Circumcision and Name of Jesus Service

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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I would like to welcome you to Conswinger Lutheran Church. Happy New Year. This is technically the second

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Sunday of Christmas, and today is a minor festival, the observance, the recognition of the circumcision and naming of our

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Lord Jesus Christ. And it's not a typo in your bulletin. The gospel text is one sentence long.

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So, whenever a pastor sees a pericope like this, there's a feeling of panic that comes over him.

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And I assure you that my sermon will be longer than one sentence, so, you know, if you're worried about that. Now, during Advent, we didn't have the opportunity to meet in person during the midweek services as much as I had hoped, but what we're going to do today, we're going to mix it up just a little bit.

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We're going to try to chant the intro today, and I know that our Sunday school kids are going to be able to help.

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We have some people who know how to do it, and so when we get to the intro part, I might actually do a little rehearsal in the middle of the liturgy, so don't panic, we'll figure this all out.

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But the opening hymn is 361, if you're physically present here at Conswinger, please rise for the opening hymn.

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O 'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?

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And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air, O say, does that star -spangled banner yet wave O 'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

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O say, does that star -spangled banner yet wave O 'er the land of the free and the home of the brave? O holy child of Bethlehem, dear,

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We hear the Christmas angels, the great glad tidings...

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Divine Service Setting 1, page 151 in the front of your hymnal. In the name of the Father, and of the

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Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

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Why do we confess our sins? God, who is faithful and just, will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

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Let us then confess our sins to God our Father. Most merciful God, we confess that we are by nature sinful and unclean.

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We have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone.

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We have not loved you with our whole heart. We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.

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We justly deserve your present and eternal punishment. For the sake of your

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Son, Jesus Christ, have mercy on us. Forgive us, renew us, and lead us, so that we may delight in your will and walk in your ways.

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To the glory of your holy name. Amen. Almighty God, in his mercy, has given his

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Son to die for you and for his sake. He forgives you all of your sins. As a called and ordained servant of Christ and by his authority,

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I therefore forgive you all of your sins. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

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Amen. Now, I'm not going to turn around quite yet. Let me introduce you to how we chant the

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Psalms. It begins with a psalm tone, and then you'll note that there are two lines.

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There's a first part, and then there's a second part for each of the verses. Where you see that little straight up hash sign, that's where the ending part comes.

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Let me see if I can do this. May all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you.

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May those who love your salvation say continually, great is the

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Lord. I think you guys know how to do this. If you're not sure how to do it, just listen to the people in the back and to the kids.

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They've been practicing this downstairs. I hear they've been teaching the kids Lutheranism in the basement. It's the weirdest thing.

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Alright, let's try this now. May all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you.

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May those who love your salvation say continually, great is the

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Lord. Sacrifice an offering you have not desired, but you have given me an open ear.

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Burnt offering and sin offerings you have not required.

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Then I said, behold, I have come. In the scroll of the book is written of me.

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I desire to do your will, O my God. Your law is within my heart.

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Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the

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Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now and will be forever.

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Amen. May all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you.

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May those who love your salvation say continually, great is the

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Lord. In peace let us pray to the

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Lord. Lord, have mercy. For the peace from above and for our salvation, let us pray to the

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Lord. Lord, have mercy. For the peace of the whole world, for the well -being of the

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Church of God, and for the unity of all, let us pray to the Lord.

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Lord, have mercy. For this holy house and for all who offer here their worship and praise, let us pray to the

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Lord. Lord, have mercy. Help, save, comfort, and defend us, gracious Lord.

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Amen. Peace, the victory for us.

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The Lord be with you. And also with you. Let us pray. Lord God, you made your beloved

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Son our Savior subject to the law and caused him to shed his blood on our behalf. Grant us the true circumcision of the

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Spirit that our hearts may be made pure from all sins. Through Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you in the

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Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen. You may be seated. The Old Testament reading for the

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Feast of the Circumcision in name of Jesus is from Numbers 6. The Lord spoke to Moses, saying,

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Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, Thus you shall bless the people of Israel. You shall say to them,

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The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you.

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The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them.

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This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. We'll speak the gradual together by half verse.

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This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel. After those days, declares the

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Lord, I will put my laws into their minds and write them on their hearts.

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I will be their God and they shall be my people. I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.

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The epistle is taken from the book of Galatians, chapter 3.

