Ezekiel Part 17

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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Ezekiel Part 18

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Let us pray, and then we will get into our study. Lord Jesus, again, as we open your word, we come empty -handed and recognize that apart from your spirit, we cannot properly understand your word, and so we humbly ask that you would please give us insight and understanding so that we may believe properly and do accordingly.

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We ask in Jesus' name, amen. All right, we're going to do a little bit of an excursus.

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So you're gonna note, we're up to chapter 18 of the book of Ezekiel, and we're gonna read out a portion of this, and then we need to have a conversation.

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We need to have a conversation about the proper distinction of law and gospel and the third use of the law.

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Unfortunately, there are some people with invisible Lutheranism who poo -poo the idea of a third use of the law, despite the fact that our confessions teach this, and I would note, and the reason our confessions teach such a thing is because the scriptures teach such a thing, all right?

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So let me read a little bit of Ezekiel 18, and we're going to touch the third rail of Lutheranism.

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Now, that's a cultural reference. I don't know if it makes a lot of sense here in Minnesota. If you live, if you've spent any time in New York or in Chicago, the trains there, there's a middle rail where they get their electricity from, and you don't touch the third rail and you don't urinate on it.

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So, yeah, so it's, yeah.

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So, but the Mythbusters did an actual study on that thing, and it turns out it's more of an urban legend than a real thing, but it is, if you get a good enough flow, it can't, that's a whole other story.

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Man, I gotta stop. Okay, so let's take a look at Ezekiel 18.

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The word of Yahweh came to me. What do you mean by repeating this proverb concerning the land of Israel?

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The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge. Remember, this is a saying now of people who are in exile.

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They are not in, where they were, they're not where they're supposed to be. So as I live, declares the

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Lord, Yahweh, this proverb shall no more be used by you in Israel. Behold, all souls are mine, the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is mine, the soul who sins shall die.

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Now listen to what comes next. If a man is righteous and does what is just and right.

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Now, we're gonna note something here. The conjunction and, vah, in the

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Hebrew is gonna be super helpful, because over and again we hear in scripture about people who are righteous and then do righteously.

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Those are two different things and we always have to remember when it comes to good works, faith is the locomotive, good works are the caboose.

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And I know that some of us are traumatized, still traumatized and have PTSD from being in very legalistic self -righteous versions of Christianity where the emphasis is always on good works and you hear nothing about Christ.

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And so you leave every single church service with a heavy, long list of to -dos and the thing that really stinks is that by the time you come back the following Sunday, you haven't even come close to doing any of the things on that list and then you are given another list on that Sunday and then a following list on the following Sunday and all the emphasis is on la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la.

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And if you hear the gospel, it's very scant. But as Lutherans, we need to recognize even if we have been traumatized by self -righteous groups, that there still is a proper distinction of law and gospel and that the law in its third use for Christians shows us what a good work is.

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And Christians are not free in Christ to go and live wantonly, to live like pagans, to informal caboodle -ate and all this kind of, we're not free to do these things.

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This idea that somehow, well, the gospel's come so we don't need to hear the law, that leads to lawlessness and I would note this has impacted the

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ELCA severely and there's so much going wrong in the

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ELCA but you can kind of boil it back down to a form of antinomianism.

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Although they're very legalistic in some things, the things they're legalistic about are kind of like man -made stuff.

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We gotta make sure that we don't eat sugar from colonial companies that oppress indigenous peoples but it's okay for the

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LGBTQXYZ communities and all that kind of stuff. You get what I'm talking about here. So we have to put things into the proper perspective in order and we'll actually take a look at the book of James here.

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Again, this is a book that Lutherans apparently were supposed to not like. Luther did call it a gospel of straw.

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He kind of had a love -hate relationship with the epistle of James but all that being said, if a man is righteous and does what is just and right, if he does not eat upon the mountains or lift up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, does not defile his neighbor's wife or approach a woman in her time of her menstrual impurity, does not oppress anyone but restores to the debtor his pledge, commits no robbery, gives his bread to the hungry, covers the naked with a garment, does not lend at interest or take any profit, withholds his hand from injustice, executes true justice between man and man, walks in my statutes, keeps my rules by acting faithfully, he is righteous.

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He shall surely live, declares the Lord Yahweh. Is this saying that he's saved by his good works?

