Which "I" Are You?

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Thank You, Lord, for the time together. Thank You for Your Word. We pray that You would meet us in the
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Word again this morning. That You'd encourage us that we would be built up in You, that our roots might sink a little deeper in You, we ask as a result of our looking at the
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Word this morning. We pray in Christ's name, Amen. Ok, I'm going to look at three passages of Scripture today if there's time.
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All of these are familiar to you. Galatians 2 .20, Romans 6, 1 -11, and Romans 7, beginning about verse 15.
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I have to tell you we're going to get into the Greek weeds a little bit this morning. Not too far.
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I am not a Greek scholar. Don't misunderstand. Some years ago, I was at a conference and the guy was preaching.
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It was very good. We were talking afterwards. I happened to notice what he was preaching from.
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And it was his Greek New Testament. That's not happening here this morning, alright?
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But we are going to get into the weeds a little bit, but not too far.
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Only for our edification and encouragement I trust. So beginning in Galatians 2 .20,
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this familiar passage of Scripture, I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer
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I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh,
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I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. Now, I don't know exactly what
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Patty put in the bulletin because I changed it a couple of times and don't know if she got all the email.
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But I guess I would reduce this to two words this morning. I who?
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A lot of I's there in Galatians 2 .20. A lot of what was in the past and a lot of what was in the future.
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And the question is, I who? And we're going to be looking at some of those I's as we look at the other passages of Scripture too.
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Interestingly enough, and this is what draws us into the Greek weeds a little bit, that first word in Galatians 2 .20,
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one Greek word, we translate this way in English. I have been crucified with.
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I have been crucified with. That's five words in English. It's one Greek verb.
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All of those things that we have expressed in those English words,
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I have been crucified with, all of that is in one Greek verb.
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Alright? And all of that comes as they change word endings and all of that.
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That is because, and we ought to just probably know this, but we'll just rehearse it anyway,
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English is a synthetic language. Greek is an inflected language. In other words, in English, we string words together to get thoughts out of that.
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But in inflected languages, like Greek, like Spanish, like French, like the Romance languages, and so on, you have a word stem and then you change endings or add prefixes and suffixes.
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And in one word, you explain a lot of things. It takes us often a lot of words to look at in English.
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Now this particular Greek verb, translated I have been crucified with, occurs only five times in the
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New Testament. Three times in the Gospels, and you can imagine what they are. We have two thieves that are crucified with Jesus in Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
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This verb is used there to describe, or some form of it, to describe that Jesus was crucified with two other men.
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Okay? One of them is here at Galatians 2 .20, I have been crucified with Christ.
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Okay? Paul speaking. And the other is in Romans chapter six, which we're going to go to,
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I was going to say momentarily, but probably not momentarily. All right? We'll get to Romans.
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We'll get to Romans six. As I looked at this, and I looked at that first Greek verb,
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I was drawn to stop and think about it because of its form.
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Okay, now here's where we just kind of descend into the weeds a little bit, okay? Greek verbs have three things about them that need to be noticed.
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And it wouldn't hurt, and you can get at this through English tools of various kinds, and it's worth getting at.
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Those three things are the tense, and we know about tenses because in English we have past, present, and future tenses of the verbs that we use in English.
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One of them is the mood. Not going to worry about that too much today.
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We're not going that far into the weeds. And the other is the voice. Turns out that the voice is very instructive when you look.
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And so let me illustrate for you what voices are in Greek.
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Now, we have to express this with a lot of English words, but they do it in one word often.
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The voices are these, the active voice, the middle voice, the passive voice, and then a combination of the middle and passive voices in older grammars called deponent for those of you that read
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Greek grammar books. Don't worry about it. It's a middle, passive kind of combination.
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You can't really tell which is which. Let me give you some English examples of that. If we were talking in the active voice about a girl who bought a puppy, we would say she bought a puppy.
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Okay? That means she is the subject and she did the buying. If we had a middle voice in English, we don't.
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We have to describe it like I'm going to do that. We would say she bought herself a puppy.
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In other words, she did the buying, but it was for her. And it was about her. She participated in that.
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And then there is that passive voice in Greek verbs. And the passive voice would be expressed something like this in English.
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She was bought a puppy. Somebody else bought her the puppy. Okay? She's involved, but she's not the one that does the action.
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The action is done on her behalf. And so we have those three voices, and then you get to this kind of mixture, and that might be expressed like this about the girl who bought the puppy.
