Sunday Sermons: Circumcision of the Heart (Romans 2:25-29)

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You're listening to the preaching ministry of Gabriel Hughes, pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church in Casa Grande, Arizona.

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Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday on this podcast we feature teaching through a New Testament book, an

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Old Testament book on Thursday, and our Q &A on Friday. Each Sunday we are pleased to present our sermon series.

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Here is Pastor Gabe. In honor of the word of the King would you please stand.

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And let's read here Romans chapter 2 verses 25 to 29. The Apostle Paul writing to the church in Rome, hear the word of the

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Lord. For circumcision indeed is a value if you obey the law.

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But if you break the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision.

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So if a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision?

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Then he who is physically uncircumcised but keeps the law will condemn you who have the written code and circumcision, but break the law.

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For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical, but a

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Jew is one inwardly. And circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the spirit, not by the letter.

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His praise is not from man, but from God. You may be seated as we pray.

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Heavenly Father, we come to you this morning and as we open your word and desire to have your spirit speak to us, we want to be reminded from the text today what genuine worship looks like.

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What does it mean to genuinely be a Christian? We can outwardly call ourselves followers of Jesus Christ, but what should that look like from the heart?

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What is within us that no one else sees? We might put on airs, we might have a certain facade of Christianity that we demonstrate from the outside, but is it from something that is within?

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Do we genuinely from the heart love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength?

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And so, Lord, guide us in your truth and help us to understand what it means to be circumcised in the heart, that we would be cut off from the world and united with Jesus Christ.

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It is in his name that we pray and all God's people said, amen. Brother Allen read for us a moment ago out of Deuteronomy chapter 10.

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If you will remember, the children of Israel had grumbled against God in the wilderness. After bringing them out of slavery and Egypt and was going to deliver them into a promised land that was flowing with milk and honey.

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We just read this morning, even from Exodus chapter 14, hearing about their journey through the

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Red Sea and how God delivered them from the hands of the Egyptians, even wiping out the Egyptian army in the waters of the

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Red Sea as they pursued Israel. And yet though God had so richly provided and was promising them greatly, they grumbled against God in the wilderness.

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As Allen had pointed out this morning, did you bring us out of Egypt because there weren't enough graves there in Egypt so that we could be buried out here in the wilderness?

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And so because of their grumbling and complaining against God, instead of delivering them into that land of promise, as they probably expected to have happened sooner rather than later, he cursed them to wander in the wilderness for 40 years.

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And so now at the end of that time, Moses himself having disobeyed God, so he was told that he would also not inherit the promised land.

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But the book of Deuteronomy is that final address that Moses gives to the children of Israel before now at last they will inherit that great land.

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And this is the generation that did not pass away in the wilderness because of their grumbling against God.

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This is now the children of those who had grumbled against the Lord. And so Moses directs them in Deuteronomy chapter 10 that they would be circumcised of their heart.

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These men of this particular generation had not yet been circumcised. They had not yet received the sign of the covenant as God had given it to Abraham.

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And so all of the children, all of the sons of Abraham were supposed to have that mark. They had not yet received it before going into the promised land.

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So they knew that was coming before coming into this land that God was giving to them.

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But the lesson that Moses gave to them in that final address was to be circumcised not of the flesh, but of the heart.

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That they would love God, that they would desire to walk in his ways that he had established for them.

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That they would not be united to the pagans in the land that they were about to inherit, but instead they would desire to walk in the way that God had set for them.

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Deuteronomy 10 .16 once again, so circumcise your heart and stiffen your neck no longer.

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John Gill regarding this particular passage says the following, content not yourselves with nor put your confidence in outward circumcision of the flesh, but be concerned for the circumcision of the heart.

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For removing from that whatever is disagreeable to the

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Lord, even all carnality, sensuality, and hypocrisy. And putting there that which is well pleasing in his sight and which though it is the work of God and he only can do it and has promised it, yet such an exhortation is made to bring men to a sense of their need of it and of the importance of it and to show how agreeable it is to the

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Lord and so to stir them up to seek unto him for it.

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So we hear this reminder to be circumcised of heart that we may know the same.