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Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming of faith would be revealed.

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So then the law was our guardian until Christ came in order that we might be justified by faith.

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But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith.

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For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither

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Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free. There is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

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And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise.

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This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. The Gospel according to St.

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Luke, the second chapter. At the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, he was called

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Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb. This is the

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Gospel of the Lord. The sermon hymn is 900.

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You may be seated. In the name of Jesus.

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Amen. Have you all seen episodes of American Ninja Warrior?

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That's kind of a weird question to start things off with. I haven't really watched any episodes of it.

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I'm thinking for 2023. Do you think I should try out for that? Those who know go, no, don't do it.

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We're going to need to bury you and then call another pastor if that should happen. Here's kind of the metaphor.

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If you're familiar with the television show, basically they have set up a gauntlet.

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And that's the best way to describe it. It is a gauntlet. It is multi -storied. It's long.

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There are different challenges, different portions of the gauntlet. You might have to swing like Tarzan over a pit full of scorpions.

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Maybe they don't use scorpions, but you get the idea. You've got to climb up a wall.

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You've got to go up this chute. It's crazy stuff. And then, of course, it's all timed.

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And then there's particular people who are really good at this. And then there's people who are not as prepared as they thought they were.

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And all of that being said, this is my kind of overarching metaphor. What are we to do with such a short gospel text?

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It's one sentence. One sentence. But I would note that that sentence is pretty packed.

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And it goes like this. At the end of 8 days, we can talk about that 8 -day stuff in Scripture.

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8 days is kind of an important thing. Because in Scripture, if you think of it, the heavens and the earth were created in 6 days.

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Then God rested on the 7th. That gives you a full week. And in Scripture, the 8th day is always kind of symbolic, pointing to the first day of the new creation.

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Jesus was raised from the grave on the 8th day. You see, that's kind of the idea.

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And then 8 days later, he reappeared to his disciples in the upper room. That's kind of how that works.

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So Jesus, at the end of 8 days, he's only, well, Jesus is kind of small and doesn't do a lot still at this point.

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Those of you who have been around infants know that at 8 days, infants can cry.

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They can fill their diapers. They can sleep. They can cry. They can fill their diapers.

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And they can sleep. That's pretty much it, right? But don't be fooled by the fact that Jesus is only 8 days old.

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He's already busy at work running the gauntlet. Let me explain.

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When he was circumcised, so 8 days he circumcised, he was given the name Yeshua. That's actually his

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Hebrew name. And the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb. A good way to think about it is that the gauntlet here that none of us have been able to complete without biffing it hard.

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Yes, that's right. I'm a child of the 80s. I still use the word biff, right? If you're not sure what that is, just look it up or ask somebody who's a

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Gen Xer, they'll explain it to you. But we all have biffed our course. We have fallen woefully short of the demands of God's law.

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And what does God's law demand of us? Sinless perfection. Well, I came into the world, and so did you, very far short of sinless perfection.

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And you'll note Christ didn't. And you'll note another thing about the law of God. Here we're talking about the

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Mosaic Covenant. There are certain commands that must be obeyed that you have no power in and of yourself to obey them.

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You have to obey them passively. So when we talk about Christ's sinless righteousness, it's actually miraculous on a lot of levels, because Jesus obeyed

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God's law actively and passively. And that being the case, you'll note that Jesus, you know, on the seventh day didn't sit there and go, okay,

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Mary and Joseph, glad that I'm here. I'm your Savior. I'm here to save you. And so what we need to do is we need to talk about our plans for tomorrow in order for me to fulfill the law of God.

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I'm going to need you to carry me. I know I can't do anything except for sleep and fill diapers and cry, but I need you to take me to get circumcised so that I can obey

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God's law. Otherwise I can't be the Savior. There was no conversation like that, right?

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Because babies don't have those types of conversations. And so Christ chose to be born to pious parents, parents who would do their part so that Christ can passively obey the law of God in those parts where he couldn't obey it actively.

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And he did. And then we're going to note something here is that circumcision, it's a kind of a visual, interesting concept of cutting away of sin and it involves the shedding of blood.

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And a good way to think about Christ's circumcision is that it's really the first blood, the first blood that Christ sheds, which is a foreshadow of the cutting away of sin that he will bring to each and every one of us through his shed blood on the cross.

