head from severe blows from arrows that were flying from distance the reference in that Paul has in mind is again in Isaiah 59 17

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Which we looked at last week as we looked at the breastplate of righteousness Isaiah 59 17.

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Can anybody read that? This is like we spoke about last time How this is the

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Messiah's armor in his quest to defeat the enemies and protect his people Paul uses it a little differently.

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He although he uses the reference. He uses it differently in Ephesians Am I correct in saying that salvation language is used throughout

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Ephesians, especially 1 2 & 3 Do we see that a lot in Ephesians We do

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But what does Christ say in one what is sorry? What is if Paul say in Ephesians 1 2 & 3?

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He says this repeatedly that God what God has done

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In through Christ Jesus on the believers have alone constitutes the whole of salvation

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So it's it's Christ's work that makes us right with God. No other work

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The helmet once again to pick depicts what based on the context based on what we're seeing confidence in Christ It depicts the confidence of this in the status the believer has in Christ.

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It's not it's not anything else So when you fight the battle, it's what Christ has done and what

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Christ has done on on the believers behalf of the glory of the Father we see that in Ephesians 2 and out of love for the believer

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Peter O 'Brien in his commentary on this section says this God has rescued us from death wrath and bondage and transferred us into a new dominion where Christ rules the position of power and authority with Christ to which we have been raised is

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Greater than that possessed by our mighty supernatural enemies can someone turn to Philippians 1 6

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Philippians 1 6 chapter 1 verse 6 we spoke a little bit about this last week when we were looking at the breastplate of righteousness, but It's assurance of salvation

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Important in the battle. Is it important every day in the Christian life? Is it important in the battle if so, why if not, why not?

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It's assurance of salvation important Many pastors have written books about it, too.

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So I would say it's important somehow, but why what is it? Let's talk through this

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Pastor Steve Right So pastor Steve was saying that it has a direct influence on the way you evangelize if you evangelize at all if you can't

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Because you would have no assurance of salvation Excellent. What how does it? also affect

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It affects your proclamation, but how does it affect the way you? Live the Christian life.

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How does it affect the way you deal with the temptations around us? Which is the way, you know

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Satan has external influence, right? How does How does it affect us if we don't have assurance?

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Or if we don't believe Philippians 1 6 which tells us about what Christ has begun. He will finish

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Carol Excellent Ephesians 4 talks about how for how

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God has forgiven you in Christ You should do what forgive others have no bitterness towards others. Now.

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That's a good point How do you follow a very? Simple mechanism if you've been forgiven of a great great crime and great crimes

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And God has given you eternal life. How do you forgive others, which is an important aspect of the

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Christian living, right? We need to forgive every day if something goes on In our lives every day.

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We need to constantly be forgiving you important part of the battle Steve That's right.

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Pastor Steve was saying how if you don't Believe in their worst and you may fall into self -righteousness where you depend on yourself.

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That's crucial But the peace we have with God comes from Christ's work not our work so therefore

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We need to we need to trust in that we need to believe in what the promises of Scripture Which was what we looked at it last week the shield of faith

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Right, which is the promises that God has given us in Christ Jesus promises that he will fulfill what he has said in his word

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If we don't have assurance, can I say that we might easily give up the fight If we don't have assurance, we don't have the present and future assurance of salvation

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When hardship comes when persecution comes it's easy for us to even give up It is exactly this precious treasure that fortifies us with strength to continue the fight for us to ourself

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We know that what God has begun in us will be carried on to completion

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Any of other comments anything else you that I missed

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Yeah, that's absolutely right Steve was giving the example of David who? Committed sins and was able to remember that forgiveness came from Christ forgive

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Sorry forgiveness came from God and that he had peace with God picks himself up after the death of his son and moves on to continue to obey

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God to continue to worship God I don't know if you guys have heard this but Speaking to some people including some there's most of these were young men single guys and I asked them

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Okay, I haven't seen you in church for a while You know, you guys haven't come for maybe two three weeks maybe months.

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I Don't know if you've had this conversation of you've you've asked that to people but what kind of responses do you sometimes get

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Hint I'm talking about context here. So I'll give you a hint over what I've heard and what I've encouraged those men to think about You're here.

