Jeff Durbin: Justification By Faith & Peace With God | Romans 3:28

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your Bibles to Romans. Letter of Paul to the church in Rome.

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Romans chapter 3 and let's start in verse 21.

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Romans 3 verse 21. Hear now the word of the living and the true

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God. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.

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For there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom

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God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith.

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This was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance he had passed over 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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Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law?

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By law of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.

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Or is he God is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the

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God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith.

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Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means. On the contrary, we uphold the law.

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Thus far is a reading of God's holy and inspired word. Let's pray together. God please bless.

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We're handling your word today. You've given this to us as a gift.

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We're hearing from you. This is you speaking. And so I pray,

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God, today that you would get the teacher out of the way, that you would,

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Lord, teach your people in this body by your spirit, through your word.

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Lord, fill us with the hope that we have in the salvation that Christ and Christ alone brings.

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Fill us, Lord, with an anchor from your word about how you bring people to peace with you.

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I pray, Lord God, please, if there's a legacy left behind in this body, let it be a legacy that cares about the gospel, the heart of the gospel, about how a person has peace with you.

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Lord, bring this truth into our minds and our hearts in a way that is unshakable, unmovable.

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And I pray with all my heart, God, that you would please put this gospel and this truth on our lips.

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Let it go forth from us like fire in the world, and let the world be wood. In Jesus' name, amen.

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So our catechism we are in right now, our catechism question in Apologia Church, our local body, is on justification, how a person is justified before God, how they're declared righteous.

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And it's interesting because, just think for a moment with me, the typical theme of a modern evangelical church in the

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West, in North America, is the theme of sort of getting people excited about themselves and their their own personal situation.

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You sort of have a lot of, you know, concert feel to the modern evangelical worship service.

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It's a lot about emotions and feelings and me sort of getting filled up with this emotional experience.

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And it might be a maybe 25 minute or 30 minute long TED talk where there's a verse and then the rest of the talk goes off to the preacher's personal experience and in ways you can make your life more fulfilling and better.

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And then you walk into a church, and we're not the only church doing this, there are many, many, many faithful churches in the city, in the state, across the country, and really around the world.

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We walk into a church like ours and we have a liturgy that we do and some of it may seem kind of formal.

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We get on our knees before the actual sermon itself and you come into a church and here we are unpacking the text of God's Word, talking about justification.

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And that you hear the pastor telling you, you need to love justification by faith in Christ. You need to love that doctrine.

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It needs to be everything to you, the core of your being, what satisfies you as a Christian. And so admittedly, this is different than we might be used to because I'm not promising you any emotional experience today.

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I'm not trying to make you necessarily feel better about yourself and entertain you at all. I have no desire to entertain you.

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As a matter of fact, much of what I say today might cause you to sort of check out. If we're reading quotes from early church fathers about justification by faith, you might be thinking, well that's not really what

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I came here today for. I wanted a more fulfilling experience. And I want to say to you, why does this matter so much?

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The answer is, is if you truly want joy in your life in God, if you truly want peace and satisfaction, if you truly want hope now, today, this very moment, the rest of the day, and in the future, you need to know and love the doctrine of justification by faith alone in Christ alone.

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Because it is the foundation of absolutely everything. There is no joy in God.

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There's no fellowship in God. There's no deep and intimate prayer life. There's no freedom from anxiety and worry.

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There's none of that if we don't understand this divine truth about how a person has peace with God.

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In other words, ready? This is everything. Christians can disagree on a lot of things and Christians throughout church history have disagreed on a lot of things.

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But the one place that we cannot disagree is on the issue of how a person can have peace with God. Of course, we need to have the right

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God and, of course, the right Bible. All of that is assumed in what I'm saying. But we're talking about how a person has peace with God.

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If you want to know the main difference, and I've said this before, between every other man -made religion in the world and biblical faith, this is the key difference.

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How a person has peace with God. What's the difference between what the Muslims believe and Christians believe?

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What's the difference between Rome and what Christians believe? And Eastern Orthodox, even some, and what

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Christians believe. Or Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses. You want to know? It's right here at the heart of the gospel, the issue of justification by faith.

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We need to know this. We need to be able to defend it. And let me just say this to you because I'm going to impress this upon you.

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It's not enough. This is important. It is not enough for you to be in a church body or in a church context that believes justification by faith, preaches it from the pulpit, and can articulate it in terms of the guy behind the pulpit being able to tell you what the

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Bible says about justification by faith. You need to know this truth. You need to know why you believe this.

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And further, you need to be able to defend this truth. It's not enough that your pastor knows.

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Kids, children, teenagers, it's not enough that you're in a Christian home where you're hearing this and your dad knows it and your mom knows it.

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You go to a church where the pastor knows it. You need to know this truth and love this truth because it is the difference between eternal condemnation and eternal life.

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This is the central, the key issue. My passion as your brother, as a pastor, my passion in whatever ways that I hope to be successful in teaching you and equipping you, my passion is to make sure that before the

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Lord takes me home that I have filled you and taught you in particular areas.