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You see, Christ was already in the gauntlet and he was busy at work obeying

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God's law. Now, when we talk about circumcision, it's important to know that this can be a divisive concept due to the fact that there are people who've come up with plausible sounding, and I have to say it that way, plausible sounding and note the air quotes, biblical arguments claiming that Christians must obey the

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Torah in regards to the ceremonial laws of Moses, the

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Mosaic covenant. And in our day, there are modern day Judaizers. You'll know them by a popular term.

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They go by the Hebrew roots folks, right? And so they're still among us.

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And it's important to note here that this is going to give us a good object lesson in relation to not falling for bad theology.

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It disguised as plausible sounding biblical arguments.

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And so here's where we're going to do a little bit of study on the concept of circumcision.

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We know that in the ancient church, there was the very first church council held in Jerusalem.

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It's recorded for us in Acts 15. And here's how the account goes. Some men came down from Judea and they were teaching the brothers, unless you are circumcised, according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.

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And here's the interesting thing. This is early in Christianity. New Testament hasn't been finished yet.

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These guys have got a biblical argument. They can go and grab the

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Septuagint. They can go and grab some of the Torah scrolls and they can read it out. You must be circumcised.

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See, it's here in black and white. You better get busy you Gentiles and go and have the snip, snip procedure done on you, right?

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It's a plausible sounding argument. And one that has to be handled carefully. You'll note that in our day, there are all kinds of plausible sounding arguments that may appear biblical on the surface, but upon further inspection, you recognize that the person engaging in these plausible sounding arguments is in fact twisting

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God's word and they're not believing or teaching the truth. I'll give you an example. There is a recent

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YouTube short that I watched from a fellow who's going to be reviewed on upcoming episodes of Fighting for the

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Faith. He's one of the shiny new young guns in the charismatic

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NAR movement. And in this YouTube video, he literally makes the claim that in the

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Bible, it says, in Deuteronomy 18, if a prophet arises and they prophesy something's going to happen and it doesn't happen, the scripture says, do not fear that prophet.

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And so he says, see, even though they gave an inaccurate prophecy, that means that God still calls them a prophet, so that means that we can give grace to people who do not give a true prophecy.

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And I'm sitting there going, screaming at my computer, going, did you read the verses in front of those?

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Okay, because what are the three rules for sound biblical exegesis? Context, context, and context, right?

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You just read a couple of verses ahead and it says to the person who presumes to speak a word in God's name, it doesn't come true, you are to kill them.

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So it doesn't matter if God calls you a prophet after you give a false prophecy, we can put it on your tombstone.

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Okay, here lies the prophet, right? But that point is that this guy put forward what sounds like a plausible argument, but it's not biblical.

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And so when we take a look at the concept of circumcision, it's important to note that in the

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Old Testament, Jews under the Mosaic Covenant were required to do this.

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It's absolutely a biblical requirement for every single Jew, and note,

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I didn't say Gentile, because the Mosaic Covenant is a land lease agreement between God and the sons of Abraham.

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It is not meant for any other human being other than those who are

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Jews, unless you want to become a member of that particular community.

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But you'll note, in our day and age, no one, and I mean this, no one is able to keep the requirements of the

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Mosaic Covenant. Why? There's no temple in Jerusalem. Good luck keeping all of the requirements, because you can't do it.

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Because a whole big portion of the requirements of the Mosaic Covenant, that's been done away with by the fact that God had the temple in Jerusalem destroyed in 70

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AD. But coming back now to our text in Acts 15, so some

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Judaizers arose and saying, unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.

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And after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, that's a polite way of saying that Paul got all up in their face, got all up in their business.

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And when you read about Paul's collisions with those who taught heresy, they were absolutely volcanic.

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That's a good way to put it. When there was no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed then to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders about the question.

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And so when they get to Jerusalem, the apostles and the elders were gathered together to consider this matter. And after there had been much debate,

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Peter stood up and said to them, brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you so that by my mouth the

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Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. And here Peter is making reference to the fact that he had gone to see a fellow by the name of Cornelius, a

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Roman centurion, and went to his house of all things. And God, the Holy Spirit, is the one who told him to go.

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And while he was preaching the gospel to them, even before these people were baptized, they received the gift of the

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Holy Spirit immediately, without any other means except for the preached word, similar to the way the apostles themselves had received the

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Holy Spirit. And this is what he's referencing. And after there, so he said, brothers, you know that in the early days

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God made a choice among you that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe.