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Okay? She gladly received the puppy, bought for her.
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She didn't do the buying. She did the receiving. In other words, what is happening here is that she's involved, but she's not the actor.
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She's not the buyer of the puppy. But she's involved because she is glad to receive the puppy.
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Okay? Now I don't know if you get all of that. Probably it's not going to change your life dramatically if you forget it.
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Except for this hour. Alright? Now when we go back up to that first verb, which is translated,
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I have been crucified with, in Galatians 2 .20, it is a perfect tense verb.
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And that is beautiful. You say, why is that beautiful? That is beautiful because...
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We don't have this in English. A perfect tense verb expresses something that was done in the past.
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It was completed in the past. But the completion in the past has things that extend all the way up to the present and possibly into the future.
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So when Paul says, I have been crucified, of course it's with Christ, I have been crucified, what he's saying is this.
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Way back down the road someplace, I was crucified. The results of that crucifixion extend to this present day while I am writing to you
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Galatians. And I don't think he says this in this particular verse, but the results of that crucifixion are going to extend into eternity actually.
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We don't really have a way to express that in English without talking as much as I'm talking.
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Alright? But that's great. That perfect tense, you just go, oh wow, that's very cool when you find that that's the case.
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But I'm going to tell you something that's even cooler. Is that a word? I'm not talking about what you put soda pop in.
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Okay? Something that's even more great. The voice of this verb, it's tense is perfect, it's voice is that combination of middle and passive.
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Alright? So, what do we get from all of that?
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We get this. I was crucified back down the road. If it was in an active voice, it would be...
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If it was in an active voice, I don't know how you crucify yourself. If it was in a middle voice, it would be
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I crucified myself. If it was in a passive voice, it would be somebody else crucified me.
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That would be right. Okay? But if it's in a middle passive voice, it implies even more than somebody else crucified me.
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It implies this. And I permitted them to crucify me willingly.
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I participated. Like the girl that received the puppy gladly, I submitted to the crucifixion willingly at the hands of someone else way back down the road.
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And that crucifixion has set me on this road and to the place where I write to you
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Galatians. So I say to you, I've been crucified with Christ. And so that would be...
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You say, well, how did that happen, Paul? Who would do that? We're going to look at that in more detail.
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Alright? Not from this passage. But it means this. Basically, it is
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I submitted to crucifixion at the hands of someone else. And in Paul's case, willingly.
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And in your case, in my case, if we are believers in the Lord, if we are in Christ. You remember we had two or three weeks to talk about what it means to be in Christ.
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If we are in Christ, we have willingly submitted to a crucifixion in order to be in Christ.
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Now I know that when we come to Christ, it looks like this. I don't care how you state it.
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If you state it from John 1. If you accept Christ as your Savior, but as many as received
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Him, to them He gave authority to become children of God. I get that. So I receive Christ.
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If you do it from Acts 2, where when Peter says to those people, look, you've got to change your mind about who
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Christ is. And you've got to change your mind about the nature of your sin that is very serious and worthy of your death.
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So they repented, it says in Acts 2. And they were saved. I don't care how you do that.
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If you do Romans 10, 9, and 10. If you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God is raising
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Him from the dead. Last time I spoke with you, I talked about Dr. James Tuer. Do you remember that guy?
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The microbiologist. Okay? The organic chemist. When he gives his testimony, he says here's the deal.
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I didn't know anything about coming to Christ, but this guy shared with me from the Scriptures. And so he said,
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I call Jesus Lord and I believe that He is raised from the dead. And I was saved.
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That's his testimony. That may be your testimony. I received Christ. That may be your testimony.
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I repented. That may be your testimony. But, there's another little wrinkle here that isn't always expressed.
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That's why I'm expressing it this way. And that is when you and I come to Christ, the proposition, which is great, this will be worth praising
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God for through all eternity. You know about imputation, right?
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His righteousness is imputed to me after my sin is imputed to Him.
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So when that transaction takes place, the Bible says that you and I then are in Christ.
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Okay, good. That's great, great, great. Oh, one other little thing. In order for you to be in Christ, we're going to kill you.
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It's kind of like Pax Romana. You know what that is? The Roman peace of the first century. The Romans kept the peace.
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Here's how they did it. If you're not peaceful, we're going to kill you. Okay, that's it. There was no running around with color books and safe spaces.
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In fact, in a few instances, they came into town for the first time and they said, okay, you, you, you.