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No, his good works show that he is righteous. That's the idea.

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Now, you're gonna note, each and every one of us as Christians, we still have a sinful nature that we have to contend with and the desires of our sinful flesh are contrary to the spirit and being a

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Christian feels like being at war with yourself. That is absolutely the case but at no point do we then somehow diminish

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God's law or poo -poo it or put it away or say, we Christians don't really need to hear the law anymore and what's with that whole third use anyway?

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Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. That's just nonsense, okay? So when we talk about the three uses of the law, first use, my catechism students who remember these things, the first use of the law is the use used by the government.

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The government uses the law for the purpose of punishing the evildoer. You'll note that the government excels in putting people in prison.

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That's its job, right? Finding people who are breaking God's commandments and then as a representative of God here on the earth, when somebody breaks

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God's commandments, God has the government come in and arrest them, put them on trial, establish the charges with witnesses, find them guilty and then duly punish them.

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Who's punishing them? Is it the United States of America? No, it's God. You sit there and go,

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I never thought of it that way. That's kind of how the fourth commandment works, okay? So we recognize that first use of the law is the use used by God through his agents in the government to curb evil and when the government doesn't do its job, crime runs out of control, right?

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And we all sit there and go, we need politicians who are good on law and order. Good luck finding any of those nowadays.

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They're kind of few and far between but that's a whole other story. Next use of the law, second use of the law is the theological use and we

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Lutherans point out that this is the primary use and so when we read a command from God in scripture, regardless of whether we read it in the

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New Testament or the Old Testament, what the law is going to do is it's going to yell at us and tell us that we're guilty, okay?

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So the law says, love your neighbor as yourself and you sit there and you go, okay.

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How you guys doing on that, by the way? Some days better than others, right? Okay, any of you, have you pulled that off perfectly yet, even for like an hour, okay?

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I haven't achieved that level of sanctification myself but all that being said, the second use of the law convicts us of our sin which then prepares us to hear the gospel.

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Third use of the law is the use only for Christians. Let me reiterate that.

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It is only for Christians and it shows us what our good works and what is pleasing to God so that we don't go running off the rails and inventing our own good works.

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I always like to point out that if you take a look at medieval Roman Catholicism, it legitimately went way off the rails and it's never returned and all of that being said, at the time of Luther, Luther pointed out that the good works pointed out by the

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Roman Catholic Church were not good works at all because they did nothing to serve neighbor. What was a good work in the medieval

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Roman Catholic system? A good work would be you make a pilgrimage to the

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Frankenstein Castle and you greet Frau Blücke and then you go and you see the knuckle bone of Saint Teresa and make sure to throw two coins into the box at the end of the line and say a prayer and you'll receive a plenary indulgence.

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Is that a good work? No. All right, is it a good work to make a pilgrimage to Rome?

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No. Is it a good work to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem? No. That's right.

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If you say 10 Hail Marys or 10 Hail Pontiffs, it will not save you and making pilgrimages to such places do not benefit your neighbor at all.

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It benefits the tourist industry. I would say it benefits Rome and places like that but in order for a good work to be a good work, it has to actually be told to us to do by God and I would note that with an evangelicalism, they've come up with a very sneaky, similar set of circumstances.

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You ask the average evangelical, what is a good work? Well, I need to be intentional about learning to hear the voice of God so God can whisper in my ear and tell me what my purpose is and then

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I have to be busy about going about fulfilling the purpose, the reason why

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God made me on planet Earth. What's the reason why God made you? Well, God wants me to be a dentist, right?

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God told me to tie my hair. Okay and so what happens then is that in that milieu, people legitimately despise the real good works that they're called to do while chasing after this mythological unicorn called a purpose, okay?

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Good luck, you are more likely to have a Sasquatch sighting than actually figuring out what your purpose is because we are not created in Christ to fulfill a specific purpose.

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We are created in Christ Jesus for good works.

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That being the case, what is a good work? And I always come back, you go to the end of certain epistles and it wonderfully gives you certain lists, husbands, love your wives as Christ has loved the church.

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Wives, submit to your husbands. Children, obey your parents. Employees, obey your masters, your employers and you employers, your masters out there, treat your employees with respect, you know, things like this and you sit there and go, that's a good work?

