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- Our sharing the gospel with somebody else may cause them to want to pull away from us and then we might be tempted to not want to share the gospel with them because we don't want to push them away.
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- But we need to be faithful to Christ first when we understand the text. This is when we understand the text studying
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- God's word to reach all the riches of full assurance in Christ. Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe.
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- Thank you Becky. Hello everyone. Yes, we do still have sick kids in the house. That means neither she nor I are sleeping a whole lot right now.
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- So your continued prayers for us would be greatly appreciated. I did have the chance, however, to upload a brand new what video.
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- You can find it right on the front of the website www .utt .com. All of the videos arranged by category when you click on the video link there on the website.
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- Oh, and the question that I answered here on this broadcast this past Friday, the one about whether or not a
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- Christian should go see the movie Deadpool. Of course, the answer to that is no, you shouldn't go see that film.
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- But that question has now been put in blog form and you can find my blog by going to www .pastorgabehughes
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- .blogspot .com. Is that right? I can't remember. Or you can just go to our church website www .firstsouthernbaptistchurch
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- .org and you'll find links to my blog right there. Okay, we're going to come back to Romans chapter 5 verses 1 through 5 again because there's one more point that I want to draw out of this and then we're going to keep moving.
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- We'll go into the next paragraph verses 6 through 11. So let's start here in verse 1. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our
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- Lord Jesus Christ. Through Him, we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
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- Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hope.
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- And hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the
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- Holy Spirit who has been given to us. I wanted to draw one more point out of this and that was related to the word suffering.
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- Now, yesterday I equated it to persecution a little bit. I mean, not every point that I made was relating it to persecution, but suffering is not just persecution.
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- Suffering is trials of many kinds. I kind of closed the message yesterday with a prayer and referenced something out of James 1 where James said,
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- Rejoice when you face trials of many kinds. And you could equate that to this verse as well.
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- We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces something. It is shaping us more into the image of Christ.
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- So suffering can mean trials of many kinds. It can mean persecutions. Just anything that we endure in this life with long suffering.
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- I mean, it could be suffering to get up in the morning to go to work. That could be suffering. But the instruction that we have in Colossians chapter three is to remember that we work not for man, but for the
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- Lord Christ. Even going to your job and being responsible with the work that you do to make your paycheck is to be done in service to God, not in service to man.
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- So even in suffering in this way, we are being shaped more like Christ.
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- Now, again, coming back to the concept of this being persecution. If you are ridiculed for your faith, that is persecution.
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- I get a little frustrated hearing some people say, well, you got made fun of for your faith and you're calling that persecution.
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- Oh, wow. You're being such a martyr. You know what? You know what persecution is? Persecution is missionaries that go to these hostile reaches of the world and have their fingers cut off for their faith or watch their family members get put to death.
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- That's what real persecution is. Now, look, that is serious persecution. And we as Christians definitely should not turn our eyes away from what our brothers and sisters are facing around the world.
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- The reality of those things, the danger that they put themselves into for the sake of the gospel.
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- We need to be aware of those things so we know how to pray for our brothers and sisters that face these things.
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- But don't let anyone tell you that that's real persecution and being ridiculed or made fun of for your faith is not persecution.
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- Now, granted, we live in a country that has freedom of religion. We do experience a little bit more rights than a lot of people experience in the world.
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- So there are certain protections. And even when we are persecuted for our faith, like if you were to lose your job for your faith, for example, that's a persecution.
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- It might not cost you your life, but it's still something serious.
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- It is still something you will struggle with in your heart. And you were still put in a place to have to decide between Christ or the job that you have.
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- In any of those situations, when it comes down to choosing Christ or choosing to have a certain establishment with the people around us that's going to protect us for being ridiculed, which one are you going to pick?
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- If you know that Christ has died on the cross for your sins and that everything that you suffer in this life makes you more like Christ, you share in a suffering that Christ went through, then you will want to choose the thing that is on the side of Christ and not on the side of the world.
