We Must Be Different

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 in 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. Matthew, the sixth chapter.

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Jesus said, Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your

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Father who is in heaven. Thus when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others.

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Truly I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret, and your

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Father who sees in secret will reward you. And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others.

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Truly I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door, and pray to your

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Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces, so that their fasting may be seen by others.

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Truly I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that your fasting may not be seen by others, but by your

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Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.

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But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth nor dust destroys, and where thieves do not break in and steal.

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For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. In the name of Jesus. Hear the words of the small called articles.

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Martin Luther wrote the small called articles, and article three of the small called articles is on the topic of repentance.

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And hear what Luther writes, I'll interject along the way. Paul says in Romans that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of men.

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In Romans chapter three, he goes on to state, the whole world may be held accountable to God for no human being will be justified in God's sight by works of the law.

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Christ also says in John 16, eight, the Holy Spirit will convict the world of sin and unbelief.

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And so Luther then commenting on these texts says this, this then is the thunderbolt, the means by which

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God with one blow destroys both open sinners and false saints.

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Now a little bit of a note here. In the past year, we have watched major church leaders, well -known church figures stumble and fall in probably one of the most egregious ways.

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I haven't seen anything quite like it in all of my life, not in one year's time. Aside from all the false prophets who prophesied that Trump would become the president in November and win re -election, which was bad enough,

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I would also remind you of men like Carl Lentz, Ravi Zacharias, of Jerry Falwell Jr.

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And I would say this, you would be foolish to think that what happened to them couldn't happen to you.

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Sin is slavery. Sin is not your friend. It is not my friend.

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Each and every one of us are capable of sinning greatly against God and against others.

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And Luther is right in pointing out that these texts that he quoted above, that they are the thunderbolt which basically gives the destroying blow against those who openly sin as well as those who are false saints who secretly hide their sins rather than confess them, rather than repent, rather than be forgiven.

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God allows no one, Luther writes, to justify himself. He drives all together into terror and despair.

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And yes, that is where God would have us go. Complete terror, fear of God, fear of his wrath, fear of his punishment because we know that we have sinned against him.

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We know the just penalty of such sin and rebellion is an eternity separated from God in the lake of fire.

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But also despair. These teach us to despair of our own self -righteousness, our own ability to keep

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God's law, and our own ways in which we try to manipulate God and buy him off with our good works.

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Luther then says, this then is the hammer which Jeremiah speaks of. Is not my word like a hammer which breaks the rocks in pieces?

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And indeed that is what God's law does. And here the rocks are our hard -hearted sinful hearts.

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And it's God's law that must break all those rocks to pieces like a hammer.

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He then says this, this is not an artificial remorse that God works in us.

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It is a passive contritio. It is a true sorrow of the heart inflicted on us by God.

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The suffering and the pains, if you would, the first pains that we feel in this life of death.

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This is what the beginning of true repentance is like. Here man must hear such a judgment as this.

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You are of no account, whether you are manifest sinners or you are saints, you must all become other than you are now.

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You must become different. Now those of you who have been in church for a while might say something like this, didn't we just do this last year?

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Didn't we have a penitential season, a short one albeit, in Advent where we heard similar cries from John the

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Baptist to call us to repentance? But I'm going to say this and I'm going to speak honestly from my own experience.

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There has yet to be a penitential season that comes up in the church year where I have not needed to be different than I am.

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And same with you. None is able to keep God's law perfectly.

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And when God the Holy Spirit works obedience in you in one department, oftentimes another commandment comes up and becomes the one by which you are having struggles to keep.

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There will not be this side of Christ's resurrection raising you from the dead where you will not need to actively sorrow for your own sins and recognize that you must be different.

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And that's what Lent is for. Lent is for you taking time to reflect on God's commandments and let

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God's holy law be the hammer of Jeremiah that breaks your hard -hearted heart and let the

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Holy Spirit work in you true terror and remorse for your sin and cry out to God in mercy.

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That's the idea. So then the beginning of true repentance, as he says, is that we must recognize that we must be different than we are now.