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It's like I remember very distinctly years ago, first time I was in the same room with Stephen Furtick, okay,

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I traveled to Georgia and was attending a seeker -driven church, excuse me, church planter conference, okay?

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And Stephen Furtick was the rising meteoric star that was one of the featured speakers there and he shows up dressed like a rock star but already at this point,

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I was a little bit of a stench in the nostrils of many of the seeker -driven pastors and leaders and stuff like that.

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I can't imagine why, you know, I was blogging about them and so two of these seeker -driven guys invited me to lunch at Applebee's and they promised to pay for my meal.

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I'm thinking, well, I'll take a free lunch, right? And so we're at Applebee's in Canton, Georgia and we're enjoying our food and of course, the conversation steers into why are you so critical of all the things that we're doing and stuff like this and I brought this topic up because it was kind of the hot topic of the day.

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Noted that we're created in Christ Jesus for good works, not a specific purpose and the scriptures are clear what our good works are and then

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I listed, just like I did to you, like the back end of the book of Ephesians, you know, about husbands and wives and children and slaves and masters and one of the guys looks at me and goes, those can't possibly be good works because anybody could do them.

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It's like, and I'm thinking, what do you think a good work is, you know?

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Do you have to go Mr. Beast style and make a whole bunch of freshwater wells in Africa?

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I mean, what is a good work? Unless your righteousness exceeds that of Mr. Beast. Yeah, unless your righteousness surpasses that of Mr.

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Beast, these are not good works. I do find it interesting that I have that as an arrow in my quiver now.

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Okay, never thought I'd be able to use Mr. Beast. The days we live in, okay?

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So what is a good work? The scriptures tell us what a good work is and the wonderful bit is is that over the years,

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I've legitimately had many moms tell me, I am so thankful that you've shown me what a real good work is because I used to think

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I didn't have any and I would note, moms probably have a lot more than dads, all right?

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And the reason why is because I've seen what happens to mothers when they have to deal with the smaller people who are not very reasonable, okay?

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And we're talking from things like getting them up in the morning, getting them presentable to present to the world at school and things like this, okay?

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I was terrible at this and if you don't believe me, there's actually photographic evidence. My wife, when she was working as a high school teacher,

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I was given the task of getting the kids ready for school and I had totally not been informed that it was picture day at the elementary school and I sent my daughter,

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Christina, to school and the photograph is still a legend. So you have to make the kids presentable.

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You have to feed these little hooligans. You have to teach them, you have to help them with their homework.

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You gotta make sure that they're bathed and then when they're sick, you gotta clean up vomit off the carpet, okay?

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I cannot even begin to tell you how many steam cleaners we ran through in our house.

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It was like an annual purchase for a while and then, of course, you got all the ER visits and stuff like that if you were raising our kids.

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We were on a first name basis and you just kind of work through the whole list here and here's the thing.

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Every single one of those things is a good work. Legitimately, in God's eyes, it is a good work and he will reward those works.

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So that being the case, a proper understanding of the third use of the law is a comforting thing, not a terrifying thing.

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I know that the law is constantly screaming at us because it has that kind of temperament where it sits there and goes, you're guilty, you're guilty, you're guilty and I just sit there and go, thank you law, you're right,

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I'm guilty but that reminds me that Christ is bled and died for all of my sins. I am declared righteous by grace through faith.

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So as Christians then, we do good works because we are Christians. We do not do good works in order to become a

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Christian or in order to earn eternal life. If you are trying to earn eternal life by your good works, you won't make it, all right?

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There's going to be a lot of hardworking, industrious, self -righteous people in hell.

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The only type of people in heaven are the ones who are declared righteous by grace through faith and then they do good works that are righteous because they is saved.

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Emphasis on the bad grammar, right? So that being the case, we have nothing to fear from God's law and any yahoo that comes along and tells us that we

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Christians don't need to hear the law, you can ignore that person, mark them and avoid them and if they show up here at Kongsvinger, I myself and the deacons will have a conversation or deacons or deaconesses will have a conversation with that person and call them to repentance, okay?

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Because to treat God's law as if somehow we can just ignore it is nonsense, all right?

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So you'll know it does its functions properly and we can embrace it. This is where the book of James comes in.

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I love looking through Galatians. I love Romans where over and again, we hear we're saved by grace through faith but you're going to note that the apostle

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Paul in Romans chapter six, after beautifully and multitudinously telling us that we are saved by grace through faith, he asked this question, well, what then shall we say?