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There's so much, of course, in God's Word. We're never going to be able to tap this revelation out. We are creatures.

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We are fallible. We have three -pound brains on our head. We're never going to be able to tap this whole revelation out and get everything articulated and unpacked.

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But there are things that I am passionate about. Before my departure to go home to be with the Lord, I want to make sure that the church body that I've cared for and loved and taught and trained and equipped knows certain things.

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Number one, the authority and the primacy of Scripture. I want you to know why

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Scripture is authoritative. Why it is the foundation of everything. Why it ought to be ultimate. I want you to know why.

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I want you to see it in Scripture. I want you to be able to defend it. I want you to know and to be able to defend and to delight in the

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Trinity. The Trinity. Like, for example, let me just challenge you real fast. Let me challenge you real fast.

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If I were to ask you right now, if I were to ask you right now to defend your belief in the

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Trinity, could you do it? What if I right now say in the next 30 seconds

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I'm gonna pick at random. I'm gonna point you out and I want you to defend the

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Trinity from the Bible, from the Scriptures. 25 seconds. Are you thinking?

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20 seconds. I'm gonna pick a person at random. I'm just joking. I'm not gonna do that. Okay, you guys get tense. Just now, what were you doing?

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Were you working through the file cabinet? Were you thinking, oh no, wait, I do need to be able to defend this.

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And here's why. You can sing the doxology over and over and over every

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Lord's Day. You can do it at mealtime with your family. And you can praise

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Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. You could do that. But listen, if you don't know why you believe that, it's meaningless religious ritual.

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Why are you rejoicing in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? Why? And here's why. Listen, this is in terms of core issues here.

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As Christians, if you don't know why you believe the Trinity, if you can't defend the

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Trinity, then how on earth are you gonna delight in the Trinity? How on earth are you gonna have this intimate, joyful, delighting relationship in God if you don't even know what

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God you're worshiping? If you can't defend the

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Trinity and know why you believe it, then what God are you worshiping? Just consider that.

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So it's my goal as your brother to make sure that before the Lord takes me home, I've taught you about the authority of Scripture and its primacy.

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I've taught you about the And I've taught you about justification by faith because it's that line of demarcation between the kingdom of Christ and the kingdom of the cults.

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Of true religion, true faith, peace with God, and false religion. All false religion. It's that line of demarcation, justification by faith, alone and in Christ alone.

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I want to, before the Lord takes me home, to make sure that I've taught you as a body about what it means to have union with Christ and the glorious benefits of our union with Jesus Christ because that means a new identity.

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I'm looking in this room right now and some of you I, by God's grace, was able to see come to Christ.

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I've seen you at your worst and I see a new creation now. Somebody brand new.

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Some of you we've walked together for over a decade in this local church, Bonnie, and we've all been sanctified.

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We've all grown together. I've seen some of you at your most broken and now I've seen you more mature and more wise and Jesus Christ more dependent upon him, more patient, more loving, more kind.

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And yet the Bible teaches us that when we are declared righteous, when we have peace with God, we have been united with Christ and we have a new identity.

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And so it changes everything because I know some of you where you came from. Some of you in this church,

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Bonnie, I was with at the hospital in a drug rehab. I saw you when you were on detox medication.

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I know some of you when you were in halfway houses. And yet here's the deal.

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The moment you came to Jesus, you were not the drunk. You were not the idolater.

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You were the child of God. You are a saint. You are forgiven. You are not condemned.

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You have peace with God. And yeah, we're years down the road, but it was true of you then as it's true of you now.

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Union with Christ gives you a new identity. Who are you in Jesus? Do you know? Do you know that God sings over you?

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Do you know that God says he's raised you up with Christ in the heavenly places, seated with Jesus?

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Whatever does that mean? Do you know that God calls you his child? Do you know that he says he'll never lose you or forsake you?

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Because you have a new identity. You've been declared righteous. You're righteous in Jesus. My goal, my harsh desire is to make sure that I've taught you well as a body and spoken these truths to myself and my own family.

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Union with Christ, a new identity. And it's my goal also as your brother and as a pastor to make sure before the

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Lord takes me home that I've equipped you and taught you as a body about the goodness of God's law.

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About the goodness of God's law. That he has spoken. He's told us what's righteous and good and true and wise and lovely.

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And it's my duty to make sure that you understand that. You know the law of God and you know God's wisdom.

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And so it's my desire as we're in this catechism question today on justification that you understand it.

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Now here's the issue, okay? Because I could say, like I have been saying,

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I could say this is the gospel, right? And we typically do that as Christians, don't we do that?

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When we talk about the gospel, we talk about the gospel in this way.

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Peace with God through faith in Jesus Christ. We talk about being saved from our sins, right?

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We say things like, are you saved? And the answer is yes. God saved me. I trust in Jesus. I'm saved.

