122. The Rise of the New World

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We didn't give up and we kept cheering, we kept watching, we kept waiting, and the victory came. That's the same way in the kingdom of Christ.

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He must reign, 1 Corinthians 15, 25 says, until he's put all of his enemies under his feet.

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The victory is not hypothetical. The victory is assured. The victory is promised. The victory is gonna be relentless.

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The victory is gonna be total, even if we're in a period of momentary setbacks. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the podcast where we prod the sheep and beat the wolf.

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This is episode 122, the dawn of a brand new world. When Christians think about the end of the world, as we spoke about two weeks ago, we often limit our thinking to the physical and the material realm.

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We imagine the end of the world being this dramatic conclusion of human history, the end of the planet as we know it when the apes take over and people ride around in dune buggies.

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We think about a tangible world that began in Eden and it's progressed along a timeline that's gonna end at some point in the future when

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Jesus returns and he ushers in the eternal state. That linear, time -bound, sequential view is the way that we view the end of the world, and yet, at least monolithically, that's not the way the

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Bible or the biblical writers viewed the word world or its ending.

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As we talked about, the biblical writers had a dynamic view of what the word world actually means, and it could be applied to a variety of different things.

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You could talk about planet Earth as the world, Cosmos, John 3 .16. You could talk about the

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Roman Empire as the world, that's Oikomene, Luke 2 .1. You could talk about the dirt or the land that you could pick up with your fingers, that's

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Gaia, Matthew 5 .5. Or you could talk about the sum total human rebellion against the world as you do with Cosmos, again, in 1

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John 2 .15 -17. So what we saw a couple weeks ago is that the word world can refer to the world, and yet it can also refer to the

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Old Testament world where God interacted with humanity in a more limited and focused way through the law of Moses.

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That world of redemption is where God interacted with his people with temples and priests and all of that.

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That was a world, that was a microcosm of redemption that was coming to an end.

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That world is where God ministered to his people through the law. Well, in the New Testament, God came in the flesh, and he set up a better and a fuller and a richer and a more complete kingdom that all of the old covenant types and shadows and forms were pointing to.

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In this way, the biblical writers divided all of world history, all of redemptive history into two parts.

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There was the old world where you were saved by obedience to the law, and the new world where you're saved by grace through faith.

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There was the old world where the spirit dwelt inside of temples that were made with human hands, and there's the new world where the spirit dwells in the people of God.

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There was the old world where purification was accomplished through animal sacrifices and through participation in the ceremonial law, and then there's the new world where the once and for all sacrifice was offered at Calvary by our eternal high priest, whose priesthood will never end.

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And on and on we could go, comparing and contrasting these two worlds. But what's most important for our purposes is that these two worlds exist.

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They exist in the minds of the biblical writers, they exist on the pages of scripture, and if we don't understand these two worlds, we will misunderstand what the end of the world is talking about.

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The end of which world is the question we ought to be asking. Now, these two worlds not only exist in the scripture, but they also collided, like two planets crashing together in the advent of Jesus Christ.

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Now, he didn't just come to die on a cross for sinners in a linear progression of time. No, he came to the capital city of the old world,

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Jerusalem, with all of its old covenant trappings and through his death, burial, and resurrection in that old world, he brought that old world to a decisive end.

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And in its place, he inaugurated a new world, a new redemptive situation, a rival kingdom that would exist alongside of that old world for 40 tumultuous years, between AD 30 and AD 70, before it emerged unscathed and unrivaled out of the ashes of Jerusalem.

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It's the only way, it's the only truth, it's the only life, it's the kingdom that would bring men and women, both

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Jew and Greek, male and female, slave and free, to know Yahweh, God.

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Now, I want you to think about it this way. For 40 years, these two rival situations happened and were in operation at the same time.

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They would be like two rival restaurants, one across from the other, on opposite sides of the street.

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One eventually wins out and the other one has to close down. That's sort of the point. The Jews were screaming that God must be known through the old ways, through the old world sacrifices and the old world obedience and the old world

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Sabbath keeping and mosaic forms and all of that. But at the same time, across the street, as it were,

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Christians were claiming, no, that Jesus Christ is the one who rose from the grave and defeated death.

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He's the one who completed and closed down the old covenant paths and he's the one who fulfilled the law. He's the one who became the true high priest and better sacrifice.

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He's the only way to approach the Father, not through the old forms, which have gone away forever.

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That's what the Christians were claiming, but through Jesus Christ, who would last in his kingdom and last forever.

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And instead of God allowing these two competing visions of redemption to continue existing side by side together forever,

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God publicly and decisively brought one of them to an end. He brought the old way to an end.

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He crushed the old covenant system so that no one would ever be confused on how you come to the

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Father. You don't come to the Father by Judaism. You don't come to the Father by a

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Christless religion. You only ever come to God through Jesus Christ.

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That's why the downfall of Jerusalem was not a random event. It was something that was prophesied in the pages of the

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Holy Scriptures. It is something that the Jews of that tumultuous century ignored to their own peril. They had a way out and they didn't take it because God was bringing to a close the old world and he was telling them to grab hold of the life raft before they utterly sank.

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It would be like refusing to get on the Titanic. You're on the Titanic and you're sitting there and you're watching all of these people get on the life rafts and they're beckoning to you and they're saying, get on the life raft or you're gonna die.

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And you say, no, no, no. The Titanic is a grand old vessel. No one's, it's never gonna sink.

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Yeah, it may have a hole in it and there's an iceberg and all of that, but it's not gonna sink. And on that chilly evening, you would have went down into the depths of the water and died because you refused to get on the puny little lifeboat and you instead decided to cling to the sinking

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Colossus. For all of the Jews of that first century who left the

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Titan community called Mosaic Judaism and they jumped onto this brand new fledgling little life raft called the church.

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There was life and there was salvation. But for all who refused Christ and instead clung to the old types and shadows that they always knew, well, there was nothing for them but icy, cold, frigid death.

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Last week, we covered that death. We covered the death of the old world and how the general epistles look forward to its imminent demise.

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We see James saying things like the time of Jesus's return is near. We see the book of Revelation, although we didn't cover that last week, talking about events that must soon take place.

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There's an imminent expectation that the world's gonna fall apart in the epistles in the

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New Testament. We found out last week that it's not our world, the new world of Jesus's kingdom that's imminently upon getting ready to be destroyed.

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It's the old world of Judaism that was destroyed at AD 70. We saw how the punishment that was soon to come upon the

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Jews and the calamity that was to befall the temple and its replacement by Jesus were all spoken about in the books of Jude, James, the first and second epistles of Peter, the first, second, and third epistles of John.

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We saw it all. Now this week, we're gonna look at those same books one more time, but instead of looking at the collapse of the old world,

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I'd like us to shift our focus now to the new world. What do these books have to say about the world that Christ brought, the kingdom that Christ brought?

