Romans 7:25-8:4 Conscience, Condemnation, and Christ

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Pastor Steve Cooley, Romans 7:25-8:4 Conscience, Condemnation, and Christ

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Again. Somebody reminded me this morning, and please open your
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Bibles to Romans chapter 7. Somebody reminded me that verse 25 of chapter 7 is the last verse, which is a pretty profound reminder.
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Steve, why are you doing that? And well, because, you know, footnotes, the verse and chapter divisions are not inspired.
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And sometimes it's helpful to start at the end of a chapter and continue on. So that's what we're going to do this morning.
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Now, here we are in the Christmas season. In fact, I was watching the graphics there on that thing, and it didn't look like giant banks of snow being windblown and stuff.
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And I thought, are they just trying to make us colder? Christmas.
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We're almost there. I don't know where November went, really. I mean, it was just like here and gone.
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But I have a question for you. Who is George Bailey? What are your first thoughts when you think of George Bailey?
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Won't you go home, George Bailey? Somebody said, no, that's not right. Jimmy Stewart.
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I see we have many pagans here this morning. For the movie, A Wonderful Life.
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And, you know, I was thinking about the theology of that movie. You know, I forget exactly the line, but, you know, it's something like when they do a good deed, the angels get their wings.
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And I'm like, all six of them? It's bad theology. OK, now, you know, the movie, do you know who directed it?
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I heard Frank. So Frank Capra is correct. I just thought, you know, George Bailey. The theme of the movie is this, for those who haven't seen it.
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Things go wrong. I mean, there's this series of events that cascade, and it gets worse and worse and worse.
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And as he thinks about his circumstances, what does he do? He despairs of life.
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And he says, I wish I'd never been born. That's kind of a theme of the holidays, where people ruminate on their circumstances in life.
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They just pour over their problems, all the difficulties of life. Sometimes they despair even of living.
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In fact, there's this common idea that depression, even suicide, ramps up during the holidays.
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So I looked it up because I was going to prove that that was true. And guess what? It's not true. I guess that's good, right?
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But this is a season where we kind of take stock of our lives. We think about where we are, where we thought we might be.
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I mean, the other day when we were having Thanksgiving, I'm really thankful for where I am.
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But not everybody is. George Bailey had a sense of failure, a sense that everything he had done had been a waste of time.
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And of course, the movie, which is hopelessly man -centered, proves that he's wrong, that he's really just a great guy and everybody loves him and rallies around him and all that.
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I mean, it's interesting that you could have a movie with angels and really no God whatsoever. But let me read our text this morning.
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And we're going to see, ultimately, as we walk through this this morning, that Paul is introspective, that he focuses on, often, his failures, not so much on his successes.
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He could despair of life, but he doesn't. Why not?
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The answer is in the text. Romans 7 verses, well, verse 25, and then we'll go into chapter 8.
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Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord. So then
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I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh,
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I serve the law of sin. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
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For the law of the spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.
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For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do.
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By sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk, not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit.
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I've just been, you know, you might be thinking, why are we in Acts this morning? Because I've been fixated by these verses for a couple of months.
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And in fact, last week when Pastor Mike was preaching, I got a little scared that he was going to go to this passage because of where the whole sermon was going.
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I was like, I told him afterwards, I go, I was really afraid you were going to blow the whole thing for me, but he didn't.
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So just to kind of set us up for where we are, if we think about Romans, the book of Romans, the epistle to the church at Rome, chapter one, the power of God unto salvation is the gospel, right?
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It's the power of the gospel. And then we see in the rest of chapter one, the spiral of sin.
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What happens when men suppress the truth and unrighteousness, which is to say they hold it down.
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They ignore what is going on in their conscience and they just do whatever they want and God gives them over to further and further depravity.
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I mean that, as you probably heard the sermon before that, you know, tells the tale of our world right now.
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Romans chapters two and three tell us about the universal condemnation of all mankind, both
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Jew and Gentile, the ones who have the law and the ones who don't, they all violate
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God's law. They need the gospel. Romans chapter four tells us, I mean, this is brief,
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I can, you know, we're not going to preach all of Romans this morning. Romans chapter four tells us that salvation is through faith, faith alone and not by works.
