Law & Gospel, the Christian Life & the Cost of Discipleship | Luke 14:25-35

ThornCrown Covenant Baptist Church

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So, as I was saying, God's providence never ceases to amaze me.

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I've just been really amazed at how God has been working in our little church.

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And I last preached on Mother's Day about law and gospel distinction.

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And today on Father's Day, as you can see in your bulletins, I'm going to preach about law and gospel distinction once again.

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And although we neither planned nor orchestrated any of this, this day also just happens to be the very first day that we confess the

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Orthodox Catechism, which Elder David introduced for us. It's a

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Reformed Baptist version of the Heidelberg Catechism. But if you look closely in the back of your bulletin at the subheading, you'll see it reads.

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This is what describes the Catechism in a sentence. Being the sum of Christian religion contained in the law and gospel.

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In the law and gospel. So, amen to that. And just so you know,

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I'm not making this up. This is very old stuff. And I'm just really bringing it to light for today.

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This is what the scriptures are all about. Law and gospel. But first, let's take a moment to acknowledge the fathers in our church as well.

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We have an amazing fellowship, blessed with strong, masculine, loving, hardworking,

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God -fearing fathers. And young men who someday will become godly fathers by God's grace and strength.

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We really must stand fast in this last and evil day. In a society where real men are denounced as most offensive and false men are celebrated as most virtuous.

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It's totally backwards these days. To this, God says,

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A sharp denouncement for today's society from Isaiah 5.

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We live in a society where Satan, the great counterfeiter, makes a mockery of manhood.

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By the delusional perversions promoted in his Antichrist agenda. Which itself means false or counterfeit

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Christ. Antichrist. And this is the LGBT agenda. Especially transgenderism.

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Which only produces counterfeit men and women. Who must be called to repent and can be regenerated and restored.

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But solely by the gospel. The power of God unto salvation.

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So let us continue to sharpen each other as real men. Fashioned after Christ.

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Who not only was and is gentle and tender and meek as the

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Lamb of God. But also fierce and bold and adamant as a conquering lion of Judah.

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Now, in light of Father's Day. Let's explore for a moment how the law of gospel distinction rightly applies to being a father.

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To being a parent. And to parenting. You may have heard of something called grace -based parenting.

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Even by some who claim to be gospel -centered. According to one definition, grace -based parenting attempts to parent children the way

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God parents us. By grace. In its worst form, the main premise is that parents should primarily exercise grace and forgiveness on their children.

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Rather than rules and discipline. But there's a fatal flaw to this approach.

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That I actually learned from my very smart but unsaved neighbor.

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Back when I was still in high school. One time she told me that if you give your children an inch.

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They will attempt to take and eventually demand the entire mile. So what she meant by that is that.

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As a parent, if you don't consistently discipline your child. And give them grace when they do wrong.

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Without disciplining them. They will end up abusing that grace. It won't be appreciated.

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Ironically, it actually tends to foster the opposite. Spoiled and ungrateful prodigals.

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Who, as Jude says, turn the grace of God into license for sin. This type of grace -based or gospel -based parenting echoes the aberrant theology of the grace movement.

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That has swept many churches up by storm.

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And into severe imbalances of law and gospel. Because it overemphasizes grace and pits it against the law.

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But we know, however, from God's word that the law is good. It's not a bad thing to be shunned.

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The problem is that grace cannot be properly exercised or received.

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Unless the child first has a healthy respect for the law. And for the consequences of breaking it.

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This is actually similar to evangelism. In order for the good news to be appreciated, sinners must first realize the bad news.

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That they are guilty criminals who deserve condemnation before a just and holy

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God. So ask yourself this. Does God parent us primarily by grace?

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Or by something else? What sayeth the scriptures?

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Let's turn to Ephesians 6. In the first verse, Ephesians 6.

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In Ephesians chapter 6, starting in verse 1, we read.

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Children, obey your parents and the Lord. For this is right. Honor your father and mother.

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This is the first commandment with a promise. That I may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.

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Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger. But bring them up.

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Raise them up in the discipline and instruction or admonition of the

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Lord. So that kind of... I don't know if these folks just forgot to read that or what.

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But I don't know about you. But this looks like primarily law to me. Amen. I mean, that's riddled with law.

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And so, I want us to go to another nail in the coffin.