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God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us.

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And he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith.

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And that's the point. And so you'll note then when you look at the Old Testament, the

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Old Testament is not capable of taking you all the way where you need to go.

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Or a better way to put it, maybe that's not exactly accurate, but the idea is that the law cannot take you all the way to where you need to go.

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The law can only point you to salvation. The law cannot save you.

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And we human beings, we have a problem. And that is that we have the law of God written on our hearts.

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Now, that may not seem like a problem, but here's the issue. We recognize the law.

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We know the law. We know the commandments, thou shalt not, thou shalt not, thou shalt not.

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We know them all. And as a result of it, oftentimes we intuitively and at the same time mistakenly think that salvation is a matter of trying harder, doing gooder, being certain things.

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But that's not how it works. I would remind you, in the types and shadows, Moses wasn't permitted to enter the promised land nor was

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Moses permitted to lead the people of Israel into the promised land. And there's a good reason for that.

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If you're aware of the account, Moses on two occasions had to deal with grumbling people in the children of Israel who needed water, who wanted water.

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On the first occasion, God commanded Moses to strike a rock with his staff.

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He struck it. The rock split. Water came pouring out, and they received water.

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On the second instance, Moses was told, regarding the grumblers, to go and speak to a rock.

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Speak to it. Ask the rock for water, and the rock will give it to you. Think of it this way.

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We know from the Apostle Paul and his writings and his epistles that the rock that followed the children of Israel was none other than Christ himself.

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Christ is the rock. Can Christ be struck twice? No. Christ's sacrifice is a once -for -all sacrifice for sins, and that's what the striking prefigured.

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But Moses didn't listen to God. He took God's words and kind of said, Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever.

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And then he went and struck the rock. Not once, but twice.

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And then the water came a -flowing, and then God started judging. And Moses was forbidden at this point from entering the promised land.

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He was told that he would not be leading the children of Israel, and that's appropriately so, because you're going to note here, the purpose of the law is to convict you of your sin.

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That's its purpose. The law cannot save you. Good luck trying to keep it and be saved by it, because you're going to note this.

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At what point in your life can you say, I have now done enough that I can be saved.

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I'm now obedient enough. I'm righteous enough. I'm holy enough.

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And if you're thinking this way, and if you're a guy, let me talk to your wife. We'll just get this figured out right now.

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She'll tell the truth. And if you're a gal, we'll just talk to your husband. He'll let us know the truth. You're delusional in your thinking.

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The law is not intended to save you. So we learn in Deuteronomy 34, the fate of Moses.

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It says, Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, which is opposite of Jericho, and Yahweh showed him all the land,

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Gilead as far as Dan, all Naphtali, the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, and the land of Judah as far as the western sea, the

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Negev, the plain that is the valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees as far as Zoar.

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It's a nice vacation reel, right? Take a look at what the Promised Land looks like. God's allowing him to see all of this.

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And then Yahweh said to him, This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob, I will give it to your offspring.

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I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not go over there. So Moses, the servant of Yahweh, died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of Yahweh.

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And God buried him in the valley in the land of Moab, opposite of Beth Peor, but no one knows the place of his burial to this day.

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Moses was 120 years old when he died. His eye was undimmed, his vigor unabated, and the people of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab for 30 days.

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Then the days of weeping and mourning for Moses were ended, and Yeshua, the son of Nun, was full of the spirit of wisdom, for Moses had laid his hands on him, so the people of Israel obeyed him and did as Yahweh had commanded

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Moses. Who is it that brings the children of Israel into the promised land?

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It ain't Moses. The one who received the law, it's Yeshua, whose name means

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Yahweh saves, who also happens to have the exact same name as Jesus.

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Jesus' Hebrew name is Yeshua. But rather than being the son of Nun, Jesus is the son of God.

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And so his name is quite important, because remember, not only is he circumcised on this day, he is also named.

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And his name, Yeshua, Yahweh saves, means everything. So when we consider then the council that met in Jerusalem for the purpose of talking about what to do regarding circumcision, we know that Peter, when he makes his big address, he notes that we are all saved through grace, just as everybody else is.

