An Institution with Offices & Salvific Certainty

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the Gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern

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Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

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And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. The Holy Gospel according to St.

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John, chapter 17, verses 11 -19. They are still in the world, and I'm coming to you.

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Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name that you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one.

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While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by the name that you gave me. None has been lost except for the one doomed to destruction so that the scripture would be fulfilled.

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I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them.

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I have given them your word, and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world anymore than I am of the world.

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My prayer is not that you take them out of the world, but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it.

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Sanctify them by the truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world.

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For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.

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In the name of Jesus. In our day and age, we apparently live in a post -modern age.

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And in post -modernity, in the way of thinking in post -modernity, institutions are bad. Institutions are really awful.

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It's down with the institutions. In fact, we've got to show it to the man. That's what we've got to do.

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We've got to stick it right to him. Down with the institution. I'm a free spirit. Stop slapping down your rules on me.

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This is how we think. Oh, and by the way, there's another part of this, too. If you are overly confident, if you're absolutely certain that Jesus Christ is truly the only way of salvation, well, then you are an arrogant nerd.

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You need to repent, and you need to get with the program. As they say, there are many ways to climb

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Mount Fuji. This is how this goes. Well, in our texts today, these are the, how shall

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I put this, the antidote to this post -modern nonsense. We'll spend a little bit of time taking a look at this, and we will make you thoroughly politically incorrect at the end of this sermon.

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Let's go back to our first reading from the book of Acts. I'm partway through.

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It begins with, In those days Peter stood up among the brothers. The company of the persons was in all but 120.

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Jesus has been raised from the grave, bodily appeared to his disciples. He's ascended into heaven.

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And, well, Judas, if you remember, things did not go so well to the one who betrayed Jesus Christ.

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He went and hung himself, and then we find out what happens to his corpse. And the details are quite graphic.

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So Peter said, Brothers, the Scripture had to be fulfilled. Oh, by the way, that's a very important statement.

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The Scriptures had to be fulfilled. God never lies. Scripture will always be fulfilled.

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So the Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested

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Jesus. For he was numbered among us and was allotted his share in this ministry. Now this man acquired a field with the reward of his wickedness.

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You almost see the air quotes. The reward of his wickedness. Remember those 30 pieces of silver?

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He ended up being so grief -stricken that he ended up throwing the silver back into the temple.

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Tried to be absolved of his sins. And, of course, the high priest said, This is between you and God.

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We can't help you out here. So he threw the money back. They kept it, but they knew they couldn't put it into the treasury because it was blood money.

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Yet they're the ones who paid him. Piety has a funny way of being hypocritical.

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So this man acquired a field with the reward of his wickedness. Falling headlong, he burst open in the middle and all of his bowels gushed out, and everybody said,

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Ew. It became known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem so that the field was called in their own language,

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Akedalma, that is, the field of blood. Now watch what Peter does here.

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For it is written in the book of Psalms. Now how many, when you read through the

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Psalms, do you think the Psalms are just chock full of prophecy? Well, they are. Here, like a good

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Jewish man, Peter knows his Psalms and knows, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that there are prophecies in the

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Psalms regarding Judas of all people. And here's the prophecy. Psalm 69, verse 25,

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May his camp become desolate and let there be no one to dwell in it. And Psalm 109, verse 8,

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Let another take his office. Office.

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We all know what an office is, right? Here in the United States of America, we have the office of the

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President of the United States of America and the current office holder. Some people like and some people don't like.

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And after the election, there'll be a new office holder. And some people will like that office holder and some people won't like that office holder.

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And everybody for the next, well, as long as the United States continues to endure, will either rejoice or weep and gnash teeth, depending on who's in the office.

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Right? But everybody knows that the Constitution lays out particular authorities and duties of the office.

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Right? So, the idea then is that the government of the United States is not a movement.

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It's an institution. Right? Well, a lot of people today like to think that the church is a movement.

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And I would say, au contraire. It is an institution. And here, we learn of one of the church's offices, and it's the apostolic office.

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And this office, by the way, is completely empty because Peter here lays out, if you would, the qualifications to be one of the people filling the office of apostle.

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And this is an important thing. There are technically 12 office holders.

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Judas vacated his office, the son of destruction, and now it's time to fill his office.

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Now, if you're really a student and you know your Bible, you're going to figure something out along the way here.

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In the end, there's not 12 disciples, there's 13. But we'll explain that in a minute.

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So, Peter then says, so, one of the men, here are the qualifications for the office.

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One of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day that He was taken up from us, one of these men must become with us a witness of His resurrection.

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Ah, okay, so it's got to be a dude. A dude who's been with Jesus from the time of Jesus' baptism by John the

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Baptist as a witness of Jesus' death and resurrection. Those are the qualifications.

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Anyone here meet those? I know there's some old people in here. Dean, you remember, you had a pet

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T -Rex, right? I'm not quite that old. Okay, all right. I know

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Don can tell us about Noah. But so the idea here is that unless you have these qualifications, you don't get to be an apostle.

