There is One Faith - Brandon Scalf

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Ephesians

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All right, everyone, grab your Bibles and turn with me to Ephesians chapter 4.
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Ephesians chapter 4, and today we are going to revisit verse 5.
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Ephesians chapter 4, verse 5, and the title of today's message is,
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One Faith, the Church's True Treasure, the
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Church's True Treasure. And so if you would, please stand with me for the honoring and reading of God's holy, infallible, and all -sufficient
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Word. As I said, we will be looking specifically at verse 5 today, but I'm going to start reading in verse 1 so that we get the full context of what's happening here.
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This is the Word of God. Therefore I, the prisoner of the
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Lord, exhort you to walk worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, being diligent to keep the unity of the
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Spirit and the bond of peace. There is one
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Body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling, one
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Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.
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The grass withers and the flower fades, but the Word of our God endures forever. Amen? Amen.
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Go ahead and have a seat and put your eyes back on the text.
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If you remember, we have been looking at an early, maybe the earliest, creedal statement that exists.
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It is a statement that shows forth the foundation of the unity that Paul is trying to tell the
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Ephesian church, and us by extension, to guard. There are a lot of things that people try to build unity on, but essentially what
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Paul is saying is the unity needs to be built around the triune God of the
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Bible, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Because in the
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Godhead, there is unity because there is one God.
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And yet that there is diversity in a sense, although you need to be careful with certain language around that, in the
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Trinity because there is three persons and we are in one body. And as we will see as we journey through this part of the letter, there is many members.
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And so last week we looked at Lord. One Lord, after of course speaking about being in one body and one spirit, being that which ties us all together, as well as one gospel.
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But today we are going to look at this phraseology here, one faith.
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Diving back into this three sets of three with this sevenfold repetition of the word one, emphasizing the oneness of this reality.
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The thing about faith is that you've heard the word. Maybe you have a definition for faith.
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Faith is obviously important. It is how we are binded to God's workings in Christ.
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And it's how it's the instrument he uses to save us. But not only that, faith is a recurring theme that underscores really the entire narrative of Scripture.
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From Genesis all the way to Revelation. And we've already seen this even as we've looked at the book of Ephesians.
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If you remember in Ephesians chapter 2 verse 8, we encountered this word.
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When we read for it is by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.
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So faith was shown in Ephesians 2 verse 8 if you remember to be that instrument which binds us to the workings of Christ.
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And if you remember, one of the things I encourage you to think through is that sometimes people decide or live out in such a way that, you know, they're going to think about faith as having faith in faith.
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If they just hope that things will go better, that they will be okay.
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Or if they even just think that their faith in fact will save them. Jesus is the Savior, faith is the instrument.
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But nonetheless it's important. And like I said it goes from Genesis to Revelation. It comes in the
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Scriptures when the word is powerfully and truthfully preached.
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In Romans 10 -17 it says so faith comes from hearing and hearing by the word of Christ.
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So faith comes when the word is preached. That's how God has designed preaching to work.
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It also is used in how we are to live. Habakkuk 2 -4, behold as for the proud one his soul is not right within him but the righteous will live by faith.
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And of course in Romans chapter 1 -17 the righteous shall live by faith. Borrowing from Habakkuk 2 -4.
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And in Galatians, Paul, the same author who authors
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Hebrews, said that he has been crucified with Christ. And it is no longer he who lived but actually it was
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Christ who lived in him. And he lives a life now not in the flesh but by faith in the
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Son of God. Faith counts us righteous before God even though we aren't righteous obviously.
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Genesis 15 -6 that he believed in Yahweh, speaking of Abraham, and he counted it to him as righteousness.
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Romans 3 -28 the same sentiment is echoed when Paul says for we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the law.
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And I can keep going on and show you how the Bible really talks about how
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Jesus commends faith. How faith is powerful. How the apostles prayed for more of it.
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And one of the things that's most stark in the Bible is that without it, without faith, it is impossible to please
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God. It overcomes the world. It is a huge deal in Scripture.
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However, I want you to think about something maybe you haven't thought about up to this point.
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And that is this, that the Bible speaks of faith in more than one way. And what
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I mean by that is there's kind of two ways that the
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Bible speaks about faith. There's the subjective faith that we must possess as Christians and there is an objective faith.
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Oftentimes when you look at Scripture you see this playing out by the use of articles.
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And for those of you who didn't pay attention in grammar school, that's just like the word the.
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And so when it talks about faith that you are to possess as a Christian subjectively, it's faith in Christ, that's a subjective thing.
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But oftentimes the Bible will talk about something called the faith. The faith.
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And it's actually not unrelated to the other faith, but it is actually different.