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And we could talk about the gospel in that way. Here's the problem. Paul does talk about the gospel and of course it's throughout the

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New Testament in that way in terms of the gospel is describing peace with God and justification by faith in Christ.

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Like the operation of how God saves people. But the gospel is used in many different ways in a

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New Testament. It's called God's gospel. It's called the gospel of Jesus Christ. It's just called the gospel and in some places the gospel of the kingdom.

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Here's the problem. We don't understand at many points in our culture today that the gospel is huge.

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It is comprehensive. It is full orbs. It has to do with the authority of Jesus Christ.

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It has to do with his perfect life, his death, his resurrection, and his ascension. It has to do with what God is doing with his kingdom in the world.

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And so when we talk about this is the heart of the gospel, I don't want to truncate the gospel to, listen this is very important, just justification by faith.

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Because actually in the gospel according to Matthew, some of you guys know when we started 20 years ago reading

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Matthew, some of you guys know that when Matthew opens up it opens up with Jesus proclaiming, listen, the gospel of the kingdom.

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The good news of the kingdom. So when Jesus comes out of the temptation, out of the wilderness, it says in Matthew chapter 4 that he's proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom.

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And so, really important, when we talk about the gospel we need to make sure that we know there are different elements of the gospel that we need to zero in on.

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And so when we talk about justification by faith, and I say that it's the heart of the gospel, I don't mean that it's the only thing in the gospel.

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But however, it's the heart of the gospel, ready? It's the thing by which

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God does everything else. The kingdom spreads. The world is transformed.

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Justice is established. Are you ready? Because in the gospel, through Christ's perfect life, his death, his resurrection, his ascension, everything that God has done,

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God reconciles sinners from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation to himself through faith and faith alone in Jesus Christ and what he's done in his atonement.

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That's the heart of the gospel. How does God bring this kingdom around the world? He saves people.

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How does he do it? Through faith. And that right there is the heart of the gospel.

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How does God do everything in the good news of the kingdom? He reconciles the world to himself through faith in Jesus Christ.

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Now listen, here's the deal. Why is this central? Why is it central? It is because out there, when you leave today, you're probably going to drive past a number of buildings that will affirm what you and I affirm about, this is

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God's Word. God is triune. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There's only one

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God. And you might say, well, okay, we have common ground. We're good to go. We're worshiping the same God, right? No!

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Because if our trust is in any other thing than Christ and his finished work, we are lost.

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We're trusting in a righteousness of our own and not the righteousness that comes from God through faith.

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This is the dividing line. Justification by faith alone in Christ alone.

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This is the heart of the gospel. Justification. Now, when

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I said that the gospel is described in different ways in different contexts, just in terms of why this is so important, go to Galatians chapter 1.

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Many of you guys already know what I'm going to point out. But this is a place where Paul is clearly not talking about what

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Jesus was talking about when he says the good news of the kingdom, the rule of God in the world, salvation for the world, justice and righteousness established,

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Isaiah 9, 6 through 7, Isaiah 42, all of that. He's not talking about that. He's talking about the gospel here in a narrow way about justification by faith being disrupted in Galatia.

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And so I want to just read this in your hearing so you can understand that the Apostle Paul held a perspective that the gospel in terms of justification isn't malleable.

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It's not open to debates. It's not something that Christians can say, you know what, in that area let's give each other some grace.

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Let me just say on the issue of the gospel, no grace. No movement. No allowing changes and redefinitions because the

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Apostle Paul here, ready? I'd love to unpack all of Galatians today but I'm not going to do it.

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The Apostle Paul here very, very, very early on in history of the church. Listen to that. That's key.

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Galatians is one of the earliest letters. So when Paul chooses to write, one of his earliest letters was on the issue of protecting the gospel.

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The message of the gospel and how a person is saved or justified before God. So he opens up in usual form the address.

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We do it at the end of our letters. Sincerely, Jeff Durbin. Right? They open their letters with who they are addressing.

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Paul, an apostle, not from men nor through men but through Jesus Christ and God the

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Father who raised him from the dead and all the brothers who are with me to the churches of Galatia. 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. You imagine everyone in Galatia sort of giddy like, ooh, we got a letter from Paul.

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Right? It's like, oh Paul, you're so wonderful. He opens up with this, you know, nice address. Grace and peace to you.

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Everyone's sitting there quietly waiting for the next big blessing from Paul. What's he gonna say to us? Is he gonna tell us about his journeys and his travels, all the missionary work and just how good our

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God is? And then he says, I am astonished. Some of your translations say,

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I'm amazed. I'm amazed that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel.

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Now stop. Context. Everything. Sometimes we do this. I confess. You detach yourself because you're reading something that was written so long ago.

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It's the Word of God, but like you're not there in that church hearing this given to you directly. But I want you to imagine for a minute that it's

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Sunday morning. It's a Lord's Day and I walk up to this pulpit and I say, from me to you as a pastor,

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I say, guys, I'm amazed. I'm astonished at all of you.