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That we may seek after God for it. That we would be turned from the ways of this world and even the desires of our flesh and commit our way fully unto the

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Lord. Now as you will recall here in Romans chapter 2, the

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Apostle Paul is addressing primarily the Jews that are there in the audience of the church in Rome.

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He has addressed all of these Gentile sins that go on in the world outside the church.

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Chapter 1 verses 18 to 32, which as I had said to you a few weeks ago, would surely have the

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Jews in that congregation nodding their heads and going, yes, all those sins by those people out there. And then

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Paul turns it right inside to them. Therefore, you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges, for in passing judgment on another, you condemn yourself because you, the judge, practice the very same things.

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And so those Jews that might boast in the fact that they were

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Jews, that they had the law, that they even had circumcision.

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The Apostle Paul issues this stern rebuke in verses 25 to 29.

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Now as we seek to find application in this today, what Paul is addressing of course is genuine worship and what it means to genuinely be a

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Jew. So as we look at these things together, we're going to see first of all here in verses 25 to 27, we have genuine circumcision and we might translate that to understand genuine worship.

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And then in verses 28 to 29, Paul addresses what it means to genuinely be a

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Jew and we might translate that to genuinely being a Christian. And in these things, we come to understand what is being addressed here with regards to being circumcised of heart, that our worship may be genuine unto the

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Lord. So let's come back once again to verse 25 where the

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Apostle Paul says circumcision indeed is of value if you obey the law, but if you break the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision.

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Now of course the Jews were a very proud people and they thought of themselves as being more highly than the rest because they were the first to receive the oracles of God.

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That's a point that Paul is going to make a little bit later on in chapter three as well. We have the law, we have the signs of the covenant, especially this covenant of circumcision that God had given to our father

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Abraham. And that very sign of the covenant, the fact that we even have that makes us greater than everybody else.

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Perhaps you remember David's address regarding Goliath when Goliath was out there and was taunting the armies of Israel.

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David, a shepherd boy, 16 or 17 years old he may have been, is listening to this giant, this

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Philistine warrior come out and mock Israel, mock God and blaspheme him.

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And after he walks off the battlefield, after his jawing, David goes, who is this uncircumcised

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Philistine who defies the armies of the living God? So it was a very proud thing for the

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Jews to have this very sign that separated them from the

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Gentiles, from the pagans around them. This wasn't just during an Old Testament period, even in rabbinic literature after the destruction of the temple in 70

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AD, there were those Jews that were continuing to write about how great the circumcision was. In fact, even saying it's greater than the

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Sabbath. Consider these second century rabbinic writings, this sort of a catechism in which they proclaim the greatness of the circumcision.

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Listen to this, great is circumcision, whereby the covenant was made 13 times.

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And that was said because the word covenant comes up 13 times in Genesis chapter 17. Great is circumcision, which takes precedence over the

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Sabbath. Great is circumcision, for despite all the religious duties which

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Abraham our father fulfilled, he was not called perfect until he was circumcised, as it is written, walk before me and be thou perfect,

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Genesis 17, 1. So there you see how highly the

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Jews considered this particular covenant sign. Now to not take anything for granted,

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I'm going to apologize in advance, but we have to understand what we're talking about when we say circumcision.

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Yes, there is a spiritual application to this, which is exactly the point that Paul is making here in Romans chapter 2, but what are we talking about when we use that term circumcision?

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This is one comedic movie said, you nip the tip. It is the cutting off of the foreskin of the male.

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It is the sign that God gave to Abraham. And as he said, you and your sons will be circumcised, all your male servants will be circumcised and on down through the generations, this was supposed to be the sign of the covenant that God made with Abraham and with his people.

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It was, if you will pardon the crudeness of the expression, but something they would always carry in front of them as a reminder.

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But at the same time, it was done to a part of the body that was considered private. It's not something you showed to people.

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It's something that you kept hidden. So while it was a reminder to you, there had to be something else that you would be showing to people as a sign of that covenant.

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And it should be the very behavior. It should be the very life of the person and the way that they live.

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They show themselves to be separate from the rest of the world and united to God.