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And they killed them on the town square. Then everybody got the picture. We're going to obey these guys.
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Alright? So what happens when we come to Christ, in fact, as we're going to read in Romans 6, is part of the transaction is, great, you're going to be in Christ because your sin is imputed to Him and His righteousness is imputed to you.
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But, we're going to kill you. You say, now who would that be that is going to do that?
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Well, Acts 2 gives us a little hint, doesn't it? In Acts 2, Peter's preaching to those people on the day of Pentecost.
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And what does he say? He says this, This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.
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God raised Him up, loosing the pangs of death because it was not possible for Him to be held by it.
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So, we learn that the Romans, the hands of lawless men, crucified Jesus. But it was by the definite plan and foreknowledge of God.
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And you know what? When you and I come to Christ, by the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, we're going to be crucified within Christ.
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We're going to kill you. Who? By the definite plan and foreknowledge of God.
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So, who's who in Galatians 2 .20? Well, let me just run through this because we have to run fast.
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I have been crucified with Christ. I who? I, the old man.
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The man dead in trespasses and sin. When you come to Christ, you are crucified in Christ.
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He's crucified. You're in Him. You're crucified. You say, well, I don't feel crucified.
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In fact, I'm running around here this morning as you can see. Alright? It doesn't matter how you and I feel.
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It doesn't even matter what our physical experience is. All that matters is who's counting. And after we come to Christ, who's counting is
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God the Father who crucified Him by His definite plan and foreknowledge at the hands of the
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Romans and who will crucify us in Christ by His definite plan and foreknowledge.
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He's counting and He's the only one that really counts. So it's not about how I feel.
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It's not about how I run around. It is about who's counting. God's counting. That's the important issue.
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I, the old man, have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I, the old man, the old person, the man who was crucified who lived.
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Well, that figures. You're crucified. But Christ who lives in me. Oh yeah, remember that?
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The mystery of Christ? Christ in you to the Colossians. Christ in you. The hope of glory.
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That's what Paul says here. Christ lives in me. And the life I... Oh, oh, got to be careful here now.
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Here's another I, but it's a different I. And the life I, the new creation, the new man, now live in the flesh.
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I, the new man, while living in the flesh, and that's a real problem as you and I know, living in the flesh,
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I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me, the old man, who loved me when
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I was dead in trespasses and sins. When I did not want to respond to Him, He loved me and gave
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Himself for me. Me who? Me, the old man. He gave Himself for me while I was still a sinner.
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That's what Paul says to the Romans, doesn't he? While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
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Okay? So Paul blurts out to the Galatians, I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer
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I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh,
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I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.
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Now let me just take a little parenthetical trip into the weeds, Greek -wise again. Alright?
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While I was looking at some of this stuff, I happened to pick up, or happened to run across an article that pointed this out, and this is very cool.
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We have recently had a conference about the difference between law and gospel. Law goes like this, you do this and you're going to be okay.
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Gospel goes, I do this for you because you can't do it, and you're going to be okay.
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We all know the difference between law and gospel. Now look how that plays out in this
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Greek thing. Okay? There are at least 10 places in the
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New Testament where the tense is imperative. Now we know what imperatives are.
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We do that. Every time the kids come in the house with muddy shoes or whatever, there's a lot of imperatives flying.
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Like, get out of here. And haven't I told you a hundred times? And you know, all of that stuff.
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That's all imperative. Commands, take your shoes off. Alright? And they are in this middle passive voice.
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So, what the old guys... There's guys older than me, alright?
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What the old guys called the opponent. Alright? It's this middle passive thing.
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And so what we get out of that is this. Let me give you an example. From Romans chapter 12 verse two, where it says,
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Paul says, after having given your bodies a living sacrifice, which is your holy, reasonable, spiritual service and so on, he then gives two imperatives.
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He says, be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed, those are both imperatives, by the renewing of your mind.
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Now, here's the problem. If those imperatives are given in the active voice, it is you get yourself in gear and don't be conformed to this world.
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It's the source of all the lists that all the groups of Christians have. I don't go with girls that chew, and I don't, you know, all of that.
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I don't smoke, I don't drink, I don't this, that, and the other thing. And that's the source of all that.
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It's people that have taken, that take that in the active voice and say, I better get myself in gear and not be conformed to the world.
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And then it gets worse. And be transformed. I better get myself in gear and make sure that tomorrow morning
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I am transformed. Thankfully, it's not in the active voice.