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Let me give you an example. In Romans 10 .9,
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though the word faith is not explicitly used, it's talking about faith. This is that if you confess with your mouth
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Jesus is Lord, which we covered last week, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
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So faith is that belief or trust or reliance upon Christ and his finished work.
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It is that instrument which binds you to his finished work. That faith, obviously, as we journey throughout the
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Bible, is life -giving. It brings the dead to life after being regenerated, justifying the sinner and reconciling one to God.
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It is more, obviously, as we discussed when we looked at Ephesians 2 .8, more than an intellectual assent.
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It's not just saying, yeah, I agree that there was a person named Jesus. He hung on a cross, and I believe all of that happened.
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And sure, I'll even buy into the idea that he was God, and maybe even a
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Savior. But I don't actually believe it, and I don't live my life in ways that would manifest that I actually believe that thing.
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It is a complete clinging to the promises of God found in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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That's the subjective faith. The objective faith, on the other hand, is the faith, or here, one faith.
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I'm going to make the argument that this is not speaking of subjective faith, but rather this objective faith.
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Now, one thing you will notice is there is no article, the, before this.
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And so it's not always a perfect science. You have to look at context to see exactly which one is it being talked about.
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And as you will see as we journey on through this text, they're not completely unrelated, obviously.
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But before we look at our text, actually, let's go ahead and look at it. 4 .13, a little bit further down, he's talking about how to protect unity, right?
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And he's talking about the foundation of it, and he's going to be talking about what it looks like to live life in the context of a local church.
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And in verse 13, he says, until we attain to the unity of the faith.
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So inside this argument, the faith is mentioned. And if it is the foundation of our unity, then we have to think about what the implications of that are.
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Now, the Spirit binds us together, and we all have faith in Jesus, which is how that all works out.
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But actually, what binds us together in a very real sense is the faith, right?
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So we are saved by Jesus by having faith in Jesus. And the Spirit makes us one body.
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But it's the objective faith that we look to. We can see this in places like Acts 6 -7.
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And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem.
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And a great many of the priests became, and this is an interesting set of words, obedient to the faith.
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How are you obedient to the faith if it's a subjective belief?
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He's talking about a different faith. So what
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I'm arguing for is that this one faith found here is not the subjective faith that is crucial to your understanding of the
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New Testament, but that it is the objective faith. It's not about personal connection.
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It's about objective realities. In other words, it is the body of Christian truth or doctrine that has been revealed in Holy Scripture.
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With this understanding, it is faith in God's revelation, given once for all to the saints, and particularly as it pertains to Christ and His Lordship.
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And like I said, I think that fits with Ephesians 4 -13. And so the first thing that I want you to think through as we think about what it means to actually be under this umbrella of one faith is stand in awe of it.
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There's many things we could say, but the first place that I want you to start is I want you to stand in awe of this one faith.
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And the reason I say it and say it like that is because you need to understand that if that's true, if it is talking in fact about the doctrine, and I hope to prove this throughout the remainder of our time, that is put forth in Scripture, the first thing you must do is understand that God penned that revelation, that doctrine, that faith, and He protects it.
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2 Timothy 3 -16 says, all Scripture is God -breathed.
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It is God -breathed, it is phianustos, it is inspired in some translations, particularly the
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New American Standard. And what this means for us is that this one faith is grounded not in man's opinion, it is grounded in the infallible, inerrant, and sufficient
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Word of Almighty God. It's not left up to the winds of time.
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It's not something that we get to manipulate or change or be soft on. True unity is unity, yes, purchased by Christ, applied by the
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Spirit, but it is unity that rests in the truth of the faith.
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There's not many faiths, there's one faith, and it has to, if it is to be a real faith, has to come from God.
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And it has to be unchanging, because if it changes, there's no unity there. And so we need to understand that this faith, the faith, or faith as it pertains to sound doctrine, is not given to the sands of human opinion, but on the solid rock of divine revelation.
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God penned it. But He also, and this is the beautiful reality of our
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Scriptures, He protects it. 2 Timothy 1 .14, Paul writing, obviously, to Timothy, he tells him to guard through the
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Holy Spirit who dwells in us the treasures which have been entrusted to you.
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Many times in the New Testament authors, which I read this already, it's the faith handed down.
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And God's servants are called to guard it. But I want you to notice here it says, through the
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Holy Spirit. So yes, God's servants, God's people, God's sheep are to guard this truth, but they're not left to do it alone.
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And God protects them and helps them to guard such truth. This is why, I'm going to vent a little, if that's okay with you.
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I was, I don't want to, I'm not going to say where I was at or what I was doing. I'll just tell you the situation because I'm not trying to call anyone out in particular.