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To help seal the deal. Turn with me now to Hebrews chapter 12. Hebrews chapter 12.

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Starting in verse 3. This is a very revealing passage that speaks directly to parenting as believers.

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Hebrews chapter 3. I'm sorry. Hebrews chapter 12. Starting in verse 3.

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God says, Do not regard lightly the grace?

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No, the discipline of the Lord. Nor be weary when reproved by Him.

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Rebuked by Him. For the Lord disciplines the one He loves.

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And chastises every son whom He receives. It is for discipline that you have to endure.

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God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?

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If you are left without grace. No, what's that word again?

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Discipline. Without discipline in which all have participated. Then you are illegitimate children and not sons.

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Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us. And we respected them.

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Respect then, in other words, comes through discipline. Shall we not much more be subject to the father of spirits and live?

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For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them. But He disciplines us for our good.

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That we may share His holiness. For the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant.

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But later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

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I mean, case closed, right? This is self -explanatory. In other words, not only does

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God primarily, foundationally parent us by discipline rather than by grace.

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But He even identifies us as sons because He disciplines us.

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If He doesn't discipline you, then you are illegitimate. You don't belong to Him. Our identity in Christ and the adopted family of God is the fact that He disciplines us.

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Our parenting then should be grounded in law and discipline.

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That's the law. So that the gospel can be better understood, appreciated, and applied to our children's lives.

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In other words, we should exercise law -based parenting that is seasoned with grace.

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Not the other way around. It should be law -based and seasoned with grace based on God's Word.

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So, I'm sure you're dying to know. How then shall we apply the law -gospel distinction to our parenting?

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When we discipline our children, we must remember to tell them that we love them.

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And forgive them. Not to hold their sin against them. But to remind them that it's because we love them that we discipline them.

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Because they are our children. And we love them. Because God Himself is a loving

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Father who says, Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline.

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So be zealous and repent. Revelation chapter 3 verse 19. Our children's sins should never negate our love for them.

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Even if they become prodigals. But we must love them with firm, consistent discipline that is seasoned with grace.

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That is the biblical way according to God's truth. Amen. Now, as I said last time,

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I preached on how to define, distinguish, and apply the two words of Scripture.

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The law and the gospel. I'm compelled to continue preaching on this all -important topic by virtue of my continued studies and the excellent discussions

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I've had with many of you all. Specifically with respect, this time, to the

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Christian life, to our sanctification, to following Jesus, and to the cost of discipleship.

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Remember that these two words comprehend the sum and substance of the sacred

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Scriptures. All matters of faith and life can be traced back to these two words.

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All of them. As John 1 .17 says, For the law was given through Moses.

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Grace and truth, the gospel, came through Jesus Christ. And as the

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Westminster Shorter Catechism says, What do the Scriptures principally teach?

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The Scriptures principally teach what man is to believe. To believe, as opposed to doing or working, concerning God.

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God, that is the gospel. And what duty, that is what law,

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God requires of man. In other words, by way of transitive property, the

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Scriptures principally teach law and gospel. I also wanted to clarify something in my previous sermon when

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I mentioned that some folks reject the law -gospel distinction because it doesn't apply to every verse in the

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Bible. While this is true, they're missing the point entirely.

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The real question, or the sum of the matter is,

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What is the substance? What is the main thesis, the meta -narrative, that the

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Bible asserts, explains, commands, and proclaims? Or in the words of the

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Catechism, What do the Scriptures principally teach? If you're still guessing by this time, may

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God help you. We're here for you too, though. But it should be obvious by now, right?

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Hint, hint, it's two words. It's the law and gospel defined, distinguished, and applied.

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All the doctrines of the Bible, especially the primary ones, that center around God, man, and salvation, they center all around law and gospel.

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These are all different ways of saying the same exact thing. So let's recap a little bit.

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The law and gospel distinction is the systematic study of rightly identifying, interpreting, categorizing, harmonizing, distinguishing, and applying these two words throughout

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Scripture. It is the key to understanding just about every major doctrine and biblical contrast, as I mentioned before.

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You have command versus promise. Obligation versus free gift.

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Guilt versus grace. Salvation versus damnation. Faith versus works.

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Legalism versus liberty. Do this and live versus it is done.

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Justification versus judgment. This is a subtle one, but it is vitally important in light of the pervasive heresies floating around like federal vision, final justification, and final salvation, all of which completely destroy the law gospel distinction.