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Are we to continue in sin so that grace may abound? This was the charge leveled against Paul.

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You know, Paul, you keep saying that we're totally saved by grace through faith so you're basically saying that we should just go on sinning so that grace may even abound more and more.

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That's slander, by the way and Paul just puts the question out there and he says, by no means.

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How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who've been baptized into Christ were baptized into his death?

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We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the

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Father, we too might walk in newness of life, okay? And then watch where he goes with this.

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For if we have been united with him in a death like his, and by the way, have we? Okay, we heard that we were in the sermon because that's what baptism is all about, right?

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If we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his and to this the only proper liturgical response is the

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Napoleon Dynamite response, yes, okay? Now, we know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing and if you're not sure this is the case, come to our next funeral, okay?

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You'll see for yourself that our body of death will actually, our old self will be brought to nothing as is appropriate so that we would no longer then be enslaved to sin.

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Catch the language here. Is sin freedom or is sin slavery?

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Slavery, straight up. That being the case, I don't see that there's a lot of freedom in being a heroin addict.

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I don't see that there's a lot of freedom being addicted to alcohol or to pornography or to whatever.

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That's not freedom, that's full -on slavery and Christ hasn't set me free to be a slave nor has he set you free to be a slave.

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Now, that doesn't mean that we can just then walk in freedom without any help from the Holy Spirit.

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We absolutely need help from the Holy Spirit but all that being said, every form of slavery is sin for the one who has died has been set free from sin.

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Note then, if you have died, you have been set free from sin which makes me ask the question, are you all dead or are you all living?

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Which is it? Yes. Okay, yes.

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When you were baptized, you died with Christ. You have all the rights of a dead person and by the way, dead people have all kinds of freedom.

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Have you noticed that nobody bosses dead people around? Although that's a good work.

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I would say this, that Christ makes it very clear that the only reason why Christians pay taxes is so as not to offend the pagans.

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That's reality, that's the truth because we're sons of the kingdom and we're exempt from taxes except for their consciences would be upset if we stopped paying taxes so we must do it for their sake.

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I'm okay with offending them. Okay. Jesus isn't okay with you doing that, okay.

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That's my sinful pleasure. Yeah, yeah. Now, if we've died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.

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We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again. Death no longer has dominion over him.

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For the death he died, he died to sin. Once for all the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin.

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Okay, yes. Yeah, I understand what you say there.

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Okay, so the question is, has anyone twisted the baptismal text so that it makes it so that everybody is baptized?

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That's not a correct application. I've heard people talk similarly to that. It's not very common.

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But the idea then is that Christ was truly baptized for us.

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There is a for us aspect of it. But that does not abdicate our responsibility to obey

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Christ's command to be baptized. So if you're going to despise baptism and say, well,

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Christ was baptized for me so I don't need to be baptized. Boy, now we got a problem, okay. Because you're disobeying a very direct command of Christ.

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Yeah, I've never heard it used scandalously in that way. So, all right.

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Yet, give it a day or two. Just tomorrow I'll get onto YouTube and I'll find it.

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It's so bad. So you must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. The wonderful thing about being dead is that you have perfect freedom to serve anybody you want and you do not have to re -enslave yourself to sin.

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So when sin comes knocking on your door, you can say, oh, it's so nice of you to think about me but no,

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I've got better things to do than be enslaved by you again. So let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body to make you obey its passions.

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Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness. Instead, present yourselves to God as those who've been brought from death to life because you have.

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And your members of your body to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you since you are not under the law, but under grace.

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Did you catch that last bit? Sin will not have dominion over you, why? Not because of the law, but because of grace.

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The reason why sin doesn't have dominion over me is because of the gospel, not because of the Torah, right?

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Now, all of that being said, then he goes on. What then? Are we to sin because we are not under the law but we are under grace?

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You can just see somebody going, yeah, we're living the day of grace, we just might as well eat, drink, and let's go to Burning Man and do all that crazy stuff.

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No, he says, by no means do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves to the one to whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness.

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But thanks be to God that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.

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Does this sound like Paul is affirming the LGBTQXYZ community, or guys and gals shacking up together before they get married and things like that, going out on a

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Friday night and engaging in all kinds of debauchery? No. No, I know, he sounds like a terrible antinomian, okay?