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God made no distinction. We believe that we will save through the grace of our Lord, just as they will. And so what then are we to make of the circumcision debate?

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Because, oh, it continues to rage to this day, again, with plausible -sounding biblical arguments.

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Well, the apostle Paul decided to deal with this straight on. And thankfully, we have a

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Holy Spirit -inspired epistle dedicated specifically to the topic and with a full explanation as to why

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Christians are not required to not only be circumcised, but Christians are not required to keep the

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Passover. Christians are not required to keep the Feast of Booths. Christians are not required to keep the

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Feast of Pentecost, according to the Mosaic Covenant. All of the festivals and feast days, the Sabbaths, the new moons, all of those things are a shadow pointing us to Christ.

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And Paul explains it this way in Galatians. He says in chapter 2, verse 16, we know that a person is not justified.

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That means to be declared not guilty by God. He's not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ.

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So we also have believed in Jesus Christ in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not to be justified by works of the law.

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And here it comes, because by works of the law, no one will be justified.

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Not one single person. Old or New Testament.

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Not Adam, not Eve. Not Noah, not Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob.

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Not King David, especially not King David. Not Solomon or any of the saints of the

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Old Testament. Not a single one of them is justified before God by works of the law.

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The law was not given to save us. And you'll note that Christ is obeying the law because he's obeying it for us.

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He now, by virtue of the fact that he is running the gauntlet, and rather than fall on his face like we all have in this great grand spiritual ninja warrior gauntlet that has been set up, we've all failed.

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Christ runs the gauntlet perfectly. And he now, by virtue of that, is the sinless, spotless

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Lamb of God, the sacrifice necessary to take away your sin and mine.

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And Paul goes on to chide the Galatians. He says, you foolish Galatians, who's bewitched you?

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It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. So let me ask you this.

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Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?

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And here, Paul is trying to jog their memory because who was the one who planted the churches in Galatia?

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It was Paul on one of his missionary journeys. And on his missionary journeys, he's recalling to their mind that they did receive the

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Holy Spirit, and they didn't receive the Holy Spirit because of their obedience to Torah.

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They received the Holy Spirit by hearing and believing the good news that Christ had bled and died for their sins by faith.

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Then he asks, are you so foolish then, having begun by the Holy Spirit?

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That's the whole point. You'll note the Holy Spirit is the one who brought regeneration in them, brought them to repentance, gave them faith.

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Having begun by the Spirit, then, are you now trying to be perfected by the flesh? But we all, at times, are tempted to go down this road, especially on days like today.

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You'll note that this sermon is not admonishing you. It's a new year. You need to sit down with a pencil and some paper, and you need to start making some resolutions for the year ahead so that 2023 can be your best year yet.

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Right? No. Okay? It doesn't work that way.

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And I would note that I'm really awful at following through with New Year's resolutions.

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I gave them up years ago, and you should probably, too, because you know what?

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It just leads to depression, because here's what's going to happen. This is the one. This is the year I'm going to lose 60 pounds.

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I'm going to do it this year, finally. Right? And so what are you going to do? You're going to starve yourself today.

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You're going to get on the treadmill, and you're going to be sore and hungry tomorrow. Right? And then you're going to say,

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Well, if I just have a little bit, just a few Oreos. Okay? Just a few and a

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Twinkie. And, of course, we're having a get -together, so I have to have some of those peanuts and those cheeses and things.

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And I'll start again tomorrow. And do you start again tomorrow? No, you don't. Okay? If you can't even follow through on a

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New Year's resolution, and this is New Year's Day, do you think you can be perfected by your flesh?

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Do you think you can pull off God's law? This time, I'll run the gauntlet.

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This time, I'm going to make it. I'm going to do it. No, you won't. The purpose of the law is to show you your sin.

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Then he asked, Did you suffer so many things in vain, if indeed it was in vain? Does he who supplies the

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Spirit to you and work miracles among you do so by works of the law? No. Or by hearing with faith?

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Just as Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.

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So know, then, it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. Listen carefully, because you're going to know in our day and age, there's a lot of people arguing about this stuff.

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You have the Jews saying, We are the sons of Abraham because we are the sons through Isaac. You have the

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Muslims saying, We're the sons of Abraham because we're the sons through Ishmael. And it's not about genetics at all.