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Make no mistake about this because it is a damning one. Jesus most emphatically assures us.

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He says, I assure you, anyone who hears my word and believes

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Him who sent me has eternal life right now and will not come under judgment, but has passed from death to life.

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Why is that? Because there is therefore now, right now, no condemnation, none, for those who are in Christ Jesus.

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For the law of the spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death, as Romans 8 tells us.

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This, my friends, is a powerful display of the two words of law and gospel.

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And there are many, many more throughout all of Scripture. Conversely then, the ignorance, neglect, confusion, and perversion of law and gospel has led to manifold errors and corruptions of sound doctrine, especially when it comes to the hard sayings of Jesus.

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The hard sayings of Jesus. So, God warns us emphatically against unlawful uses of the law, such as in 1

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Timothy 1, verses 8 -11, where He says, Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully, understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, for sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality.

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And this translation, by the way, can be misleading because it's those who practice it not just in deed, but in thought as well.

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And enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine, according to this gospel of the glory of the blessed

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God with which I have been entrusted. So, note once again, it is not good if one uses the law unlawfully.

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That's why this is so important to nail down. It is the most important thing.

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Nor if one perverts the gospel into law. Both are contrary to sound doctrine.

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This is the error of Lordship, Salvation, and many others. It misidentifies law for gospel, resulting in an unlawful use of the law as gospel, often by laying it down, as it were, as necessary for salvation.

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Here's another question then. What is the cost of discipleship that we must count?

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What is the cost of following Jesus? What does this actually mean?

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And what did Jesus really intend with His words? Let's dig a little deeper to our primary text now in Luke chapter 14.

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The gospel of Luke chapter 14, starting at verse 25. In Luke's gospel, chapter 14, starting at verse 25.

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If you have Bible subheadings, you'll probably see this is called the cost of discipleship. It says,

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Now great crowds accompanied Him, Jesus, and He turned and said to them,

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If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be

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My disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after Me cannot be

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My disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it?

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Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying,

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This man began to build and was not able to finish. Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with 10 ,000 to meet him who comes against him with 20 ,000?

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And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be

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My disciple. Salt is good, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored?

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It is of no use either for the soil or for the manure pile. It is thrown away. He who has ears to hear, let him hear."

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So, wow, this is just chock full of hard sayings from Jesus. This is like one after the other after the other.

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And regarding the first one, you know, Jesus has a similar one where He says,

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I came not to bring peace, but a sword to separate mother from father and son from parents and daughters from mothers and all of that stuff, all of this strife and schism.

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And one time, one of my professors from UTEP, from school, and I think

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I've mentioned him before, I've got a lot of crazy stories from him. But one time, he said, we were talking about the

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Bible, and he said, well, Jesus said, I came here to bring a sword, not peace.

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That almost sounds like Osama Bin Laden. And so, the ridiculous thing about people like...

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And this man was a PhD. I mean, they're educated folks and just foolish as a rock when it comes to spiritual matters.

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Because if he had read the next verse, he would have seen what Jesus meant. He was talking about family strife, not a sword of war to kill people.

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Didn't Jesus say, my kingdom is not of this world? So folks just...

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They just have it all twisted, sadly. But I want to lay down a maxim, a theological maxim for us to chew on.

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So although we should do all the glory of God, do all to the glory of God, we should never study the hard sayings of Jesus in isolation, never.

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Or any other passage for that matter, but especially those, which almost invariably results in extreme imbalances and distortions of law and gospel.

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Much of which we see in churches today. Even allegedly Reformed churches.

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Not just those who espouse to Lordship, Salvation, and the similar stuff. We must not neglect the whole counsel of God.

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The entire counsel of God. Especially when it comes to difficult passages that are counterbalanced by book and doctrines.

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Sometimes which are not stated in the same passage. So, today is the day of maxims because I have another one for you.

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We must always recognize who Jesus is talking to and who the immediate audience is of a given passage is.

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Always. That's key. This is basic hermeneutics. Basic principles of interpreting the

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Scriptures correctly. It is all too easy to misinterpret, overstate, and overemphasize the hard sayings of Jesus.

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And consequently, contradict the plain teaching of Scripture in other places. We can't lose sight of that or else you end up saying something really dumb like my very smart professor said, right?