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But there were some questions that were coming at me relatively recently. And the questions stemmed from, at least some of them, this idea that the church is failing.
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That the Word of God's not doing its work. And I just wanted to say over and over, and as I was trying to answer these questions, that Jesus' church is fine.
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Jesus' church is fine. He's protecting His Word. He has protected His Word, and He will continue to protect
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His Word. He will continue to protect the faith.
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Jesus' church, friends, is not in trouble. Amen? Fake churches are in trouble.
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Fake churches are in trouble. Jesus is in the business of purifying His bride, and making sure that His truth is promoted in the land and that sinners are saved.
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He will get His lot. This one faith has been entrusted to all of us as a sacred deposit.
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And we are called to guard this with all diligence, relying on the
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Spirit to keep us steadfast and immovable on the truth.
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Truth matters. Truth matters. Now some truths are more important than others, and we'll get into that momentarily.
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But I want to ask you this question. I want to ask you this question. Are you daily immersing yourself in the
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Scriptures with the understanding that God wrote it to put forth to you something that is going to help you?
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Not only in your daily life, although that is very important, but guard the unity in the church.
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Are you guarding this deposit of faith, understanding that it has been given to you, and it's not for you to change, alter, or any of that business?
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God's preachers especially, since I know there are some men in here desiring to be in future ministry, this reminds us that you don't get to alter
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God's message. You are simply a mailman. You are not given the license to alter anything.
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There is one faith set forth in the Scriptures, and that is the one you are to proclaim.
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The second thing that I want us to consider, or I've put it in the form of an imperative, is believe the one faith.
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Believe the one faith. So you need to stand in awe of it first, understanding it comes from God, but you also need to believe that one faith.
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Now, what I mean by that is not, hey, I know I told you that this was going to be a sermon, or I'm going to prove to you that this is not speaking of the subjective belief.
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So I did my piece, now I'm going to talk about subjective peace. Now, what I'm trying to get you to understand at this point, and maybe
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I could have been more clear, is the gospel is content for our belief.
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You get what I'm saying when I mean that. The faith is content that we are to believe.
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And so what is it? Well, first and foremostly, it's the gospel of Jesus Christ, and it is him crucified.
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This is why Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2, verse 2, To him, this was the pinnacle of the faith.
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It is the pinnacle of sound doctrine. It is the pinnacle of the message that ought to be proclaimed.
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It's centered around, it's saturated in, and revolves around the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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The message of his perfect and sinless life, his atoning death, and the glorious resurrection that happened.
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This is the heart of our faith. It is the truth that we must believe if we are to be together in unity.
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The gospel message is of first importance. There are other things to worry about, for sure.
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But what binds us together is Jesus Christ and him crucified. And if we start there, understanding that, hey, everybody around me is in the same exact position as me.
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Namely, that they needed a savior in this life. That the cross is a gigantic beacon that screams none of you could measure up.
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Every single one of you is sinful. Then guess what? We can interact and preserve unity in a pretty radical way that is somewhat unseen in today's world.
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If you could sit across the table from someone and assume, before you even start talking, that you guys are already not worthy, and that you are not superior, and that you both needed
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Jesus Christ to be crucified, that you might be able to be sanctified and be saved.
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It changes everything. It changes quibbles. It changes peripheral doctrinal disagreements.
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It changes everything. This is the pinnacle of that truth.
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What this also means then, since remember it's one faith, not multiple faiths or alternate faiths.
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It's one faith. And if that's true, the gospel of Jesus Christ, which it is, right?
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Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. And no one comes to the Father but through him. Then we understand something that leaves no room for alternate paths to salvation.
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There's one gospel, which is why Paul said in Galatians chapter 1, verses 8 and 9, let those be damned who preach another gospel.
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So the gospel is something to be believed, obeyed, and studied, so that we might not say, hey, there's alternate paths.
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No, there's one. It's Jesus. It's his cross. It's the one faith.
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It's the only way to be reconciled to God, and any deviation is heinous in the sight of God.
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Any departure from the true gospel leaves us still in our sins, or as Ephesians chapter 2 said, dead in our transgressions and sins, being stuck, being led in our passions and lusts, and being influenced by both the devil and the world.
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The reality then is this is a narrow gate. In Matthew 7, verses 13 and 14,
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Jesus says the way to life is narrow and few find it. And the one faith is a narrow path.
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It's distinct from the broad ways of the world that lead to destruction. And what
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I'm trying to say is this. Children, would you look at me?
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I want to say it to you in this way. The one faith that's rooted in the gospel of Jesus Christ is so important that it has to be the only thing that we put our hope in.