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You are so quickly like deserting him who called you in God's grace for a different gospel.

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You're believing a different gospel. Now stop. How would you, would you feel the weight of that? Like, whoa.

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Pastor Jeff is mad. Like what, what, what did you do? What did you do? Like, you feel the weight of it?

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That's what's happening here in Galatia. It's a letter from the Apostle Paul, an aspired Apostle, called by God, who saw

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Jesus. And he's like, guys, I'm amazed. You're deserting the gospel.

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You're deserting God. You're giving it all up. You're giving it all up. You're abandoning

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God's grace for a different gospel. Oh, so there can be other gospels.

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He says, not that there's another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the good news of the

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Messiah, the gospel of Christ. He says this, but even if we, the

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Apostles, the leadership, or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed, anathema, eternally condemned.

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He says this, if I come back to you, any of us come back to you, or an angel materializes in your midst and changes the gospel, he says, let him go to hell.

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Let me go to hell for all eternity, if we distort the gospel. He says, as we've said before, so now

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I say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be anathema.

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And then he has to, of course, just say this. He says, look, this is from, you can just tell from the heart, he is trying to be pastoral to this church.

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Listen to what he says. You're distorting the gospel, you're abandoning grace, even if I come back to you and I change the message, the message of the gospel, and how a person has peace with God.

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He says, let me go to hell. If an angel materializes, let him go to hell. And then he says, you can sort of sense his sort of like resting here, he says, am

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I now seeking the approval of man or of God? Or am I still, am I trying to please man?

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If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a slave of the Messiah. You see, just sort of like the heartbeat there of the

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Apostle Paul. Don't you understand, he's saying such hard things, and don't you understand how serious this is?

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And do you see that I am not trying to please you? I am not trying to please man.

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I'm trying to please God, because I'm a slave of Jesus. And that's why I'm telling you the truth.

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What was the issue? Here it is. You're like, what's the big deal, Paul? What are you all up in arms about?

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Read Galatians. It is short. You'll do it in no time. Do it tonight before you go to bed. Do it tonight before you go to bed.

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It'll take you no time at all. It's a short letter. Paul is very serious. And what's the issue?

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The issue is that people were saying, yes, Jesus is Moshiach. Yes, he's the

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Messiah. When you have any evidence here that there's any Christological heresy going on, he addresses that elsewhere.

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You don't have any evidence that they're denying things about Jesus that are like really serious. They're not teaching something anti -Trinitarian.

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What are they doing? They're adding one thing to how a person has peace with God.

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A single thing. They're going, all right, now look, we're Jewish. We love the message of Jesus. Jesus the

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Messiah. We get all these Gentiles coming in now. Things are getting weird. Let's at least do this.

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All right, I'm all for like, you know, all the nations coming to God. That's what that's supposed to happen. Okay, we're

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Jewish. We expected it. That was the promise of Moshiach. I get it. But here's the problem. We get all these

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Gentiles here. We've got to at least say that it's, of course, you've got to turn to Messiah.

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You've got to have faith in him. But can we at least, please, keep what identifies us?

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The Jewish circumcision? Can we just keep the circumcision and say like, look, you've got to have faith in Jesus and you've got to have this identifying mark of the people of God.

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You've got to keep the circumcision. Like, just take this one part of the law and bring that in. Here's what

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Paul says. I want you to see it with your own eyes. Go to Galatians 5. He says over and over and over again in the space of a few chapters, it's through faith, apart from the works of the law, it's not works of the law, faith, faith, faith, only faith.

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Here's what he says is the summary of trying to add even a single thing to how a person is justified before God.

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He says, chapter 5 verse 1, for freedom Christ has set us free.

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Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. Look, I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision,

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Christ will be of no advantage to you. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law.

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You are severed from Christ. You who would be justified by the law, you have fallen away from grace.

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So for Paul, that's it. That's it. Pick it.

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You want grace or to be justified by law? Pick it.

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Because Paul's point, and it's elsewhere in the New Testament, you can't pick the law apart like that and say, well we'll keep this one part to become righteous in God's eyes.

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Because the law is a unit. It's a unit. You got to keep the whole thing. James says in James chapter 2, whosoever should keep the whole law and stumble in one point, he's guilty of all of it.

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So try it and you're done by 9 a .m. So that's the point.

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So Paul's saying here, look, you're gonna have to choose whether you want this gift of salvation, the grace of God, or you want works of law.

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And if you want works of law, that Christ is no benefit to you, you're saying, I don't want his righteousness.

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I want somehow my own. That's Paul's point. It's Christ or it's your own righteousness.

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It's his righteousness as a gift or it's your own. How you doing? We have a lot of life in this room.

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A lot of days behind us, right? A lot of days behind us. And Scripture says something terrifying.

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Are you ready? On the day of judgment, every idle word will be judged.

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All your thoughts, all your intentions, all of your unrighteousness on display before a

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Holy God. Do you want that? I wouldn't want today on display before God knowing his character and his righteousness and his holiness.