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What is it going to accomplish? And spoiler alert, if you've been with us for some time now, you already know what it's going to accomplish because we looked at that in Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth.

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We looked at it in the story of Israel, the Psalms, the prophets, the gospels. We looked at it in Acts. We looked at it in Paul.

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We know what God is going to accomplish. It's a world filled with worshipers under the authority of King Jesus before Jesus returns.

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That's what we're gonna see today. We're gonna see that the general epistles, when they're talking about our world, say the same thing that we've already discovered all along, that Christ not only brought the old world of the

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Jews to a resounding end, but he will build his new world, his new kingdom completely and totally.

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He will fill the world with Christians. The entire world will become Christian before Jesus returns.

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So with that, let us jump right in and let us see how these general epistles prove that grand and post -millennial vision.

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Part one, the new world is better than the old one. When we think about the new world, we have to come to grips with the fact that it is unimaginably better than the former world that it was replacing.

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God did not put away the old world of Judaism with an equal and opposite Gentile counterpart.

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He just didn't do that. He didn't exchange one religious system for another. Instead, he put away an inferior era of redemption with a superior one.

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He put down what was extremely limited in favor of that which is going to have no limits.

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He was setting aside an inglorious kingdom that had ran its course for a glorious one that would complete

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God's grand and global vision. He took what was always meant to be a placeholder in favor of something that was always meant to replace it, something truer, something better, something purer, something more glorious that was always coming in Jesus Christ.

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That new and better world had come, which means that we should expect to hear the New Testament writers speaking about the new world, the new kingdom, the new covenant as if it were better than the old.

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And that is exactly what we see in the New Testament. For instance, the temple. At the center of the old world was this temple, the house of God, which was known as one of the architectural wonders of the ancient world.

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It was the place where God had come in to dwell with his people. At the center of the nation of Israel, it was the place where Jewish males were commanded to pilgrimage for their high holy festivals.

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There was three per year where they had to come and bring their families. The temple was the symbol of how much

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God loved them, and it was a point of national pride for them that they were the people of the temple.

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And I believe it's safe to say that the people of God were entirely, in the Old Testament, entirely and biblically temple -centric.

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They built their lives around the temple. They planned their calendar around the temple. Every aspect of their devotion to God was temple -centric.

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That's where God lived. That's where God dwelled. This means if God was gonna bring about a better system for knowing him, then he would have to bring about a more perfect temple for the people of God.

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And that's precisely what Jesus has done and what the general epistles teach us that has occurred in Christ.

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For instance, instead of a physical temple that's constructed somewhere in the Middle East with marble and granite,

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Jesus himself has become the cornerstone of a brand new end -time temple.

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He's the cornerstone of the temple, and he's made us to be living stones of the temple, which means that the people of God is the temple.

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This makes Jesus' temple both immutable and indestructible, unlike the temple of Jerusalem.

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It wasn't immutable. It was always in a process of change. In John 2, Jesus tells them that he's gonna tear down the temple.

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In three days, he'll build it again. And they say, how can you possibly do that? Because it's been being built for 47 years.

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It wasn't immutable. It had to be repaired, and it had to be built, and it had to be, there was progress that was made to it.

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Not so with the temple that Jesus is building. It is immutable in the sense that it cannot experience decay, and it cannot experience destruction like the temple in Jerusalem that was destroyed in 70

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AD. It also, the fact that the people of God are now the temple of God, makes that temple geographically independent.

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Whereas the temple of Jerusalem always had a physical address in the city of Jerusalem. Well, that temple couldn't be expanded like the temple of Jesus, whose temple is always being expanded, and it's being expanded to the very ends of the earth.

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Wherever the people of God are, there is the temple of God, which means that, that in the old world, you would have to travel from all over the entire world to get to see the temple.

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Now, all you need to do is go to a local church, and you see all of the people of God gathered there as little walking, talking holy of holies.

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How much better and grander is that, that Christ has taken a tiny little building in a backwater nation called

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Israel, and he's turned the temple into a worldwide, global phenomenon through his people who are being formed into his body.

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Look at how 1 Peter 2, 4 -6 actually talks about this. Coming to him as to a living stone, which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God.

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You also as living stones are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ, for this is contained in scripture.

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Behold, I lay in Zion a choice stone, a precious cornerstone, and he who believes in him will not be disappointed, 1

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Peter 2, 4. Now, as gracious and as wonderful as the Jerusalem temple was, it pales in comparison to what

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Jesus has ushered in. Instead of God's presence being confined to a physical time and space bound structure that decays and it has to be constantly worked on and repairs, now the temple of God, now the presence of God dwells timelessly within the hearts of his people across every single generation of church history.

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That people is ever expanding from one generation to the next, it is ever filling the world more fully with God's tabernacling glory.

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And that lets me know that the future of the world is not atheistic and it's not secular, but it is sacred.

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The future of the world is a temple world. How do we know that? Well, in the same way that Adam was the first high priest who was commissioned to extend the garden temple to the ends of the earth.

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And by the way, I don't have time to do this right now, but I'm gonna give you a little bit. The word for Adam to tend the garden is the same word used of the high priest to tend the tabernacle.

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The tabernacle itself is structured like the garden of Eden with the cherubim guarding the way to the presence of God with the tabernacle itself facing towards the east, just like the garden of Eden faced towards the east.

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There is so much parallel between that. So Adam was given the commission to be fruitful and multiply and to fill the garden temple and to expand the garden temple to the ends of the world, which means that God has always from the very beginning wanted the world to be filled with his garden temple presence.

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So now Adam fails, what's next? Well, Christ, according to 1

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Peter 2, 4 -6, will accomplish what Adam failed in. He will fill the world with his people like Adam was supposed to.

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He's gonna make his people into living stones and build them into an end time temple that's gonna fill the entire world with this temple glory like Adam was supposed to do.

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That new temple, that temple of Jesus is clearly better and more expansive and more glorious than its predecessor.

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So it's very clear to me that this new world Jesus has brought is better. It's better than the old.

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It's better than the temple, which was like the creme de la creme of the old covenant world. Think about also, number two, the sacrificial system.

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Jesus not only entered the world that was temple centric, but also sacrificially ritualistic. In order for you to be purified from your transgressions, in order to live in the presence of a thrice holy

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God, you needed to offer sacrifices to be forgiven of your sins.

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In order to be purified from your transgressions, you had to offer up an animal according to the manners and customs that are outlined in the book of the law, especially

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Leviticus and Deuteronomy. Without those sacrifices, you could not be cleansed from your sins.

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You couldn't. But with the animal, the Lord covenanted with you to pardon you.

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It wasn't because the blood of bulls and goats were efficacious for your sins, to cover your sins.