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And Paul gives us the example of Abraham who was justified not by works, but by faith.
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Romans five tells us how God through Christ brought peace to those who believe in Christ.
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Jesus, the second Adam reconciled us to God, reversing the curse brought upon us by the first Adam.
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Adam fell, plunging the entire human race into sin.
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Jesus Christ, though tempted, never sinned. And so all who are in Christ are delivered from the curse of the first Adam.
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Romans six tells us that freedom from the power of sin, which
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Christ has purchased for us, is not a license to sin, but an opportunity to express gratitude by obedience.
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And we come to chapter seven. This morning I have three
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C's for you so that you might as believers have joy, even in the most withering bits of self -examination, no matter how bad you think you are.
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There's hope for you if you are in Christ. As unbelievers, no matter how bad you are,
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I'm here to assure you that the reality is worse. To put it differently,
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Paul answers three questions here this morning, which help us sort through this most important question.
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In light of all my sins, in light of all your sins, how can you possibly go to heaven?
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Isn't that the issue? In light of everything that we've done, how could we possibly go to heaven?
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So I have three questions that I'll ask in conjunction with these C's so we could see the answers that are furnished to us in Christ.
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So first, conscience, Paul's conscience is afflicted.
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And the question is, how can Paul or how can you, how can I possibly offer thanks after acknowledging repeatedly that he fails?
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He does that right away. Thanks be, he says. But in Romans 7, he just talks about his failures.
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And by the way, there is great debate among scholars about Romans 7. What was
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Paul thinking about when he wrote it? Is this, you know, there are several different theories. Is this
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Paul's life before he got saved? Is that what he's talking about? Because it's kind of scandalous, all the ways he describes his sin or all the, all the problems he has.
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There's another theory that maybe it's about a hypothetical unbeliever, not a real case, just kind of a test case, an example.
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And another possibility, I mean, there are multiples, but I'm just giving you three. Paul is describing his life as a believer, his post -salvation life.
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And that's the option I believe is correct. And let me give you some reasons. This is Paul in Romans 7, struggling, describing his
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Christian life and saying, I'm not perfect. First reason, there is frequent use of I and me.
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In fact, in verses 7 through 9, there's five times it's him, you know, he says
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I or me five times in those three verses alone, which puts a real crimp in the hypothetical person.
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Second, he consistently speaks throughout the chapter in the present tense, not the past tense, not like he used to do these things.
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He talks about now, right now, this is my life. This is an ongoing reality. This is an ongoing struggle for Paul.
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And may I just say that as we read it, we can identify with Paul, why? Because we kind of think the same things.
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We have the same struggles. Look at Romans 7, 15 and noticing in the use of I and the present tense, for I do not understand my own actions, for I do not do what
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I want, but I do the very thing I hate. You know, when
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I was in the army in Okinawa, I had a little problem and that problem was I couldn't wake up.
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I had, I had different shifts and long shifts. And like,
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I think when I first got there, it was like 10 days on of 12 hour shifts and one day off. No overtime,
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United States Army. And I was like, I'm going to get in trouble if I don't start waking up on time.
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So I went to the PX and I, I looked at the various clocks and I got one.
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How many of you have ever owned something called Big Ben? Now for those who are laughing, you know, you're kind of, maybe you do know it was a wind up clock.
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And I just thought, well, how loud can this thing possibly be? It would terrify me.
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That thing would go off and there was no way I could go back to sleep, you know, and I would set it across the room.
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So it was like terror, right? And I'd run across the room to shut it off.
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And I bring that up because I think in a very real sense, Paul's alarm was going off like, you know, his conscience was going off like a
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Big Ben clock. He, he was, he hated what he was doing. His conscience was working overtime.
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It was ringing loudly in a very personal way.
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He expresses bewilderment at his own actions. I don't understand why
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I don't do what I want and I do what I don't want. He knows the law of God, right?
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This is a Pharisee of Pharisees, Hebrew of the Hebrews. So he knows what the standard is.
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He knows what he wants to do, but he fails to do it. He also knows what he doesn't want to do.
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And actually he says he hates it, which is violating the law of God. And yet he does it.