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So here's the thing. When Paul is writing this stuff, his focus is against the

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Judaizers, the Judaizers who would come in and re -enslave you to the law, okay?

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And the gospel disappears altogether. James, on the other hand, has a completely different opponent in mind.

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James' opponent is the antinomian, the guy who says, wow, I'm set free in Christ, I can do whatever

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I want, and in fact, I don't need to do any good works at all, I'm saved, yay, okay?

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And by the way, that's kind of a rare beast, okay? Because we all have the law of God written on our hearts. But all that being said, keep this in mind here, because I think this

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New Testament theology is going to help us as we are working our way through the book of James, which again, here we go.

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Third rail for us Christians. This is a crucifix for a vampire, if you're a

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Lutheran. We're apparently not supposed to read this book, but it's a good one, okay?

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So James, a servant, and he uses the word doulos here, slave of God and of the

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Lord Jesus Christ, to the 12 tribes in the dispersion. Notice that James here is also one of these fellows that keys in on the fact that we

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Christians were all grafted into Israel, and we are outside of our homeland right now.

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We've been dispersed into the nations, we're in exile. So count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness, and let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

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And I would note, teleos here may actually be more better translated as mature, rather than perfect.

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All right, just keep that in mind. In fact, I wonder if the note says mature. No, it doesn't, but teleos here, that's one of its other options, is to be mature.

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If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given to him.

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I know that my wife prays this for me on a regular basis. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind.

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For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord. He's double -minded, he's a double -minded man.

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He's unstable in all of his ways. Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation.

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I love how the gospel really kind of flips things around. You know, who does the world say are the ones that really are the important ones, right?

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The rich, the wealthy, the powerful. The scriptures teach us the lowly are really the ones who are exalted of God.

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And so, we who are in Christ embrace this reality revealed to us in the scripture, and we recognize that although we be lowly, although none of us are superstars, megastars, or powerful politicians or anything of the sort, we rejoice in our exaltation as the lowly.

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Let the rich, in his humiliation, because like a flower of the grass, he will pass away.

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For the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the grass, its flowers fall, its beauty perishes, so also will the rich man fade away in the midst of his pursuits.

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Have you noticed that the world has a similar thing that they do at the end of every year that we do every year on All Saints Day?

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On All Saints, we read the roll call of faith, those who've died in the faith.

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And we remember their names, and we toll the bell. Well, at the end of every single pagan year, as we get close to January 1st, they put out tribute videos to all the movie stars that have died.

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In memoriam, right? This year we lost Matthew Perry, this year we lost,

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I don't even care, okay? I remember watching one of these videos a couple years ago going, boy, if this isn't objective proof that being wealthy and being a superstar or a movie star gives you no special thing in this life, you still perish like everybody else.

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And have you noticed how many of the movie stars that have died over the past couple of years have died fairly young, all right?

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It kind of gets me nervous, okay? Matthew Perry was born the year after me, okay?

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And then Lisa Marie Presley, she was born the same year I was, you know? And so when you see people that, hear the wealthy and the powerful and everybody knows them, and still, what happens to them?

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They crump, they die, all right? Note here, this should point to something.

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And all they can do is remember their Oscar -winning performance, remember that they made them laugh, remember that they were on this television show for whatever, but at the end of the day, how important really is that?

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I noticed this year, two of the stars that died, both of them were on that 80s sitcom,

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Night Court, okay? You guys remember that, Night Court? And you sit there and you go, wow,

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I'm getting old. It's like being at Disneyland.

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When you first get in line, you have a long way to go, and then as people are dying in front of you, you're sitting there going, I'm next, holy smokes, what kind of ride am

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I on? Right.

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So note then, James is admonishing us to stay steadfast under trial.

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Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life.

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Note that God tests the faith that he gives us, right? Which God has promised to those who love him.

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So let no one say when he is tempted, I'm being tempted by God. That's bad theology, and you need to repent of your blasphemy, right?

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For God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But, here it is, each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.

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Then desire, when it is conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is fully grown, gives birth, gives forth death.

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Note here, tell me that this is not exactly how it works for all of us, okay?

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Each of us is tempted, we're lured away and enticed by our own desires. Believe me when

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I tell you, okay? I can never be tempted by kale. Okay, I just wanna make this perfectly clear, okay?

