Sermon for Lord's Day November 27, 2022 Luke 19:48 (Hanging on to the words of Jesus)

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Sermon for Lord's Day November 27, 2022 Luke 19:48 (Hanging on to the words of Jesus)

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And actually, let's read into chapter 20 to verse 8 as well.
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Stand with us, if you would, to honor the reading of God's Holy Word. Luke chapter 19, beginning in verse 47, these are the words of the living
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God. He was teaching daily in the temple. Chief priests and the scribes and the principal men of the people were seeking to destroy
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Him, but they did not find anything that they could do, for all the people were hanging on His words.
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And one day as Jesus was teaching in the temple and preaching the gospel, the chief priests and the scribes with the elders came up and said to Him, Tell us by what authority
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You do these things, or who is it that gave You this authority? He answered them,
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I also will ask you a question. Now tell me, was the baptism of John from heaven or from man?
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And they discussed it with one another, saying, If we say from heaven, He will say, Why did you not believe
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Him? But if we say from man, all the people will stone us to death, for they are convinced that John was a prophet.
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So they answered that they did not know where it came from. And Jesus said to them,
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Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things. Thus far is the reading of God's holy word.
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Let's go to the Lord together in prayer. Our Heavenly Father, as we come before Your throne one more time today,
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God, we come so grateful for this privilege and for this honor of being able to be gathered together in Your house with Your people, examining the truth of Your word.
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Thank You, Lord, today for the fellowship of the gospel. I thank You, Lord, for the fellowship of Your Holy Spirit, how
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You unite Your people together under the banner of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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And what a joy it is for us to open up the word of God, to see what
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You have said, to grow in grace and in knowledge, dear Lord, so that to the end,
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You and You alone might receive glory and honor and praise in Your church, for that is what we are.
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We are Your church, for it is in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen.
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I wanted to read into chapter 20 there just to give us a little bit more context.
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Really, the bulk of our sermon today is going to be from... it's really all going to be from verse 47 and 48, but I find that it does help for us to have a little bit more context because we see it carried along.
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Recognizing and remembering, church, that these chapter breaks and these verse breaks haven't always been in the
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Scripture. Those are aids for us to remember where stuff is and to know where to go.
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I cannot imagine it being like it was in the Old Testament times where they had scrolls and they just had to sort through line after line after line.
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But what a privilege it is that we have today to be in God's word again.
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And particularly, I'll just tell you right up front, if you're taking notes and you want to put a header on, you can put this, hanging on to the words of Jesus.
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For that is what the Scripture says. This is what we have under the inspiration of the
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Holy Spirit of God, that the people were hanging on Jesus' words. And it is our desire for you, as elders of this church, our desire for you is that as a congregation, that you hunger and that you thirst after the righteousness of God.
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That you pant -pant like was in the psalm. That you pant for God's words.
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That you desire God's decrees. That you look earnestly to the word of God.
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For the psalmist said in another place, We look unto the hills from whence come our help, for our help comes from the
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Lord. So in our time together week before last, we talked concerning why
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Christ so adamantly and why Christ so passionately ran the money changers out of the temple.
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We discussed just how great the sin of the priesthood was.
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Just how wicked and vile they were. And now here in these last two sentences of chapter 19, what
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I think we can recognize going on into chapter 20 there, is that Jesus didn't just pull a hit and run on these scribes,
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Pharisees, and the priests of the temple. He didn't just run in, knock them out, and run out.
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But he lingered there. He stayed there. And the scripture says that what he did was taught daily in the temple.
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And so a number of questions that we're going to answer, if you want to write these down ahead of time. Number one, the first question that we want to answer from the text is, what was
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Jesus teaching? What was Jesus teaching? Secondly, the second question we want to answer really is giving you an answer to the first question, but we're going to look in depth into this.
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The second question that we're going to look at is, what is the gospel of the kingdom of God?
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What is the gospel of the kingdom of God? Or what is entailed in the gospel of the kingdom of God?
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And that really in itself will be broken down into two particular ideas or topics we're going to look at.
