Justification by Faith Alone

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I invite you to take out your Bibles and turn to Genesis chapter 15, hold your place there at verse 1.
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The title of today's lesson is Sola Fide, which is Latin for justification by faith alone.
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Our church has a long history, and it is a diverse history.
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Only a few of us here probably remember that we used to be Forest Christian Church.
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Some of you joined when that was the name of the church.
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Some of you were here before that was the name of the church, Jack and Shirley, our faithful few who have been here the whole time.
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Back in 2010, after a period of revival, we changed our name.
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I would say it was a genuine revival, it wasn't just a one-week series of sermons, but it was genuine years of God bringing to light things that needed change and bringing to light things that needed to be conformed to His Word.
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We did, and God so moved among us that we chose to change our name to Sovereign Grace because it identified our understanding of salvation, that salvation is a work of the sovereign grace of God.
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And this also affirmed us as a reformed church.
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It wasn't too long after that that we joined FIRE.
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FIRE is the Fellowship of Independent Reformed Evangelicals.
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We are part of a larger network of churches that all affirm that we are reformed in our soteriology.
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We believe in reformed salvation, reformed theology.
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This past year we voted as a congregation, we affirmed as a congregation to receive the 1646 London Baptist Confession.
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This connects us historically to the 17th century English Baptists, the Reformed Baptist Movement, which was born out of the Reformation.
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We confirm this confession of faith in light of that affirmation.
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Today, we have a new members class.
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I'm excited that there are several folks who are going to be joining the church and who want to become part of the body, and to do so they come to the class, and one of the things we do in that class is we affirm what it means to be reformed.
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We discuss the reasons for the Reformation and the battles that were fought.
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We talk about the doctrines of grace, the doctrines of grace sometimes referred to as the five points of Calvinism.
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And I'm excited to mention that in July of this year, our elders, the three of us, are going to be doing a series on the doctrines of grace.
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We're going to start the second week in July and we're going to preach the five heads of doctrine, total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, and the perseverance of the saints.
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But even more foundational than the doctrines of grace, even more foundational to being a reformed church is what are known as the five solas.
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I would say this, I would say not only do the five solas really predate the doctrines of grace in regard to when they were being used as battle cries, but they were in fact the battle cries of the Reformation.
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They were the principles upon which the Reformation was founded.
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And if you're not familiar with the five solas, the five solas are those you'll hear us say sola scriptura, scripture alone, sola gratia, grace alone, sola fide, faith alone, sola Christus, in Christ alone, sola deo gloria, to God alone be the glory.
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And if one of those five were to be counted as the standout, and I don't really believe that any one of them is more important than the other, but if there was one that stands out as the principle of the Reformation, the principle upon which the Reformation really got its footing and found its traction and marched forward, it would be sola fide.
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In fact, that is the article Martin Luther, the great reformer said, it is the article upon which the church stands or falls.
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It is the article upon which we are a church, that we would affirm that we are justified by faith alone, apart from works of the law, as the Apostle Paul has said.
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In fact, it is that very point of the Reformation that Rome attacked in their counter-Reformation council, known as the Council of Trent.
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In the Council of Trent, the canons of the council were written in opposition to the Reformation teachings.
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Canon 9, I want you to hear this, this is from the Council of Trent.
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Canon 9 says this, if anyone sayeth that by faith alone the impious is justified, in such way as to mean that nothing else is required to cooperate in order to the obtaining of the grace of justification, and that it is not in any way necessary that he be prepared and disposed by the movement of his own will, let him be anathema.
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So what does that mean? The Roman Catholic Church has placed a curse upon anyone who would say that we are justified by faith alone.
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Yet we would proclaim that as the very foundation of the gospel message.
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We are saved by faith alone.
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This does not mean that works are not important or even necessary, but our righteous standing before God comes by faith alone.
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And a denial of this truth is a denial of the gospel.
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So today, we are as a church going to look at a passage in Genesis.
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As many of you know, we've been going through verse by verse through Genesis.