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God, the Holy Spirit, comes along and says, That doesn't matter. Are you

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Norwegian? Are you Polish? Are you German? Are you a European mutt? Guess what? If you trust in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, you're really the sons of Abraham.

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I'm causing a scandal today, right? The scriptures then, foreseeing that God would justify the

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Gentiles by faith, then preach the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, In you shall all the nations be blessed.

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So then those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. And then verse 10.

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Boy, this is an interesting text. All who rely on works of the law are under a curse.

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Are you trying to save yourself in full or in part by the works of the law? Are you relying upon that for your salvation?

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Scripture doesn't say you're blessed. Scripture says you're cursed. For it is written,

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Cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law. And I'll throw in my own paraphrase here.

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And keep on, keeping on, keeping on doing them, right? There isn't a day that goes by where you get a day off from obeying

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God's law perfectly if this is what you want to do. Now it is evident, no one, not a single pope, not any of the saints, not you, not me, not nobody, no one, no one is justified before God by the law.

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For the righteous shall live by faith, quoting the prophet Hosea. But the law, it's not of faith.

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Rather, those, the one who does them, does these commandments shall live by them. But Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.

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For it is written, Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree. And boy, is that an important text. And see, that's the point.

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You want to be under the curse of the law and try to save yourself by the law? That's silly.

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Christ became a curse because it is written in Scripture, Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.

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Christ has taken that curse for us so that all who trust in him can be blessed, blessed with the gift of eternal life, blessed with the gift of salvation, blessed with the promise and the gift of an inheritance in the world to come, all for free for the recipients who trust in Christ by faith because Christ is the one who paid it all, even with his own life, so that you and I can be forgiven and redeemed.

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So the blessing then that is in Christ Jesus, the blessing of Abraham, that it might come to everyone,

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Jew and Gentile alike, so that we might receive then the promised Holy Spirit. How? Through faith.

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Paul then goes on to give a human example, brothers, even with a man -made covenant or contract, no one can annul it or add to it once it has been ratified or signed.

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I remember, it was a year ago, I ended up buying a truck. I hadn't bought a new vehicle since 2008.

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It was a big deal. Once again, I was going to purchase a brand new vehicle and I had to sign papers.

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Do you guys remember that? I think it's Stephen Elliot, you had to sign escrow papers. How come your arm isn't in a splint?

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I remember the last couple of times I've had to sign papers on a house, I left like this.

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I can't touch, I can't feel my fingers, right? But once you sign the papers, once you sign the documents for your house or your vehicle or whatever, can you change them on your own?

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Nope. It's a sign, it's a done deal. And that's the point that Paul is making here because he's drawing our attention to this fact that in the

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Old Testament, there is more than one covenant. The Mosaic covenant was struck between God and the people of Israel.

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But there's another covenant, the covenant of note. And that's the Abrahamic covenant. And what

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Paul is basically saying is, listen, the Mosaic covenant which comes later cannot annul the covenant, the contract that God made with Abraham.

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It cannot annul it. It can't even amend it. And that God is going to honor that covenant.

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Which one? The Abrahamic. So he says this. So no one can, even with the human example, no one annuls or adds to a covenant once it's been ratified.

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Now the promises that God made, they were made to Abraham and to his Zerah, singular, his seed.

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It does not say Zerahim, okay, which would be seeds. To Abraham and to his offspring.

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And you're going to note here, Paul is giving us a very good master class on how to rightly handle

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God's word. Grammar matters. In fact, plurals and singulars matter in this particular case.

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Quoting from the Hebrew text, he notes that Zerah in the Hebrew text is singular, offspring.

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It does not say and to offsprings, Zerahim. Referring to many but referring to one.

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And to your offspring. Who is that offspring? It's Christ.

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So this is what I mean. The law, the Torah, the Mosaic covenant, which came 430 years after Abraham, it does not annul the covenant previously ratified by God so as to make the promise void.

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For if the inheritance comes by the law, well then it no longer comes by promise.

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But God gave it to Abraham by a promise. So why then the law?

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And here's where we're going to note something. That oftentimes we human beings, when we run across something in the

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Bible we don't like. Or we disagree with.

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We in our sinful arrogance think that the Bible's the problem. Believe me when

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I tell you the Bible isn't the problem. You are. Your reasoning, your idolatry, your sinfulness, it's the problem.