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Now, in the wide church today, there are people running around claiming to be apostles.

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And you know this. I know that it's an office, that these are the qualifications.

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So if anyone comes up to you and says, hi, I'm apostle so -and -so, you can say back to them, goodbye,

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I know you're a heretic. Just be polite that way. You know that this is somebody who's not speaking to you the truth.

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So here's what they did. They put forward two men, Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also called

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Justice, and Matthias, and they prayed, you Lord, you who know the hearts of all, show which one of these two you have chosen to take the place in this ministry.

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So Jesus gets to do the picking. And the apostleship from which Judas is turned aside to go into his own place, and then they took some dice, rolled them up, threw them, and Matthias came up.

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Winner, winner, chicken dinner. That's how it was chosen. No joke. All right.

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So that doesn't sound very holy, does it? They prayed through dice, and Matthias came up winner.

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And then we never hear from Matthias again. We never hear from him again. Now we hear from him in church history just a little bit, but so you kind of get the idea.

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Now this is all important. What is the role and the responsibility of one who is an apostle?

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They are eyewitnesses of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and they are to go and proclaim to the world that Christ was crucified for our sins, call people to repent and to be forgiven, and they are the eyewitnesses.

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In fact, in our day and age, if you've ever watched, like, the History Channel or CNN or any of those channels during, like,

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Christmas and Easter, they always have these documentaries, Can We Find the Real Historical Jesus?

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And so when somebody starts talking like that, and, you know, they have a documentary, let's get to the heart of it.

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Who was Jesus really, right? Well, the reason why they're doing it is because, of course, we live in a postmodern age, and everybody knows that people don't have the ability to, you know, like, raise the dead, give sight to the blind, and, you know, heal the sick and stuff like that miraculously.

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So that can't possibly be the real Jesus, right? So we have to get to the historical

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Jesus, and the historical Jesus is pretty much a Galilean Boy Scout who liked to help little old ladies across the

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Sea of Galilee. That's pretty much what they're looking for. But see, the thing is, is that how many books did Jesus write?

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He didn't write any. Not one. Hmm, that's kind of weird.

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So how is it that we know all this about Jesus? Through the apostles. And see, Jesus, in Luke 10, 16, says this about the apostles.

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The one who hears you, you apostles, hears me. The one who rejects you, you apostles, they end up rejecting me, and the one who sent me.

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The only way we know anything about Jesus is through the eyewitnesses. Jesus wrote nothing. We do know that he wrote something in the sand, that whole ordeal with the woman caught in the act of adultery, but that's a different story altogether.

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That didn't seem to survive. It's not extant anymore. Now, let's talk about this. So we have 12 apostles now, right?

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The 12. Well, if you all sit there and do your math, you're all familiar with the fact that the Apostle Paul, he was an apostle.

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Everybody refers to him as, you know, the Apostle Paul. How can this be?

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That equals 13. Now, let me give you a historical side note. Any of you know your good

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Old Testament history? How many tribes were there? 12 tribes.

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There were 12 tribes of Israel. Yet if you were to count them up, the number would come to what? 13.

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Why is that? Well, one of the tribes was comprised of two half -tribes, the half -tribe of Manasseh and the half -tribe of Ephraim.

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These were the sons of Joseph. So there were 12 tribes, and one tribe was two half -tribes, which comes to the number 13.

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And remember, the Old Testament is type and shadow of the fulfillment, and the fulfillment is in the

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New Testament. So it's not a coincidence that there were 12 tribes of Israel and 12 apostles that numbered 13.

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It's not a coincidence at all. And here's the outlier. It's the Apostle Paul. 1

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Corinthians 15. I'll start in verse 1. Paul explains how he came to be an apostle.

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Because he's kind of the odd man out, if you would. Paul says this, Now I would remind you, brothers, of the

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Gospel that I preach to you. Gospel is fantastically great news, which you received and which you stand by which you are being saved.

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This has got my attention. I need good news. I need to hear from God that I'm being saved.

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And he says, if you hold fast to the Word, I preach to you unless you believed in vain. And then he says this, For I delivered as of first importance what

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I also received. And he received this from Jesus himself. And here's what he received.

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That Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures. That word from the

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Psalms comes to mind here. Selah. Let that sink in. Christ died for our sins.

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Oh, let me not go too fast over this. Every single one of your transgressions, every time you have not loved the

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Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, every time you have failed to love your neighbor as yourself in thought, word, and deed by the things you did, by the things you didn't do, every time you came up short and you know you didn't measure up,

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Christ died for our sins. They're all accounted for. Every single one of them.

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So it says, Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures. He was buried. He was raised on the third day in accordance with the

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Scriptures. And then he appeared to Cephas and then the 12.

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See what it says there? Then he appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time and oh yes, the early

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Christian church kept track of all of the eyewitnesses of the resurrection. He says most of them are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.