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We're going to look at the good news and we're going to look at the word kingdom very briefly, very quickly. And then moving toward the end, we want to examine three more questions.
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Who is Jesus Christ? Who is Jesus Christ? The next question, why did
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Jesus come in the flesh? These are questions that the church of the living
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God ought to know the answer to. And we ought to be able to give an answer to those who ask us these questions.
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Why did Jesus come in the flesh? And lastly, what did Jesus' life and death accomplish?
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What did Jesus' life and death accomplish? So you'll notice on the screen, a quote by Spurgeon, we are not called to proclaim philosophy and metaphysics, but the simple gospel.
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Man's fall, his need of a new birth, forgiveness through the atonement, and salvation as the result of faith.
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These are our battle acts and weapons of war. When we, the scriptures teach us,
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Paul told the Ephesians, brethren, we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against spiritual weakness in high places.
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And he goes on to communicate the fact that we are to put on the whole armor of God, having on the helmet of salvation, having the shield of faith, having our feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, above all, taking with you the sword of, or I'm sorry, also the sword of the spirit.
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The shield of faith is to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. So as we begin to look at these questions and find the answers in the teaching of the scripture itself, primarily
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Luke's gospel, what we're going to look at first is what was Jesus teaching?
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And I believe a simple review of Luke's gospel gives us a clear definition of what
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Jesus taught. It's not hazy. It's not fuzzy. It is crystal clear.
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So notice here in the text, in verse 47, the scripture says, he was teaching daily in the temple.
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Teaching. This is what Jesus was doing. What was he doing? He was teaching.
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The Greek word here for teaching is the Dasko. I may not pronounce that right, but that's the
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Greek word there. Now the root meaning of that word carries with it. This is very good information.
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It carries with it the idea of systematic teaching or systematic training.
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Little by little, verse by verse, line by line, teaching them what the
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Old Testament scriptures taught. That is what Jesus was doing. That is what is called today expository preaching.
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That is why that our aim and our focus and our goal here is to go line by line, verse by verse through the text of scripture so that we can understand rightly what the word of God says.
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Because when we understand rightly what the word of God says, we can rightly make application of God's word and we can rightly live and rightly please
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God. So this word, the Dasko, teaching, it's the word that's used to refer to a choir director.
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A choir director who trains a choir over a long period of rehearsals until they are able to perform.
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Now in the scripture, in scripture to teach means this. To teach means to pass on the truth about the word of God.
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Do you remember that's what Luke told Theophilus? So that you may have a more excellent understanding of Jesus Christ.
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So in scripture it means to pass on the truth about the word of God. It means to be able to pass on the truth about the
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God of the word. And it means to be able to pass along the truth of what the
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Bible says about what it is to have the faith of the saints. In Jude, Jude's letter, he states that you earnestly contend for the faith which was once and for all delivered to the saints.
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There is one faith, by the matter of fact, Paul put it this way in another of his epistles. There is one faith, there is one
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Lord, there is one baptism, there is one God and there is one father of all who is in you all and through you all.
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So it is very important that we understand what Jesus was doing, he was teaching.
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He was communicating what God's word said in the Old Testament to those in the temple.
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So when we do this, our aim and our goal of teaching and of preaching is influencing the understanding and stimulating obedience to the truth of the word of God.
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A message that any preacher stands that does not call you to action, that does not call you to faith, that does not call you to repentance, is not a sermon worth hearing.
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It does nothing for us. We are called to repent of our sins, to draw near unto
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God and in promise we have that God draws near unto us.
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It is so beautiful. So expository, you heard me use that word, and someone has rightly said if a preacher isn't preaching expositorily, he's preaching suppository.
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He's still awake, right? The preacher's goal,
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Jesus' aim, was not to be given a supposed idea of what he thought the scriptures were saying, but he was teaching expositorily what the scriptures were saying line by line and verse by verse.
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So Steve Lawson made this comment about expository preaching. He said the Genevan reformer
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John Calvin explained it this way, Preaching is the public exposition of scripture by the man sent from God in which
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God himself is present in judgment and in grace. In other words,
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God is unusually present by his spirit in the preaching of his word.