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Today we are going to look at a passage in Genesis which was central to the Apostle Paul's teaching on justification by faith alone.
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Paul would, many centuries later, he would take this verse and he would use this verse as the foundation for his doctrine.
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And we're going to see how Genesis 15, particularly verse 6, would be used of God to express to us that everyone who has ever been saved, including Abram, was saved the same way, by grace alone through faith alone.
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So let us read the text.
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We're going to stand, give honor and reverence to God's word, and then I'm going to pray and we're going to hear the word preached.
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Genesis 15, verse 1.
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After these things, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision.
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Fear not, Abram.
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I am your shield.
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Your reward shall be very great.
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But Abram said, Oh, Lord God, what will you give me? For I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eleazar of Damascus.
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And Abram said, Behold, you've given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.
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Behold, the word of the Lord came to him.
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This man shall not be your heir.
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Your very own son shall be your heir.
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And he brought him outside and he said, Look toward heaven and number the stars if you are able to number them.
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Then he said to him, So shall your offspring be.
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And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.
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Father in heaven, I thank you for your word.
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Pray even now that you would keep me from error as I preach.
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Lord, that you would, by your grace, fill me with your spirit.
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Lord, that you would, by your mercy, keep me from cowardice.
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And Lord, that the words that are preached today might be used of you to convict, to convert.
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And Lord, to do that which only you can do.
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Bring sinners to salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ.
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In his name we pray.
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Amen.
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Last week we discussed the fact that many passages are more than what they seem on our first reading.
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You'll remember we read last week the three verses that dealt with Melchizedek.
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And I said if you read those verses without any context, if you were just reading through Genesis 14, you come upon this mysterious character called Melchizedek.
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You might think, well, that's an interesting note, but it's not much really to hold on to.
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And yet, the later writers of Scripture would look at those three verses and they would say, those three verses are the verses upon which we establish the entire priesthood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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On those three verses lay the foundation for us, for Christ and his priesthood.
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Well, the same thing is today.
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Today we come to Genesis 15, we look at these verses, we come to verse 6, and we probably, in our first reading of this, maybe the first time we read our Bibles, maybe the first time we went through Genesis, we got to verse 6 and we thought, well that's interesting, Abram believed God, and it's interesting that God counted that to him as righteousness, but we probably did not realize the weight and the magnitude of that phrase.
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And yet, the Apostle Paul found that passage to be so important that he used it in not only one, but two different books of the New Testament as the grounding verse for his argument within the book.
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He uses it in the book of Romans and he uses it in the book of Galatians.
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Both of those where he is demonstrating the doctrine of justification.
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What is justification? How a sinful man is made right with a holy God.
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You ever wonder about that? Does that ever bother you? That God is holy and you aren't? It bothered Martin Luther.
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It bothered him to the point that he would literally go and confess for hours his sins.
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He was a monk, he lived with other monks, what could he have possibly have done? And yet, he felt the weight and the magnitude of his own sin to the point that he would go and he would confess so often and so long that his superiors would say to him, Brother Martin, please do not return until you have something serious to confess.
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And he said, but I know the weight of the sin of my own heart.
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I know the wickedness within me.
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I know that I could never confess enough to express the true nature of my sinful heart.
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And it was in his study of Romans that he said it was like God opened the gates of heaven and showed him true righteousness.
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Which is a righteousness that comes not from himself, but from God.
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When he read those words which says, The gospel is the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes.
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To the Jew first and also to the Greek.
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For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith as it is written.
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The just shall live by faith.
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That's Habakkuk 2.5, he's quoting there.
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And then later in his explanation of that doctrine of justification by faith, he would key in on Genesis 15 and he would say, Even our father Abraham was justified by faith and faith alone.
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So what we're going to do today is we're going to take this sermon in two parts.
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As often we break it down to make it more digestible.
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We're going to take the first part of the sermon and we're going to look at the narrative.
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What God is saying to Abram and what God is, the interaction that they have.
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We'll kind of go through that relatively quickly.