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We must do otherwise than we are now doing. No matter who you are, no matter how great, wise, mighty, and holy you may think yourselves to be.

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And I would even argue if you think of yourself as being great, wise, mighty, and holy, well then you might want to start right there because that's the problem.

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No one, Scripture says, is godly. So to this office of the law, then the

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New Testament immediately adds the consoling promise of grace in the gospel.

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This is to be believed, as Christ says in Mark 1 15, repent and believe in the gospel, which is to say become different, do otherwise, and believe my promise.

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John the Baptist, who preceded Christ, is called a preacher of repentance before the remission of sins.

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That is, John was to accuse them all and convince them that they were sinners in order that they might know that they stood before God and recognize themselves as lost men.

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And in this way, then, they were to be prepared to receive grace from the Lord and to expect and accept from him the forgiveness of all of their sins.

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So we are only ready to hear the gospel only when the law has done its killing work and shown us our great need of salvation, mercy, and grace.

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Christ himself says in Luke 24 47, repentance and the forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations.

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Oh, and that includes 21st century America or wherever you're joining us from. But the law exercises its office alone without the addition of the gospel.

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When that happens, where that happens, there is only death and hell, and man must despair like Saul and Judas.

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And this is one of the great errors of so many places that call themselves Christian churches. They preach the law without the gospel.

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They preach the killing work of God's word without the enlivening work of the gospel.

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And where there is only law and no gospel, then there is only death and hell, and men must despair.

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Because that's what the law does. Have you ever tried keeping the law when all you've ever heard is the law?

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And have you ever had that feeling where you just kind of wanted to cry out from God, what exactly are you expecting of me here?

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I just feel like I can never live up to what you are telling me to do.

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And the thing is, is the person who says that has finally understood the purpose of the law.

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It's to make you recognize that you can't live up. Paul says, the law slays through sin.

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Moreover, the gospel offers consolation, forgiveness in more ways than one.

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For with God, there is plenteous redemption from the dreadful captivity to sin.

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And this comes to us then through the word of God and through the sacraments and the like, as we shall hear.

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Now, I would note then, moving on from what Luther wrote in the small called articles, I would like to bring to bear a wonderful text talking about sanctification.

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It's one of these texts where we hear lists of sins and things like that. And this is a good place for us to reflect in our

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Lenten -tide sojourning, if you would. Paul writes in Colossians 3, if then you have been raised with Christ, I always love that he always goes into a text like this by dragging you back to the waters of your baptism and back to the cross, because we cannot discuss these things apart from our forgiveness and being united with Christ.

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So if then you have been raised with Christ, and I should ask you all here, have you been? You bet you have.

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You've been united with Christ in his death and his resurrection in the waters of baptism. Paul then says this, seek the things that are above.

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But there's the rub. There's so many bright and shiny distractions down here. So many pursuits for my sinful nature to pursue.

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It's hard to set my mind on the things that are above. How about you? It says don't set your things on things that are on earth.

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And here's the reason. You're already dead. You've already died. Your life is hidden with Christ and God.

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And when Christ, who is your life, appears, you will also appear with him in glory. Therefore, here it comes.

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Are you ready? Put to death therefore what is earthly in you. You want me to kill it?

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But it's cute. Kill it. But I like it. Kill it. Put it to death.

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But that's what I do to comfort myself. Kill it. Paul says put to death what is earthly in you.

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And if you're not sure what that means, oh, don't worry. He's given us a handy dandy list.

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Sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desires, covetousness, which is idolatry.

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And he notes on account of these, the wrath of God is coming. And in these you too once walked when you were living in them.

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But now you must put them all away. Oh, and by the way, there's more to the list. You must put away anger, wrath, malice, slander, obscene talk from your mouth.

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Oh, my goodness. If I do that, people are going to call me a goody two shoes. Put it to death.

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You must not walk this way. You must not lie to one another.

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Seeing that you have put off your old self with its practices and you have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.

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Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised, uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, Norwegian, or Polish.