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So, in Luke 14, from which our passage is based,

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Jesus was rebuking the superficial crowd that wasn't really interested in Him in the first place.

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It was a rebuke that we cannot carelessly overgeneralize or overapply. That's why

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He previously told them in the parable of the banquet in verses 15 to 23, where the invited guests all gave lame excuses for not attending.

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And thus, they were disinvited to make room for humbled sinners and outcasts instead.

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In many cases, Jesus was strictly calling and referring to His immediate audience.

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And while we can still apply it to our day, we must do so carefully because it's not always in the strict literal sense that many radically oriented

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Christians misguidedly intend. And there's plenty of them out there.

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So, remember that in some cases, just as a simple example, in some cases,

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Jesus told those who wanted to follow Him to go home instead.

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Right? So, we have to make proper sense of the Scriptures through the whole counsel of God.

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Rightly understood. Logically, consistently understood and interpreted. So now, maxim number three.

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The law gospel distinction helps us to understand that the hard sayings, such as the cost of discipleship, are clearly in the category of what?

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Law. And were often meant to rebuke and offend the hearers.

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Jesus similarly used hyperbole, exaggeration, such as, you have to hate your father and mother.

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Right? Did He literally mean that? No. He wouldn't advocate breaking the commandment to honor your father and mother.

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It doesn't make sense. He was making a point through hyperbole. It's not meant to be taken literally, like, you know, becoming a eunuch, or plucking your eye out and all of those other things.

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So, I have a story to tell. Another one.

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Once upon a time, when my wife and I were recent converts, we shared the gospel to one of our friends.

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And she was very receptive. And after several Bible studies and conversations, we started to tell her, are you ready to die?

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You know where this is going, right? Are you ready to lose it all? Are you ready to count the cost?

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Are you ready to forsake everything to follow Jesus? And, you know, needless to say, she started freaking out.

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Like, I'm going to die? Is somebody going to kill me? Like, what's going on? And so, that was...

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See, most of these things, folks, I learned the hard way, okay? I used to do this stuff myself. So, I'm not all high and mighty by any means.

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I quickly realized the error of our ways. And I had to try to balance back the conversation by explaining things a little bit better and say, look, this is not exactly what it means.

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Yes, you could be persecuted. Yes, persecution is guaranteed. The Bible promises persecution for believers.

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But it's to varying degrees and it depends a lot on our circumstances. So, it's not always to the extreme that Jesus is stating it all the time for everyone at the same level and same intensity.

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So, needless to say, we had been deeply misled by Lordship Salvation and Paul Washer and all those guys.

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But these law -addicted preachers will say, well, that's what

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Jesus said. That's what Jesus demands of us, doesn't He? I mean, He literally says that.

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We just read a whole bunch of them. In fact, in the gospel, according to Jesus, by John MacArthur, brace yourselves, okay?

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He says this, those who are not willing to lose their lives for Christ are not worthy of Him.

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Matthew 10 .38 They cannot, cannot be His disciples.

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Luke 14 .27, which we read. These statements cannot be made to accommodate the casual approach to conversion that is in vogue in our generation.

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Jesus is not asking people to add Him to the milieu of their lives. He wants disciples willing to forsake everything.

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This calls for full -scale self -denial, even willingness to die for His sake if necessary.

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When Jesus said, He's talking about the audience.

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Jesus' listeners understood that He was calling them to die for Him.

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They knew He was asking them, you all, to make the ultimate sacrifice, to surrender to Him as Lord in every sense of the word.

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Oh man, that is so saturated with law.

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It's hard to, it's hard to just even stomach. I hope you all feel the same. If not, let's walk through this.

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So, this is what happens when law -saturated preachers lose their gospel balance.

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That's the problem. They don't have a gospel balance. They don't balance the law with the gospel appropriately.

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They get so fixated and hyper -focused on the law and on these hard sayings, they make an entire theology out of it.

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And that they disregard or override the promises and place legalistic burdens on people that Christ never intended.

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I hope you all saw my emphasis when I was reading it. What about Jesus' ultimate sacrifice?

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What happened to Christ losing His life for us? What happened to the gospel?

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What about His worthiness? His worthiness.

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Forget our own worthiness. Of course we're not worthy of Him. Nothing we do can ever make us worthy of Him.