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Okay, I didn't make it to church for three weeks That's Steve. Yeah, right

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Not so long back I had a conversation with a dear brother and asked him what's going on and he said I've sinned too much

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This week to come to church That's a good point. Yes, that's a good way. That's a very good point It is and and my response to him is you have no idea what

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I did this week If I were to think only about my sin and use that as the only mechanism with which

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I went to church or fellowship I Could never be useful in ministry. I could never love my wife.

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I could never take care of my kids teach them How could I ever teach the Bible if I've always thinking in my head about the sins

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I've committed I'm not saying we take our sins lightly. That is not what I'm saying here. But if your only focus is what you have done

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You're not gonna come to church and Specifically what all of these guys have told me as I talked to them is this I'm so much worse than all the other people who come to church like That's not true.

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Your confidence comes from the work of Christ. Yes, you need to repent you You know, we can work together in whatever areas you're struggling with but that can't be the only reason

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Why you don't come to church? I can't be the reason I mean, I mean we need to love them We need to teach them the gospel.

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You remind them you to come along there alongside and Remind them of the armor of God and the and the peace of God Moving on.

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The next armor is a sword of the spirit We did speak about this last week, but I still wanted to do this The Roman panoply reference is a short handled sword used in close combat situations

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It was it was in very close combat situations And once again,

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Paul is referring to if Isaiah 11, which we spoke about earlier But in Ephesians again the way he uses the

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Isaiah references are a little different here he says It is to be used in everyday offense in the believers spiritual warfare

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So what's the what is the sword and what's the power behind this word? Paul tells us exactly what this word is here.

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What is this word, sir? The Word of God.

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Okay, Paul says that very clearly right there the spirit Put on the I mean use the sword of the spirit, which is the

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Word of God. So the sword is the Is the

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Word of God now, what's the power behind the sword? What's the power behind this word?

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Sorry truth good. What what is the worst thing though? The spirit the spirit the

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Holy Spirit the Spirit of God is the very power behind the Word of God So in the context when you look at the context of sword, which is the

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Word of God is specifically the gospel now How do some reformed

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Christians and even charismatics think about the sword of the spirit? It's good to know what they think about It's good

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How do they use the sword of the spirit, how do they understand what do they understand about the sword of the spirit?

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Is that what the charismatics? Yes, yes some reformed believers and charismatics

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I think that's where I confuse you some reformed Christians think like the charismatics and they have a wrong interpretation of the sword of the spirit

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And sorry for confusing Very good that yes, that's that's very right child

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Charlie Yes, excellent.

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It's a much better response than what I've written down here, but Perfect that's exactly the way the charismatics think

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Okay, most the time and all the time the way they use a sword of the spirit is like this. They speak damnation to Satan and They're fighting and they're busy binding

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Satan up with clever words. That's their understanding the sword of the spirit So it goes back to both what?

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Steve was saying as well as but what Charlie was saying, that's the way

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They use the sword of the spirit. Does Paul have that in mind? Does Paul have that in mind?

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No What Paul is saying is this? the sword of the spirit and in using it is the faithful speaking forth of the

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Gospel in the realm of darkness So that men and women held by Satan might hear this liberating and life -giving word and be freed from his grasp

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That is not what the charismatics do This is the preaching of the Word of God.

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This is the preaching of the truth of God There is no other way to salvation is there. I don't think Eric you go to a

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Church and you preach something else so that they can be saved you don't bind Satan up That's not the way you use the word of the spirit you preach the gospel and That light as God chooses illumines the hearts of mind of looming the hearts and minds of men and frees

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People who are trapped who are slaves to Satan and to sin But there's also one more important aspect of the sword of the spirit

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How many of you guys were at the Shepherds conference last year the in inerrancy summit?

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There was quite a few of us. That's it for 20 BBC men were there Let me ask you this

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How important is? Inerrancy and infallibility of scripture knowing it understanding it believing that scripture is in that in inerrant important in the battle in The spiritual battle how important is that if it is important?

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Why is it important? It's foundational, okay?

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Why is it foundation what exactly how is it foundational excellent?