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I'm sorry, I added that to the text. It's not really there. Slave or free, but Christ is all and in all.

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So put on then as God's chosen ones, which you are, who are already holy and beloved, put on compassionate hearts.

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Kindness. Have you ever noticed that there just is an absolute famine of kindness in our world today?

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And sadly, it's also missing from the church. Kindness, humility, meekness, patience, bearing with one another.

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If one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other as the Lord has forgiven you, you must also forgive.

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I think Luther was right. We must be different. There is not a time when we can say we've got all this nailed down and doing it well.

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I haven't come up to a Lenten season yet where I've said, you know what, I think I got this. I can just skip all of Lent this year.

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No. Forgiving each other because the Lord has forgiven you, also you must forgive.

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And above all these, put on love, love which binds everything together in perfect harmony and let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts to which indeed you were called in one body and be thankful.

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Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. What a wonderful adverb, richly.

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So many people are biblically illiterate nowadays. The word of Christ barely dwells in them at all, except for maybe that one thing that they've heard, the golden rule, do unto others as they have done unto you.

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But they always twist it and turn it into some kind of weird form of karma. But let the word of Christ dwell in you so richly that you can now teach and admonish one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your heart to God.

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And whatever you do in word and deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the

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Father through him. Well, yep,

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I'm just reading through Colossians again here, skimming, going, yep, there's a lot that I need to be different.

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A lot. And if you're honest with yourself, you too. But I would be in dereliction of my duty to leave you there.

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If I were to end the sermon here and say, so get busy, get cracking, get on with it, it would be time to find another pastor.

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But let me comfort you with these words. The prophet Joel told us in our Old Testament text, yet even now, declares the

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Lord, God says, return to me with all of your heart. And you'll note that repentance is not a flu shot.

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It's not even something that you do only during Lent. Repentance is the daily life.

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It's the daily breath of the Christian. And we have these comforting and assuring words of God that when we return with him, with weeping, fasting, with mourning, that when we rend our hearts and not our garments,

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God says that he is gracious. He is merciful. He is slow to anger.

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He is abounding in steadfast love. And he relents over disaster. And this is good news for us.

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That God relents over disaster because as I've mentioned already, each and every one of us has deserved an eternity in hell.

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And that is the disaster of disasters. That somebody would leave this life impenitent, steeped in dead and trespasses and sins, and enter into eternity on their own righteousness.

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But for all who turn, all who cry out to God, they will be saved.

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They will be forgiven. And God relents of the disaster of hell for all of us. Paul says it this way, because we are in Christ, we are ambassadors for Christ.

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And God himself is now making his appeal through us. So we implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

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Recognize that your sin, my sin, your sin, Adam's sin, that it has torn us away from God and created hostility.

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But God himself has put an end to the hostility. He has ended the war.

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And he is now calling us to be reconciled to him because it says in here in 2

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Corinthians that for our sake, for our sake, for our good,

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God made Christ to be sin who knew no sin. Says that it made him to be sin.

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Your sin, my sin were all laid on him and God saw him as the one who committed it all.

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God made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in Christ we might become the righteousness of God.

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And so we remember here Christ suffering, dying, bleeding, is laying down his life for your sins and mine.

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As we move towards the end of the Lenten season, Good Friday, and Jesus's resurrection from the dead, all of this he did for our sake because of his great love for us.

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So repent. Repent of your sin. See it for what it is.

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Luther is right. It doesn't matter if you've been a saint for 50 years, 60 or 70.

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It doesn't matter. There isn't a day that you can say, I don't need to be different.

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There isn't a day that I can say that either. I must be different. We must be different. So take heart, brothers and sisters.

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Christ has bled and died for our sins. Lament your sin, but confidently trust in his sacrifice so that you can live and cry out to God the

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Holy Spirit to convict you of your sin and that crying out to him that he would give you the strength to mortify and to put to death what is earthly in you so that you may obey the commands that you and of yourself do not have the power to obey all to the glory of his holy name.

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pray this in Jesus name. Amen. Amen.