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For everything else that was wrapped up in that act of circumcision, even the blood and the grossness of it was supposed to be a reminder that sin is gross.

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And as God had declared in his law, in the book of Leviticus, without the shedding of blood there cannot be the forgiveness of sins.

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But it was also directing them towards something that was greater that was to come.

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And that was the Messiah who by his blood would be the true uniter of man to God.

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That because he shed his blood as an atoning sacrifice for our sins on the cross by faith in him, that which had separated us from God had cut us off from God.

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We would now be united to him by faith in Jesus Christ. All of this in that covenant pointing toward those things.

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And now circumcision of the heart, we understand, is not just something that is connected with males or with men, but even men and women are called to be circumcised of heart.

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Cut off from the world, united to Christ. And that it was associated with that part of the man also spoke to the fact that this is for you and it is for your children and those who come after you.

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And so in the spiritual sense for us, we teach the message of the gospel even to our children that we may raise up unto the

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Lord spiritual seed unto unto him. When we share the gospel with others and there are others that turn from their sin to the

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Lord Jesus Christ and are saved, we make spiritual children unto God. And all of this, a fulfillment of that sign that God had initially given to Abraham.

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Now at this particular sign, at this particular time anyway, the gospel is still pretty new on the scene.

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Right? And we're talking about the gospel of Jesus Christ, his death on the cross, his resurrection from the grave, his ascension into heaven seated at the right hand of God.

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All of this was just been preached about in the Roman empire for the last couple of decades.

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And so you still have a proud Jewish people who are holding on to old covenant signs.

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And this Jewish people in this Roman church, they're very proud of the fact that we have circumcision.

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What about you guys? What do you guys have? There were even those Judaizers that were going about. We read about this in Acts 15.

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It's the very reason for Paul's letter to the Galatians, Galatians 1 through 6. You have those

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Judaizers that are going about that are saying, yeah, faith in Jesus Christ is fine, but if you really want to be saved, you also have to be circumcised.

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Wasn't he circumcised? Then you have to be circumcised too. And Paul made the point in Galatians, if you have to be circumcised to be saved, then

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Christ is of no advantage to you. If you can be saved by your works, then why did

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Christ even come and die? And so there were Jews continuing to impose, even upon these

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Gentiles that are coming into the faith, okay, fine, we have this expansion of the church that's going on with the gospel that is going out, but if you really want to be united to God, you have to be circumcised.

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So, again, very proud of this particular covenant sign and that they were even continuing to try to enforce it upon other

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Christians. Paul says circumcision is indeed of value, so that's not to discount it.

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It's not to say that it was never a good sign to begin with. No, Paul is saying it is good, it is a value, but it's a value if you obey the law.

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If you obey everything that God has given to you. There are many Jews that were probably not following the law, but they were going, hey, at least

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I have circumcision, right? I've been circumcised. I am of the chosen line of the children of Abraham, so therefore, for me,

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I get to go to heaven, I've had circumcision. There were many different things that God gave the children of Israel that over the years, they put their trust in those things instead of in the

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Lord. In Jeremiah chapter 7, you have Jeremiah's temple speech in which the children of Judah were addressed and it was said to them, do not trust in these deceptive words.

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We have the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the

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Lord. That was part of their liturgy. That was what they were chanting and they were looking at the temple of God that was there in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah and they were treating it like a good luck charm.

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We can behave like the pagans around us, but as long as we have the temple of the

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Lord, then God is still with us. So we see that, this attitude among the

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Jews of like trusting in these things, but not really having a heart that was united to God.

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God indeed rebuked Judah and said, you come in and you offer your sacrifices, but then you go out and you murder and you cheat and you steal and you worship the

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Baals and you follow the ways of the pagans that are around you, exposing to them that they did not really have a heart for God, but for the passions of their flesh.

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So the sign of circumcision is a value if you obey the law, but if you break the law, your circumcision is of no value.

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It becomes uncircumcision. Now, this goes back up to last week, Alan reading those portions where Paul even lays out the law there for those people.

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When you teach others, do you not teach yourself? When you preach against stealing, do you steal?

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You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? Do you abhor idols?