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I've got the notes on the board if you want to write them down or if you want to take a picture or it will be on your live stream when you get home, you can write it down.
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But these are the notes of the narrative section.
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God encourages Abram, Abram inquires of the Lord, God reassures Abram and Abram believes God.
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It's a very simple to outline interaction between the two.
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But then I want to show you the doctrinal portion.
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I don't want this to be two messages even though it could easily be many.
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So I'm going to try to make haste through the narrative portion.
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So that we can arrive at the doctrinal portion and spend some time with it.
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So let's look first at the narrative portion.
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God encourages Abram.
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Verse 1 it says, After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram.
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Now what are these things? It says after these things.
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Well we know that at the end of the last chapter Abram had just come from battle.
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You'll remember that his nephew Lot had been captured, had been stolen away along with the other people of the area of Sodom.
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And Abram he mounts a resistance against that.
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He takes 318 trained men.
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He goes as it were like a man to war.
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And the book of Hebrews says he slaughtered the kings in the recapturing of his nephew Lot.
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And he brings him back.
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And when he comes back he is confronted with two kings.
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The king of Salem which was Melchizedek.
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And the king of Sodom who was an evil worldly king.
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And the king of Sodom offers Abram a bounty.
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And as I said last week Abram already owned the bounty.
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He is the one who won the battle.
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But the king of Sodom in sort of a business opportunity Hey let's go into this together.
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Let's share these things together.
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And Abram just gives it to him and says I don't want anything from you.
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I don't want to ever be said that you made me rich.
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So consider Abram's situation.
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Abram has just.
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He has just.
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Again Hebrews says slaughtered.
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He has just gone to battle and killed four kingdoms worth of soldiers.
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Those who followed Ketel Ammar.
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He has gone after them.
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He has slaughtered them.
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Now he has come back.
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And another king has tried to befriend him.
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And Abram has essentially said I lifted my hand to God and said I won't take a thong from your sandal.
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So Abram is not.
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He didn't read how to make friends and influence people.
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Because he is not in the business of placating people.
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Abram is going to stand for God.
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And so now he finds himself having just gone to war having just insulted a king and the Lord it says after these things the Lord came to Abram and what does he say? Fear not.
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Now that makes sense now doesn't it? Fear not.
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You are in a situation.
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You don't have to be afraid.
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Why? Because I am your shield.
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You went to battle against four kingdoms.
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You took 318 men.
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You slaughtered them all.
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Why? Because I was your shield.
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I was the one who went to battle before you.
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I was the reason they fled before you.
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I am your shield.
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The word shield of course we know it means protection throughout the Bible especially in the book of Psalms.
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The Lord is our shield.
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Yahweh is our shield.
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God is our shield.
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He is the one who protects us.
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He is the one that we stand behind.
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And you know you go into the New Testament and the Apostle Paul when he is talking about the armor of God.
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What is the shield? Faith.
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The shield is the shield of faith.
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And that ties in later when it says Abram did what? He believed God.
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He believed God was his shield.
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He trusted in the Lord.
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But it also says I am your shield and it says in the ESV your reward shall be great.
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Now I don't care for that translation because depending on how you understand the Hebrew construction here it can also say I am your shield your very great reward.
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And if you take it to mean that way what it means is God is the reward.
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Now if you want to get together and argue Hebrew linguistics later we can.
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I think different translations treat it different ways but I will say this if there is one reward that is worth having it is God himself.
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He is the great reward.
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And yet he tells us he says those who come to me must believe that I am and that I am a rewarder of those who have faith in me.
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So we know that not only is God the reward but he is also the rewarder.
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So however we take the passage we know it is true.
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God is our reward and he is the rewarder.
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But I think what he is saying to Abram I really think this is very personal.
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Again none of us have had what Abram has.
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None of us have had God come and speak to us.
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Later in the text we are going to see God eats with him.
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None of us have experienced this.
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Can you imagine God talking to you and he says I am your shield you don't have anything to be afraid of.
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Your reward is me.
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I have nothing to fear.