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We can never fully and perfectly obey God and fully surrender and fully self -deny. That's just a ridiculous, impossible demand.

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Not even as Christians can we satisfy those demands. We have no worthiness apart from Christ, period.

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He is the One who makes us worthy and accepted by faith alone.

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Not by our surrendering to Him. Not by our laying our lives down for Him.

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Not by selling all that we have and forsaking everything and hating our father and mother and brother and sister and children and everybody.

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You've got to hate everybody. Right? That's not how we are made right with God.

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Total perversion of law and gospel. Ask yourself, have you willingly forsaken everything unlike the rich young ruler?

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And you see, that's why MacArthur says the rich young ruler failed because he did not accept

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Christ's gospel invitation because according to the verse in Luke, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

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So now we have to renounce everything and sell everything. Nobody, hardly anybody has done, nobody has done that perfectly.

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Nobody. Nobody. If you are honest, you would have to be honest and say no, you haven't.

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And so, have you fully denied yourself?

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Have you fully surrendered yourself in every sense? Of course not.

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Because every time you sin, which is a daily occurrence by the way,

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I hope we're not self -deceived about such matters. We sin daily.

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Just ask your spouse, right? If you're confused about that. Or your children.

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So, I got a little too excited there. I lost my place.

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Okay. So, every time you sin, you fail to fully forsake and deny yourself.

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Sinning is doing what you want to do. Sinning is deliberately disobeying God's Lordship and coming out from that Lordship.

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So, this is a totally category confusion, law gospel confusion on every level.

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And so, you have to...

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This is just simply impossible. And whatever happened? Whatever happened to the ultimate sacrifice that Jesus gave?

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That He already gave and accomplished and applied to us for our acceptance with God without these other demands of forsaking this and hating that and the other.

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What about that? By faith apart from works of the law.

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What about that? Whatever happened to the calling and covenant of redemption that Christ Himself satisfied with His death on the cross on our behalf?

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This is what the gospel is. It's a straight up undermining of the gospel itself.

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Whatever happened to the crowd that Jesus rebuked when they asked Him, what must we do to be doing the works of God?

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And Jesus answered them, this is the work of God. That you work?

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That you forsake? That you abandon? No. That you believe in Him whom

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He has sent. John chapter 6 verses 28 to 29. We have to get this right because if you listen to these guys, if you read these guys, you're not going to get any gospel from these types of teachings.

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Any appropriately understood and balanced gospel. Which one is it?

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Take a wild guess. Which one is it? Do this and die or it is done?

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How much more obvious does this need to be? This is dangerous stuff.

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I know we joke and we're laughing and yeah, it should be laughed at. It makes a mockery of Christ's sacrifice on the cross.

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But it's serious because we really need to avoid these extremes like the plague with a biblical balance of law and gospel distinction.

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Now, does this mean that we shouldn't surrender to Christ? No, of course not.

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We should surrender to Christ out of love and gratitude for what

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He has done, is doing, and will do for us in the future.

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But this is a lifelong process of sanctification which includes repentance.

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Which, by the way, when you sin you're supposed to repent, right? And resubmit to the Lord Jesus Christ because you were outside of the

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Lordship of Christ when you sinned. Mortification, the flesh, all of those things.

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So, now, in light of this, let's pursue this question.

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Ask yourself this. Who is it that really loses? Are Christians really the ones that lose everything by following Christ?

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Let's ponder that carefully. Because we see in other passages, for example, where Jesus clearly and emphatically warned about the judgment and the consequences of rejecting

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Him and dying in your sins. Luke 12, 4 -5, for example, says,

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I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body and after that have nothing more that they can do.

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But I will warn you whom to fear. Fear Him who, after He has killed, has the authority to cast into hell.

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Yes, I tell you, fear Him. Similarly, Luke 3, 7 -9, we read a solemn warning from John the

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Baptist. He said, therefore, to the crowds that came out to be baptized by Him, you brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

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Bear fruits in keeping with repentance and do not begin to say to yourselves, we have Abraham as our father.

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For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now the axe is laid down to the root of the trees.

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Every tree, therefore, that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

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These are somber warnings that we all need to take seriously because this is literally true.

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This is where we need to take it seriously and literally. Now, I want to give a word of clarification that I wasn't very clear on in the last message.