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I want you to think about it like this. Imagine a little canoe, and you're out, and there starts to be a storm.
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All other people around you have got themselves into some sticky situations.
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Maybe the boat sank, or maybe they're just trying to get to shore.
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But this one lone canoe that you are in is the only means of rescue.
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But all you have is this canoe, and you're thinking, that seems like it's not going to be of help to all these people.
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But then you start moving around, and you realize, no, that's the only boat that's there to rescue.
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So it has to work. It has to work. When we're thinking about the one faith and the content therein, we need to understand that it's like that canoe.
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It's the only thing in a stormy sea that can save.
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In other words, the gospel of Jesus Christ is not just the best option. It is the only.
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But more than that, also, it is a truth that goes much deeper than that in terms of breadth of understanding.
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So that's at the top pinnacle. But then we look through the lens of particularly
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Ephesians 1, chapter 1, verses 3 through 14, and we have this beautiful understanding, if you were paying attention, the doctrines of grace.
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Because when he's talking about the one faith, he's not excluding the things he has already talked about. And so this faith here, and I'm not arguing necessarily for any particular type of theological system.
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I know doctrines of grace have a particular PR image, and I could say tulip, and that might be a different thing.
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And those things are good. And I'm not saying you shouldn't use those words as descriptors for what you believe, but what
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I'm saying is the Bible here shows us these truths to be evident when you read them in verses 3 through 14.
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All of them. Right? That we are sinners, that we need to be saved, and that the triune
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God has went after us. In other words, our salvation, if we're thinking about it properly, is entirely the work of God's grace received through faith and secured by Christ.
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The works can get us there. It's all Christ. And this is at the heart of the faith. So believe the content of that faith.
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Thirdly, unify around the one faith.
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The faith unites. Now we are, if you recall,
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Ephesians chapter 4, verse 2, that we are called to be humble, gentle, with patience, bearing with one another in love, and being diligent to keep the unity of the
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Spirit in the bond of peace. So this is a unity that has been purchased for us by Jesus Christ, applied by the
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Spirit, and that Spirit who authored Scripture put forth the faith in Scripture, and we are to be unified around that truth.
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We are to be unified around that truth.
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The one faith unites us as members of one body.
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Though, and I can't wait to get into this, I think it'll be an encouragement to all of us, though there are a diversity in gifts among us and callings, we are united by our common faith in the faith, our common faith in Christ.
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It's beautiful. It's beautiful. We can see this in places like Philippians chapter 2, verse 2.
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Philippians chapter 2, verse 2 says, Paul speaking, of course, Fulfill my joy that you think the same way, by maintaining the same love, being united in Spirit, right?
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It's been purchased for us, thinking on one purpose. Thinking the same way is not saying everybody in the church needs to think the way that I think, or the way that Pastor Corey thinks, or the way that our deacons think.
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We're all gonna think differently. We're different people, different upbringings, different thought processes, and so on and so forth.
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It's not saying that because I like fountain pens, you should like fountain pens, although you should like fountain pens.
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Not saying because I wear a suit when I preach that you absolutely have to wear a suit when you come to church.
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I have convictions for that, but I don't have a verse for that. When it's speaking this way, when
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Paul is saying this, he's saying he wants us to think the same way about the things that are important, the things that matter, namely the faith, right?
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Having love for one another, and being united in that Spirit that has been given to us, and having one purpose.
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One purpose. And that purpose is found not in what we think it should be, but in the
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Scripture itself. Many churches and search committees who are looking for pastors, they generally want a guy with vision.
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They want entrepreneur types. They want them to pull them out of some sort of, you know, trouble they had found themselves in, or maybe they just want to grow, or maybe they just want somebody who's going to have a vision for the church.
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Like, how are you going to do this thing? How are you going to do that thing? And, you know, how are you going to implement this?
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And so on and so forth. And all the time, I mean, there's just different answers all across the board.
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It's whatever that pastor or minister in training decides, what he thinks, after reading a lot of books, what the best vision is.
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Forgetting that the Bible tells us what that vision is. If God is in it, no amount of vision, quote unquote, is going to make a difference.
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If he's not in it, you know. So when we think the same way, with the same purpose, we understand it's wrapped up in this one faith.
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It's wrapped up in the Scriptures. Not once have
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I tried to cast any sort of vision for heritage. And every church planting book I've ever read, and every class
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I ever had in seminary, would tell me that that would be the cause of a church failure. And here we are a year later, and people are coming to hear the
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Word of God preached. I was just visiting with a friend of mine this weekend as I was preaching at a conference who is a phenomenal expositor.
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And we were talking about how much we love gaudy pulpits like this one.