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Now you would think that would be enough to give Abram confidence and pause.
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And I am sure that it did.
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I want to say this.
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His next statement may sound somewhat impetuous.
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It may sound even argumentative.
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I don't think that it is.
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I think it brings to bear a beautiful conversation because Abram is not questioning the goodness of God.
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He is not questioning the ability of God.
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He is questioning how God is going to bring this about.
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And that is not the same as saying God can you? Because he can.
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And not even saying God will you? Because he will.
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The question is how? Notice what he says.
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Verse 2.
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This is when Abram inquires.
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He says but Abram said Oh Lord God what will you give me? For I continue childless and the heir of my house is Eleazar of Damascus.
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And Abram said behold you have given me no offspring and a member of my household will be my heir.
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I always remind people because of course I love adoption.
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We have two adopted children.
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I always remind people that Abram did have an adopted son.
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This is what this means.
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Someone in his household had become his adopted child because and this was a Mesopotamian tradition that if a person who had property did not have someone to pass that property on to, they would take from among their servants a child as their own to establish a lineage.
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And Abram had obviously done that.
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He had this child set up.
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Eleazar.
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And Abram is not saying Eleazar is a bad guy.
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Abram is not saying he's not worth it.
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He's not saying he's not somebody I love or care for.
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I think he did.
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But he is saying God you promised me a nation and all I got is this one guy.
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And he's not even from my loins.
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He's not my physical heir.
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You promised me a nation and I've got an adopted child.
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Again, nothing bad about the adopted child.
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Nothing bad about that.
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He's just saying, God, I don't understand what you're doing.
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I don't understand how you're going to bring about this great promise.
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You didn't promise me a son.
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You promised me a nation.
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And I only have one adopted child.
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And by the way, this is the first of two attempts where Abram tries to circumvent getting the ball rolling, as it were, in God's promise.
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We're going to see next chapter they try to bring in another woman and have another son.
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And that goes spectacularly, just so you know.
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Just as you imagine it might.
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It does not.
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So we have here he's saying, God, okay, is this going to be the guy? Is it going to be my adopted son? And then of course the answer we see in verse 4, God reassures him.
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It says, and behold, the word of the Lord came to him.
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This man shall not be your heir.
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Your very own son shall be your heir.
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And he brought him outside and said, look toward heaven and number the stars.
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If you're able to number them, then he said, so shall your offspring be.
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And again, as I said, this is not a slight towards Eliezer, but God is promising Abram a nation from his own body.
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Not just from his household, but from his own loins.
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And God takes Abram out, he points up at the stars, and he says, count them if you can and know that so shall your offspring be.
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It's interesting, I, you know, recently we moved out to Callahan.
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We're really not that far in the rule, but we are a rule enough.
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You know, a guy beside us has horses, we have chickens.
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You know, we have a little garden, which is you are all better gardeners than we are, but we're trying.
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Especially the artesonies are doing great, the hills are great, and we look at ours and we're so jealous, I'm sorry.
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We have to pray for forgiveness.
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We see your pictures on Facebook and we all...
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But one thing that's great about being out there, and for those of you who live away from the city, you know this, at night there's not a lot of light pollution, and so you can walk out on your porch and you can look up and you can see the vastness of the sky and you can see all the stars and you see the beauty.
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But imagine back in the time of Abram, where there was no super Walmart just down the road, where there was no city just up the highway.
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There was none of that, and so there's no light pollution to block out the sky.
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Abram has a vision from his left to his right, as far as the eye can see, and he sees the stars.
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And God makes a promise, so shall your offspring be.
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What a wonderful, amazing thing that he saw.
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I think about the fact that we are that offspring.
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Don't ever forget this, that the Apostle Paul tells us this, by faith we are made sons and daughters of Abraham.
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We are part of that descendancy.
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We are among those stars as the body of Christ.
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He says, so shall your offspring be.
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And here's where the whole situation changes, because Abram goes from questioning God to believing God.
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Verse 6.
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It says, and he believed the Lord.
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Now some translations say he believed in the Lord.