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Is any surprise in first Timothy chapter one that he describes himself, what as the chief of sinners or the foremost of sinners?
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Why? Because he has all this training, all this knowledge, and he still fails. He still sins.
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He knows that there is nothing in him. We see this in Philippians, nothing in him worth boasting about.
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So back to Romans seven, verse 16. Now if I do what I do not want, and he's already said that he does.
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I agree with the law that it is good. Wait a second.
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What's he saying? Here's what he's saying. He says, I see the law. I know that it's good and I fail.
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So I'm agreeing with the law that what I'm doing is wrong. But that word agree,
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Leon Morris Scholar says, it means more like rejoicing in my inner being.
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Why is he rejoicing? Because he's thinking like a Christian. He's thinking,
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I see God's perfect standard. I fail. Why does that make him rejoice? Rejoice not because he thinks, yes,
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I failed again, but because he knows
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God's standard is perfect and he knows that his debt is paid.
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Let me ask you this. I mean, it's a reminder, right? When we hate what we do, when we hate our sin, it's a reminder that we belong to Christ.
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Do unbelievers hate sin? No. What do they hate?
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They hate the consequences of their sin. They hate being caught in sin, but they don't hate sin itself.
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So Paul's able to rejoice because he just thinks it's good that I hate my sin. It's a good reminder that I belong to him.
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When you think about Paul, do you suppose, you know, because sometimes what's our response to sin?
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Our response to sin is, I'm not praying enough.
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I'm not reading the scripture enough. I'm not evangelizing enough.
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I'm not serving enough. Could those things be true? Yes, absolutely.
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Could we do better? Yes. Do you think Paul might be a better prayer than you?
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Do you think he might be a more avid student of scripture than you? Do you think he might evangelize more than you?
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Do you think he might have served in churches more than you? Sorry, but I think the answer is probably yes.
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The answer isn't, now none of those things are bad. They're all good. But the answer to our sin problem might help, but the ultimate answer isn't in those things.
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We know that because we look to Paul and see that even though he's doing all those things, he still sins.
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We want our works to do something and they might, they might help sanctify us, but our complete sanctification isn't happening in this life.
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Paul knew what he wanted to do, but he failed. He knew what he didn't want to do, but he did it anyway.
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And as Paul's doing this bit of introspection, he hits maybe his lowest point at Romans 7, 24.
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Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death?
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Paul should just walk into a bookstore, go to the self -help section and figure out how to fix his self -esteem.
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This poor guy, what a low view of himself. I mean, that wretched man could mean miserable, but he's not pitying himself.
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This is just an honest self -assessment. He looks at himself and he says, given all that I know, how could
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I do these things? I mean, today, what would somebody likely tell him?
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Come on, Paul, forgive yourself. Move on. Don't be so hard on yourself.
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Let me just say this about self -forgiveness. What does that mean? I forgive myself.
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Against me only have I sinned? No. There is no sin against yourself.
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When you sin, it's against the holy God. The idea of forgiving yourself is absolute foolishness, unbiblical, wrong.
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But when we think of this idea of conscience, we really are, as Christians, we're kind of in a spiritual civil war within ourselves.
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Christians hate their sin and they long to be delivered from it. You know, why is it sometimes that we pray, even as it was prayed or sung this morning, you know, come
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Lord Jesus, why? Because we want to be ultimately delivered from it.
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But as Paul says here, or as he kind of implies, when he asked for a deliverer, right?
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Who will deliver me from this body of death? What does he say? What's he saying? He knows that he can't do it.
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It's not up to him. He needs someone outside of himself to do it. I like the
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NET, the net version of Romans 7, 24, it says, who will rescue me from this body of death?
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It's the same verbs, just a different nuance there. It is the soul of Paul, which needs to be rescued because it's trapped in a body that's hopelessly tainted, infected by sin.
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Even though Paul is saved, he still has a sin nature, as do we all, which wars against the work of the
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Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit is sanctifying us. And what are we doing in response? Sometimes we're going with the sanctification, we're serving, we're reading, we're praying, we're doing those things.
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And sometimes we are sinning. And that fight, that civil war, as it were, will go on until we die.