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Yes, okay Exactly what Brad was saying that it is the foundation in the sense that it is what we have our faith in That's what we put our hope in it's it's not that our faith is

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Illogical or not based on substance the faith that we have comes from the written inspired Word of God Steve.

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Oh Okay Anything else what other reasons do we have that? inerrancy in infallibility is important excellent excellent

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What what what she was saying is that if you don't believe it's inerrant then you can pick and choose what's inspired and you can

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Pick and choose what you use in in the battle and and that can be dangerous very dangerous

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Charlie Amen, perfect. You can't have the armor without the Word of God if you believe it's inerrant

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Let me ask you this if you believe something is full of error. Would you use it? Would you explain it to somebody would you take time to study it?

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You wouldn't if you think it is infallible. You wouldn't you wouldn't even bother reading it Would you come to BBC where the

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Word of God has taught carefully? No, you would pick one of the other hundred churches and ten miles from here that don't teach the word

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This is what Kisten marker had to say about inerrancy and how important it is here as has already been indicated in 526 the sword is the gospel

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God's utterance if you wish the Bible the entire Word of God First was spoken by him and now his servants proclaim it to others as long as what they proclaim is really in Harmony with God's special revelation as it was subsequently deposited in written or printed form in what we now call the

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Bible It remains the very sword here referred to Even the least deviation from the word as originally given is of course the

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Word of Man not of God a lot of people do not believe in the inerrancy and the infallibility of Scripture the popularity of many men and women like Sarah Young show that clearly to us if You deviate from the

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Word of God Especially as a believer. There's something wrong there But you have bereft yourself of using the armor of God effectively in the spiritual battle

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You don't have the word you don't believe in it. You can't use it. How do you sum up the spiritual weapons?

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Last week. I said you can sum it up by using a single word obedience this week. I'm going to add to it

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I'm not adding to the scriptures. I'm adding to my slides prayer and obedience We looked at 613

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Ephesians 613 which said this Therefore take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand firm

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According to Paul. How do you stand firm? If you look at 613 and 618

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The references he has for standing firm and prayer go hand in hand The way you stand firm is by prayer and obedience obedience from heart what from grateful hearts from redeemed hearts

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Obedience it comes from what trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and in his promises.

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That's what motivates our obedience Not thinking that our obedience is what brings us salvation

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We also spoke about what the evil day is it the evil day is when Satan Became the prince of the world that has been

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Satan was cast out of heaven Till the day he is cast back into the till he's cast into the bottomless pit not back

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Till he's cash into the bottomless pit. That's the evil day Therefore right now we are in the evil day and right now we are to stand firm

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The more we stand for Christ the more intense the battle becomes The more we win the more glory

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God gets and The more we win the more joy we have and that sums up much of The armor of God, but I'm going to I have a little bit more to talk on but anybody have questions comments

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Grievances Carol right and that's excellent.

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Carol was saying how some people may have verses on every section of their wall and Therefore think that because they have it there or they know it to some extent that they know

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God And they love God and worship God and therefore they don't even put the armor of God. So it is it is very very important to to look at the lives of the

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Pharisees and the Sadducees as well because They had one desire and that was when you read the parables of Jesus Christ They had one desire one focus and that was to get praise for themselves

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They didn't care about what God Thought about them. They didn't care about what

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God thought about their works and what you see from in many of the parables whether you take the parable the two men at the temple or the parable of the

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Good Samaritan what you what you do see is they They didn't even need God according to if you spoke to them, they didn't even need

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God they didn't think they needed God and That is a very very dangerous thing now let's talk a little bit about obedience and Last week we hadn't we had a good discussion on the breastplate of righteousness

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There were kind of two views one view was that this breastplate of righteousness is

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The forensic righteousness that it is God Justifying the sinner based on the obedience of the

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Lord Jesus Christ and there were there's another view where the breastplate was more of The believers obedience and how that's an important part of the armor

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So last week I did not look when I was preparing last week. I did not look at some of the

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Commentaries by John MacArthur or by Kistemacher So I spent some time this week to study and to see

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Especially if I have the wrong view and I wanted to share what I what I found This is what