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And again, we can argue semantically how that should be translated, but I want to make a point about that.
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It is possible to believe in God without believing God.
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Because believing in God is really just the first step of faith, but that is not all that faith consists of.
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Some people believe in, remember what James tells us in James chapter 2? The demons believe in God, and they shudder.
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So there's more here, you know, people tell me sometimes they're atheists.
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And depending on my interaction with them, whether I want to spend a little more time, or whether I'm a little, depending on how, it depends on the interaction, and it depends on the person.
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I don't say this every time.
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But often times I say, no you're not.
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And I don't say it to be ugly or to be sarcastic, I say, they'll say, I'm an atheist.
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And I say, you're really not.
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I say, what you are is you're suppressing the truth and unrighteousness.
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Because Romans 1 says that that which can be known about God is known by all men, and it has been shown to them in what has been made.
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And therefore you are without excuse.
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So every man in that sense knows God exists.
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Every man believes in God in his heart of hearts.
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So the issue is not that.
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The issue is, does he believe God when God speaks? Do we believe what God has said? What did Satan tempt Eve with? He didn't tempt Eve by saying God doesn't exist because she would have said, I know He exists.
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He said, but half God really said.
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You see, Satan comes to us with the question of does God really mean what He says? Did God really say what you think He says? Can you trust God's word? That's the key to faith.
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Not believing in God.
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You know God exists.
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I do funerals all the time.
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I usually use John 14.
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The reason I use John 14 is Jesus said, ye believe in God, therefore believe also in me.
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I say you know God exists.
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I don't even know the people I'm doing the funeral for, but I say you know God exists.
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You should believe in Christ, the one in whom He has sent.
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So Abram didn't just believe in God.
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He believed God.
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He trusted the word of God and the next word in this sentence as he says, and he counted it to him as righteousness.
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That word counted becomes the foundation for a doctrine that the entire concept of human righteousness will be built upon.
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Because the word counted there sometimes translated in your Bible as credited.
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Sometimes translated in your Bible as reckoned.
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That word counted is where we get the doctrine called imputation.
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The doctrine of imputation.
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You say well what in the world is the doctrine of imputation? I'm glad you asked.
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Because the word imputation is actually brought into English from Latin and it's an accounting term.
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And it means to apply something to someone's account.
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It means to transfer from one account to another account.
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Expenses are debited.
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Income is credited.
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Both are imputed.
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They're placed into the account.
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Imputation means that God imputes or credits righteousness to Abram's account.
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Abram does not have inherent righteousness.
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You say but Abram is a good guy.
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He follows God.
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He believes in God.
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Abram was an idolater from an idolatrous family.
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Don't come at me.
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I promise you he's a sinner.
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And so are you.
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And what does the Bible say about all our righteousnesses? All our righteousness are what? As filthy rags.
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Is your righteousness good enough to merit heaven? Are your good works going to stand on the day of judgment? And here's the real issue.
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Is any good work that you have ever done going to pay for even one of your sins? The answer is no.
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Because if you had a guy who stood before a judge and the judge says well you're a murderer and he says yes but I was also a boy scout.
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I was also helped little old ladies across the street.
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I gave 10% to my church.
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I did this and did that.
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What's the guy, what's the judge going to say? Yeah but you're still a murderer.
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You're still unrighteous.
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You still deserve to receive the just punishment.
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Do your sin.
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And all of your righteousnesses cannot cancel one of your sins.
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And your righteousness is not enough.
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The most desperate thing that you can think is that somehow your good works are meriting you your place with God.
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I have in my, I used to, I think it may still be here.
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I had a little post-it note and it was, it's not here but I used to keep it in my Bible.
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It was a quote from John Gershner.
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If you're not familiar with Dr.
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Gershner he was the mentor of Dr.
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R.C.
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Sproul.
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And Dr.
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R.C.
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Sproul, this was his favorite teacher and I love to listen to Dr.
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Gershner.
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And Dr.
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Gershner said this.
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He said it's not our sins that separate us from God as much as it is our damnable good works.