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So note here, Paul isn't basically saying yeah, listen, you can't trust Moses. We all know that Moses was an evil patriarch down with the patriarchy.

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He didn't engage in nonsensical arguments like this. He acknowledges that the

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Mosaic covenant is a covenant that God struck with the people of Israel. That the

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Pharisees were right. That the Judaizers were right in pointing out that these are the commands of God.

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But he's pointing out something as that they had not taken in consideration the full counsel of the

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Word of God. And by doing so, Paul is basically saying that the law is our guide to Christ.

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It is not the thing that takes us into salvation. It points us to Jesus so that we can be saved by him.

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So why then was the law given? Well, it was added because of transgressions. Until the offspring, singular,

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Jesus, should come to whom the promise had been made. And it was put in place through angels and an intermediary.

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So then is the law contrary to the promises of God? Because God gave salvation and the gift of the inheritance to Abraham through a promise.

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He asks the question, is the law, then, contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not. For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law.

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But is there a such thing as a law that can give life? No. But the

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Scripture imprisoned everything, everyone under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.

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Now, before faith came, we were held captive under the law. We were imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed.

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So then the law was our guardian until Christ came in order that we might be justified by faith.

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But now that faith has come, we're no longer under a guardian. For in Christ Jesus, you are all sons of God through faith.

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And here's kind of the fun little turn, if you think about it here. Paul now is going to make reference to the circumcision that we all receive.

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And the circumcision that all Christians receive, male and female, is in the waters of baptism.

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Even the Mosaic Covenant's circumcision was a foreshadowing of the

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New Covenant circumcision where God promises not merely to cut away a piece of flesh from a man's nether regions, but to cut away the heart of stone and replace it with a heart of flesh.

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The one given by God, done by the hands of Christ. Paul says, as many of you as were baptized into Christ, you have put on Christ.

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Therefore, there is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free. There is no male or female.

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You are all one in Christ. And if you are Christ's, then you are

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Abraham's offspring and heirs according to the promise. Paul puts it this way in Colossians 2.

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He says, see to it that no one takes you captive. And you'll note that there are many people out there doing the work of the devil, basically trying to take us captive, to take away and steal the great gift that we've been given by God, that faith that we have in Jesus Christ.

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So, see to it that no one takes you captive, enslaves you by philosophy or empty deceit according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.

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For in Christ, the whole fullness of the deity dwells bodily. You have been filled in him who is the head and rule of all authority.

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And in him, note what he says, in him also, you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands by putting off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ.

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So the Old Testament type and shadow that even Christ submitted himself to, even though he did it passively, that circumcision points us to the real circumcision where God takes off, cuts away the body of flesh, the body of sin.

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And this is all done by the hand of Christ. Having been buried with him in baptism in which you are also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God who raised him from the dead.

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And you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God has now made you alive together with Christ.

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Having forgiven us all of our trespasses by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands.

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You see, one of the reasons why you don't have to submit yourself to the type and shadow circumcision is because you have all in the waters of baptism had the circumcision performed by Christ himself.

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The circumcision where he cut away your sinful flesh. And so we have all already been circumcised in the waters of baptism.

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And it's important to note here, a good place to leave off, I'll throw in our Old Testament text.

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There's an interesting concept again that oftentimes goes missed when we consider our baptism and our being united with Christ in his death and his resurrection.

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And him performing that delicate surgery of cutting away our sinful flesh in the waters of baptism.

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And that is this, that when you were baptized, you were baptized in the name of the

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Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Some of you I have baptized. Many of you

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I haven't. But some of you I have. And when we baptize, we baptize the way

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Christ has told us. We baptize in the name of the Father, in the name of the Son, in the name of the

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Holy Spirit. See if you can note the connection then with baptism and what the

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Aaronic blessing is. Remember, the Aaronic blessing is the thing I speak in the benediction Sunday after Sunday.

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And so the Lord spoke to Moses saying, speak to Aaron and to his son saying, thus you shall bless the people of Israel.

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You shall say to them, Yahweh bless you and keep you. Yahweh make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you.

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Yahweh lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel and I will bless them.

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You'll note that it's true. Every time we hear the benediction, God is placing his name afresh on us.

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But when did God definitively place his name on you? In the waters of baptism. When you were baptized in the name of the

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Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. So, all of that from one sentence.