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Kistemacher says on this section and please ask questions. Talk to me about it as you think over this

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This is what Kistemacher says on the breastplate of righteousness It will be recalled that in first Thessalonians 5 8

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Paul speaks of the breastplate of faith and love now in both the previous

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Ephesian instances The word righteousness was employed in an ethical sense and we spoke about that last week

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Ephesians 4 24 and 5 29 You can see that the righteousness is on an obedience front

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Not the forensic righteousness So Kistemacher goes on to say in 2nd Corinthians 6 7

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Paul mentions the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left that is such armor enables one to meet attack from both sides a

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Person who does not understand this may struggle with assurance of salvation and He also lacks the power to attack for the testimony of the lips will be ineffective

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The neighbor will not be one for Christ and the evil one will not be vanquished on the other hand when righteousness

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In conduct is present. What a mighty weapon for defense and offense it becomes so we'll go to John McArthur next but Kistemacher is essentially saying there that this righteousness is a personal holiness

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It's obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ and how important that is as a weapon in our daily spiritual battle

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I'll talk about John McArthur too. And then I would love to hear from you Yes, we have that this is

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John McArthur speaking and when you say we have that he's talking about we have imputed righteousness But Paul is not talking about that you don't put that on God put that on you when you were saved

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Yes, we are covered by declaration of God with the righteousness. That is not our own but belongs to Christ But we are also commanded to demonstrate righteous behavior

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Philippians 2 verse 12 so then my beloved just as you have always obeyed not as in my presence

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This is Paul speaking to the Philippians not as in my presence only but now much more in my absence

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Work out your salvation with fear and trembling for it is God who is at work in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure

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So now God has given you and this is MacArthur going on to Comment or more on this on this topic

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So now God has given you an imparted righteousness and will with that imparted righteousness at salvation

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He has also given you the Spirit of God. He has given you new life in regeneration and Here's the main section and now you are both capable and responsible

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To work out the righteousness that has been given to you

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He sums it up. He ends the section by saying this imparted righteousness that personal holiness protects us from sin

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The breastplate is holiness righteous living Unless you walk in holiness on a daily basis

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You are in trouble So it's just to clarify on the views that we looked at last week,

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I didn't want to just go away and Leave you guys hanging because there was some confusion about what the breastplate of righteousness is

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The it is important to obey the Word of God. It is important to have personal holiness

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But that comes of course after Christ's after God imputes Christ's righteousness to us that's very important to understand

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Questions comments. I know I know I didn't say that John MacArthur did so hopefully you if you have any questions you can email him

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Yes Completely agreed, but do we sin do we fall do we fail in this battle regularly?

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Absolutely, but as we read in Philippians 1 and as Paul talks about if he

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What Paul talks about the believers? Union in Ephesians 1 2 & 3 we know one thing for certain no matter how many times we fail what

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Christ began he will finish We're going to heaven no matter how many times we fail and the battle is pretty intense.

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We are going to fail That does not mean that does not mean that we

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We don't fight that does not mean we don't obey that does not mean we don't put on righteousness and we

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Have personal holiness. The thing is from talking to most reformed people as exact view. They're so afraid about bringing in self -righteousness they tend not to want to look at the breastplate of righteousness as obedience at all and I understand that we don't want to ever

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Forget about the imputed righteousness That we have we never want to do that But my concern is we're going away from what the text is saying

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And I think that's what Kistemacher and John McCarthy are arguing to pretty pretty

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Amen, is it Ephesians that says that we walk in the way that God has established us to walk in the good path

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I can't remember which verse in the New Testament that is Is that Ephesians? 210 right there

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Ephesians 210 Let's read that let's read Ephesians 210.

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I Don't want to ever go away from your thinking saying that you know We have we can do this on our own or we have righteousness on our own

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I just want to encourage us that our obedience Gives us further confidence in the spiritual battle and it's that's what

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Paul is referring to in Ephesians 6 Ephesians 210 For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which

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God Prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Okay, so we've looked at a lot of good theological

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We've had great discussion about this. We've spoken a lot about this Sorry, shall we?