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Because it's the throne of the Word of God. And I told him the story that as we began to raise funds, and we thought we were going to be meeting in the back room of Pastor Corey's house, the first dollar that we spent was on this pulpit.
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Which, if you're thinking about vision and church planting and how that's all going to work out, that's stupid. Like, why are you going to spend money to have something like this built, and then put it in the back room of somebody's house?
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Like, I'm glad we didn't wind up meeting in a house because that would have been weird for everyone. I understand that.
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But the reason that I wanted to do that is because I wanted everybody to understand on day one, there's no vision outside of proclaiming the one faith from this one book for the rest of Heritage's days.
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It's about the Word. It's about what it says. It doesn't matter what I say. It only matters what
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God says. Which is helpful. If you think this way, then you understand that unity is not based on superficial and cheap agreement that is often fleeting.
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Today, you and I might agree on something, and then a couple weeks later, we have a new experience in life, and now we have a different opinion about that thing.
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But no, it's based on doctrinal conviction rooted in careful exegesis of the
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Word of Almighty God. Are you committed to the unity of the body of Christ?
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And do you strive for unity and doctrine? And I know that's not a fun word.
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Most churches are, ooh, I don't want to talk about doctrine. It divides.
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Yeah, it divides where it's supposed to divide. I'm not interested in a church full of people who don't care about the
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Word of God. It's not a church. And so when we give ourselves to the understanding of the one faith, the doctrine laid forth out in Scripture, we build up the body in love.
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It's weird to say, right? Maybe many people haven't heard that. It's loving to point people to the truths of the one faith.
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So let us be a church that labors to promote it amongst us, knowing that our oneness in Christ is a powerful testimony to the world.
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Which is why, for instance, our statement of faith is not one I created. I didn't create it. It's a
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Second London Baptist Confession of Faith. If you don't have one of those, there should be some on the back table.
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If there's not, we'll order some for you. It's on our app. Because new truths are just old heresies.
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The next thing I want to point your attention to is that you are to defend this one faith.
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You're to defend this one faith. And you do that by being aware of false teachers.
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And what I mean by that is not necessarily being aware of all the false teachers out there. Partly because we're in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and you could close your eyes and throw a rock and hit one.
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Interesting thing about counterfeit money. Seems like a hard left turn. It's not, promise you.
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How do you think that they train people to recognize counterfeit money? I mean, there's some good counterfeit money out there, apparently.
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I mean, I haven't dabbled in that world, but I've read things. I've seen documentaries. And it's pretty wild, you know, how accurate people can be in creating fake money.
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Although America kind of does that anyway. You know, but another topic for another time. Slightly different category, but it's not different.
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But how do you think they do that? How do you think they train people to recognize counterfeit money? Well, you would think probably, at least
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I did before I read this and watched it somewhere. I don't remember where the information came from. They just studied a lot of different types of money.
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Like, that's where this one came from. We found it. And so they start to learn like, no, no, no, they don't do any of that.
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When you go to learn how to do that, apparently, once again, I haven't dabbled in this world, but they study the real thing.
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You see what I'm saying? They studied the real thing. They just took real money and they became subject matter experts on what a real dollar looks like.
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So that way, it didn't matter what ones they bumped into that were fake. They would know it's fake because they know what the real thing is like.
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And so you're not to be necessarily like heresy hunters, right? If people are gonna go preach heresy and they're not invading our space and they're not making life incredibly difficult for us necessarily, then sure, let them just keep talking.
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People are, you know, the Bible tells us that people will gather preachers and so on and so forth to tickle their ears and they don't care about what that Word of God says.
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These things happen. But you should be so engrossed in the
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Word of God. You should be so engrossed in understanding the one faith laid out and given to us by the apostles and the prophets that anytime you see something fake, anytime you see something wrong, anytime you see something that is putting down or causing you to see
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Jesus in an unglorified and beautiful way, you know to reject it.
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And then you can defend it when it comes your way. 2
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Peter 2 .1, But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you.
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Now, I don't think this is like a prophetic thing happening here. I think he's just saying this is what happens. You know, some people take this to be like in the future and things are gonna, you know, but no.
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Every church is gonna have people who don't want to take the one faith seriously.
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There's always gonna be false teachers till the Lord Jesus comes back. And what will they do?
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They will, according to 2 Peter 2, secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the master who bought them.
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Now, that's an interesting sentence, but we don't have time to get into it. Bringing swift destruction upon themselves.
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So if we're going to stand against people who introduce destructive heresies in our midst, we must know this one faith.
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We must know it. We must know the opposite of heresy. Because there's an ever -present danger of false teaching.
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And we must be vigilant, discerning, and ready to expose error.