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This is amazing. This is beautiful. Oh, friends, today know this.
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If you are bored when you come to God's house and if the man of God is proclaiming the word of God, whether it's quiet or loud, then there is something wrong with your heart.
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You need to get your heart right with God because the word of God is life -giving.
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It is quickening. It will humble the proud. It will bring peace to the troubled soul.
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It will give confidence and strength to those of you who are weak and downcast in your spirit.
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So he goes on to say this. God is unusually present by his spirit in the preaching of his word and such preaching always starts in a biblical text, always stays in the text, and always shows its
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God -intended meaning in a life -changing fashion. This is what
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Jesus was doing in the temple. He was presenting the word of God to the people, line by line, word upon word, truth upon truth, precept upon precept, so that they in turn would have a life -changing experience.
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The word of God changes us. Jeremiah said, Your word, O Lord, is like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces.
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That is what the word of God is like. Charles Spurgeon said this, I would rather speak five words out of this book, the
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Bible, than 50 ,000 words of the philosophers. If we want revivals, we must revive our reverence for the word of God.
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If we want conversions, we must put more of God's word into our sermons.
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This remains the crying need of the hour. So again, what was
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Jesus doing? He was teaching. He was communicating the word of God.
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Now, here is something I believe that is very, very important for us as we see what
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Jesus was doing and as we look at the idea of preaching in general in application for us today.
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Martin Lloyd -Jones said this. In short, he said, Preaching is logic on fire.
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It is logic on fire. And what he meant by that was this. He went on to say,
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The logic of preaching is the logic of the gospel, meaning it makes sense.
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According to Lloyd -Jones, the preacher is called and commissioned to focus exclusively on the content of the gospel.
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The preacher's responsibility is not to try to delve into everything in life, but to focus primarily and to give primarily to the congregation of God's people the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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This is because he believed that the Bible's fundamental message corresponds to man's fundamental need.
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So man's fundamental need is salvation from sin. The Bible's fundamental message is
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Jesus Christ come in the flesh, dying for the sins of man so that man can be reconciled unto
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God. Lloyd -Jones went on to say, Everything that goes wrong in this life does so because man is not rightly related to God.
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And what we all need above everything is the redemption that God alone can provide in which he will reconcile us to him.
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We cannot be blessed by God until we are rightly related to him.
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So what was Jesus doing? He was teaching. What role was Jesus playing here?
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He was playing the role of prophet. Does that sound familiar? Right?
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Why do we need a prophet? Because I am ignorant. Right? That is the first office of Christ, prophet,
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God to man. So here, what Jesus is doing in his last days, quote unquote, upon the earth, if you would have it, he is teaching in the temple.
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Lloyd -Jones goes on to say, There is no subject more gloriously full than the great riches of God's grace in Christ Jesus.
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Preachers do not spend their time preaching on current events or offering political opinions because they are given a limited message in that.
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True apostolic preaching does not take in those other things, for they are outside the limits of the gospel of his son.
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Yes, but within the limits, what wealth and what riches? Our treasure is too great to trifle with trivialities, meaning the things of this world are trivialities.
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They are passing away. And so what Lloyd -Jones meant when he said logic, right, the logic of the gospel, the sense of the gospel, and then he said, he called it logic on fire.
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It wasn't a dead proclamation. We do not preach to you a dead Christ.
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Your gospel message from the scriptures that you are to proclaim when you're going and passing along from day to day as God's people in simple conversations is the same gospel message.
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It is a living gospel. It is a life changing gospel. And so by fire,
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Lloyd -Jones did not simply mean an existential or a simply emotional response to any type of sentimental stimuli.
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What he meant was a specific spirit -wrought response of the heart to the mind's clear apprehension of the gospel logic.
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Listen, let me break that down in plain man's terms. When the gospel is proclaimed in truth, in its plainness, in its purity, and in its power, my friend, there does not need to be fancy accouterments added to it.