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Now, if it was in the passive voice, it would be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by somebody else giving all the attention to it.
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That's called the flake -out -before -the -father plan. I just flake out. If God wants to make me unconformed to the world and transform by the renewing of my mind, well,
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I'll be laying there. And He can come along and do that. That would be passive. But it's not.
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It's middle passive and so it works like this. Be not conformed to this world. Expect that to happen.
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But, what I want you to do is be open and willing and looking forward to when
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I come along to do that which keeps you from being conformed to the world, says the
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Holy Spirit. Both things are built into that. And that is precious.
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Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Holy Spirit, I am ready to be transformed by the renewing of my mind.
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I am ready to be transformed by encountering You in the Word. I'm up for it.
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I'm ready to go. I won't be the instrument of the transformation. I won't be the instrument of not being conformed to the world.
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But I'm ready to go when You move in on me, Lord, and do it. Now, that's gospel.
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That's not law. Active voice. That's law. That's gospel. And so this little thing that I happen to run across says, this is the voice of gospel.
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Imperatives. And there are at least ten of these in the New Testament. It's imperative that you do this, but you're unable to be the instrument of doing it.
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But be ready when I, says the Lord, the instrument of doing it, when I come along to do that.
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Submit yourself to Me. That's gospel. That's the voice of gospel.
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The imperative tense and the middle passive voice. And if you don't remember that tonight as you're going to sleep, probably you'll go to sleep anyway.
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Alright. Now, back out of the parenthesis. Let's go to Romans 6, verses 1 -11.
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Got to do this quickly. What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?
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By no means. How can we who died to sin still live in it? That's not an imperative of your mother.
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Okay? It's not, how can we who died to sin still live in it?
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What's the matter with you? That's not what it's about. It's just, how can we who died to sin live any longer in it?
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In other words, we've died to sin. We won't be living in sin any longer. Alright?
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This is gospel, not law. Do you not know?
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Now here's something to note. Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ? This is not talking about water baptism by the way.
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We're baptized into His death. Baptized is a word that just comes out of the Greek.
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It's brought over into English. It means to place into and to draw out differently.
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It's first used by people that dyed cloth. Take the white cloth.
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You dip it in the dye. You draw it out. It's a different color. It has been baptized.
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And I always note something a little closer to home. You take an Oreo, and you dip it in milk, if you're skilled, alright?
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And you draw it out. It's deliciously different. It has been baptized.
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Alright? That's all that this means. Okay, except in this case, do you not know that all of us who were placed into Christ Jesus were placed into His death?
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Do you remember what I said about we come to Christ, we're going to own Christ as Savior, we're going to receive
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His imputed righteousness, and so on, and the deal is we're going to kill you. And so Paul says it right here.
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When you come to Christ, you are placed into His death. You are baptized into His death.
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We were buried therefore with Him. We are placed into His burial. We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the
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Father, we too might walk in newness of life. You remember back in Galatians 2 .20?
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There's that new man. The life I now live in the flesh, that's that new man living that life in the flesh.
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He's been pulled out of the baptism into death and burial, and he now has a new life.
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He comes out completely different. He's baptized into Christ, and he's completely different.
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A new creation, Paul says to the Corinthians. Amen. Be in Christ.
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He is a new creation. Old things are passed away. All things have become new.
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We know, now verse 6, we know that our old self, our old man literally, don't get all excited if you're a feminist, it just means people.
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We know that our old self, our old man was crucified with Him in order that the body of sin...
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Tuck that in the back of your head. We're going to come to it now if I get done in time. Alright?
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Keep that in mind. Body of sin. Our old man was crucified with Him.
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What's the reason that we are crucified? We are crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing.
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That's ESV. It's not a bad translation, but here's a better one. That the body of sin might be rendered powerless.
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Now, that's the NIV, 1984. Not the later ones. But that's a great translation.
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That the body of sin might be rendered powerless. So there is this body of sin.
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There is this sin that we have to deal with. We have been crucified for the purpose of rendering this body of sin powerless so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.
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For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now, if...
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This is not an iffy if. This is a seeing that if. Okay? Now, seeing that we have died with Christ.
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You say, really? Yes, we have died with Christ. You say, well, that's great, Paul. That's good flowery language and great literature.
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No, he's not doing that. He means we have died with Christ. And the only person that counts,
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God sees us died with Christ. Alright? We believe that we also will live with Him.
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We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again. Death no longer has dominion over Him.