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No, God gave you forgiveness. He credited you forgiveness through the sacrifice of an animal on the basis of Christ's future work on the cross.

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That's what it is. He forgave you, he covered your iniquities, and he extended you his grace on borrowed grace, because of what was coming in Christ.

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As gracious as that was, it certainly was inferior to the new covenant system that Jesus was bringing, because it was borrowing from Jesus's grace in order to make payment in the

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Old Testament. In the old world, that purification and atonement were achieved through repeated animal sacrifices that were administered by Levitical priests.

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But the Bible says that the blood of bulls and goats are not enough to save you, which never could have purified anyone.

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That's why Jesus came, because his blood is actually and effectively able to purify his people.

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Instead of having to offer an animal or a beast in constant perpetuity,

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Christ came as the once and for all sacrifice that permanently and perfectly dealt with the problem of sin and dealt with our iniquity and cleansed us from our impurity.

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Though our sins were like scarlet, he has washed us white as snow through his blood, not the blood of bulls and goats.

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That's why the author of Hebrews in chapter 7, 26 through 27 says this, for it was fitting for us to have such a high priest, wholly innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens, who does not need daily, like those high priests to offer up sacrifices first for his own sin and then for the sins of his people, because this he did once and for all when he offered up himself,

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Hebrews 7, 26 through 27. Do you see what this is saying? The old world had a limited sacrifice.

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This new world has a better, more perfect sacrifice that fulfills and supersedes all of the old ones, providing eternal redemption for the people of God.

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Jesus' sacrifice was final and it was sufficient. It accomplished what the old covenant sacrificial system could never accomplish.

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His death on the cross paid the penalty for sin in full, making all future sacrifices now completely unnecessary and even blasphemous in light of what he's accomplished.

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Can you imagine if you say that the temple in Jerusalem needs to be rebuilt, why?

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Why does the temple in Jerusalem need to be rebuilt? Well, that's what the Bible says, does it?

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Because if the temple needs to be rebuilt, then what we're saying is that Christ being the temple is incomplete.

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And if we need to go back to the old covenant sacrifices, what we're saying is that Christ's sacrifice is incomplete.

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He either is the once and for all temple, once and for all high priest, and once and for all sacrifice, or he is not.

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I go away from dispensationalism on this point and many others, because it is blasphemous to say that Christ's sacrifice is incomplete and that the

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Jewish people, in order to be saved at some point in the future, need to return to the blood of bulls and goats.

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That is to spit in the face of Jesus Christ, and I won't do it. And I won't teach that way.

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Because of Jesus' sacrifice, believers are not only forgiven, but they're also cleansed and they're made righteous in the sight of God forever, forever.

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Once your sins have been forgiven, they are forgiven. You don't have to keep on and like navel gazing and belly aching and groaning,

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God, please forgive me. Yes, we repent of our sins. We don't repent of our sins to be saved though. We don't repent of our sins to earn

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God's forgiveness. God's forgiveness has already come. We repent to be reoriented back to him.

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We repent so that our lives will match the eternal everlasting forgiveness of our past, present, and future sins that have already been accomplished by Jesus.

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We repent to reorient. We don't repent in order to be restored.

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We've already been restored. The new world sacrifice of Jesus was better than the old world sacrifice of the types in the shadows, infinitely better.

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Look at the feast. In the old world, the festivals held so much significance and meaning for the people of God.

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There were celebrations such as Passover or Pentecost or Tabernacles. And all of these were deeply rooted in the

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Jewish ethos and the life in their calendar. And they served as sort of annual reminders of God's deliverance or God's provision or God's future promises.

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The people would gather together in Jerusalem and they would recount their history and they would eat their foods and they would celebrate together and look forward to all of the things that God was going to bring to them in the future in his redemptive plan.

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These festivals were attended primarily by Jewish males who had to travel to Jerusalem three times a year in order to observe them from a distance, reflecting the fact that even though they were drawing close to God, they were still at a great distance from God because God is holy and they are not.

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But in the new world, Jesus has brought something infinitely better, infinitely better.

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We don't, now we don't go to a physical location in Jerusalem three times a year to stand at a distance from God.

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Now Jesus has brought about something better. He's not only rendered those old covenant feasts completely fulfilled,

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Colossians 2, 16 through 17, but now he's expanded the concept of festivities by expanding and establishing the weekly

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Lord's Day gathering and weekly communion that we get to take every single week where God has drawn us into his presence through the call to worship and we come to his table and sit with him.

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Can you imagine the difference? In the Old Testament, you stand outside the temple, you hand your lamb to the high priest and he takes it in there and you never see it again.

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You don't see God, you don't see redemption, you don't eat with God, feast with God, sit with God, none of it, you're at a distance and you trust that God has done something.

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In the New Covenant, every single week you go to church and at church, God calls you up into his presence and you confess your sins there and you're consecrated there and you commune with God there 52 times a year, every single week, you're invited to the table of your

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God, your entire family, it's not just you men who go and hand the lamb off to the priest and you stand at a distance while your family waits even at a further distance than you.

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Now, every week, your entire family comes with you. Every Lord's Day, believers gather to worship through weekly communion, they partake in the body and blood of Christ, they're drawn into the holy of holies, the heavens holy of holies and they participate in close and regular fellowship with God instead of distant and infrequent fellowship of old.

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They feast upon Jesus, they eat with Jesus, they sit with Jesus.

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Can you imagine how much better and more glorious and more beautiful the

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New Covenant world that Jesus brought is rather than that old world that Jesus put down in the first century?

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You think about the law, this is the fourth example I'll give you. Purification and cleanliness were achieved through obedience to the

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Mosaic law. The law highlighted human sinfulness and our need for redemption. The law served as a tutor that was supposed to lead people to Jesus.

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Yet, it was also a burden that no one could perfectly keep. It was a burden that constantly reminded them of their shortcomings and their need for atonement.

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But in the new world, Jesus fulfilled the law. Jesus is the one who came and he obeyed every aspect of the law.

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He lived a perfectly lawful life, putting away the punishment and the penalty of the law so that he could bring

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God's people grace and truth. John 1 .17 tells us, for the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth come through Jesus Christ.

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This tells us that believers, the ones who Jesus saved, are no longer accosted by the threat of the law.

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It's no longer a noose around the neck of the New Testament saint. It's not a license to sin, but it's an empowerment to give

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Christians the hope that Christ has obeyed where you could not obey, and Christ has fulfilled where you could not fulfill.

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So what? So therefore now, because the gun of God's wrath is no longer pointed square at your face, now you can live with freedom to obey

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God with righteousness, and freedom to obey God in a joyful way.

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That's because Jesus' obedience and his sacrifice satisfied the requirements of the law, satisfied the wrath of God, liberating believers from its threat of bondage.

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So now the only thing that's left is joy. In the Old Testament, you obeyed not to die, basically.