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In evangelism, the biblical principle of law to the proud and grace to the humble does not mean that we should refuse to preach the gospel to unreceptive or stubborn unbelievers.

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We should share the gospel with them, along with the warnings of judgment for not believing it.

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We should always share it. You know, you hear some people, I have another story for that, maybe for another day, but some people will say, you shouldn't cast pearl before swine and therefore don't preach to folks who don't want to hear it.

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It's like, no, that's not, that's not what this is saying. That's not what that means. We must, they have to be warned of the wrath to come.

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So, we must also understand that our sovereign God has purposed by means of the gospel to soften some unto salvation, that is the elect of God, and harden the rest unto condemnation or the reprobate, which is an old word for basically the condemned, all for His glory, in both cases.

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Romans 9, take a look at Romans 9 for more on that. In other words, the greatest cost and the greatest loss that anyone can suffer does not come by following Christ, but by rejecting

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Him. Amen? On the contrary, the greatest gain that anyone can receive comes from believing in Christ.

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That's eternal life. That's the greatest thing. Nothing, nothing compares to eternal life, as opposed to eternal condemnation and wrath and hell.

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So, let's find out more of what this means in Romans 8, verse 31, and on.

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Let's turn to Romans 8, verse 31. Powerful scripture.

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Really excited to read this together. Romans 8, starting in verse 31.

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If God is for us, that itself should tell you, what is that?

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Gospel. God for us. Who can be against us?

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He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all.

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How will He not also with Him graciously give us all things?

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What do you have to lose if you're gaining everything? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect?

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It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn?

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Christ Jesus is the one who died. Jesus died so you don't have to, to meet the demands of His perfect requirements.

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He died. More than that, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.

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He is our paraclete, right? Our advocate. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?

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Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword, peril, as it is written, for your sake we are being killed all the day long.

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We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.

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He loved us first. We don't have to fully love Him perfectly to be

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His disciple. That's not what Jesus meant. For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our

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Lord. You can take a wild guess why that is.

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Is it because we forsook everything? Or because Christ forsook everything for us?

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By comparison, so by comparison, the worst that we can suffer in this life, be it persecution or any of the other afflictions that Paul lists above in the passage, is nothing when compared to knowing

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Christ Himself. Indeed, Paul says,

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I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing

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Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake, I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, as dung, in order that I may gain

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Christ. That's the perspective that we should have in our minds.

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That is the perspective that the Scriptures clearly and emphatically teach. It's not about what we must do.

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It is about what Jesus did for us and accepting and receiving that in gratitude and living that out by God's grace and Spirit and the

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Word. The truth is that salvation costs Jesus everything so that it would cost us literally nothing.

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That is what the Bible says. Now, do we lose things?

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Sure. The Bible does say that we will lose things. We may lose persecution.

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We may even lose our lives. The problem is when they say you need to be willing to die otherwise you're not worthy of Christ.

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Christ already died for us. It doesn't depend on those things.

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It depends on our faith. You know, these people, these people can, they talk, you know, what is that?

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They talk the talk. I wonder if they could walk the walk. Let's...

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Yeah, yeah. I would like to see them being put on the chopping block. See if they would be willing to renounce

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Christ. How strong is their faith? That's not what we trust in.

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We trust in Christ. Our faith is in Him even when we fail. Even when we fail.

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So, of course we lose. You know, when

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I got saved, and I'm sure the same thing happened to y 'all because that's how salvation works, right?

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One thing I did lose was my old sinful ways. Amen. I'm no longer in bondage to my old sins.

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Do I still sin? Of course I do. We still sin, but we grow. We grow in grace.

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We grow in holiness and we repent. So, we may suffer persecution. We may suffer all of those things that Paul said.

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But we gain everything in Him which surpasses anything by far that we lose.

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Even if it's everything. Jesus ultimately encourages believers and the humbled with gospel promises, not with these impossible demands.

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Remember, who was He telling those to? Jesus was telling those demands to people who didn't want

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Him in the first place. They wanted nothing to do with Him. Law to the proud and grace to the humble.

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Let's counterbalance this then. All this overemphasis on law with some healing balms, some words from Christ in Matthew chapter 11.

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I think this will bless us tremendously and help us to really encapsulate what the

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Bible says about these things, about discipleship and all of those things. Let's turn to Matthew chapter 11. I'm going to jump around a little bit so we can get the context.