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Do you rob temples? You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law. For as it is written, the name of God is blasphemed among the

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Gentiles because of you. What testimony are you giving by putting your faith and trust in the law that you don't even follow?

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And so regarding specifically that covenant sign of circumcision, it's a value if you obey the law, but if you break the law, as it said in the book of James, you're guilty of breaking the whole thing.

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Your circumcision becomes uncircumcision. Verse 26, so if a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision?

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Now that is a mic drop moment for the apostle

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Paul to make that statement to the Jews that are sitting there in the church in Rome.

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Now again, Paul is not addressing them in person. He's written this letter that has come to them.

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So it's likely one of the elders or someone else that has received this letter and is reading it there to the church.

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But this would have been a great place for a long, dramatic pause.

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If a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision?

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And no matter how dramatically I draw out that pause, it's still not going to have the same punch for you that it did for those who were in the church at that time.

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But to say the Gentiles, those uncircumcised, if they keep the precepts of the law, they will be going into the kingdom of God ahead of you.

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Remember how in Matthew chapter 8, you had the centurion that came to Jesus. He said, my servant is sick.

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Will you come and you heal my servant? And Jesus says, I will come. And the centurion says to him,

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I'm not worthy to have you come under the roof of my house. But if you merely speak the word,

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I know that he will be healed for I am a man of authority. And I say to this soldier, go here, and he does it.

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And I say to this servant, do this, and he does it. So I know that if you just merely speak the word, it will be done.

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And Matthew says that Jesus marveled at his faith and says, nowhere else in Israel have

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I found such faith. And this is a Roman soldier. This is a guy who is of the empire that is currently oppressing the

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Jewish people. And Jesus is marveling at his faith. I've not found faith like this anywhere.

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He understands the concept of authority and that by merely speaking a word, it will be done.

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And this centurion acknowledges the authority and the power in the Son of God standing right there.

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And Jesus goes on to say, I tell you that these will be going into the kingdom of God ahead of you.

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They will recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, even ahead of the

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Jews. A declaration that those Gentiles that believe will receive the kingdom of God that had been promised to you.

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And that surely would have been a slap in the face comment that Jesus made to the scribes and the

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Pharisees that would have heard him say such a thing. It would have been like saying, as Paul here, if a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision?

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And Paul making the point here that this, you have missed the point of circumcision. And it is meant to point to a matter of the heart.

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That's why it's called a sign. It's called a sign of the covenant. You understand the concept of signs.

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When you drive down the road, you're looking at signs all the time. And the sign itself is not anything.

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It's pointing to something else, right? I was thinking of this just this morning when I was passing by a mile marker.

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So I'm meditating on this text that I know I'm going to be preaching a couple of hours from now.

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And so as I'm thinking about sign, a sign of the circumcision, I pass by a sign. It's a mile marker. Mile marker 117.

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I was like, you think about whatever marker that mile is supposed to be signifying.

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You would not see the mile. You can't look at the ground and go, oh, here's where I'm at. I'm at mile 117.

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There are those who have decided that we're going to section out the road in these number of miles and we're going to put signs along the way to show you which mile you are at.

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But mile marker 117 is not the mile. It's just the sign showing you a mile has ended and another one has started.

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When you're driving down the interstate and you come to your exit, where's the sign? Right before the exit, right?

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So you know where you are turning off. It is pointing to something ahead. And so it is with the signs that God had given to the children of Israel.

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It's pointing to something else. The sign itself is not what's great.

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It's God who is great. And the sign is given that you may look to him, that you in your heart would be united to God.

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Verse 27, then he who is physically uncircumcised but keeps the law will condemn you who have the written code and circumcision but break the law.

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As the apostle Paul talks about in 1 Corinthians chapter 6, a day is coming in which we will even judge angels.

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And there are many Jews on that day who will think they will have received the kingdom of God because we had all of these signs and covenants that were given to us but did not keep the word of God and will find themselves judged on that day instead of being a judge on that day.

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But my friends, as we kind of wrap up this part before we get to the next portion where Paul says in verse 28, for no one is a

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Jew is merely one outwardly. As I mentioned to you in our outline, this part, genuine circumcision points us to genuine worship.