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For the death He died, He died to sin once for all. But the life
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He lives, He lives to God. Now, in case you think that when
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I say and when Paul says, you died to sin, yeah, well, that's good.
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Nice religious stuff for Sunday morning and all of that kind of thing. Okay? I want you to check verse 11 out.
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Verse 11 says this, You also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
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In some manuscripts, it's a little more emphatic than that. It would read like this. So you also must consider yourselves to be dead to sin.
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That's a thing of emphasis. To be dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
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So, we might ask Paul as he says this to the Romans, we might ask him, not only when were you crucified with Christ?
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When he came to Christ. Okay? But why were you crucified with Christ? And the reason is that the old man has nothing intrinsically in it except sin.
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And so it needs to be killed. Not reformed. Not redone. Not have better clothes put on.
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Killed. Crucified. You know, in Galatians 5, we went over a couple of chapters in Galatians.
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Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
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Really. You say, well, I don't feel like my flesh is... And by the way, I use that term flesh.
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I know that some of these translations say the sin nature, the tendency to sin.
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Look, the word in the Greek text is flesh. And there's a good reason for that. Because most of the sinning that we do has to do with our bodies.
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We do it with our bodies. Alright? And so Paul uses the term flesh to indicate this.
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We're going to look at that struggle with sin in a minute. To indicate that. And I say, let's just go with flesh.
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Let's not get all... The sin nature. Well, I have a tendency to sin. All of that stuff that kind of softens.
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Paul says, no, it's flesh. Not only that, he has talked about a body of sin that must be rendered powerless by crucifixion.
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And flesh connects to that far better than sin nature and all of that stuff that is in some of these translations.
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Now here's the problem with crucified flesh. I want you to think for a minute about the day of the crucifixion.
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Three crosses. Jesus in the middle. One guy on one side.
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And I know who you're thinking of. You're thinking of the guy that said,
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Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And the reply of the
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Lord to that guy on that day was, this day, you shall be with me in paradise.
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And by the way, that's the only guy that I'm aware of in the New Testament that was saved and was not baptized.
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Didn't have a chance. Alright? All the rest of the way through the New Testament, people believe they are baptized.
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That's another story. We don't have time for that today. I'm not thinking about that guy.
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I'm thinking about the other guy on the other cross. You remember him?
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He's the guy that said, hey, you say you're the king of the Jews. You say you're the Messiah.
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You've even said you're God. Well then, get yourself off that cross and get us off with you.
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And the Scriptures say he cursed and he swore on that day. But guess what?
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For all the cursing and swearing and desiring to do what he wanted to do and to get off of that cross and all that, there was nothing he could do but make a lot of noise and wiggle a lot because he was nailed to the cross.
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That's the guy I'm thinking about when I read this. My flesh, the problem with crucified flesh is it still wiggles.
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You say, well, Jesus was dead by evening. Yeah, He was. But you know what?
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When they crucified people in the 1st century, some of them lasted for weeks. That's the problem with crucified flesh.
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It still wiggles. Paul realized that and so he wrote chapter 7. I used to hate chapter 7, but now
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I love it. You know why? Because it's me. That's why. Alright?
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I'm going to start at verse 15. Romans chapter 7. Paul says,
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I do not understand my own actions. I think I know somebody like that. Alright?
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Maybe you do. Probably not, but maybe you do. Alright? Now, who is this
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I, by the way? Who is this I? You say, well, it's not the old man because Paul here is a believer when he writes
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Romans chapter 7. I'm not going into that old discussion. Alright? Paul is a believing person here.
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So who is this I? I don't understand my own actions. Paul has changed in a lot of ways because he came to Christ.
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But one of the ways is he is now carrying around crucified flesh with him.
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And it's still wiggling. And he says, I don't understand my own actions, for I do not do what
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I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Before he came to Christ when he was the old man, in Galatians chapter 2 verse 20, when he was the old man, he didn't hate the sin.
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We look around us at our culture. People don't hate the sin. People love the sin.
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People want you to love their sin. That's what all this political correctness nonsense is about.
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Take your color book and go to the corner. Alright. So anyway, before I come to Christ, I don't hate the sin.
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In fact, I'm pretty good at it. And I like it. But after I come to Christ, the flesh is crucified, but it's not gone.
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I'm still carrying it around. You know that in some cultures of the first century, in fact,
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I think the Romans did this a bit. If you were convicted of murder, here was the penalty. They took the body of the one you had murdered, and they lashed it to you.