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If somebody were to say to me, Roseboro, if you do such and such, I will give you a million year supply of kale.

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May you perish with your kale, you know? I cannot be tempted by kale.

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But I can be tempted by my own sinful desires, the things I'm interested in, right?

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Camera parts. Yes, I can be tempted by really good camera gear.

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This is just, this is most certainly true, okay? Yep, and so keep this in mind.

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And note then, when our sinful desires, when they conceive, they give birth to sin, and then sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death.

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And note here, just like the Apostle Paul in Romans chapter seven points out that sin comes from within us, our sinful desires,

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James is showing us the same thing. But note, he's writing against Antinomians, Paul's writing against the

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Judaizers. So do not be deceived, my beloved brothers, every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the

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Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. Of his own will, he brought us forth by the word of truth.

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And this is talking about our regeneration, our birth as Christians, so that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.

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So know this, my beloved brothers, let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger, for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.

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Bummer for me. All right, therefore, put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word which is able to save your souls.

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Now, you're gonna note, this whole section is law. Okay, when we have commands from God, exhortations from God, it is law, it is not gospel.

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There are two uses in play for all Christians. Second use, convicting us of our sin. Third use, showing us what a good work is.

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And it's really weird, as a pastor, I get to experience kind of the uniqueness of how the

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Holy Spirit works through preaching. Let me explain. And that is that I'll preach a sermon, and you'll note,

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I try to measure out law and gospel. We are going to hear God's law. When the text is giving us the law,

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I'm not gonna hold back, we're gonna preach the law. And then I'm gonna also give you the gospel. And along the way, if the text is giving us exhortation in that way of doing it, then you'll note,

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I don't run away from those texts, we preach the whole counsel of the word of God here, that's what we do. That being the case, when people come up to me after a sermon, okay, oftentimes

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I hear people say, oh, that was a wonderful sermon. My common response is this, I had a good text to work with, okay?

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Because believe me, I'm here for the same reason you are, it's to hear the word, I just get to be the guy preaching it and hearing it at the same time.

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But at the same time, what's interesting is some people will come up to me and say, oh, pastor, that was the most inspiring sermon ever, oh,

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I love, I can't wait to get home because I'm gonna do this, that, and the other thing, and I'm sitting there going, well, good on you.

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And then the same sermon, somebody will come up to me and go, oh, pastor, it was like you have one of those webcams in my house and you just have been looking at my dirty laundry and oh my goodness.

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And I sit there and go, how am I getting two completely different responses from the same sermon and they seem like completely opposite?

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One is inspired, the other is convicted. That's to be expected.

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That is totally to be expected. God's law is going to convict us of our sin. God's law is also going to inspire our new man in Christ and spur us on to God's works in serving them.

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The two go together. It's not an either or, it's both. And you'll note the

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Holy Spirit, one of the things I say, when I preach the word, I don't put a dial on the law.

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You guys remember the old Star Trek? They'd set their phasers to stun and rather than vaporize a person, it would just knock them down.

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I always feared that if I had one of those, I would forget to get it off of the kill, the vaporize thing.

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I'd end up going to stun somebody and they wouldn't be there anymore. It's like, oh no. So the idea of having one of those

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Star Trek kind of things gave me a lot of stress. You ever set the law on stun?

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Yeah. For your sermon? And so here's the thing. I don't preach the law with a dial.

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I just preach the law. I'll let the Holy Spirit stun who he wants to stun and vaporize who he wants to vaporize.

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It's not my job to set a dial. My job is to preach the word. And I find that pastors oftentimes make huge mistakes when they feel it is their job to dial in a setting on the law.

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And you're gonna end up either by omitting the law or watering down the law, or you're gonna end up just loading people down with a whole bunch of man -made laws on top of it.

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It's not my job to produce the fruit of the Holy Spirit in your life. That's the job of the Holy Spirit and he does it through the word, both law and gospel.

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But note here then, be doers of the word. Yes, we can as Christians sit there, and as Lutherans we can say, yes, we're supposed to be doers of the word.

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So those passages that tell us to be doing stuff, we should be doing them.

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And the things that scripture tells us to not be doing, we shouldn't be doing them. If we were to look at the epistle text for next

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Sunday, the epistle text for the second Sunday after the epiphany, listen to this list, okay?