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So how do we potentially commit the same errors that the

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Jews in the congregation at that time would have been committing? There may be many signs that we think make us holy and not realizing that we are missing the mark because we're not obedient to the

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Lord in our lives. How much trust have you put in your saying a prayer when you were 11 or 12 years old or something like that?

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And in this prayer that I've prayed, I know I'm saved. Can't even tell you the number of times that I've encountered this.

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Somebody saying, I know I'm a Christian because I prayed this prayer, I said the right words, and I wrote down the date in my

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Bible. So whenever I want to look to confirmation that I am a

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Christian, I just look at that date and I'm reminded. Astonishing. You don't look at the word of God, you look at the words that you wrote in the word of God to affirm your salvation.

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And your confidence is not in what God has said, your confidence is not in Christ, it's what you said and your confidence is in yourself.

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And I have actually counseled people who have come to me and have said, you know, I was baptized at a very young age,

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I was saved, I wrote the date down that's in my Bible, but now I'm wondering, did I do it right?

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Were those the right words? Did I get the right baptism?

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Because there's an understanding in our own conscience, as the Apostle Paul talked about previously in this chapter, that our conscience either excuses or accuses us.

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There's an understanding even within our conscience that our works are never enough.

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And if we think our works are enough, then we better be sure that we did them the right way.

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We start placing our confidence in things that we think save us, instead of putting our confidence in Christ.

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I mean, we as Baptists can boast in the fact that we dunk our people, we get them all the way under the water, everybody else is not doing the right kind of baptism, but we do.

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But then we go on living our lives like heathens, what good is the purpose of immersion?

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If you don't show yourself to be immersed in Christ, we will put our trust in the reformed part of the name of our church,

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I'm reformed, I have the deeper, truer doctrines than everybody else has, but then we live like heathens the rest of the week.

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What is the point of your doctrine, of your superior theology? As Keith Foskey puts it, if you're not living out that theology with your life in Christ Jesus, I can stand up here as a pastor and think, my children are good, they're saved,

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I'm going to have children that are going to grow up in Christianity and they're going to become good, faithful followers of Jesus Christ because I'm a pastor and they heard me preach it all the time, but then if I don't, during the week, love my children and guide them in what

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God's word says, if I don't discipline them when they do wrong, doing so out of love, not out of wrath, not out of anger, not out of being overbearing and abusive to them, but because I love them and because I want them to know the right way, if I don't teach them, it is only by faith in Jesus Christ that you can be saved, not because you were born to a pastor, but because you put your faith and trust in Jesus.

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If I'm not teaching them these things, then my position as a pastor is of no benefit to my children.

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And there are so many things that we as Christians can very easily do that show up the same way that the

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Jews are doing with circumcision. I'll tell you that when I was a teenager, for me, it was Christian music. So I know

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I'm better than everybody else because I listen to Christian music. Have you heard that other stuff that those people are listening to?

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Oh my goodness, they're not going to heaven. But in the meantime,

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I've got secret sins that nobody else knows about that I'm doing.

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Though they may see this squeaky clean young man, I know what

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I'm doing off to the side that nobody else sees in rebellion against God. And could

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I honestly say in those moments that my heart was genuinely for the Lord, no matter what music it was that I had in my

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Walkman, I could have the right music in my Walkman, but have a heart that's not actually for the

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Lord. What is genuine worship? Genuine worship that we offer up to the

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Lord, that would from our hearts be a desire to follow

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Christ, that we would abide in him and he would abide in us, as said in the Gospel of John.

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As we'll get to later in Romans chapter 12 verse 1, in view of God's mercies, present your bodies as a living sacrifice to God, holy and acceptable to him, and this is your spiritual act of worship.

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Do not be conformed to the pattern of this world, but be transformed, another way we might understand that, be circumcised in your heart by the renewing of your mind.

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And then you will see God's will for you, his good, pleasing, and perfect will.

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Our genuine worship unto the Lord that comes from our heart, not these external things that we do, and not with this expectation that if I just do all these external things, then eventually the external will get in here.

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That's not how that works. As I made fun of a few weeks ago, that common statement in Silicon Valley, fake it until you make it, doesn't work in Christianity.