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But in Matthew chapter 11, I really would like everybody to follow along.

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This is very, very important. Matthew chapter 11. Start in verse 6 and then we're going to jump to verses 28 -30, okay?

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Let's start in verse 6. Jesus says, And blessed is anyone who does not take offense at Me.

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Who does not take offense at what I say and at Me. Now verse 28.

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Come to Me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you...

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What? More burdens? More law? More demands? A whooping?

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I will give you rest. Rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me.

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For I am harsh, a brutal taskmaster that demands everything from you unreservedly, at all costs.

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No. I am gentle and humble in heart.

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And you will find rest for your souls. That is gospel promise right there.

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You will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is comfortable and My burden is light.

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My yoke is easy and comfortable. You see, look at what Jesus is saying.

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His burden is comfortable because He gives us everything in Him.

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Amen? We cannot forget to balance the hard sayings and harmonize them with these gospel passages.

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Failing to do so results in blatant contradictions and confusions of law in gospel.

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We have to be very careful not to do that. A yoke, by the way, is what they would put on the oxes to turn them in farming.

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It was to turn the oxen. And Jesus is saying,

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I will go easy on you and you will rest.

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That's just a glorious promise. That's my new life verse now. But wait, there's more.

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If that wasn't more than enough to satisfy, there's even more.

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Let's turn to Mark chapter 10 as we wrap up here. Mark chapter 10, starting in verse 29.

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The gospel of Mark chapter 10, verse 29. Jesus said,

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Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or farms for my sake and for the gospel's sake, but that he will receive a hundred times as much now in the present age.

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What? Houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and farms along with persecutions.

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And in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last and the last first.

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So, you know, sheep are very frail animals. They're very scared.

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They're very delicate animals. And yet Christ knows the condition of our soul.

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So much so, He guarantees that whatever you lose,

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He will replace a hundredfold. And folks, this is not talking about Joel Osteen or Benny Ham.

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He's not talking about you're going to get showered with money and houses and cars. That's not what he's talking about. Okay?

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He is talking about the church. He is talking about us.

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He is talking about God providing us everything through His means, through the church.

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Why? Because in the church, what do we have? We have brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, children, everything.

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That is the amazing blessing of being in a church that rightly distinguishes law and gospel.

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Because He provides everything for us. So, what do you have to be scared of?

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Not going to hell? I mean, it's just... We have to be careful not to distort the perspective here.

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And that's what these men do, sadly. That's what this teaching does. It reorients people to look inwardly in themselves and measure up and see,

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Man, I got to be forsaking more. Man, I should have been doing more. I need to evangelize more. I just need to sell everything and become a missionary in some

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Kenya somewhere, some third world country. That's not what Jesus is saying.

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At all. Now, did He say those things to certain people?

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Yes. That doesn't mean He's saying it to you in the exact same way. Okay? So, even when we fail

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Him and deny Him... Does that ring any bells? Denying Him three times?

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Like Peter did? He is still faithful and just to forgive us our sins and grant us repentance and restoration.

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This is a promise. This is a promise. Even when we fail.

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Even when we deny Him. That's the beautiful thing about the

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Gospels. You see failures everywhere. Jesus is surrounded by failures. And you know, that's what

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I think about these guys, these Lordship guys. They remind me of Peter. Oh, I will never deny you, Lord.

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I will, you know, take my life and I'm all in. It's like, really?

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You got scared by a little girl confronting you. We need to be careful.

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We need to be careful with those things. That's not what this is about. So, the truth is that we don't have to pass any test to earn a right standing with God because He passed it for us already.

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We simply receive His perfect life, His perfect work, His satisfactory death on our behalf by faith alone.

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Again, Jesus did not always tell everyone to forsake all and follow

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Him. So, there's a sense in which the cost of disciple does not equally apply to all because not everyone has the same calling, especially to the majority of us.

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The majority of us are not called to full -time ministry, nor should we. The warnings from James.

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He says, not many of you. In fact, many of you should not become teachers because you're going to incur stricter judgment.

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You're asking for trouble if you're not qualified, if you're not called to do this. It's a serious thing.

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So, we are not all called to do those things. Some maybe. Some are.

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Not all. Now, especially...

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So, we are called simply to live in humble obedience so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity, quiet and peaceable lives, according to 1st

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Timothy 2. Loving God and loving your neighbor. That's the simple things. Be hospitable.