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And that's the issue for Paul. It's Christ's righteousness or it's your own. And so he says what you're doing in Galatia is you have now abandoned

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Christ, you've abandoned grace, because you've said that, oh yeah, it's faith in Jesus.

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You've got to have faith in Jesus, but you've got to add at least this one thing. And here's what Paul says.

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Christ has become no benefit to you, no effect. Whosoever of you attempts to be justified by law, you've fallen from grace.

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Salvation is grace. And so he says you've fallen from it by trying to establish your own righteousness.

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And of course, if you keep reading there, you'll see the Apostle Paul saying some pretty theologically violent things to these heretics in Galatia.

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He basically says, I hope these people who are troubling you and they want to like play with knives, they want they love circumcision, he says,

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I hope they cut themselves off. Serious for the

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Apostle Paul to mess with the gospel. There are consequences. I'm going to just say this in terms of as a church, why invest your life and your heart in this issue.

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There's consequences. And you know what? Here's what's interesting.

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I think all of us can confess that we have sort of moments where we pass through life and it's kind of like white noise.

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Some of you kids have no idea what I'm talking about. You've never heard white noise in your life. You didn't grow up with the

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TV giving off white noise on numerous channels, right? You go through the white noise, white noise, white noise, news, white noise, white news, white noise, white noise.

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Did I say news? Okay, white noise, white noise. And it was like, I love Lucy or something like that, right?

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White noise is just sort of noise. And all of us go through life,

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I think some days we could admit it's a lot of white noise. You're not thinking about the present. You're not thinking about the future.

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It's just sort of white noise. You're not thinking about consequence. You're not thinking about death.

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But it's in the moments of death. And we've had a lot of conversations about this as a church body, right?

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We've all had brothers and sisters, children, die among us as a body.

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We've all stood around their bodies together, mourning together. And what have I always said?

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I didn't make this up, by the way. I got it from somebody else. But it was true when I heard it.

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I said, that's, I'm gonna keep saying that. And that is that death has the ability to focus the minds.

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So there's moments where death is so painful, grief is so painful. But it does have the ability to focus your minds.

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And let me tell you right now, all the white noise that you might be experiencing in a moment, there'll be a time for each and every one of us where this is a central issue.

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This is all that will matter. When you close your eyes and your breath stops, and your heart stops, and you're standing before a holy

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God, this will be the most important thing.

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So all the other things that you think are important right now in your life, all the trials, all the struggles, all the conflict, all the difficulty, all right,

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I'm not saying it's not meaningful. I'm saying that on your last day and mine, this.

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This is the consequence. So Paul says in Romans 5, 1, after explaining the gospel, therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God.

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Now, me giving that right now, just this moment, therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God.

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Maybe it doesn't mean much if you're new to the Bible and you don't know where he said that in his explanation of the gospel.

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He said that after he described all of humanity as lost. He said that after he described my life outside of Jesus as not righteous, not good, non

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God -seeking, the poison of asps is under my lips. My feet are swift to shed blood.

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Destruction and misery are in my paths. There's no fear of God before his eyes. That's Jeff Durbin.

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That's me outside of Jesus. That's me on my most righteous day outside of Jesus.

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Not good, not righteous. But here's what's better, ready? That's also you. That's your condition before a holy

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God. That's each and every single one of us, all of humanity, is there in that category.

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You are not good. You are not righteous. And that's a problem because you're in God's image.

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You belong to him. You were created to glorify him, to enjoy him forever, and yet you're a rebel. And so then

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Paul explains what God has done in Jesus to save us, and then it ends after he talks about the benefits of being in Jesus with, therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God.

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And that's everything. That is absolutely everything. Can I say something?

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Maybe I'll just give you some personal thing here, moments. We've had to do a lot of traveling to represent our church body and our mission for end abortion now.

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A lot of traveling, fast turnaround trips, just go talk to a legislator, get them on board, come home, and it's busy, it's hard, but I have been on so many metal tubes flying hundreds of miles per hour at 40 ,000 feet in the last couple of years.

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So many. And I have to confess, when I walk down that jetway, as I just did this week,

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I always have a thing. And Carmen and Isaac, they'll all tell you, everyone who's ever traveled knows, if I'm in front, they all see this, and I think they actually wait for it.

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They're like, please, Jeff, pray for the plane. I always walk up on the jetway, and I put my hand on the plane as we're walking on, and I always pray,

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Father, get us there safely, let us glorify you, and bring us home safely, so we can continue to fight for your kingdom.

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That's what I pray every time. I put my hand on the plane, and I pray that. You know what I think? Is I don't get to tell

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God what to do. There may be a chance that I go on one of those flights to go fight for the lives of babies, and in this fallen world, that plane goes down.

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That's possible. And you know what's true? The reason I can walk on that plane so satisfied every single time, not knowing the future as to whether this flying tube in the sky is gonna make it to the destination, the reason

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I always have peace, complete peace, and no fear, is here. Ready? I have peace with God.