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We're not being annoying, you know, but we are not afraid.
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We should be reluctant, but ready. You know what
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I mean by that? A Christian's not always looking for a fight, but a Christian will never back down from a fight.
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Amen? Amen. Amen. And, you know,
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I think this should probably be said as well. Who cares if it's about your argument or whatever?
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Like, we're trying to defend the truth of God's Word. If people have negative things to say about you because you're saying
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God's Word, or promoting God's Word, or the one faith, let it go.
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Who cares? Don't be interested in defending yourself. Defend God's Word.
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You have nothing to defend. I have nothing to defend. Right? Charles Spurgeon famously said, do not think ill of the brother who thinks less of you, for you are far worse than you think you are, or than he thinks you are.
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You know? I think he had turned that on himself, actually. It was like, I'm not afraid when people talk trash on me, basically, because I'm far worse than he thinks.
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I'm a sinner saved by grace. You know? So believe that truth.
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It'll change the way you interact with the world. We must be warriors of the
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Word, ready to contend for the faith that has been entrusted to us. This one faith.
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This is why, also, if you notice, throughout the course of my preaching and other sermons, and even somewhat in this one, it's why
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I refute certain bad theologies. It's why we stop and focus on the prophets and apostles, because of the area that we're in.
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And just next year sometime, a friend of mine, Kosti Hinn, is going to come here to Oklahoma, and we're going to do a conference on the destructive heresies of the
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NAR movement, which is the New Apostolic Reformation. Why do we do that? Why?
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Because we must contend for the faith. This is why
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Martin Luther, which you should know this name, right, did what he did during the
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Reformation, which I'm very excited to be celebrating that soon. But in that historical moment, the
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Roman Catholic Church had developed a complex system in which faith and works and sacraments were insanely intertwined, at least as it pertains to salvation.
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They, and still do, teach that faith, while somewhat necessary, is insufficient to save you.
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You need works in conjunction with it.
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The system also promoted things like indulgences and the treasury of merit and things like this, which would imply that salvation could be bought.
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Some of these things are happening. That's insane, right?
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And so in 1521, when Martin Luther was called before the
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Pope and so on to recant his beliefs, he famously said, or kind of said,
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I mean, there's some dispute as to whether or not these were the exact words that he used, but, here
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I stand. I can do no other. God help me.
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Now, what's often left out of that story, which is why I said be reluctant but ready, is that actually what happened in history, like we get all the highlights, right?
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But actually what happened in history is he was humble, which is not
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Martin Luther's general disposition, especially as he aged.
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He's not, yeah, you just could not say that he was like a huge, humble guy, but God was working in him. I do believe, obviously, he was saved.
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He resurrected this great truth, sole fide, by faith alone.
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If you didn't know that, it's the reason you're sitting in these seats and not a Catholic church. Protestant Reformation, it's all about faith, is he came before these men at the
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Diet of Worms, not worms, Worms, and said,
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I think I'm right here, and I think you're wrong. And they said, well, you don't get to tell us we're wrong.
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We're the Roman Catholic Church. You know, we come from Peter, and tradition plus Bible is the source of what you need to submit to, so on and so forth.
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And he was like, okay, I don't care about that. I think I'm right. And they were like, well, we think you're really, really wrong.
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And so Martin Luther said, okay, I can't recant right now, but maybe you're right.
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Maybe you're right. And he goes back and says, give me like a couple days.
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I don't remember what exactly it was. So give me a couple days, think this over. Give me a couple days to pray and to really search this thing out, because actually,
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Martin Luther was not trying to start a Protestant Reformation. He was trying to reform the Catholic Church, and he wasn't actually trying to do it by any sort of real effort.
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He just hanged a piece of paper on a door so he could have some theological conversations, thinking that there was an ability that one could have to talk to the powers that be, rationally.
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And so he probably thought, okay, maybe I got a little ahead of myself. This is kind of blown way out of proportion. And so he goes away.
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He prays about it, and he comes back and he's like, no, I'm right. This is what the
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Bible teaches, and I will stand here. He was reluctant, willing to be wrong, but ready to fight when he was convinced that the one faith, particularly as Sola Fide, this is faith that saves alone, by grace alone.
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When that's on the line, you give everything. Everything. And that's what he did. And that wild stuff happened, but we'll talk about that at the
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Reformation party. This bold stance then was not born of human defiance, but of a deep conviction that faith in God's word was the ultimate and only authority.
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And it sustained him. This trust in the word of God sustained him through much of the rest of his life, through excommunication, threats to his life, attempted murders, years of conflict.
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But through all of that, he sought to restore the gospel to its rightful place and the life of the church. That is faith alone, by grace alone.