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You obeyed God so that you could earn your salvation. I know that's not how it worked completely, but I'm typecasting here.

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And in the New Testament, now Jesus has obeyed the law for you. Now Jesus has saved you from the wrath that is to come.

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Now Jesus has purified you. He's done all that work. So what is left? You don't have to be afraid.

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You don't have to be fearful. You don't have to be burdened and encumbered by the weight of your sin anymore.

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You've been set free in Christ. The new world that Jesus brought is better.

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Now we are empowered by the Holy Spirit. We're given the desire to live obedient lives, to live joyfully, to have love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self -control, to be pleasing to God through our love for God and our obedience to God.

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That's why Jesus said, if you love me, you will obey my commandments. Why would he say that? Because the threat of the law was gone.

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He obeyed it perfectly. Now out of love, we obey. The situation and the status that Jesus brought to us in this new world is unimaginably better.

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It is more comprehensive, more efficacious, and it is better, grander, and greater than anything in the old covenant world that needed to be replaced because God had something better he was bringing.

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Another example, the sign of the covenant. Circumcision was the sign of the old covenant, and it was crucial.

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It was a crucial component to the identity of the Jews. It was a significant point of pride to the people of Jews as well.

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Martin Luther even tells us in the 15th century that they were using their circumcision as a license to hate other people because other people were the uncircumcised.

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They were the Gentiles. This sign served as a physical reminder of their covenant with Abraham, but it became a point of sinful pride for them as a people.

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The ritual that they went through set men physically apart from their Gentile counterparts, but it also symbolized, which they forgot, an inward relationship of intimate devotion to God.

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And while that sign was precious to the Jews and made them feel like they were superior to others, it was not the better sign.

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The better sign was coming in the new covenant. We received the better sign through baptism. Instead of a sign that's limited to men like circumcision or it involved cutting, bleeding, and pain,

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Jesus is the one who was cut and who bled and who was in pain for us to give us a sign and that was comforting, not painful.

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Baptism, far from grabbing the knife and physically cutting you, baptism symbolizes the death of the flesh.

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It symbolizes our purification. It symbolizes the fact that God has washed us and made us new, and it's not just applied to men.

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Men, women, and children, babies, yes, babies, are marked with this great covenant sign because God has been gracious to his people.

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He took the pain of circumcision away because he was crucified on the cross and he gave us the sign, the pleasant sign, of water to wash us of our sins, to symbolize our union with him.

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Baptism is better than circumcision and it's spoken about in much more profound and expansive and beautiful ways than circumcision is.

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It's spoken about like 1 Peter 3 .21 says, baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as the removal of dirt from the body, but as the appeal to God for a good conscious through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

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Circumcision is never spoken of like that and while we do not believe in baptismal regeneration on this show, we do believe that God uses baptism to save or to judge people.

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I believe that every baptism is effective, every time that water is applied in the triune name in the church, that that person,

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God will either use that water in their salvation for the elect or he will use that water in their condemnation for the reprobate.

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God mysteriously, through some sacramental union, uses the water to bring about his promises in a way that it's not the working of the work, which is what the

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Catholics teach, ex operi operata, but it is God working through means, which we know that he does.

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For instance, God works through the word. Ostensibly on the outside, the

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Bible that you hold in your hand is no different than any other book. It has a title page, a table of contents, it has paper, it has ink that's organized in English sounding sentences.

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A book is a book and yet this book is somehow different. God uses it to affect change in your life, to sanctify you, to grow you in your relationship with the

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Lord through the power of the Spirit. So this book is different than the Wall Street Journal. This book is different than the

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Tale of Two Cities. This book, the Bible is different. Well, in the same way, the waters of baptism are different.

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They're more powerful, not because the water is somehow special, but because God has affected this sign to be potent in his kingdom.

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It's a sign of our relationship with God and it's a sign of our standing with him.

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We've been brought in union with him. So circumcision was put away because God had a better sign.

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Here's another example, the new priesthood that Jesus has brought. The old world relied upon a

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Levitical priest to mediate between God and man. In the new world, Jesus is our eternal high priest who offered himself up and now intercedes for us forever.

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This is why Hebrews chapter four, 14 through 16 proclaims, since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens,

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Jesus, the son of God. Let us hold fast our confession, for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

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Let us then with confidence now draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

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Hebrews four, 14 through 16. Jesus' priesthood is clearly superior. He is both perfect and eternal high priest, which means that his mediation for us will never end like the

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Aaronic priesthood did. And also he's the perfect and eternal sacrifice, which lets us know that his mediation for us will always be effective unlike the priesthood of Aaron.

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But it's even better than all of that. Jesus being the high priest has installed us into his

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Levitical order, which makes all of us, every Christian on earth, a Levitical priest to serve everlastingly in his temple for his own glory.

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First Peter two, nine tells us that he has made us into a kingdom of priests, expanding the

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Levitical priestly role beyond just the Levites to now everyone who belongs to Christ.

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This new priesthood is now more effective, more personal, more accessible. It allows men, women, and children direct access to God and service to God.

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And it allows us to, instead of a small tribe of people amid a single nation, now every Christian on earth is a servant of Yahweh, showing how great

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Jesus' expansion is. Overwhelmingly, the priesthood that Jesus has brought is better.

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The service that we offer now is better and more beautiful. And the cosmic size of it is now bigger, better than ever.

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And here's another example. New world people is the last example I'll give. Well, seven, God's number, there you go.

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The seventh one is people. The concept of a chosen people is replete all throughout the

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Old Testament. There's the chosen people of God. And when we say that phrase, you and I know what that means. In the Old Covenant world, the promises of God were primarily given to the

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Jewish people. Now, there were times when there were Egyptians that came out of Egypt with them and they became a part of the people of God.

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You have Rahab, who was a Canaanite. You have Ruth, who was a Moabite. You have Caleb, who was from another,

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I can't remember where he was from. You've got people from different places who are assimilating into the people of God.

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But primarily speaking, the special relationship that God had with humanity was mediated through the

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Jews. They were God's chosen people in the Old Testament, which became a source of sinful pride for them and ethnocentrism to where they began hating

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Samaritans, hating Gentiles, and hating every single person on earth that was not them.

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But in the new world, Jesus has expanded the people of God, the chosen people of God, to include all men, women, and children who belong to Christ.

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Regardless of your ethnic background, it doesn't matter if you were born in Nigeria or if you're born in Alaska. Regardless of whether you're a male or a female, regardless of whether you're a slave or a free, rich man or poor, whether you're six foot five or four foot two, it doesn't matter.

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In Jesus's kingdom, you've been made a part of the chosen people of God. That's why

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Galatians 3, 28 through 29 powerfully declares this. There is neither

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Jew nor Greek, slave nor free. There is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

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

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How often do we skip the last part of that verse? There's neither slave nor free, male or female, and we tend to think that only applies to salvation.