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And then you carried it around until it decayed to the point where it fell off.
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I have no idea how long that takes. And don't propose to try to find out. But anyway, that's what they did.
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Well, that's sort of what's going on with us. We come to Christ. The flesh is crucified.
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The sin nature, the tendency to sin. It's crucified, but we're still dragging it around.
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That's the I that's in view here. I don't understand my actions. The very thing that I would want to do, that I love to do,
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I don't do. The very thing that I do is what I hate. Now if I do what
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I do not want, I agree with the law that it is good. Now, I'm going to emphasize some emphatics here from the
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Greek text. All right? They do things, and we do some of the same things, to emphasize, to emphasize things.
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All right? There are certain words that they use that are emphatic words. There are word orders that they use that give emphasis to what is going on.
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All right? Let me give you an example from Bolivia. Now, we talked about the fact that Greek is an inflected language.
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I will tell you from my vast store of knowledge of Spanish. Okay? Here's how this works.
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We lived among country people in Bolivia, okay? And here's what they said to us. We speak pure Castilian Spanish.
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They do not. We lived with the hillbillies in Bolivia. They don't speak pure Castilian Spanish at all.
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In fact, I had that happen here in Worcester. We got here about 1979. I was in getting gas down in Worcester.
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It's when they used to pump gas in some places for you. And there was a young guy pumping the gas, and we were talking together while he was filling the gas tank.
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And when he got done, he said to me, you got some kind of accent, ain't you, mister?
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I went, well, one of us has some kind of an accent, mister.
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I'm not sure which one of us it is. Now, if he had said to me, I speak pure King's English, I might have said to him, you speak pure Vernon Hill.
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That's what you speak, okay? I didn't know that at the time, but I learned it later, all right?
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If I had said to any of the Bolivians that we lived around who said to us, and here's what they would say.
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Let's say I was speaking to one of them. Hablo Castellano Puro.
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I speak pure Castilian. Now, watch this. They do this in Greek.
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The verb to speak is hablar in Spanish. So you just change the ending of it, and you don't even have to use the pronoun.
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You just go, hablo Castellano Spanish Puro. Pure Spanish, I speak pure Castilian Spanish.
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Now, if I said to that guy, I don't think so, okay?
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And it insulted him a little bit, he would then say to me probably this.
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Yo hablo Castellano Puro. In other words, he adds the pronoun yo, meaning
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I, okay? He adds that to the inflected verb, which at the beginning of the conversation, it was just, hey,
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I speak pure Castilian, hablo, okay? So when he adds that pronoun, it emphasizes what he's gonna say.
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That happens here in Romans chapter seven. And it happens blessedly, as you will see in a moment, okay?
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So I'm gonna emphasize some of those emphatics. Now, if I do what I do not want,
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I agree with the law that it is good. I'm at verse 16, now 17. So now, that's an emphatic here, so now it is no longer
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I, the word that is here inserted is ego, from which we get ego, all right?
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And it is inserted to emphasize something. It's not usually used except for emphasis.
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Let me give you an example from the Gospels. Jesus says to the Pharisees of his day before Abraham was,
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I am. Well, am is I, me in Greek, but he didn't say that. He said, ego,
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I, me, I am. And they knew that he had emphasized it, didn't they?
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Because they tried to stone him, all right? So when Paul says this, it is no longer
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I who do it, and we're answering the question, which I is that? It's the new creation in Christ.
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That's who it is. And it is no longer I who am involved in the sin, but sin that dwells within me.
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Now, the word that's, I gotta hustle here. The word that is translated dwells is the word from which we get house or household, oikos.
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It just means a building, basically, all right? It might mean all the people in the building, but it's not a great commentary on how deeply involved everybody is and all of that.
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The wise man built his house, oikos, on the rock, all right?
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That's the same, this word which is translated dwells is the same word here.
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And what it means is, Paul says, I am not involved in the sin. I, the real
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I, the new creation, it's not me, all right? But sin dwells in the house.
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Sin's still in the house. And that's what's causing me, the guy carrying around the crucified flesh, that's what's causing me to sin.
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It's no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me.
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Now you can just hear the anguish, the same kind of anguish that I have and that you have when we are involved in sin and we can't seem to get over it, no matter how much we try.
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Trying won't do it, by the way. No matter how much we try, we're not getting over it, and so it causes us anguish of soul, and you hear it here in Paul.