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Faking it is called hypocrisy, but may it be from the outflow of our heart that we offer genuine worship to God, and not just worship in a setting such as this, but that our entire lives would be an act of worship unto the

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Lord. So we see here in this first section genuine circumcision, and may we understand in application what that means for us in terms of genuine worship.

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In the second part, the Apostle Paul addresses what it means to genuinely be a

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Jew, and so may that translate to us an understanding of what it means to genuinely be a

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Christian. Look at verses 28 and 29. The Apostle Paul says, for no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical, but a

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Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart by the spirit, not by the letter.

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His praise is not from man, but from God. We're not living our lives in such a way as though to receive the praise and the recognition of others.

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What do other people see on the outside? But we live our lives knowing that God sees every matter of the heart.

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Remember that Jesus addressed the Pharisees in Matthew chapter 23 as whitewashed sepulchers.

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You look nice and clean on the outside, but on the inside you are full of dead men's bones.

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And so we live our lives in such a way not to receive the recognition of men, but that we might be pleasing unto the

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Lord. Verse 28 again, no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly.

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Now, when we read that here about being a Jew outwardly, we're understanding here that a

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Jew is the chosen people of God. And they prided themselves on that. Of course, we are the ones who are chosen.

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We have Abraham as our father. You remember this conversation the Jews had with Jesus in John chapter 8?

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We have Abraham as our father. It was basically the equivalent of saying, we have circumcision. It was the covenant sign that was given to Abraham.

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It's the sign that we have. So we know that Abraham is our father. And how did Jesus respond to them?

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You are of your father, the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires.

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It doesn't matter who in the flesh you think you are or what sign in the flesh you think you have, if in your heart you are cut off from God and united with the world, your father is not

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Abraham. Your father is not God. Your father is the devil. And you demonstrate that by desiring to do those things that are demonic, that are satanic, that which is apart from God.

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As we read about in Galatians chapter 5 verse 16, I say, walk by the spirit and you will not carry out the desires of the flesh.

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This is the same way of the apostle Paul saying, be circumcised in your heart. Walk by the spirit and you won't carry out those desires in your carnality.

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No one is a Jew is merely one outwardly nor is circumcision outward and physical. So once again, understanding that a

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Jew is the chosen people of God. My friends, we understand under the context of the new covenant that the chosen people of God is the church.

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There is only one people of God. And it is those who are in Christ Jesus.

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Paul is very plainly saying here that the Jews receive no special privileges on the part of being a

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Jew. Whether Jew or Gentile, we are chosen, we are favored.

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We have the blessing of God if we are in Christ Jesus. I remember hearing

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John Hagee a number of years ago. By the way, John Hagee was on my mind just a couple of nights ago because we had that beautiful blood moon eclipse late

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Thursday night, early Friday morning. I don't know why John Hagee gets stuck in my head every time now.

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There is a lunar eclipse. But his name popped into my mind this week so it comes into my sermon as well.

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Anyway, so he wrote that four blood moons book. What was that? 15 years ago or whenever that was.

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So 10 years ago, yeah, it wasn't quite that long ago. Anyway, so he made this false teaching in which he said that the

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Messiah did not come for the Jews, he came for the Gentiles. So the Jews could not reject that which was never offered to them.

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And all of that to say that a Jew is automatically saved, will automatically go to heaven because they are a

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Jew. That's heresy. Because it's as though to say, you don't need to take the gospel to the

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Jews, they're already getting there and you would be condemning them.

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They would continue to live in their sin and those things that God has promised that he will judge, even in their own self -righteousness and their affixing upon the law and things like circumcision, believing that those things will save me instead of believing in the

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Lord Jesus Christ. It is only by faith in Christ that a person can be saved. Now there are benefits to being a

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Jew and Paul is going to make that point in chapter three. We're going to get to that next week. But here the point is being made that a true

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Jew, a true Israelite is truly of the people of God from the heart, not because of anything external.

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Remember that when Jesus met Philip, he said, ah, a true Israelite in which there is no guile.

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So he was saying of him, this is a man who is faithful unto the Lord from the heart.