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Hang on a second here. Oh, what did I miss it? Hang on a second here.

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Oh, we got the, oh, that's option A or B. Here we go. So here we go.

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Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them if prophecy in proportion to our faith, if service in our serving one another, one who teach in his teaching, the one who exhorts in his exhortation, the one who contributes in generosity, the one who leads with zeal, the one who does acts of mercy with cheerfulness.

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Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil, hold fast to what is good.

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Already we're off to the races here. Let love be genuine. I can hear my old sinful nature going, do you have to really tell me to let my love be genuine?

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Really? You think I'm stupid? Okay, of course I know my love is supposed to be genuine.

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It's not as easy as that. Out comes the vomit of my sin, right? Okay, you'll note, love one another with brotherly affection.

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Outdo one another in showing honor. I would love to see this one in action, okay?

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Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit. Serve the Lord, rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.

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Contribute to the needs of the saints, seek to show hospitality. Bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse them.

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Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, associate with the lowly, never be wise in your own sight.

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That is a list of law, and as I was reading it, were you going, ooh, ah, ooh, ah, ooh, ah, ah, right?

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That's your sinful nature, reacting to the fact that it's guilty of not doing these things. But did you not, in your spirit also, sit there and go, mm, man, this is good stuff, right?

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This is really good stuff, because I can tell you, if you've ever been to a church where the opposite of this is going on, it ain't a good church to be in.

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It can be a, whoo, okay? You get the idea. So, coming back, then.

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So be doers of the word, not hearers only, because the ones who are hearers only, listen to this, they are deceiving themselves, okay?

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If anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he's like a man who looks intently at his natural face in the mirror, for he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he looks like.

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He's got broccoli in his teeth, there's cheese hanging off of his beard, you know, sorry, this is a little autobiographical at this point, okay?

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He looks at himself and he goes away and at once forgets what he looks like, but the one who looks intently into, watch, the perfect law, is the law holy or not?

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It is, and the law is perfect. I am not. The one who looks into the perfect law, the law of what?

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Listen to what he says, liberty. Now, sort this one out with me, okay?

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If sin is slavery, what is freedom, what is liberty? Obeying God's commands, all right?

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And boy, do we have this backwards in our sinful nature. You know, we live in the land of the free and the home of the brave, which means you can go and do whatever you want.

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You wanna self -identify as a sea slug, you can do it, okay?

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You wanna make your pronouns he, she, them, it, you know, whatever, go for it, man. You know, and just love the one you're with, it doesn't matter what they are or who they are, okay?

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That's apparently what freedom is. Is that freedom? Complete slavery, 100 % slavery.

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I do not know any heroin addicts who are former heroin addicts who say, I was really at the peak of my game when

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I was vomiting and living, you know, off the streets and sleeping on the curbs and on the streets. Nobody talks like, oh, those were the best days of my life.

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Right? Or how about the guy who destroys his marriage by having, you know, hooking up with some lady at the office, right?

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And he loses his house, he loses his car, he loses his family, he gets to see his kids every other weekend and every other holiday, right?

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The entire life that he built up that he was so proud of, he destroyed in a moment for what?

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Her? As soon as his marriage blew up and, you know, he wasn't able to support his wife and her at the same time, she left.

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He's left with nothing. Don't tell me that sin is freedom. Sin is not freedom, sin is slavery.

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What does freedom look like? Loving my neighbor as myself. And we have to embrace this by faith because our sinful nature sits there and goes, no!

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No! Like a snowflake, you know, triggered by a

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Trump sighting, right? Okay? The law of liberty, okay?

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The one who looks in the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.

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And we all know this. When we're doing what we know is right, do you not sit there and go, man, that was awesome.

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That was great. You do what's wrong and you feel miserable. So if anyone thinks he's religious and does not bridle his tongue,

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I find it fascinating that James decides he's gonna go right there first, okay? He deceives his heart.

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This person's religion is doo -doo. Worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the

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Father is this, to visit orphans and widows and their affliction, to keep oneself unstained from the world.

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We not only do not keep ourselves unstained by the world, we just absolutely wallow in the world.

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Absolutely wallow in it. And not only that, we long to be a part of it.

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Right? Now, I have to leave off here. So we'll continue with this excursus in the book of James as we're considering it in light of Ezekiel 18 when we reconvene,