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Not bad, right? Again, as a pastor, every time I see a pericope come up where I get this much of a text, my heart just goes, but you take the time to walk through what the scriptures say, and you'll note then, the naming and the circumcision of Jesus Christ, as tiny as the sentence is in all of scripture, it is packed to the brim in promises and significance that impact us even to this day.

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Let us then praise God our Savior for sending us Jesus Christ, who even as an infant was already running the gauntlet and obeying

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God's law perfectly so that he can be our sacrifice, so that we can be forgiven, so that we can have our sins canceled, and so that we can have our hearts circumcised by the very hand of the same

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Jesus who was circumcised on this day. In the name of Jesus, Amen. We rise to confess our faith in the words of the

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Nicene. I believe in one

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God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.

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And in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of His Father before all worlds,

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God of God, light of light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the

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Father, by whom all things were made, who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate by the

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Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, and was made man, and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate.

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He suffered and was buried, and the third day He rose again according to the Scriptures and ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of the

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Father, and He will come again with glory to judge both the living and the dead, whose kingdom will have no end.

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And I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of life, who proceeds from the

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Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, who spoke by the prophets.

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And I believe in one holy, Christian and apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins, and I look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.

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Amen. Let us pray.

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O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all of the earth. The heavens are the work of Your fingers, yet You willed to save us in the most humble and sacrificial of ways.

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Already eight days after being born of the Virgin Mary, Your Son was at work for our salvation by fulfilling

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Your law and shedding His blood. Receive our heartfelt thanks for the righteousness and forgiveness of sins that we have obtained through Jesus' life, death, and resurrection.

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Lord, in Your mercy. Hear our prayer. Blessed God, You have sent Your Son into our flesh, and as an infant,

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He first shed the blood that would cleanse us from our sin. Accept our thanks for the loving kindness shown to us sinners.

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Grant us a steadfast faith that we would not forget all of Your benefits or lose sight of Your promises.

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Lord, in Your mercy. Hear our prayer. O God, You declare that in Christ there is neither

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Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for we are all one in Him.

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Preserve us from all ungodly prejudice, yet instill in us a deep appreciation of our distinctive callings.

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Grant that we would not resent what You have called us to be and to do, but rejoice to serve as You have ordained.

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Lord, in Your mercy. Hear our prayer. Blessed Lord, You have shown Your power by establishing governments and leaders to serve

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Your people in Your name. Grant to our President, Governor, Congress, legislators, judges, and magistrates the wisdom and the courage to act with integrity on behalf of all people, especially to the least able to defend themselves.

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Lord, in Your mercy. Hear our prayer. Father in Heaven, bless and keep us by Your grace.

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Remember those in need who cry out to You. Especially today do we remember

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Luis, Bill, Deborah, Ruben, Chloe, Ellen, Brooks, Gary, Natalie, Deb, Taryn, Candy, Todd, Brent, Roger, Kevin, Mark, Joan, Jeff, Sarah, Jessica, Josh, Ryan, Tim, Lori, Mike, Shirley, and Carol.

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We pray for Chuck, Dave, Charmaine, Robin, Colin, Bill, Colleen, Heather, Rich, and Jean.

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We pray for Evan and Rich Shields, the Blanchard family, Carmine, the

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Jennings family, Luis, Tim, Cam, Cindy, Barbara, Gloria, the

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Leslie family, Karen, Tara, Robert, Linda, Cherita, Robin, Lucille, Luis, Patty, Jeff, Marco, Selena, Rachel, Mason, Aaron, Ashley, Elizabeth, Zane, Lou, and Robin.

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And we pray for those who mourn. Today we remember the Hellyer family. According to Your will and wisdom, we ask that You lift up Your countenance upon all for whom we've prayed and give them peace.

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Lord, in Your mercy. Hear our prayer. Holy God, You invite Your children to the table of Your Son.

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Give us Your Holy Spirit that we would discern Christ's body and blood in the sacrament and come with joyful and repentant hearts to receive the foretaste of the eternal feast.

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Strengthen us by the blessed communion that we would love You above all and love one another in Your name.

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Lord, in Your mercy. Gracious Father, in Your steadfast love, You have put off the day of Jesus' return until the perfect time when the number of Your elect is complete.

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Keep Your people watchful, vigilant, and awake with Your gift of faith until the day through the same

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Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You in the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.