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Jesus was making a statement about his heart. He knew who he was on the inside, someone who genuinely desired to please

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God and not man. And so likewise for us, what does it mean for us to be a

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Christian that we may live genuinely unto the Lord? A Jew is one inwardly, circumcision a matter of the heart, not by the spirit, not by the letter, or sorry, by the spirit, not by the letter.

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His praise is not from man, but from God. Regarding this genuine worship and genuine

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Christianity, R .C. Sproul said the following, quote, to worship God in spirit is to worship him with the right spirit, to worship him in true faith that believes what he says and what he rewards to those who seek him.

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Hebrews 11, 6. In other words, worship in spirit is not worship that merely goes through the motions.

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To worship in spirit is to set our hearts and minds on the Lord when we praise him.

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Spiritual worship is to see that the worship we offer comes from the depths of our souls, from our inner spirits, from the very cores of our being, unquote, so that it would be seen from the inside out that we genuinely love the

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Lord. Now, my friends, anybody can fake it. You might be seen to be in the eyes of others one of the most genuine

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Christians that they've ever known, but you know truly from your heart whether you are actually for Christ or not.

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The only person that can know that is you. One of the most common questions that I'm asked as a pastor is, how do

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I know I'm saved? How can I have assurance of my salvation?

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And man, I wish I could just popishly declare, you're saved. Let's look at all these things.

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Let's stick down all this stuff. Well, then I declare that you're a Christian, but I can't really know that.

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God has not left you to be in mystery of that though. For the apostle John wrote in 1

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John chapter 5, I have written these things to you that you may know that you have eternal life.

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There are many different sects and aspects of our religion that would pretend to be Christianity, many cults even, that will try to hold that over your head.

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You can't really know if you're saved or not so that they can keep you in their sect and continue with that list of rules.

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You have to do this, this, and this. Have you done all these things? Are you sure you've done it right? Did you do it today? Might have done it yesterday, but you got to do it again today.

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You have to do it next week, and on and on it goes. We have the true communion. We have the true baptism.

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We have the true rules. We're truly the church. On and on it goes, all these different rules that you have to acknowledge and affix yourself to, and do, and accomplish, and still at the end of the day, never really feel like you got there.

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And you're still in doubt, and you're still in question, am I a Christian or not? That is not the father we worship.

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If I were to say to my children, when I leave for the day, I'll see you guys, maybe.

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Maybe I'll come home at the end of the day, maybe not. Maybe you'll never see me again.

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Would my children have confidence of my love for them if I was saying such things to them before I left the house during the day?

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They would constantly be questioning, does my dad really love me or not? And I won't know until he actually comes home at the end of the day.

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That would be a cruel thing to treat my children that way. And our heavenly father does not treat us that way.

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He wants us to know that we genuinely have the forgiveness of sins.

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We genuinely have the adoption that is given to us in Christ Jesus that we've become the family of God.

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First John 3 .1, how great is the love the father has given to us that we might be called the children of God, and so we are.

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Our father wants us to know that, that we're his children. Jesus saying in the

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Sermon on the Mount, your father knows how to give good gifts to you. You who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children.

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Your child comes to you and asks you for a loaf of bread, will you give him a stone?

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If he comes and asks you for a fish, will you give him a serpent? That would be awful.

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And as you know how to give good gifts to your children, so does your father who is in heaven, know how to give good things to those whom he loves.

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That we might come before him and we may ask, and we may daily, day after day, come before God and ask that he would show himself to us, and he will.

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Statistically, there are things out there that show that if we are regular in these things, we're regular in prayer and regular in Bible study, there's all sorts of wonderful benefits that come along with that.

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Statistics have shown people are less stressful, people are more affirmed in themselves, have more confidence, there's less suicide.

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Those aren't the things that we're after though. It's just to have a comfortable, stress -free life.

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I've become a Christian so that I can have things comfortable and stress -free. There's Christians that are going to tell you it didn't get easier for them when they became a

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Christian. We come to the

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Lord because we know we're dead without him. As I've heard it said,

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I'm just one beggar looking for bread, showing other people who are beggars looking for bread where to go and find bread.