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So what do we do then? Do we just ignore our sin? Do we just kind of call it a slip up or a mistake?
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No, no, absolutely not. We're not antinomians, we're not against the law.
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We don't consider sin a light thing. We don't just brush it off. We acknowledge our need for rescue, for a rescuer, one who will deliver us from our wretchedness.
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John Stott said this, he said, the unbeliever is characterized by self -righteousness and would never acknowledge himself a miserable creature like Paul did.
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The immature believer is characterized by self -confidence and does not ask who is going to deliver him.
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Only the mature believer reaches the place both of self -disgust and self -despair.
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Only the mature believer reaches the place both of self -disgust and of self -despair.
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So how does Paul respond to his utter inability to rescue himself? We read it, verse 25, by praising his rescuer, by praising his rescuer, the triune
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God. Listen, thanks be to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Paul does not hope that God can deliver him.
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He declares what he knows to be true. What has already happened, he's already been rescued.
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He's not yet delivered from the body of death, but he's delivered from the burden of his sin.
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The reality of that future delivery causes him to proclaim or to exclaim his thanksgiving.
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And look at verse 25 again, the second half of it, so then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind and with my flesh,
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I serve the law of sin. Again, it seems a little confusing, doesn't it? So then, could be thought of as therefore.
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He summarizes basically chapter 7, the struggle that's been going on there, where his flesh refers to his sin nature inherited from Adam.
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He says there's no escape from sin, from the sin nature in this life.
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Sanctification is a process, not instantaneous, but it is assured.
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Commentator Cranfield says this, this comment sums up with clear -sided honesty, the tension with all its real anguish,
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Paul is anguished, and also its real hopefulness in which the
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Christian never ceases to be involved so long as he is living this present life.
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Are you struggling with sin? Ever feel overwhelmed by it? Do you find yourself thinking you're unworthy of what
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Christ has done? You're right. That's the
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Christian life. It's not a life of presumption or arrogance, but it is a life of faith, trusting in the one born of the
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Virgin Mary so that he would not have a sin nature. So, first we've seen conscience, then the question, how can
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Paul possibly offer thanks after acknowledging repeatedly that he fails? And the answer is because he has a rescuer,
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Christ Jesus. Second, condemnation, second
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C, condemnation. Why is Paul confident despite his failures?
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Why is he confident despite the fact that he stands condemned? Well, chapter eight is amazing.
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Guess how many imperatives there are, how many commands are there in chapter eight? If you said one, that's one too many.
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The answer is zero. No imperatives. So anybody who wants to get up and whack you with chapter eight is really going to have a hard time.
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Nothing for you to do. It's just praising God this whole chapter. There are also 21 references to the
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Holy Spirit, 21 scholars have written that this chapter begins with no condemnation and ends with no separation, right?
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Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. And in between there is no defeat.
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So no condemnation, no separation, and in the middle, no defeat.
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Why? Because it's not based on us. This is the work of the triune God. This is the work of the
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Holy Spirit in us, applying the finished work of Christ to us. The short answer for Paul's confidence, because he knows who
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God is and what he has done. He's not basing his confidence on his own personal performance.
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I mean, he's just spent the better part of chapter seven describing how he fails. He's like, you know,
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I'm not, I'm, I'm getting closer to keeping the law. No. Again, back to verse one, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
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No condemnation. The therefore doesn't merely refer back to chapter seven, but the whole argument that he's made, all of it's about the necessity and the provision of salvation in Christ.
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In fact, if you wanted to walk here, the Romans road, as it's called, we could easily do it.
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And I'm going to do it briefly. If we just think about Romans three 23, all have sinned and fall short the glory of God.
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Paul's writing that he's also including himself as he illustrates in Romans chapter seven, Romans six 23, the wages of sin.
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In other words, what we deserve for the sin that we commit and we all sin is death.
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It's both temporal and eternal death that we deserve. In other words, we deserve hell, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our
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Lord Romans five four. If while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, much more now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life?
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Jesus Christ overcame the work of the first Adam, the failure of the first Adam lived a perfect life, died on behalf of sin.
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He reconciled us to the father. He brought us back onto speaking terms as it were.