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So he says this, it is no longer I, it is no longer the new creation, I, who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
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For I know that nothing good dwells in me that is intrinsically good, that's there for emphasis,
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I know that there is nothing intrinsically good in my flesh, my crucified flesh, that I'm dragging around here, all right?
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Nothing good in it. There was nothing good in it before I came to Christ. Can't carry around flesh that wants to sin.
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It's got to be crucified, but we're still carrying around crucified flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out, for I do not do the intrinsic good,
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Paul's emphasizes it, he adds a word here, intrinsic good that I want, but the evil, he uses a word of emphasis there,
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I do not want, this is what, and that's an emphatic phrase, this is what
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I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it's emphatic again right there, it is no longer
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I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. I was teaching from this passage at Elmbrook Church in Wisconsin, and when
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I got through verse 17, it's no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me, the guy in the back goes, yeah,
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I don't like that. Paul's trying to let himself off the hook. No, he is not, and I just explained to the guy, just reading the
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Bible to you, sir, all right? And then we get down to verse 20, and he says it again, if I do what
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I do not want, it's no longer I who do it, it's no longer I the new creation who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
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Now there's a corollary question that can be asked after we read verses like this, and it's this, are you sinless?
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Now some of you are going, well, maybe yes, maybe no. You know, that's kind of a middle passive answer, by the way, okay, all right.
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The answer is, depends on who's counting. Depends on which I you're talking about.
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If it's the new creation in Christ, if any man be in Christ, he is the new creation. The new creation in Christ is sinless.
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Now don't get all proud, because the only reason that that's important is that it's
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God who's counting and you that are knowing, and we have actions that are not sinless, but when the counting of heaven starts, it is no longer
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I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So he says, verse 21, and then we've got to get out of here.
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So I find it to be a law, I'm really going to go to 25, all right. So I find it to be a law that when
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I want to do right, here's another word of emphasis, he adds a word here, for me, evil lies close at hand.
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That's not in your ESV. For I delight in the law of God in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.
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Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from...
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Now you remember what I said to tuck in the back of your mind? The body of sin? Paul says, who will deliver me from this body of death?
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Literally, he says this, who will deliver me from this body of this death?
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You can just hear the guy going... I'm having trouble here. Alright?
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Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then, I myself...
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There's the ego thing again. Serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh,
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I serve the law of sin. And here chapter 7 ends, but it's a bad ending. I should have let it go to the next verse.
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Since... I'll add since right here. Since I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh,
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I serve the law of sin. We all know what that's about. Okay? Since that's true, that with my mind,
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I serve the law of God, but with my flesh, I serve the law of sin. Therefore, there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus.
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And I say, that's a beautiful thing. That's a beautiful thing. Well, when
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I got to thinking about all of this, I thought, I wonder if anybody else has thought what I think. So I looked at one of my favorite commentators, old
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John Gill. John Gill preceded Spurgeon at Metropolitan Tabernacle by 100 years.
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He was one of the Puritans. Or near the Puritans. Here's what John Gill says.
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When Paul says, who shall deliver me? Which he speaks not as being ignorant of the deliverer whom he mentions with thankfulness, or doubts or despairs of deliverance, because he knows he's going to be delivered.
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He's comfortably assured of it, John Gill says. Therefore, gives thanks beforehand for it.
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But as expressing the inward pantings, remember that? The body of this death.
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This body of this death. And earnest breathings of his soul after it.
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And as declaring the difficulty of it. Yea, now watch this. The impossibility of its being obtained by himself, or by any other than he, whom he had in view, that would be
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Christ. He, now watch this. He, Paul, knew he could not deliver himself from sin.
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Really? And me, I, and you, you, know that we cannot deliver ourselves from sin, so we rely on, therefore there is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.
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And, just a little jump back into the weeds for a minute, guess what? The verb that is translated, who will deliver?
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It's a middle passive verb. Who will deliver? I can't deliver myself.
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Somebody else will deliver me. But I'm ready to be delivered. That's what's being said there.
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And that is a beautiful thing. Thank you Lord for the time together. Thank you for your Word. It is a beautiful thing.
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Thank you that when we get involved in sin, remind us that we are carrying around crucified flesh.
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It has no ability to produce the sin, only to tempt us toward it. We pray that we would not give in to crucified flesh, but that we would say with great joy, it is no longer
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I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. Even when we feel wretched about our sin,
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Lord, comfort us with this, no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.