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And it is our Father in heaven who gives to us these good gifts, who feeds us, who sustains us, who has given us life, who has given us a family, who has given us the promise of the forgiveness of sins and the resurrection of the dead.

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And we have all of these things in Christ our Lord, which we can know confidently we have received in him.

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He has not left us to be in mystery. We know the love of God that has been given to us in Christ our

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Lord, so that we may know that we are genuinely children of Abraham, and therefore, children of God.

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Galatians 3 .7, know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham, not those of the circumcision, not those who keep the law, those who are of faith in Jesus Christ.

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Galatians 3 .29, if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring and heirs according to promise.

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And we can know ourselves as being truly a Jew, truly of the people of God, because we are in Christ Jesus.

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It's at the end of the book of Esther, after the people of Israel, you know, that threat that was coming upon them, that they were all going to be wiped out, the wicked plans of Haman that was going to wipe them out.

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And then they were spared by another edict of the king.

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And then those nations that were going to wipe them out, they decided, okay, it's not worth it after all. But then such favor was poured out on the

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Jews after that, that it says there at the end of the book of Esther, there were other people in the

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Persian Empire that decided they were going to start calling themselves Jews. Because look at how much favor

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God is showing to them, I want that too. And so, my friends, it's for every one of us who are in Christ.

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I want to be of the people of God. You have it in Christ Jesus. You are that people.

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You are that blessing. You have the forgiveness of sins.

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You have the promise of eternal life. You have fellowship with the creator of the universe in Christ alone.

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So a Jew not being one externally, not being of circumcision, a true

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Jew is something that is a matter of the heart. It is by the spirit, not by the letter.

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And his praise is not from man, but from God. Let me come back to Deuteronomy once again as we open, so I'll close.

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We have heard today here in Romans chapter 2 what genuine worship is supposed to be and what it genuinely means to be a

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Christian as a follower of Jesus Christ. Not putting our trust in these external things, not putting our trust in our labels and our names and in the stuff that we do, the t -shirts that we wear or anything else, but we put our trust in Jesus Christ.

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And this is understanding, a circumcision of the heart, that we would be cut off from the world and united with Christ.

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Cut off from our own flesh and our own carnal ways of thinking and united to the

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Lord. And so before the children of God were about to take the promised land, there was this final address from Moses to the

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Jews that was given in Deuteronomy. And in chapter 30, after all the law had been laid out before them, again, that's what

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Deuteronomy means is second law. So they had received the law before, now they're hearing it again.

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And before they are about to take the promised land, after all of these things have been laid out, the Lord says to them, in Deuteronomy 30 verse 1, when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse which

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I have set before you, and you call them to mind among the nations where the Lord your God has driven you.

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And return to the Lord your God, you and your children, and obey his voice and all that I command you today, with all your heart and with all your soul.

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Then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have mercy on you. And he will gather you again from all the peoples where the

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Lord your God has scattered you. If your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there the

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Lord your God will gather you and from there he will take you. And the Lord your God will bring you into the land that your fathers possessed, that you may possess it.

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And he will make you more prosperous and numerous than your fathers. Listen to this, verse 6.

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And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring so that you will love the

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Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind that you may live.

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So where does this circumcision come from? Ultimately, even the circumcision of the heart itself is not our work.

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It's God's work. And so may we be a people that prays to God and asks,

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Lord, I genuinely want to worship you. I genuinely desire to live my life in such a way.

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That's not a facade or a fake thing that I'm showing to other people. I desire to love you from the heart.

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Circumcise my heart and God will do it for us. As said through the prophet

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Jeremiah, you will seek me and you will find me when you seek me with all your heart.

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So let us desire that genuine worship. Let us desire that genuine

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Christianity. Not the club, not the fakeness of it, not the tribe.

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We desire Christ that we may truly be circumcised of heart and united with him.

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You've been listening to the preaching of Pastor Gabriel Hughes, a presentation of Providence Reformed Baptist Church in Casa Grande, Arizona.

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For more information about our church, visit our website at providencecasagrande .com.

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On behalf of our church family, my name is Becky, thanking you for listening. Join us again