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- We are to preach the gospel to an unbelieving world. That should be an obvious mission for the church, right?
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- But have you considered that we should also be sharing the gospel with believers in this world, when we understand the text?
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- You're listening to When We Understand the Text, a five -minute Bible commentary so we may know the things freely given to us by God.
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- Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. I want to come back to a couple of verses that I finished with yesterday.
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- Romans chapter 1, verses 14 and 15. Paul wrote, When we read the word barbarians, we tend to think of like a
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- Dark Ages sort of a character, probably influenced by the most famous barbarian of them all, Conan the
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- Barbarian. But a barbarian is simply somebody who didn't understand the Greek language.
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- Paul wanted everyone to hear the gospel, whether they spoke his language or not. Now that's an obvious mission for an apostle of Christ to have, right?
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- Getting the gospel to unbelievers so they might repent and be saved. But then verse 15 says,
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- Meaning the Christians in the church in Rome that he is writing to. Why preach the gospel to those who are already followers of Jesus?
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- It's because the gospel is not just a call to saving faith. It's also a call to continue the walk of faith.
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- We never graduate from the gospel. Don't ever think of the gospel as this way you get saved and then you graduate from it and start your
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- Christian career by learning other things. A lot of preachers in America teach this way. They act like the gospel is something evangelist and sidewalk preachers use.
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- But what you need is to follow these five points. Five points to a better marriage. Five points to better parenting.
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- Five points to a better budget. Those kinds of sermons have their time and place. A lot of people need to hear what the
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- Bible says about marriage. But even topical sermons like these need to be underscored with the gospel because when it comes down to it, you can't do five points to a better whatever.
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- You're going to mess up around point three or four. In fact, you already messed up before you even started.
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- What you need is the message of God's grace through his son who came into our fallen world, took on human flesh, lived a righteous life, died on the cross for our sins so that we have right standing with God, came back from the grave so that we can live forever with him, and there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
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- We need constant reminders of that message. Having our hope in Christ renewed and restored.
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- Even though this world will condemn us, God does not condemn us. Nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.
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- If Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever, Hebrews 13, 8, then his opinion about you today has not changed from his opinion about you yesterday, nor will it ever.
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- Jesus said, I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you. You are a child of the living
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- God. Remember that. This world is toxic. We can filter some things from getting in, and we should.
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- Go back to the instruction in Philippians 4, 8 and read about some of the things we should invest our minds in, but no matter what we do, we can't keep all of it out.
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- Some of that worldliness, that toxicity is going to get in there. We're going to get tempted.
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- We're going to sin. We're going to feel downtrodden and hopeless, and we need constant reminders of the gospel to wash out that toxicity, letting the spirit cleanse us again and make us new.
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- Paul said to the Corinthians that we carry in our bodies the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in us.
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- The spirit that raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us into his repentance, so we do not lose heart.
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- 2 Corinthians 2, 16. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day, for this light momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen, for the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
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- God is faithful to fulfill his promises. Remember this, and we are reminded of this when we hear the gospel.
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- Preach that message to unbelievers. Encourage the believers also. Daily transcripts of these devotionals can be found at our website www .wutt