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Then he appeared to James and to all the apostles. And watch this. Last of all is to one untimely born, the

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ESV translated. I think the Greek is better translated as abnormally born. He has an abnormal birth as an apostle.

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He says this. Last of all is to one abnormally born he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.

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And yes he did. He held the cloaks of the men who stoned Stephen while Stephen proclaimed

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Christ. Basically giving assent to his unjust murder.

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He's the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.

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But watch this. But the grace of God, by the grace of God, I am what

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I am, and His grace towards me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not

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I, but the grace of God that is in me. Whether then it was I or they, so we preach, and so you believed.

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And see here's the thing. We're all like the apostle Paul. Each and every one of us, born dead in trespasses and sins and at war with God.

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We sin against God. We sin against neighbor. We're a pernicious bunch. And yet because of the grace of God, we are not called apostles.

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We are given the name of Christ. We are called Christians. Forgiven sinners.

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All saved by the mercy and grace of God as a gift. And we have all heard the preaching of the apostles.

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And that's what they did. They preached and we believed. Remember, Jesus told the disciples, if you really want to be super technical about that great commission in Matthew 28, go make disciples of all nations, baptizing and teaching, right?

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In a very real way, Christ commissioned the apostles to make disciples of all nations.

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And you think, well, how are they going to do that? They don't even live in an age when there was 21st century Internet technology.

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They didn't have smart phones. They didn't even have smart rocks. How are they going to pull this off, right?

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Well, they did have parchment and pen, and they wrote their message and eyewitness testimony and the good news down, and it's now in our

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Bibles. And each and every one of us, we are disciples today because of their preaching. They are still discipling the nations.

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And the best part of it is that we get to participate in their discipling because when we take their words up into our mouths and we tell our neighbors about the good news of Jesus, the disciples and God himself are speaking in our mouths.

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We are partners with them in this great commission. Let us never forget that we have good news to proclaim.

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And so the apostles do their work now through us, through the written word taken up in our mouths.

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And so let me remind you of a couple of passages, one from our Gospel text and one from our Epistle text.

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Our Gospel text, Jesus, this is his high priestly prayer on the night that he was betrayed.

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It says this, I have given them your word. He's praying to the Father. The world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.

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That's right. Each and every one of us Christians, we who believe in Christ, we are no longer of this world.

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We've overcome it because Christ has overcome it. And so he says, I do not ask that you to take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one.

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And is this not what we pray in the Lord's prayer? Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

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They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. So sanctify them in the truth and your word is truth.

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God never lies. He speaks the truth. And so as you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.

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Those apostles of Jesus, Peter, James, and John, Jesus sent them, and He wants us to listen to them.

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To reject them is to reject Him, the Scripture says. And so our

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Epistle text says this, If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater, for this is the testimony of God, that He has born concerning His Son.

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Whoever believes in the Son of God has the testimony in Himself.

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Whoever does not believe God has made God a liar. And God never lies, because He has not believed in the testimony that God has born concerning His Son.

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And this is the testimony. God gave us eternal life. It doesn't say

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God paid you for your good works, and all those times when you actually were really successful at living up to your

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New Year's resolutions for a week. Alright, four days. I'm sorry, two. Right?

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God's not paying you for being good with eternal life. It says He gave.

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Gave. It's a gift. It's Christmas. That kind of thing. God gave us an eternal life, and this life is in His Son, Jesus.

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Whoever has the Son has life. Whoever does not have the Son does not have life.

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This is most certainly true. God never lies. And so He says, I write these things to you.

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The Apostle John is writing these things to you who believe in the name of the

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Son of God. Do you believe in the name of the Son of God? Then He's writing this to you. And watch this.

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Here's the arrogant, anti -postmodern part. So that you may know that you have eternal life.

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Oh, that's arrogant. Oh, that's ridiculous. You can't possibly know that you have eternal life.

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Who do you think you are? I don't think I'm anybody.

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I think I'm a sinner. And I think the Apostle John, who was sent by Jesus, just said that God gave me a gift.

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And I know I have it. You have it, dear saints. You have this gift.

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You don't have to earn eternal life. God has given it to you as a free gift. Believe this.

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Trust this word. Because Jesus sent this man and had him write this to you for you to hang on to and to believe.

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And God never lies. You can take this to the bank. When you die and your eyes close here and they open up in eternity, you're going to see

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Jesus. And oh, He's got some major things to show you because He loves you so much.

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You think Renee's meeting with her daughter was amazing?

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That's a foretaste of what is coming. Because each and every one of you are children of God.

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And you have yet to see Him. But He can't wait to see you. And the joy that you will have for eternity is yours forever.

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It's a gift. And John wants you to know this with absolute certainty.

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Trust and believe you are saved. You have been given eternal life.

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You have a right standing with God. And nobody can take this gift away from you.

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Nobody. Your Father in Heaven is mightier than all. In the name of Jesus.

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Amen. We thank you for your support.

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