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No, no, brothers and sisters. You've been brought into the family. If you are in Christ, you are

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Israelites. If you are in Christ, you're children of Abraham based on the promise of God through faith.

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The gospel message is that the church who came in through Jesus joined

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Old Testament Israel in becoming the one unified people of God. We are

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Jews. That's what I'm getting at. These modern day

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Jews that have existed ever since the downfall of the temple really, the Talmudic Jews, they're not real

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Jews. This may get me in trouble. This may get people thinking that I'm anti -Semitic.

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I'm not, I'm not. I love the Jewish people who are in Israel today and who are allies of us in the

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Middle East, but they're not Jews in the biblical sense. Jews in the biblical sense are those who wrestle with Yahweh.

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And in order to wrestle rightly with Yahweh, you need to love his son. If you hate Yahweh's son, you hate

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Yahweh. Paul tells us that through faith in God's son, we've been made children of Abraham.

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There are children of Abraham alive on earth today and they don't live in Palestine or Canaan or Israel or whatever you wanna call it.

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The children of Abraham who are alive today are red, yellow, black, white, tall and short, male and female,

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Jew and Gentile who love Jesus. That's the people of Israel. It's not replacement theology.

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It's that all are going to be chosen of God and brought into the family through Christ and Christ alone.

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That was the plan in the Old Testament, types and shadows, and that's the plan today, except now it's even more explicit and more beautiful and more glorious.

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The gospel message that brought us in in the new covenant now extend to the ends of the earth, fulfilling the great commission as we speak.

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The nations are being discipled, Matthew 28, 19 through 20. The nations are being brought into this

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Israelite, chosen people of God. The original commission was to fill the entire world with worshipers, so God chose one nation, the

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Jews. Now he's opened it up to all nations. As James 1, 18 says, of his own he brought us forth by the word of truth that we should be the kind of firstfruits of his creatures.

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James is telling us that it's not first century Judaism that saves you. It's believers are a first fruit of a new kind of people, a kind of people who are bought and paid for by Jesus, united with the old covenant bride to make one people of God that that is what's going to, that's what we call the world into.

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We don't call the world into the Abrahamic religions like Judaism and Islam and Christianity and say, well, as long as they believe in one of the

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Abrahamic rules, no, you have to join the Abrahamic family by belief and faith in Jesus Christ.

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And that's how God's going to fill the world with worshipers. That's how God's going to fill the world with his chosen people is through faith in Jesus.

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This new chosen people is no longer limited by Jewish ancestry and genetic lineage. Now God has expanded it to include every person on earth who believes in Christ.

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Jesus's new world is overwhelmingly better than the old world on every possible level.

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And we've only showed seven, but on all seven, it's better. More examples could obviously be given.

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We could go point by point through the entire old covenant and show how what Jesus has done is better. But I think we've given enough to show that the world that Jesus put away was worse and that the world that Jesus brought is better, that a new epic of redemption, it's more comprehensive, it's richer, it's better, it's more expansive.

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His counterpart in the old, that is why Jesus put away the old world of types and shadows.

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And that's why he brought about the new because it is better. Part two, the new world expands.

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Now the old covenant kingdom of Israel was designed to be a light to the Gentiles, a beacon of God's glory to the nations.

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Yet despite its grand purpose, it fell fantastically short. And at its best, it remained an insular, inwardly focused, pride centric people.

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Apart from the glory of the Solomonic era, you'll remember when Solomon is rising to power and the nations are streaming to Jerusalem to see the glory and the majesty of God.

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And that nation remained as a beacon of light.

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Beyond that just small glimmer where things were working really well, the entire

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Old Testament is a story of a people who are encumbered by ethnic prejudices, who have geographical limitations, national boundaries, and a massive amount of hatred for those who are not like them.

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From its inception to its destruction, national Israel did not obey God. They did not obey the purpose that God had for them.

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They remained a fledgling people amid a world of superpowers who were constantly threatening their own survival and existence.

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Instead of growing and instead of spreading out to the ends of the earth, like they were commissioned to do,

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Israel barely kept its head above its own geopolitical waters and barely held the

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Levant that they were told to hold. And eventually they lost everything at the hands of the

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Babylonians when they were exiled for 70 years. And then they lost everything again, except this time permanently at the hands of the

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Romans who entered into their city, put them away, set their temple on fire, and burned their city to the ground.

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Instead of an unstable and perishable empire that the people of God constantly lost or couldn't hold,

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Jesus brought something better, a timeless kingdom, a kingdom without borders, without walls, without the possibility of ever being overrun, overturned, or conquered.

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Think about it. Jerusalem, when it was conquered, was destroyed. Every time a Christian has been martyred, the church has grown.

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Every time Christians have been persecuted, the church has grown because you can't stop it. Jesus brought something better that necessarily grows, that has been expanding for the last 2 ,000 years.

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Israel and Judah and the Israelite old covenant never expanded.

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It went through periods where through David it expanded and through Solomon it held.

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But for the most part, it was a empire that was constantly in decline and never made it outside of its own territory.

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And yet for 2 ,000 years, with 20 centuries behind us, Jesus' kingdom has done nothing but grow.

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And we have no reason to doubt that it's going to continue to grow with Jesus as our King and with him leading us further and further into the nations.

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The only thing that will happen inevitably is that it will spread out and it will continue to grow and it will continue to fill the world because that is the kind of kingdom that he made us to be and that is the kind of kingdom that he proclaims in the word.

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And one day, that desire that God has had to fill the world with worshipers will come true.

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When the entire earth has become Christian, as 1 John 2 .2 enumerates, it says, he is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world.

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Did you catch that? Jesus' sacrifice is sufficient for all whom it is applied.

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Yes and amen. And the indication of scripture is that it is, that it will be applied more and more liberally throughout the church history until it is swallowed up and consumed everything like leaven and that it's worked its way into the entire world.

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He says, I didn't just die for your sin, I died for the sin of the world. That's what John 3 .16 says, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.

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He gave his son to the world. He gave his son and he had his son die for the entire world.

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Why do we believe that Jesus is going to finish the job before the entire world has come? He won't.

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He died for it and eventually it, the world, all of it.

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North America, South America, Asia, Africa, Australia, Antarctica, all of it will bow the knee to Christ.

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The new world, the new situation that Jesus inaugurated is relentlessly advancing and it is unrestricted by the limitations of the old covenant.

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Every aspect of the old covenant has been expanded in Christ, it's been fulfilled in Christ and it's been made more glorious in Christ.

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The new world is marked by a deeper and more personal relationship with God that is available to all who believe and regardless of their background or their circumstances, they get

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God through Christ. The general epistles have testified to this unstoppable expansion and they've proved that Christ is undeniably superior and eternally victorious.