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- And so in choosing that, you will suffer for that. You will be persecuted for it.
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- You will be ridiculed. These are all trials that we endure, and yet we rejoice in Christ in all of these trials that we face.
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- As Paul said to his servant Timothy, those who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.
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- We will face these things. We will suffer them, but rejoice in it, for it's making you more like our creator
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- God, our Savior Christ. All right. That was simply the point I wanted to make there.
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- The frustration that I have with hearing people say, hey, just because you're ridiculed for your faith, that doesn't mean you're being persecuted.
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- Yes, that is a persecution. So Romans 5, now we're moving on into verse 6.
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- For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.
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- For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die.
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- But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
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- Since therefore we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.
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- For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, much more now that we are reconciled shall we be saved by his life.
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- More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
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- If you've heard my testimony and my presentation of the gospel in the past, you will know how much I love the word reconciliation.
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- But we won't get to that word until tomorrow. Let's come back to verse 6 here. For while we were still weak, at the right time
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- Christ died for the ungodly. Now the phrase while we were still weak, it's not talking about a weakness of our physical strength.
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- It's talking about moral weakness. We had no ability to keep the law of God, nor could we do that in a way that we were doing it righteously.
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- That we were doing it in a way that was acceptable before God. We were weak. We had no ability to practice
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- God's law righteously. And while we were yet in that place, Christ died for the ungodly.
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- This is kind of phrased in another way when we get to verse 8. God demonstrates his love for us in that while we were sinners,
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- Christ died for us. So while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.
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- And I love that phrasing there also, at the right time. There may be a person in your life that you've been trying to witness to for years.
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- And wondering how many times do I have to say, speak the gospel to them before they will finally get it.
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- You know, we also enter into these situations. I had a conversation with somebody at church just this past Sunday about this.
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- We might enter into a situation in which we have shared the gospel with that person so many times, that now they're starting to pull away from us.
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- And that might cause us, we might be tempted not to speak the gospel as often, because we don't want to push that person away.
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- But you can't feel that way. Because that's not your responsibility to keep them close.
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- Don't sacrifice your demonstration of the gospel just to keep a relationship with that other person.
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- That's not up to you. Be faithful to Christ, first of all, in demonstrating, in sharing, in speaking that gospel to another person.
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- Christ, at the right time, will save them from their sin. If it is indeed
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- God's will that they would be drawn out from their stubborn will, and follow in the way of Christ Jesus.
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- At the right time, Christ will save them. So, even though you might have been doing this for years, there still may come a day when they will repent of their sin and follow
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- Christ. You know, one of the things that I look forward to, and the promise that I have in this verse as I read it, is the time when my children will know on their own, the wonderful sacrifice that their
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- Lord and Savior Christ gave to them on the cross. Dying for their sins, spilling His blood so that they might have peace with God.
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- At the right time, they will come to know God. And not a moment too soon, and not a moment too late.
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- While we were still weak, morally incapable of following the law of God at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly.
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- And then we'll pick up from there tomorrow. Verse 7, For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die.
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- But God's demonstration of His love is even greater than the ways that we demonstrate love among mankind.
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- He shows His love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
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- God, we thank you for this gift of salvation that we've been given in Christ Jesus our Lord. Help us to continue to explore these things and never to shy away from that calling upon us to share the gospel, even if we'll be ridiculed for it, even if it means we might be pushing someone away because of this gospel that we speak.
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- We want to be faithful to our Lord Christ first. Keep us steadfast. In the name of Jesus we pray.
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- Amen. Thank you for listening to When We Understand the Text. Pastor Gabe is the author of the book, 40 of the
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- Most Popular Bible Verses and What They Really Mean. Available in paperback or for your Kindle. He's also authored a
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- Bible study through the book of 1 Corinthians. Both books can be found at our website at www .utt
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- .com. Join us again tomorrow as we grow together in the study of God's Word when we understand the text.