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The ultimate thing is answered in my life. I know Jesus. My name is written in heaven. I have peace with God.

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That's the ultimate thing. No fear in life or in death. Now watch. You might think, well, that's beautiful, but can someone else say that?

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Let me give you something to do in research. Go watch it later. One of my favorite debates between one of our pastors,

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Dr. James White, and a Roman Catholic, they were actually my favorite debates he ever did with Roman Catholicism, was with Father Mitchell Pacwa.

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He's a Jesuit priest and a scholar. The man is brilliant, speaks numbers of languages.

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He's super gracious, and he's just, it's, those are the best debates because it's not always hostile.

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They talk to each other like they're friends. Now, they were debating this issue, the issue between the

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Christian Church, the Christian faith, and Rome on how a person is justified and has peace with God.

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In the cross -examination, when Pastor James is talking to Mitch Pacwa on this issue, he gets to Romans 5 .1

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and he says, therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God.

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Past tense. Have been declared righteous through faith. We have peace with God.

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Now, the conversation essentially goes where Pastor James challenges Mitch Pacwa, considering what

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Rome teaches, considering that you can go in and out and in and out and in and out of peace with God based upon your own obedience or lack of obedience.

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How do you know you have peace with God, Mitch Pacwa? You're a

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Roman Catholic priest, a Jesuit, a very faithful Roman Catholic. He says, how can you say what

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Paul says here? We have peace with God. How do you know?

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And Mitch Pacwa says, I don't. That's Rome's gospel.

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The treadmill of the sacraments. Have I done enough? Am I righteous enough?

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Am I obedient enough? Have I contributed enough? Have I submitted enough? Have I have

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I have I worked all this out just right? It's not the righteousness of Jesus. It's not his work alone in your place credited to you.

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It's something about you and your obedience connected to that faith that is the determining factor of whether you have peace with God.

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This is consequence. You lose justification by faith, you lose everything.

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Romans 8 .1 also says, as Paul's further explaining the gospel of our union with Jesus Christ, he says in Romans 8 .1,

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there is therefore now no condemnation for those who were in Christ Jesus. And can

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I just, I'm gonna pause for a second here and say this. If there's ever a truth that I think we have the hardest time accepting, one of the hardest things to accept, it's that one.

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Can I just challenge you on this for a moment? I want you to think about your life the last week.

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Just the sins that you know about, that you're cognizant of, that you're aware of.

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Whether it's the anger, the bitterness, the hostility, the rage, the lust, the pornography, the not submitting to your husband, the husband not loving his wife, the children disobeying their parents, the laziness, the idleness.

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Just the sins that you personally right now can just recall over the last week.

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Do we not struggle, even as God's children at times, really understanding the glory of this truth?

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When you come in here and you might have just had a fight with your wife or your husband or your kids, you had a pretty honestly awful last 24 hours.

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Anxiety, worry, fear, maybe you're being persecuted and attacked, whatever the case. Maybe you lost a loved one, you're dealing with death right now, whatever it is.

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Sometimes you don't walk into worship and actually feel the weight of that. I'm not condemned.

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Sometimes all you're doing is thinking about all your sin. As a Christian, you trust in Jesus. You're forgiven of all your sins.

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He says so and you still walk in here and you're still in a funk, a spiritual funk.

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You're not really rejoicing. You're not really joyful. You're not really at peace or even experiencing peace because all you remember is your sin and your failures.

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And maybe you have someone next to you that's just constantly reminding you of your failures and your sins. Maybe that's the case.

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Whatever it is, sometimes we don't walk in here into worship and actually experience the blessings of this truth.

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Here's what Scripture says. Paul says it. These aren't my words. Don't believe me. Believe God.

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These aren't my words. These are God's words. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

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You are not condemned. You will not be condemned. For all eternity, God will never condemn you.

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He'll never hold your sins against you. He's not holding it on reserve, right? He's not waiting to slap you down with your failures.

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Why? Because you've been justified by faith. You've been declared righteous. You're in Christ Jesus. You're not condemned.

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You never will be condemned. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not all eternity.

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Why? Because of what God has done in justification through faith in Christ. Everything hinges on this.

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Let me give you something really important to think about because I want to unpack the text. Now you've me say a lot, right?

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You've heard me say a lot that church history is a what? What do I call it? What's that Daniel?

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A glorious mess. A mess. I just made a mess. Okay. A glorious mess.

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Church history is a glorious mess. It's filled with glorious moments of tremendous victory for the church and the gospel.

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You have glorious moments of amazing missionary work and orphanages.

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Glorious moments where the church fights against heresy and false teaching and defeats it.

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It's glorious, glorious moments of unity around the faith and it is a stinking mess because it's a bunch of sinful people being sanctified by God in a fallen world and you've got some deuces.

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You've got some major, major mistakes. You've got mistakes with the church at large in how they treat other groups of people that we can look at now and say that was sinful.