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What a warrior. What an imperfect, sinful warrior, but what a warrior nonetheless.
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And the faith is also something that we preach. So the next point here is that it must be preached. And it must be preached boldly or proclaimed boldly.
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2 Timothy 4 .2, Preach the word. Be ready in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and teaching.
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And of course, the word is putting forth the one faith. If you want to know what the one faith is, it's the
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Bible pointing to Jesus. So he preached the word.
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The one faith is never to be watered down. It's never to be hidden. It's never to be proclaimed with timidity.
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It's never to be proclaimed with you can take it or leave it type of attitude. It should be proclaimed with boldness and clarity, whether the world wants to hear it or not, whether the people in the pews want to hear it or not.
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That's actually what in season and out of season means here. Some people take it to mean, well, it's like, you know, when it's winter, it's spring.
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It really just means when people want to hear it and when they don't, when people are showing up to church or whether they're trying to crucify you for preaching the truth, you keep preaching the word.
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You keep preaching the one faith. You keep preaching that sort of thing always because it is the truth.
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But that can extend out into your own life, right? You're speaking specifically to a person who would be preaching, but if you're proclaiming, if you're talking, it still applies.
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Always be quick to trust the word more than you trust yourselves. You also need to carry the faith, carry the faith.
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Matthew 28, 19 and 20 says, Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the
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Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to keep all that I commanded. And behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the ages.
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Baptists, we love this passage. It's a great commission. We should all love this passage because it's a command to take this one faith to the ends of the earth because it's the only canoe, right, children?
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It's the only canoe that exists, and so we must carry it, promote it.
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We are to be disciple makers of the one faith, teaching others the sound doctrine of faith and how we ought to obey that faith.
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Are you carrying this one faith or do you only value it, love it, trust it when you're here?
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Do you carry it to church but then leave it here? You should carry it with you when you leave here and press it into the world.
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It's your jobs. What would it look like if you took the one faith into every sphere of your life?
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Every place that you are, your family, what would that look like? It'd look great,
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I'll tell you that. Bible promises. What about your work? It'd be great.
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You carry it. And maybe you carry it into evangelism. And you should.
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And you go preach, teach on the streets for you. Men, talk to people, counsel people, love people, give them the gospel, even women.
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This is the only faith you can save. It's the one faith.
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It's the one faith from the one God. And it's faith in Jesus Christ, the righteous.
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And so as we leave today, I want to give you a few uses, as the
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Puritans would call it. A few uses here.
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I want to encourage you as you leave this morning to firstly evaluate your faith.
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Sure, on a subjective level, of course.
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But do that on the basis of the objective faith.
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Instead of having faith in faith, consider whether or not it is that you actually have faith in Christ and Christ alone as he is not in your mind, not on the
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TV, not in magazines, but as he is presented in Scriptures. Most people are happy, happy to consider belief in Jesus so long as he's not the
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Jesus of the Bible. So long as it's not the truth, the one faith of the Bible, of Christ and him crucified.
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Because yes, that paints the glories and beauties of Jesus Christ and who he is. But it also doesn't say too much good things about us.
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Most people don't like that. They don't like to repent. They don't like to understand that they need to be saved. And maybe ask yourself if you've added other beliefs or practices that detract from the purity of that one faith.
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And I would consider you or I would exhort you then to as you are doing this with the help of the
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Holy Spirit to purge your faith of anything that seeks to compete with Christ and the truth of his word.
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The second thing that I would encourage you to do is to guard your heart.
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So I want you to evaluate. I want you to guard and then we'll say, I'm going to evangelize.
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But right here, guard, and I specifically mean your heart. And the reason
01:00:08
I say that is because I think this text helps us to understand, especially as we think about it, somewhat in the realm of biblical theology, which is
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I understand that's kind of what we've done here today. We're taking one word at a time.
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And sometimes that gets out of the flow of the argument being made in the text, but that's purposeful. I'm doing that on purpose.
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But generally, especially if you're visiting for the first time, we just go verse by verse. Here we're going word by word in Martyn Lloyd -Jones style.
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But you need to understand that you need to guard your heart as it pertains to your faith.
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You need to watch out for any type of false teachings that would contradict the one faith or worldly influences that are seeping into your life from the things that you ingest, that you'd be surprised at how watching a
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TV show that you shouldn't be watching will seep into your theology or songs that you sing on the radio.
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That's one of the reasons we don't sing Bethel or other things here at Heritage. But we want to sing rich, doctrinally true songs that have no heresy.
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And the reason for that is because, look, I trust the word of God. And despite my own inadequacies of communicating the scriptures,
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I trust the Spirit to do His work on you through the preached word, through me preaching the word.