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Absolutely, that's that's exactly what I've been saying I've been reading up on all the material on this and some more commentators and they all seem to agree with that I apologize for not reading them last week.

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I would have had more to give you Maybe you could have thought about a little bit more over the week. That's a Steve Yeah Absolutely Absolutely.

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How would you love crowd you show your love for Christ if you're constantly in sin and as we were talking about before How do you fight the battle and if you're constantly looking at your life and you're constantly you're refusing to obey

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How do you fellowship with others the reason why many people refuse to even come to church? Yeah, no, no,

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I understand he does use the word but oh boy, I'm not gonna try to defend Dr.

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John MacArthur. No, I Pro I'm not sure. That's a good that's an interesting point, though Harry Right, so yeah

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Okay Okay, so it's justification versus sanctification, okay, that makes sense

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He's coming straight from California So here's

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I want to stop with an example I like to talking about an example and we don't need to go too far from this

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When I first came to BBC, it's almost seven years ago. I had a great conversation with With a man his name was at that time.

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He shared the name with a politician to Scott Brown and it was

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The lack of a better word it was a very inspirational conversation and I'll tell you why it really was important to me, especially as a single man at that time.

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Paul. I'm sorry not Paul. Sorry Almost gone and going on vacation not

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Okay, where was a okay so Scott was working a few years ago. He was doing as part of his work he had to be away from home for multiple days a week, so what

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Scott did is he had to stay in a hotel and What he did really encouraged me and to be honest shocked me, too

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So in order not to waste time watching television or wasting his brain

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Doing other things and even to fight temptation Anybody knows what Scott Brown did?

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He asked them to remove the television. Did you I know he did not ask them to remove television.

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What what did he do? Why you don't know your elders? Put the sign of the cross on it.

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No, so what he did was very was very interesting to me He went to seminary

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He used that time away from his home a man. I believe is truly godly a man

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I truly believe is understands that his righteousness is not his own but comes from Christ's obedience

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He got his degree. He spent that time Going to school and getting a degree busy filling up his mind with the

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Word of God Busy preparing to be an elder or a pastor or even be able to teach at BBC better He didn't he didn't say

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I'm justified. I don't need to do anything anymore. He didn't say I have imputed righteousness.

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I'm done The fact that he went to seminary To honor

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God shows me one thing that God Uses him in a mighty way that Scott put on the armor.

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He cared about personal holiness and He went one step and he went one step further to honor and love his

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Lord As a single man, I was a newer Christian then you have no idea what an impact that had on my life

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To see his diligence and to see the way God has used you Scott and Karen Brown both continue to be a blessing to me and my wife and to many of us here in this church

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I'm truly truly grateful for the way our Lord is using the Browns for his glory It's just an example of somebody in our own lives.

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We need to put on the armor. We need to fight We need to love God pray continually not because it brings us or makes us special or brings us righteousness

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But because that's what we do out of an obedient and a humble heart We have a lot of other elders and a lot of other people in this church who

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I could use an example But I can't use everybody so I picked one of my favorite

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Any any questions or comments? Good news is I'm finished and For a change,

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I'm on time with my with my clock questions comments Hope this encouraged you to put on the armor of God Somebody told me last week that they'd never studied the armor of God Hopefully this encourages you to study

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Ephesians 6 and know the privileges you have in Christ And exactly who

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Satan is anything Okay, let's pray

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Hello, Jesus. We thank you for your amazing grace and we thank you for it is

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Christ's Substitutionary obedience and substitutionary death that paves the way for reconciliation

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Once we were enemies of God, but now we are reconciled through Christ through his body through his blood through his

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Work on the cross we thank you Lord for every day. We wake up and we go down We think about you and your work your amazing sovereign grace without which this battle would not even be possible

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We know you have conquered sin conquered death We know that you are already reigning over Satan and one day you will finish that work when you cast into the bottomless pit

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But till that day we know you've equipped us that you're even an interceding high priest

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Without whom we could never ever be in this battle. We thank you for your love.

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We thank you for your forgiveness We thank you for your daily intercession and we thank you God for your amazing sovereign grace

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Bless us today as we continue to worship you in word in singing and in talking to one another in Jesus Christ's Holy name