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That was wrong. You guys made a major error and praise God we've learned from that.

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And you've got moments where your giants and mine say the most amazing biblically faithful true faithful faithfully true things and then moments where they absolutely face plants.

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So you can talk about Athanasius and Augustine and Clement and Chrysostom and Ignatius and Irenaeus and Tertullian and you'd be like hero hero giant wonderful look what he did and you flip the page and you go oh major fail.

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They say sometimes they say some stupid things. I mean I could say that now because they're dead so I'm joking.

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But no it's true listen you got fallible human beings handling an infallible word and especially early on in the church they weren't they didn't even know how to deal with every controversy so they made some mistakes.

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But when we talk about justification by faith alone in Christ alone get this we get that teaching from the

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Word of the Living God amen. I need you to come with me here. We believe in the doctrine of justification by faith alone in Christ alone because scripture teaches it from the

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Old Testament to the New Testament amen. However this truth of justification by faith alone in Christ alone is seen throughout church history.

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It is not a novelty. It is not something new that sprang up in the time of the

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Reformation. You can find this teaching of faith alone in Christ for justification throughout the fathers and in the next page of course they might face plants.

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But just as an example to lay down when we say this is a doctrine that you need to be willing to let goods and kindred go even your mortal life also.

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When we say that this is everything we're not saying this is new. We're not saying this was lost in church history.

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We're saying it's in the Word of God. It's the consistent testimony in the Word of God and yes it's throughout church history in some of our very favorites.

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Some examples just to encourage you. I mean some of the honestly some of the best teaching on salvation or justification by faith alone in Christ alone is from some of the early fathers.

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St. Clement of Rome in his letter to the Corinthians he says this similarly we also who by his will have been called in Christ Jesus sounds like a

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Calvinist doesn't he who by his will have been called in Christ Jesus listen are not justified by ourselves or our own wisdom or understanding or godliness nor by such deeds as we have done in holiness of heart but by that faith through which

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Almighty God has justified all men since the beginning of time glory be to him forever and ever.

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Clement of Rome in his letter to the Corinthians Irenaeus says in his

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Against Heresies book four human beings can be saved from the ancient wound of the serpent in no other way than by believing in him who when he was raised up from the earth on the tree of martyrdom in the likeness of sinful flesh drew all things to himself and gave life to the dead.

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Basil the Great his homily on humility said indeed this is the perfect and complete glorification of God when one does not exalt in his own righteousness but recognizing oneself as lacking in true righteousness to be justified by faith alone in Christ.

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That's Basil the Great he was about 330 to 379 AD. Ambrose writing around the fourth century says to this end has his grace and goodness been formed upon us in Christ Jesus that being dead according to works redeemed through faith and saved by grace we might receive the gift of this great deliverance.

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Ambrose again says but when the Lord Jesus came he forgave all men that sin which none could escape and blotted out the handwriting against us by the shedding of his own blood.

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This then is the Apostles meaning sin abounded by the law but grace abounded by Jesus for after that the whole world became guilty he took away the sin of the whole world as John bore witness saying behold the

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Lamb of God was taken away the sin of the world wherefore let no man glory in works for by his works no man shall be justified for he that is just hath a free gift for he is justified by the bath it is faith then which delivers by the blood of Christ for blessed is the man to whom sin is remitted and pardon granted

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Ambrose letter 73. Here's more I want you to hear it because it feels like you're just listening to Paul here doesn't it this is golden tongue or golden mouth

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John Chrysostom one of the great preachers in the history of the Christian Church listen to his words here let us see however whether the brigands gave evidence of efforts and upright deeds and a good yield far from his being able to claim even this he made his way into paradise before the

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Apostles with a mere word on the basis of faith alone the intention being for you to learn that it was not so much a case of his sound values prevailing as the

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Lord's loving -kindness being completely responsible what in fact did the brigand say what did he do did he fast did he weep did he tear his garments did he repentance in good time not at all on the cross itself after his utterance he won salvation note the rapidity from cross to heaven from condemnation to salvation what were those wonderful words then what a great power did they have that they brought him such marvelous good things he says this is the thief on the cross remember me in your kingdom

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Chrysostom says what sort of word is that he asked to receive good things he showed no concern for them in action but the one who knew his heart paid attention not to the words but to the attitude of his mind what did the thief have on the cross what faith he saw

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Jesus he trusted him that's Chrysostom's whole point it's faith alone and here's the evidence par excellence is the thief on the cross right what did he do you guys ever see what is it

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Alistair Begg that has that famous clip about the thief on the cross and how confused everybody is in heaven when he gets there that's one of my very favorite clips of all time if you haven't heard it go look it up it's

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Alistair Begg right go look up that clip I will go back to that clip and revisit it over and over and over again like the thief on the cross gets to heaven and it's like you know he wasn't baptized he didn't get a chance to do any good works none of that stuff and like everyone's confused like what do you understand you know the doctrine of the