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That's part two. Part three, the new world triumphs. The old world of Israel is a narrative of colossal failure and collapse.

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At every turn, it faltered in the wilderness when the people grumbled against God, it failed spectacularly at the foot of Sinai when they sacrificed to a golden calf and called it

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Yahweh. In the conquest narratives, they fell short, they stole things that they shouldn't have stolen and they were punished by having a little town called

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Ai run and chase them like little girls running away from their shadow.

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During the period of the judges, the nation was led into all kinds of idolatry. During the monarchy, they crumbled because of their sin and their rebellion and even sacrificing their own children to idols.

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At the time of David and Solomon, they both had colossal failures in their life. David killed someone to have

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Bathsheba as his wife. Solomon accumulated hundreds of wives and he bowed the knee to hundreds of idols because of these wives.

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There's not a single period of Old Testament history where you don't see colossal and magnificent failure.

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The people ignored the prophets which led to their conquest and their exile and they ultimately failed most spectacularly when their covenant

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God came in the flesh looking for them, Malachi chapter three and four, and they killed him thinking that they were worshiping and serving the father.

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You contrast all of that failure from Adam, from Genesis chapter three all the way to the end of Malachi.

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You contrast that entire robust story of failure with all of the triumphs that have come in Jesus Christ and you'll get to see how much better and more glorious Jesus's kingdom is.

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Unlike the kings, Jesus will succeed in building his kingdom, Matthew 16, 18 and Hebrews 12, 28.

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Unlike the judges, Jesus is gonna lead his people out of idolatry and into proper worship, John four 23 through 24.

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Unlike the failed conquest narratives, Jesus is gonna conquer the nations and he's gonna be the true and the better Joshua.

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He's gonna make his people obedient to the will of God, Matthew 28, 18 through 20. Unlike the rebellion of Mount Sinai where they worshiped false gods,

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Jesus is the one who climbed up on top of the mountain. He's the one who was treated like the calf who was sacrificed for our sins.

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He is the one who made purification for the people of God in the name of Yahweh our Lord. Hebrews 10, 12 through 14.

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And unlike the grumbling Israelites who came out of the Exodus, Jesus has set us free by a worse enemy than Pharaoh, Satan, sin and death.

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And he's leading us joyfully by his spirit back into the promised land.

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Second Corinthians 3, 17 Hebrews four, eight through 10 where we will live and dwell with God forever.

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At every turn, Jesus will be successful where the Old Testament failed. At every level,

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Jesus will be successful until he has succeeded in accomplishing everything that the Abrahamic promises say.

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Everything that the promises to Adam and Noah and Joshua and Joseph and Judah.

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All of them, all the promises of this nation coming and obeying

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God. Genesis 49, 10 and the cosmic transformation of this world back into a garden land.

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Genesis 1, 28 Revelation 21 are going to happen through Jesus. His kingdom is gonna continue to triumph.

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His kingdom is gonna continue to win until it has accomplished everything that God intended for it to accomplish.

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His kingdom doesn't lose. All it does is win. That doesn't mean that it doesn't have moments where there's setbacks.

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You watch great football games like the Patriots when they played the

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Falcons in the Super Bowl and you see that they're down 28 to three and you're like, how is this happening?

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We've got the greatest quarterback of all time, the greatest coach of all time. We've got all the weapons possible that we need.

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The Falcons are not really that great. So why are we down 28 to three? And then all of a sudden, you see this incredible comeback that ends in this tremendous victory.

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One of the greatest Super Bowls probably ever played. And you see the glory that was won on the battlefield and you think to yourself, they were never really in trouble.

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That's what we said. Now, when it was 28 to three, we said we're gonna lose and we probably should turn the

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TV off, but we didn't. We stuck with it and we watched it and we kept going. If you're special, if you're in New England, if you didn't, well, maybe you did turn the

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TV off. But the point is, is we didn't give up and we kept cheering. We kept watching. We kept waiting and the victory came.

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That's the same way in the kingdom of Christ. He must reign, 1 Corinthians 15, 25 says, until he's put all of his enemies under his feet.

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The victory is not hypothetical. The victory is assured. The victory is promised. The victory is gonna be relentless.

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The victory is gonna be total even if we're in a period of momentary setbacks. The victory is necessary and it's promised.

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And I don't care if we're going through a season right now of some temporary setbacks.

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Do not lose heart, brother and sister, because the victory is coming.

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The victory will come through Christ. He's promised it. He must reign until he's put all of his enemies under his feet.

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So be of good cheer and have joy because the victory is coming. That victory is also gonna extend to believers who are gonna triumph over their trials.

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James 1, 2 talks about a kind of victory where we have great joy even when we suffer trials of various kinds, where we're transformed by our trials.

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1 Peter 1, 6 -7 says, in this rejoice now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials so that the tested genuineness of your faith will be more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

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1 Peter 1, 6 -7. Unlike the old covenant where failure was expected and it was rampant and it was repugnant, the new world is characterized by resilience and triumph of the church who cannot fail.

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And when they do suffer, they suffer gloriously. In the Old Testament, when they suffered, they suffered for their sins.

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They suffered for their rebellion and they suffered justly. Now, when we suffer unjustly for the glory of Christ, it is a glory because it's giving praise and honor to Christ because he's building us up into a kind of faith that can never be forsaken and can never be overtaken.

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We know that failure in the church is impossible because we served the Almighty Christ, because God told us that he is going to do this.

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And he told us through various different means, various different books of the Bible. But take for instance,

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Jude 24 through 25. It's probably one of my favorite benedictions that we read in church. This is what Jude says.

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Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy to the only

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God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ, our Lord, be glory and majesty and dominion and authority before all time now and forever.

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Amen. We literally can't fail. Because God himself is the one who's going to keep us from stumbling.

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He is able to keep us from stumbling. He will keep us from stumbling to the glory and the praise of God forever and ever.

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Amen. First John 4, 4 tells us, little children, you are from God and you have overcome the world for he who is in you is greater than he who is of the world.

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Brothers and sisters, you've overcome the world. You're not a victim. You're a victor. This teaches us that our final victory has already been won through faith.

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We are unstoppable. The world cannot prevail over us. We must prevail over them.

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How's that going to happen? By faith in Christ. We're not like jihadists where we pick up our suicide bombing kit and we go run into a crowd and kill people.

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That's not what Christians do. Christians proclaim the powerful gospel of Jesus Christ in our Jerusalem, in our

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Judea, in our Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the world. And we watch the power of God work.

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1 John 5, 4 -5 says, for everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world.

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And this is the victory that has overcome the world. Our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the son of God?

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This new world is marked by a kind of faith that conquers the world. And it will, by patient resolve and faithful neighbor, overcome the world.