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Even the resurrection is declared in chapters one and chapter six of Romans.
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So when he says beginning of verse eight or chapter eight, that there's no condemnation he's talking about, or he's summarizing all there's therefore now he's summarizing all what's going on in seven chapters because of Christ's sinless life, substitutionary and sacrificial death and resurrection, there is now no condemnation for whom, for anyone?
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No, for those who were in Christ. And now means of course, it's a current reality.
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If you're sitting right here right now, if you're listening on the internet, if you have trusted
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Jesus for salvation, that now is for you. Like Paul, you will be delivered from the presence of sin upon death.
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But right now you have the sure promise of heaven. To be absent from the body is to be present with the
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Lord. No condemnation is a marvelous promise.
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Why? Because it's the opposite of what you've earned, right?
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The wages of sin is, we just read, death. That's condemnation, eternity in hell.
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What does it mean to be condemned? Hendrickson says that justification is the opposite of condemnation.
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In other words, guilty, condemned, boom. The opposite of that is righteous.
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You were condemned, but not anymore. I was thinking about the service this morning and I thought how apropos that we sang his robes for mine because that's the idea.
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We get his righteousness in exchange for our sin. Thomas Matten, the
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Puritan, wrote this. He said, for believers, this truth provides freedom from the terror of judgment.
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We're not fearing judgment. That freedom is rooted in Christ's atoning work.
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It reminds us that salvation is entirely a work of grace and those united to Christ are eternally secure.
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And the good news does not end there. Look at verse two. For the law of the spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.
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Now what is the law of the spirit of life? Well, first of all, we know that the
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Holy Spirit is the giver of life. He's described there a number of, or a number of ways there.
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I think it was in one of the creeds I was reading this morning in the restroom.
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That he is the giver of life, right? He's frequently mentioned in the scriptures as the source of life.
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So what's his law? Well, if we just think about it as his rule, or as scholar
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Morris says, the presence of the spirit is the distinguishing mark of the
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Christian. And this presence means the defeat of the power of sin. In other words, the rule of the spirit, the law of the spirit is freedom from the law of sin and death.
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He sets us free. Does God, the
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Holy Spirit take note of our salvation and justification, then leave us on our own? The answer is no.
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As Calvin said, justification and sanctification are irrevocably linked.
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You cannot be justified and not be indwelt by the spirit. And when you're indwelt by the spirit, sanctification begins.
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He takes up residence in us. Again, Manson says the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus frees believers from sin's power and dominion.
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The indwelling Holy Spirit enables a life of holiness, not through compulsion, but through a new inward delight in God's law.
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In other words, Christians are no longer under the yoke of sin and death. They're no longer slaves of sin, right?
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We know that. They are now free to view the law of God rightly, to love the law of God, to realize they fall short and to want to obey out of sheer gratitude for their salvation, guilt, grace, gratitude.
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We don't ignore the law of God. We want to obey out of gratitude. So first we've seen conscience, then condemnation.
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Second question, why is Paul confident despite his failures? Because he has been rescued.
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He's been rescued by Christ and indwelt by the Holy Spirit. So third C, third question, third
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C is Christ. Third question, what has God done for his people? Well, he sent
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Christ to suffer for us. He sent Christ to suffer for us. Why?
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Because we created a debt. Look at verse three. For God has done what the law weakened by the flesh could not do.
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Now, is there anything wrong with the law of God? No, of course not. So what does it mean weakened by the flesh?
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That somehow we chiseled away at the law of God and made it weaker? No, it means that we are weak.
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We cannot obey the law of God because we are spiritual weak links. We never go to the spiritual gym as it were.
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I've mentioned Adam's sin, original sin. And because of original sin, we are incapable of keeping the law.
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Incapable on our own of keeping the law. We enter the world dead, spiritually speaking.
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I mean, have you ever heard anyone describe a dead person as at that moment, while they're dead, strong?
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No, they were strong in life, maybe physically strong. But dead people are not. We would know this.
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Dead people can't do anything. They have no physical strength. Spiritually dead people have no spiritual strength.
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And unless the spirit of life grants a new heart, there is no spiritual strength.