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Bear one another's burdens. The one another's in the New Testament. That's what

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Jesus calls us to do. Study the Word fervently so that we would not be deceived and tossed around by these heavy, law -saturated, law -demanding teachings that throw us off course.

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Now, this verse just amazed me when I saw it. In Acts 13, verse 38 -19, this is such an amazing...

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I just can't believe how obvious... The way

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God makes things so obvious and we are so good at mucking it up. It amazes me.

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This is a powerful passage. Acts 13, 38 -39. Let it be known to you, therefore, brothers, that through this man, that man, the second

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Adam, the last Adam, Christ, forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you as done, and by Him, everyone who believes, not who forsakes all, not who surrenders all, none of that, who believes, is free from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses.

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And all God's people said, Amen to that. That is just...

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This is law and gospel distinction in your face.

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That is why we must... This must be our top priority. We must never lose sight of this as a church and as believers.

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In closing now, I want to give you a little nugget, a little... What do you call those things?

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Nuggets or... See if you can guess who said these words.

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This is really to hopefully cement the point home of the importance of this. There is no point upon which men make greater mistakes than upon the relation which exists between the law and the gospel.

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Ain't that the truth? Even now, some men put the law instead of the gospel.

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Others put the gospel instead of the law. We covered both today. Some modify the law and the gospel and preach neither law nor gospel.

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And others entirely abrogate the law by bringing the gospel or antinomianism, lawlessness.

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Many there are who think that the law is the gospel and who teach that men by good works of benevolence, honesty, righteousness, and sobriety may be saved.

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This is legalism. Forsaking all, selling all. The same thing. Such men do err.

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On the other hand, many teach that the gospel is a law, that it has certain commands in it, by obedience to which men are meritoriously saved.

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Also legalism. This almost to the T describes lordship salvation and similar teachings.

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Such men err from the truth and understand it not. A certain class maintains that the law and the gospel are mixed and that partly by observance of the law and partly by God's grace, men are saved.

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These men understand not the truth and are false teachers. I wonder if we know who preached these words.

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I didn't know. I didn't know this, but this was preached by none other than Charles Spurgeon.

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One of the greatest preachers considered of all time, especially as Baptist. This is coming from that man.

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That's how important this is. Not because he said it, but because he recognized what the scriptures teach, as we're trying to do.

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So, that is why this isn't some idiosyncratic pet peeve of mine.

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This is God's priority in all of our faith and life.

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It is what other giants of the faith have proclaimed because it is what God declares in His Holy Word as most important.

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Amen? With that, let us go ahead and bow in prayer and then receive the

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Lord's Supper. Our precious, gracious Lord, Almighty Father, we thank

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You so much for the opportunity to gather today as Your people and to relish and fellowship in the beautiful truth of the

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Gospel, Lord. Of the reality that Christ is a perfect, all -sufficient

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Savior that has satisfied the full demands of Your impossible standards that we could never meet up to.

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Lord, we thank You for Your grace, for Your mercy. We ask that You would fill us with Your Spirit and our minds with the truth.

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With sound doctrine, Lord, that rightly balances these critical counterpoint doctrines of law and Gospel, Father God.

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Help us to not lose sight of these things in everything that we do. Everything, every aspect of our lives from studying the

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Bible, to parenting, to evangelism, to preaching, to teaching, to our work, to our everyday lives.

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Lord, help us to not ever lose sight of what is most important and to understand that Jesus paid it all so that it could cost us nothing.

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By faith alone, nothing but empty hands do we bring to the gracious, satisfactory, propitiatory sacrifice.

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The wrath of God being satisfied fully, the punishment borne on that tree, on that cross, on our behalf,

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Lord. We thank You, Father God, and we ask these things in Jesus' mighty name. Amen. Thank you for listening to the sermons of Thorn Crown Covenant Baptist Church, where the

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Bible alone and the Bible in its entirety is applied to all of faith and life. We strive to be

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Biblical, Reformed, Historic, Confessional, Loving, Discerning Christians who evangelize, stand firm in, and earnestly contend for the

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Christian faith. If you're looking for a church in the El Paso, Texas area, or for more information about our church, sermons, and ministries such as Semper Reformanda Radio and Thorn Crown Network Podcasts, please contact us at thorncrownministries .com.