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Brothers and sisters, I know that we live in a microwave generation where we have our little news clickers that happen every second and news happens at the speed of tweets.

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I get it. But unlike that microwave mentality that's so common in the modern world, it's infected much of the church.

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The kingdom of Jesus will be built and it will be built slowly and it will be built steadily and it will be built over a long period of time.

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It won't be built in a single generation, but it will be built over centuries and millennium, which will make it strong.

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We've got to have long -term thinking, long -term confidence, long -term stability, long -term patience, and long -term expectations for the kingdom of God because it will overcome the world.

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Just not in the time horizon that we are thinking. It's not a conquest where we're taking over everything in a single year or a single decade.

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It is a long, slow, strong growth that will eventually overtake everything.

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Hebrews 10, 35 through 36 describes it this way. Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has great reward for you have need of endurance so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what is promised.

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Hebrews 10, 35 through 36. The writer of Hebrews tells us that we, the people of God, will receive what

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God has promised when we've done what God has told us to do and when we've done it over generations, when we remain confident, when we work hard, when we endure setbacks, when we have hope, when we extend his kingdom to the ends of the earth through prayer, through fasting, through preaching, through word, through sacrament, through church, through all of it.

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That's why Peter says, and after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace who has called you into his eternal glory in Christ will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you to him be the dominion forever and ever.

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Amen. To the church that was suffering under Jewish persecutions, they were reminded that Christ will confirm, strengthen, and establish them.

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And to us, when that Jewish nation was put away, when the temple was reduced to rubble, and when the church came up out of the ashes by the power of the

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Holy Spirit, all Christians and at all times will now forevermore be reminded that God will have his dominion forever and ever.

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He will confirm, he will strengthen, and he will establish us. He will put away his enemies. He will establish his friends.

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He never fails to accomplish his purposes. So why would we ever believe that the church fails, that the church collapses?

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It won't, and it can't. Jesus is the one who's confirmed it. Jesus is the one who's strengthening it.

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Jesus is the one who's establishing it. And Jesus is the one who will have all dominion, all glory, and all honor forever and ever.

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Amen. While the old covenant commonwealth of the Jews had an expiration date and it bumbled along a defeat until it collapsed in failure,

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Jesus's empire is timeless and it does nothing but expand and win until there is nowhere left for it to expand in or win over.

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That is what's going to happen. That is the future of the world. It's not a daydream and it's not a pipe dream.

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It is what is going to happen according to scripture. So let us believe it and let us hope in that vision.

01:00:51

Part four, the nature of the new world. The new world that's inaugurated by Jesus will fill the earth with worshipers and it will lift the nations out of the clutches of secularism and it will transform the nations into the people of God.

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Jesus's kingdom is going to transform the whole world into a glorious temple. It's going to lift humanity out of poverty.

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It's going to free humanity from the wretched clutches of the curse. And that grand design is still not even the ultimate conclusion because there's more that's coming that's even better in the future.

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The end is going to come when Christ defeats death once and for all. And that's not going to happen until Christ returns.

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So there's future things that are going to happen. He's going to come back when the entire world is filled with worshipers and he's going to give us new, eternal, imperishable bodies.

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He's going to cast death and sin and Satan and all who've rejected Jesus into the lake of fire and he's going to usher in a perfect, eternal, immutable world where we live with our reigning, triumphant king forever.

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The whole chapter of 1 Corinthians 15 talks about it. I commend that chapter to you. Now, in the meantime, we should not expect that the world is going to languish in sin and misery and that no good things are going to happen until Christ returns.

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I think sometimes we get stuck on that view. Just because Christ isn't going to put away death, the final enemy, until he returns.

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Well, shouldn't he put away some enemies before he returns? I think 1

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Corinthians 15 says he must reign until all his enemies are put under his feet and the final enemy is death.

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So there's a lot of enemies that Jesus is going to put under his feet before he returns. There's a lot of things that Jesus is going to clean up, kick out, squash or bless or bring about before he returns.

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If death is the final enemy and that happens when he returns, there's a lot that's going to happen before that while we wait on the perfect fulfillment of all things.

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Jesus is going to even use his church and his kingdom to bring more life, more flourishing, more faith, more worshipers on this earth as demonstrated throughout the entire

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Bible as we've shown so far. So as we close, I just want to give a little bit of a glimpse.

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Yes, we know that Christ is going to return in the end. No, we are not full preterist. No, we do not believe that this is heaven on earth.

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We believe that that more is coming, that he's going to bring about the eternal state in the future.

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But while we wait, what does the Bible say is going to happen in this new world? What is this new world going to accomplish?

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What is it going to bring about? We know that it began with 12 people and now it's 2 .5 billion. We know that it began in one city and now it fills cities in every country on earth.

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So what else is going to happen while we sit and wait and while we work and labor in this new world that Christ has given us?

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Well, let's start with 2 Peter 3 .13 where he promises. But according to his promise, we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

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Now, it's easy to look at a passage like this and say, oh, these are future things. New heaven and new earth are future things.

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That's not the way Peter talks about it. He talks about the fact that he was looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth in his imminent future.

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But he, if he were alive today, would be living in the new heaven and the new earth, which is where we are currently living.

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And you're like, how are we living in the new heaven and the new earth? How is that something that came about during the advent of the church?

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Well, Peter says that when the new heaven and the new earth come, it's going to be when righteousness has already been established by faith in Christ.

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And that has already happened. In Christ, his people who are called to spread

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Jesus' blessing to the ends of the earth now through faith in Christ are not waiting on righteousness to be established.

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That is the glorious gift that has already been given in our justification by faith, which means that, and I can show this to you in Revelation chapter 20 and 21.

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I can show this to you in Ezekiel and Isaiah. The new heavens and the new earth are not future realities, but they're synonyms for the new world that Jesus has already inaugurated and has already bringing.

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We've been talking about the rise of the new world. The new world comes when the new heavens and the new earth come.

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We are living right now in the time period of the new heaven and the new earth, according to Peter.

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This is also echoed by John in 1 John 2, 8, when he says this, at the same time, it is a new commandment that I am writing to you, which is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining.

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The passing away of the old world darkness was in the immediate future of John and the other apostles.

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They were looking forward to the cataclysmic end of the old Jewish world that happened just a few years after they wrote these letters.

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But knowing this, we should not expect that these promises are in our future since the true light of Christ has already come.

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The true light of Christ is already shining in the church and has been shining unabated and unrivaled for the last 2000 years.

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The old world of darkness has gone away and John tells us that a new world of light has come.

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1 John 2, 17 tells us and the world is passing away along with its desires.

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But whoever does the will of God abides forever. There, John explicitly tells us that the old world of Judaism is passing away but that it has, once it is fully passed away at the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the priesthood and the abrogation of the entire old covenant order, we have confidence that a new era, a new world has come by the power of the spirit of God to do the will of God and those works will abide forever.