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All unsaved people do, all they can do, even in their best moments, is sin.
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They break the law constantly, creating a sin debt they could never pay.
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But because God is compassionate, kind, filled with loving kindness, he solved our sin problem for us.
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He sent Christ to pay the debt. Look at verse three again, the second half of it. By sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh.
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Now, again, a little bit confusing language. But first notice that God didn't just send a son.
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He didn't send just one of many sons. He sent his own son, the eternal son.
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The one with whom he's always had perfect fellowship, a perfect love.
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And it's important for us to note that God did not send his son in sinful flesh, but in the likeness of sinful flesh.
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Listen to John's thought. He says, not in sinful flesh, because the flesh of Jesus was sinless.
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Nor in the likeness of flesh, right? Just appearing to have a body, because the flesh of Jesus was real.
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But in the likeness of sinful flesh, because the flesh of Jesus was both sinless and real, sinless and real.
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Had to be sinless to bear our sin, to take our sin upon himself.
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And real, because only a real man could pay the price for sin.
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Then back to the text, and for our sin, and for sin. In other words, as the single perfect and permanent payment for the sins of all who would ever believe.
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He, God, condemned sin in the flesh. What flesh?
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Of Jesus on the cross. Jesus takes that sin upon himself, and God condemns it.
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God judges it on Jesus. And if he does not judge Jesus for our sins on the cross, then there's no hope for us.
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Now notice also that he, Jesus, fulfilled the law for us in verse four.
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In order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us. Who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit.
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If I say God is righteous, I'll probably get amen. We know that, we understand that.
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He is perfect, so everything he does is good and right. His law requires personal, perfect, perpetual obedience.
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Personal, perfect, perpetual obedience. And what we see here in this verse four is very similar, although it's not as clear maybe as 2
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Corinthians 521. Let me just read that familiar verse. For our sake he,
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God, made him, Jesus, to be sin who knew no sin. So that in him, in Christ, we might become the righteousness of God.
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It's the very same concept. God cannot overlook our sin. That would be unrighteous.
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So he sees the condemnation of his own son on the cross as the condemnation of the believer.
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And therefore judges the debt paid. Our sins on him.
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Debt paid. And because we are in Christ, we no longer live as the world lives.
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Because we have the Holy Spirit residing in us. He is our seal keeping us until the moment we receive our inheritance.
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So we don't walk according to the flesh, but according to the spirits. We don't do whatever we want.
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We've got the spirit working in us to sanctify us, to conform us into the image of Christ.
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So now as we began today talking about George Bailey and this season of introspection and of thinking ruminating over our lives, it's fine.
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Do that. But don't forget to do what Paul did. Don't forget to think, man, left to my own devices.
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Left to my own whims and desires. I'm done. I'm cooked.
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I'm finished. Thanks be to God. That's what we should be thinking.
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In this season of Thanksgiving of joy, we should be thinking, thank you,
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Father, that I have a redeemer, one who died for me, one who loved me, one who took my sin to the cross.
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And then you raised him on the third day that I might know my sins are paid for. The Puritan John Flavel said this.
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Oh, what a life of delight and pleasure does the assured believer live. What pleasure it is to him to look back and consider where he once was and where he now is.
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To look forward and consider where he now is and where shortly he shall be.
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He continues, I was in my sins. I am now in Christ. I am in Christ now.
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I shall be with Christ and that forever after a few days. I was upon the brink of hell.
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I am now upon the very borders of heaven. I shall be in a very little while among the innumerable company of angels and glorified saints, bearing part with them in the song of Moses and of the
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Lamb forevermore. Amen. Let's pray. Father, what a joy it is to think that you would redeem a people for yourself.
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Though our deeds are black as night, though there's nothing good in us, nothing to commend us, you being filled with compassion and mercy, sent your
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Son, the eternal Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to do for us what we could never do for ourselves.
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Father, as we enter into the season where his birth is celebrated, the message of Christmas is not that a baby came into this world.
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The message is that the eternal Son, the eternal God, took on an additional nature of man, dwelt among us, died for our sin, and then was raised on the third day.
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That's the message of Christmas. We thank you and praise you for that. Help us to fulfill it, we pray.