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Hear that again.
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He said it's not our sins that separate us from God as much as it is our damnable good works.
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He said because it's our good works that make us trust in ourselves rather than Christ.
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It's our good works that make me say look at me rather than look at him.
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Imputation is the second part of today's sermon, the doctrinal portion because this passage stands at the heart of imputation.
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The Bible teaches us that Christ was perfectly obedient to God.
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But the Bible teaches us actually that Christ is obedient to God in two ways and this is somewhat of a theological nuance but you do need to understand it.
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The Bible describes to us what we would refer to in theological terms as the active and passive obedience of Christ.
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Now the passive obedience is what we normally refer to.
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We talk about Christ dying on the cross.
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Him receiving in himself the punishment of our sins.
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Him being the object of God's wrath and receiving in himself the punishment due our sins.
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We talk about that's the passive obedience of Christ.
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But what is the active obedience? The active obedience is that from the moment Christ was born he was perfectly obedient to the law of God.
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He never sinned one time.
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In thought, in word, or in deed.
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Actively throughout his whole life he was perfectly obedient to the law.
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See this is the thing.
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If Christ just had to die for us he could have zoomed in on Good Friday, got killed on the cross, went to the resurrected tomb, come out and boom it's done.
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But he didn't do that.
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He spent 33 years before that.
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And you understand we don't even know what happened during 30 of those.
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One day in his life when he was 12 we get a little glimpse of something that happened.
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But what we do know is this.
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The bible says he was tempted in every way just as we are.
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Yet he was what? Without sin.
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That he kept the law of God perfectly in the fullness of time.
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God sent forth his son born of a woman.
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Born under the law that he would do what? Redeem those who were under the law and give us the adoption of sons.
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He comes in and redeems us by being the perfect law keeper.
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He does what Adam couldn't do.
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He does what we don't do.
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He kept the law perfectly.
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And through his active and passive obedience we are then made righteous before God.
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We are declared righteous before God.
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Because in his death he takes away our sin.
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But in his life he gives us his righteousness.
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And therefore we have a double imputation.
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Our sin comes from our account and it gets credited to his.
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You see it is like you have two ledgers and in this ledger there is a big word at the top that says sin and mine is full.
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And in Christ he has a ledger that says sin and it is all empty.
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And God takes the page from my ledger and he puts it into Christ.
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And now Christ takes the sin.
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And Christ has a ledger that says righteous and it is full.
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In my righteous nothing.
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And God takes the page from his ledger and he puts it in my ledger.
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So now my sin is his.
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His righteousness is mine.
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And I stand before him having a righteous not of my own that comes from the law but a righteousness which comes through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
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That is exact words of the apostle.
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In fact take out your Bible.
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Go to Philippians 3.
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Sorry I get excited.
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This is the gospel.
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This is this stirs my heart like nothing else.
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This is the gospel.
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Philippians 3.8 Philippians 3.8 I want you to notice what he says here.
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He says indeed I hear pages turn.
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I'll give you a second.
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But if you underline, if you highlight, if you mark this is one.
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Notice what he says.
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He says indeed I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.
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For his sake I've suffered the loss of all things.
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And count them as rubbish.
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The word is garbage.
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In order that I may gain Christ and be found in him.
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Notice this.
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Not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law but that which comes through faith in Christ.
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Notice this.
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The righteousness from God that depends on faith.
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Where is the righteousness? From God.
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Not from me.
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From God.
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Martin Luther he called this alien righteousness.
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He says because it's a righteousness that comes not from inside but from outside.
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You know what it means to be alien.
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It means something that comes from the outside.
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Something that comes from somewhere else.
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He said it's an alien righteousness because it doesn't come from within.
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It comes from without.
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Listen to Luther.
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This is his Luther's statement on this passage.
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He says through faith in Christ therefore Christ's righteousness becomes our righteousness.
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And all that he has becomes ours.
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Rather he himself becomes ours.
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Therefore a man, listen to this.
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This is gold.