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Trinity do you understand justification by faith alone and he's like I have no idea like well who told you that you could come the man on the middle cross told me

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I could come that's it now watch this is huge the way that the thief on the cross was justified was saved is the same way that father

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Abraham was do you see it do you see it isn't it amazing that the

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Christian faith is a continuation of that same old faith father

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Abraham we are descendants of father Abraham heirs according to that promise how was

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Abraham justified before before God we're gonna talk about it more next week when we get into the text of Romans 4 how was he justified

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Paul's whole argument is this you think you're a child of Abraham then you need to be justified in the same way he was and what's the text say

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Genesis 15 6 Abraham believed God what he was credited him as righteousness and what's

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Paul's whole argument is all of this is a for its promise through Abraham all the way to Jesus to us and so Abraham is that example and Paul's whole argument is this how was he justified to which the

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Jew has to scratch their head and go ah well he offered his son Isaac on the altar and the answer is yeah and he was justified about 20 years before that so what happens well what did he do

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God told him and he believed and what was this before Paul's whole argument again it was before he did circumcision it was before the law was given by Moses hundreds of years before and as a matter of fact when there was that moment where God was giving this vivid display of the covenant that he was cutting with Abraham God was swearing by himself saying nobody else is obligated to do this

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I'm doing it on my own they had the animal carcasses split as they were to do the animal carcasses split and typically you would walk through the animals together with the person you were in covenant with and you're basically saying the whole time if I don't keep my promise let it be done to me what's done to these animals you're walking through with somebody but in Abraham's case

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God says sleep you go to bed you do nothing you rest there you don't move you exert nothing and God himself went through obligating only who himself it's a

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Paul's whole point was how's Abraham justified by faith no law no circumcision long before he showed the validity of his faith with sacrificing his son on the altar that's

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Abraham and then Paul says oh yeah and also David how God credits to somebody righteousness apart from the works of the law and you're the blessed man whom

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God will never count your sin against you and it's through faith the promise is faith can

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I just give you three more and we're done we're done for today three more these are amazing

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Chrysostom again when he's talking about Galatians the book we were just in he said they said that he who adhered to faith alone was cursed but he

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Paul shows that he who adhered to faith alone is blessed faith what faith what say guys faith alone it's a myth it's a fiction it's a historic myth and fiction that sola fide faith alone is some invention of the

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Reformation no did you know that as a matter of fact the Reformers when they were decrying where Rome had fallen into apostasy and had degraded the

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Christian faith they weren't saying we're restoring the church the church was lost nobody ever saw this before they were actually arguing to Rome not only do you disagree with Jesus and Paul you disagree with Augustine here

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Athanasius here Clement here you disagree with the fathers as well and here's one of those places

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Chrysostom again he says in his homily on Romans but he calls it their own righteousness talking about how the

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Jews were trying to establish their own righteousness before God he says but he Paul calls it their own righteousness either because the law was no longer a force or because it was one of the

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I just was going with the music that was going on over there it's not as bad as you

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Kimmy but it was it was bad I'm joking or because it was one of trouble and toil but this he calls

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God's righteousness that from faith because it comes entirely from the grace from above and because men are justified in this case not by labors but by the gift of God and I'll say one more his homily 7 on Romans he says here he shows

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God's power and that he has not only saved but he has even justified and led them to boasting and this too without needing works but looking for faith only faith alone brothers and sisters this is everything and before we leave as a church we leave our

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Catechism question on justification it's my heart's desire that you know what you believe you know why you believe it and you can defend it because in the end what do you lose if you lose the doctrine of justification by faith in Christ alone what do you lose peace with God like what's the fundamental message and this is my final word on this what's the fundamental message that we're bringing out there into the world what is it you can have peace with God forgiveness you can have all your sins forgiven you can be reconciled to God you can be saved you can have the gift of eternal life through faith in Jesus what are we calling the world to repentance and faith turn from your sin and trust in Christ trust in the one who lived perfectly died for sinners and rose again from the dead trust in the one who's ascended and seated on his throne the one who commands men everywhere to repent turn to him and live by faith that's our message that must never get lost it must never be muddied because in the end that's going to be the most important thing the thing that you and I will be rejoicing over for all eternity is justification by faith you watch you watch 10 billion years from now when we're rejoicing with one another and in God on this you know completely renewed heavens and earth you watch

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I'm sure I'm gonna turn to you guys at a point and go I told you I told you it was it was this thing right it was this was the most important thing is knowing him peace with him the gift of God through faith in Jesus this was the thing so let's make sure we understand it we know it's a great book to get you might really enjoy on this is from our own pastor

01:00:01

Pastor James the God who justifies I like it because it is scholarly in in some sense but it's also something you can read you can follow and understand it's just a working through all the texts and if you don't have it in your library try to get it in a library if you don't have the money for it we'll buy it for you let's pray father

01:00:19

I want to pray that you would bless the word that went out today and bless us as we go into it again next week unpacking the texts and defending this central truth as we're working