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The church will continue until it has accomplished everything that God determined for it to accomplish.

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Remember, Paul tells us he must reign until he's put all of his enemies under his feet. When Paul says,

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Jesus must reign, he communicates that Jesus's reign is necessary. And when Paul says until, he gives us a timeline for how long this new world is going to last.

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And when he says all his enemies, he means that the new world is going to last until God, through Christ, by the spirit and through his church has put away all opposition, rebellion and sin and all of that has been placed firmly under the feet of Christ.

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This new world that Jesus has brought will continue and to the entire world has been made joyfully

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Christian, which is the logical conclusion of what Paul and the rest of the general epistles have been saying.

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Dear listener, it is an absolutely fantastic and wonderful time to be alive.

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We have journeyed through the scriptures from the echoes of the old world to the resounding triumphs of the new world in Christ.

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We've seen how Jesus' coming marked the decisive end of the old covenant and the glorious dawn of the new.

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We've explored how his old, his new world is infinitely better, more expansive, more unstoppable.

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But now I want us to end with taking that knowledge and turning it into action.

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See, it's not enough for us to believe that God put away the old world of Judaism and he rose up the new world that is alive in Christ and his church.

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And that's great. I'm glad we understand that now, but we have to understand what that means and what it means for us as people.

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It does not make us passive by knowing these things. He's not saved us so that we could sit idly by waiting for the world to end.

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Not at all. The time for the world endings happened 1 ,954 years ago in AD 70.

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Now, now that we're 1 ,954 years from that day, now is the time for work.

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Now is the time for world building. Now is the time for us to live dynamically in this kingdom that cannot be shaken.

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Now's the time for us to have confidence that we can move and work and do things and knowing that we will never be defeated.

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That we are more than conquerors in Jesus Christ because of him who loved us. That he has overcome the world through his death, burial, resurrection and putting down the old way.

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That we will keep advancing. That the gates of hell will keep on falling as we advance until all of the residue of the old world failure and curse and sin has been eliminated or transformed into his new world glory.

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He has called you and I not to be passive, not to be benchwarmers and not to be cowards hiding our head in the sand like ostriches.

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He has called us to be active participants in this grand sweeping redemption.

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He has called us to be the hands and feet, the light in the darkness, the salt in the unsalty places.

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He's called us to be a part of building his universal temple as living stones that's going to fill the entire cosmos with the glory and the praise of God.

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This is not a time for pessimism. This is not a time for sluggardness. This is not a time for laziness.

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This is not a time for brow beating and navel gazing. This is a time for entrepreneurialism.

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This is a time for building and claiming and retaking and worshiping and glorifying and praising and dominion.

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We stand on the precipice of history and looking back at the faithfulness of those who have come before us, knowing that if we're faithful in our generation, our world will bow the knee to Christ like their world did as well.

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Our world will be shaken apart at the seams. Our world will be flipped and turned upside down. Are we ready to take on that mantle?

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Are we ready to repent of the satanic lie that the enemy has been propagating and pumping into our churches like sewage?

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That defeatism and dispensationalism are true. Are we ready to become the first church, the first generation of Christians in 75 years to tuck or to un -pull our head out from between our legs and to advance instead of being in retreat?

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Are we ready to storm the gates of hell and watch them fall down, which includes building hell -proof men, building hell -proof women, hell -proof children, hell -proof marriages, hell -proof families, hell -proof businesses, hell -proof churches, hell -proof magistrates, hell -proof governments?

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You get my point. Are we ready to take the gospel everywhere en route to a hell -vanquished world?

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Brothers and sisters, we're living in a world that is still groaning under the weight of sin and brokenness. But we are not without hope because you and I have the hope.

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We are the chosen people of God. We are the ones who've been filled with the Holy Spirit of God.

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We are the ones who've been equipped with his word, his powerful word that will not return void.

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We are the ones who've been given the mission to disciple the nations. We are the ones who proclaim the excellencies of him who called us out of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of his marvelous light.

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We have not been given divine suggestions or well -wishes by Jesus, but we've been given a task that cannot fail because he cannot lose.

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And he will keep us from stumbling until the very end when he has all glory, all dominion, all power forever and ever.

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Amen. He's the one who's gonna lead us into one victory after another, after another, after another.

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That's 1 Corinthians 15, 57. With that, brothers and sisters, let us be the kind of people who rise to the moment, who rise to the occasion with hearts full of courage and conviction.

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Let us be men and women and children who labor tirelessly for the kingdom of our

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Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, knowing that our labor is never in vain. 1 Corinthians 15, 58.

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And because of that, let us be bold. Let us proclaim. Let us pray. Let us be steadfast in our discipleship, unwavering in our hope.

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The world needs to see the glory of the risen Christ and it's only gonna see it if it sees it on us.

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Remember, we are a part of the story that is far greater than our fears and our insecurities and our failures.

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We are a part of a story that began in Genesis and continues down all the way to us today who are citizens of a kingdom that will never be shaken, never be destroyed, and with a king who will never be dethroned or destroyed.

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We are on a mission that cannot fail because it is blessed, confirmed, and strengthened by Almighty God. Every declaration of the gospel, every faithful Lord's Day service, every administration of baptism in the

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Lord's table, every act of Christian love, every word of truth, every step of faith, every prayer, every family worship is building bricks for this kingdom that will never fade.

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That is our mission and that is our plan until the

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Lord's glory has covered the earth as the water covers the sea. That's our calling and that's our destiny.

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So brothers and sisters, let us get to work. And until next time, God richly bless you.

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We'll see you again on the podcast. Thank you so much for watching another episode of the podcast.

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This content is so good and it gives us such joy to know that we, as long as we seek first the kingdom of Christ and His righteousness, that we cannot fail, that we cannot lose.

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Praise God for everything that He's done for us in Christ. And my encouragement to you is to get to work.

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Get to work in whatever way that you can in whatever capacity that you can, but do things that are going to build the kingdom.

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Don't build things that are going to fade, that moth and rust are going to destroy. Don't spend your life building your castle so that at the end of your life, you can have a seashell collection in Costa Rica.

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Build your life on the unchangeable and unstoppable promises of God. Build His kingdom.

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Build His kingdom into your children. Build His kingdom into your marriage. Build His kingdom into your sex, your entertainment, everything.

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Build His kingdom into everything that you do so that His kingdom will come and it will knock down the gates of hell that have been proliferating in this godless culture.

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Until next time, brothers and sisters, be richly blessed. Thank you for supporting this show.

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We've now blown past 1 ,000 subscribers. We're at 1 ,150 something at this point. All praise, all glory to God.

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Let's keep getting this message out to more people so that more people will stop crying about how bad the world is and will join us in getting to work to see it redeemed.