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But here's what I also know. I'm up here for an hour or so, and you're not going to be humming, for instance, the lines that I said in my sermon.
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There might be some things, for instance, that you remembered that were helpful and spurred you on in your faith and your walk with Christ, and maybe there was some conviction that happened and so on and so forth.
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But here's the thing about music that you sing at the worship gathering and so on, or in your home, in your car. I remember songs in my head today, this very day.
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I'll be driving somewhere and remember a song that I used to listen to when I was an unregenerate person that I never should have been listening to, and it's just stuck there.
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I can't get rid of it. I was like, why are you there? I don't need you anymore. It's just there, right? Because music sticks in your brain in a way that preaching won't.
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It's just true. Now, of course, that's all excluding the
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Holy Spirit and things, but that's why we want to do this. We would guard ourselves from even music we listen to,
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TV shows that we watch, books that we read, things we participate in, because it will affect the way that we feel and think about things.
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And if it leads you away from the one faith, it's a problem.
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So regularly read Scripture and seek to grow in sound doctrine and do it with the men of history past.
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We don't have a market on the truth. And men who were less distracted by cell phones understood the one faith far better than many of us ever will, and we should give them our ear.
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Thirdly, evangelize with extraordinary boldness. Evangelize with extraordinary or ordinary boldness.
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Be bold in sharing your faith because it is the only faith that will save.
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It is the only hope for anyone's salvation if you believe that God pinned and protects
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His truth and you believe that there is one faith that is bound up in that truth that He has written.
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Namely, it can especially pointed on the person and work of Jesus Christ, His exchanging death for the unrighteous.
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How could you not boldly step in front of the world and tell them this
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God whom you reject is extending to you an offer and you can be saved from hell.
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You can be saved this very moment and you can flourish and not be led by your passions and your desires.
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Your life will not crumble. You will not have to ingest worldliness and so on and so forth.
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So pray for opportunities this week not only to have boldness but to have situations where you can display that boldness.
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Friends, the one truth, the one faith, the objective faith that shows us how we are to utilize this objective faith is the only faith.
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The one faith spoken about here is the treasure of the church, the foundation of our life and practice and the message that we are commanded to proclaim to the world.
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It is revealed in God's word. It is Christ -centered and drenched.
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It protects our unity and therefore it must be defended against all rancid heresies proclaimed boldly and lived out in the context especially of the local church because that's who
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Paul is writing to. These are universal realities that ought to be manifest in the way that we do church here.
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So as you leave today, may you be unwavering in your commitment to this one faith.
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Stand firm. Strive for unity and live lives that glorify the
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Lord Jesus Christ by trusting in the truth of that one faith. We have a good
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Savior who has given us more than we deserve. And if there's people out there who don't yet have faith in Jesus Christ, who have not trusted
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Him, who do not believe the objective faith, the truth of Scripture, about what it says, especially pertaining to Jesus Christ, His Lordship, let me beg you.
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Let me plead with you. Paul wasn't too proud to beg.
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I'm not either. Jesus is better than you think
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He is. His freedom that He gives you is more glorious than you can comprehend.
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The balm that He has purchased by His own blood is more helpful and life -altering than you think it is.
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Ultimately, though, His salvation is better than I can even preach.
01:08:36
Friends, if you repent of your sin this day and you place your faith, believing the truth about what the
01:08:44
Bible says of this Christ, and doing so in a way that shows your life to cling to Him, because that's what it is.
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You have to believe with every fiber of your being. And if you do that, and you thrust yourself on the foot of the cross,
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He will not deny you. And you can be free of Satan, sin, death, and hell.
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You can be free of the sins that plague your life, and you can eventually, instead of paying the ultimate price in hell, you will see
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Jesus. He will say, well done, good and faithful servant. He will wipe tears from your eyes, and you will bask in His glory for eternity and live in the house of the
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Lord forever. And that's the only way.
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That is the one faith that we have. Everything else will leave you stranded and on a destruction path, unlike anything you could possibly imagine.
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Pray with me. Father, we thank You for the faith that You have given us that has been handed down to us by the apostles and prophets.
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Jesus Christ, of course, as we've already studied, being the cornerstone, Your Son, whom we ask that You would help us to love more and that You would help us to understand that truth matters.
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And help us, Lord, to major in the majors and minor in the minors, Lord, and to strive for unity that is not devoid of truth, but a real unity purchased by You and given to us by Your Spirit.
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Lord, I ask that You would help us to understand the severity of the reality that there is but one faith and help us to be subject matter experts so that we might not be tempted to venture outside of that reality,
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Lord. And I ask that You would continue to grow each individual in this room in Christlikeness and that You would increase