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He says therefore a man can with confidence boast in Christ and say mine are Christ's living doing and speaking.
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His suffering and dying mine as much as if I had lived done, spoken suffered and died as he did.
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You hear that? All that is Christ's becomes mine.
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And all that was mine he takes away.
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That's the doctrine of imputation.
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And understand this.
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That's the foundation of sola fide.
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Because when we say we're justified by faith alone what we are saying is that by faith God takes the righteousness of Christ and he declares it mine.
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And he declares me righteous in him.
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We lay hold of Christ's righteousness.
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Not by works but by faith alone.
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God made him who knew no sin to become sin for us.
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That's not where it stops though.
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So that we could become the righteousness of God in him.
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The great transaction.
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The great exchange.
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Therefore we can say justified by faith alone in Christ alone.
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Understand beloved, that's the gospel.
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This should be what gives life to our worship.
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This should be what gives life to our songs.
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By the way, I went this week and I thought how many songs express this? And I got to thinking about songs that we don't sing a lot but we should.
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Songs like, we're going to sing in a moment, the solid rock.
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You remember on Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking.
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Listen to the fourth verse.
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We're going to sing in a minute but listen.
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When he shall come with trumpet sound, oh may I then in him be found dressed in his righteousness alone.
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Faultless to stand before the throne.
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Isaac Watts is my favorite hymn writer.
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He didn't write the solid rock but he did write a song called thy works not mine, oh Christ.
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Listen to this.
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Thy righteousness, oh Christ alone can cover me.
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No righteousness avails except that which is of thee.
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No righteousness.
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No righteousness avails except that which is of thee.
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Church, I want to ask you this morning.
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I want you to really consider this.
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Whether you're here as a member, whether you're here as a visitor, whether you've been here for a while, whether this is your first time in this room, I want to ask you did you come in this morning knowing where your righteousness comes from? Did you come in this morning thinking for a moment that your righteousness comes from yourself? Did you come in here this morning hoping in your own righteousness? I'll tell you what happens.
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Here's how it works.
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You ask somebody, do you believe you're going to be with the Lord when you die? They'll say well I think so.
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Let me tell you something.
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If you think so, it's because you're still thinking the righteousness comes from you.
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Because when you say you think so, you're trying to find something in yourself that's good enough.
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And you won't do it.
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You will never find anything in yourself and you will only have assurance when you trust in the finished work of Christ.
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You will never have assurance if you're trusting in the work of yourself.
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Because as much as you trust in yourself, it will always end with this.
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I hope so.
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I might.
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I may be.
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But you're not.
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And you won't be.
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And you shouldn't.
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Because it's not in you, it's in Him.
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And therefore, if you've come today and your righteousness isn't anything else, let me tell you today, repent and trust in Christ.
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You say, why did I add repentance? Because repentance and faith go together.
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They are two sides of the same coin.
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The first thing you must do is stop unbelieving.
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And that's repenting of unbelief.
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You must turn from your unbelief and turn from your sins and turn to Christ.
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Repentance is not a good work that leads to salvation.
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Repentance is the heart change where we stop believing in ourselves and we start believing in the Lord Jesus Christ.
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We turn from our sins and we turn to the only one who can take our sins from us.
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The Lord Jesus Christ.
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Do you believe in Him today? Do you trust in Him for your righteousness today? If you trust in anything else, won't you repent of that? Won't you repent of that terrible sin of good works and trust in the works of Jesus Christ, the only works that will save? Let's pray.
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Father, I thank you.
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I thank you that you have called us to stop trusting in good works, to stop trusting in ourselves and to start trusting in Jesus, to repent of our sins and turn from those sins, turn from unbelief and turn to Him.
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Father, if you would, by your mercy, use this to save people today.
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Lord, not for my sake, not for the sake of this church, not for the sake of mere numbers or sheer vanity, but for the sake of your kingdom and the sake of your son.
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May you open hearts to believe and like Abram, may men and women here believe God and be counted as righteous in Christ.
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Lord, we ask this all in Jesus' name.
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Amen.