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There does not need to be words like accouterments said to make it good. It is good in and of itself because it is the message of Jesus to man.
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Lastly, Lloyd -Jones said this, reason is a very wonderful thing.
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He said, I'm not here to say a word against it. In fact, I am trying my best at this moment to reason with you.
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I try to do it always. When I preach, I do not tell stories about myself or anybody else.
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I do not just make people sing choruses and try and work them up. I reason with them.
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God forbid that I should say a word against reason. I believe reason is the gift of God to man, the thing that differentiates him from the animals.
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But reason alone does not help us at the most important points in life and with respect to the most important things.
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The gospel logic that he labored to make clear must also be made personally real.
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And when that happened, there was fire. He believed that the great aim of preaching is not simply to pass on information or even to merely make the gospel truths clear to the congregation.
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The great aim of preaching is to make the theological logic of the gospel live, to make it deeply personal.
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It is not enough to know theoretically that man is sinful. It's not enough for us to know theoretically that you and I are sinful men.
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But we must know that we are in and of ourselves actually sinful and that we have been separated from a holy
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God by our sin. But that Christ came, lived a perfect life, died an atoning death, rose bodily victoriously from the grave, ascended to the
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Father where he ever lives to make intercession for us. And so, what did
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Jesus do? He taught. What did he teach? Well, let's go to the text to see what that says.
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In Luke chapter 4, if you turn back to Luke chapter 4 and you look at verse 14, what we have from the word of God is again one of many clear examples of what
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Jesus taught. The scripture states in Luke chapter 4 in verse 14, And Jesus returned in the power of the
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Spirit to Galilee, and a report about him went out through all the surrounding country. And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up.
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And as was his custom, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read.
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And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll, and he found the place where it was written,
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The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim the good news to the poor.
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He has sent me to proclaim labyrinth liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, and to proclaim the acceptable year of the
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Lord's favor. Let's make a note here. A lot of times, and I believe even over the years,
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I've been guilty of declaring that for myself. My friend, only Jesus Christ could say this.
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This belongs to Christ in him alone. So, he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and he sat down.
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And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him, and he began to say to them, Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.
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And all spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth.
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And they said, Is not this Joseph's son? And he said to them, Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb,
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Physician, heal yourself. What we have heard you do at Capernaum, do here in your hometown as well.
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But Jesus said in truth, I tell you, there were many widows, many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heavens were shut up for three years and six months.
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And a great famine came over all the land, and Elijah was sent to none of them, but to Zarephath in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow.
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And Jesus goes on. And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha.
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And none of them were cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian. When they heard these things, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath.
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And they rose up and they drove him out of the town, and they brought him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they could throw him down the cliff.
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All for proclaiming line upon line, text upon text. In Luke chapter 4, moving on in verse 42 through 44, the scripture says,
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And when it was day, he departed. When it was day, he departed. He went into a desolate place, and the people sought him, and the people came to him, and would have kept them from leaving him.
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They were desiring his word. But he said to them, I must preach the good news of the gospel of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well.
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For I was sent for this purpose, and he was preaching in the synagogues of Judea.
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So do you see? This was a common practice by our Lord. In Luke chapter 5, verse 1, the scripture states,
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On one occasion, while the crowd was pressing in on him, to hear the word of God, he was standing by the lake of Gennesaret.
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In Luke chapter 8, verse 1, we see the word of God. Soon afterward, he went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing, what?
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The good news of the kingdom of God. And the 12 were with him. In Luke chapter 10, we read it in verse 1.
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After this, the Lord appointed 72 others, and he sent them on ahead of him, two by two, into every town and place where he himself was about to go.
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And he said to them, The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the
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Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. Go your way, and behold,
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I am sending you out as lambs in the midst of wolves. Carry no money bag, no knapsack, no sandals, and greet no one on the road.
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And whatever house you enter, first say to that house, Peace be to this house. And if a son of peace is there, your peace will rest upon him.
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But if not, it will return to you. And he said, remain in the same house, eating and drinking.
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Eating and drinking, what they provide for the laborer, deserves his wages. Do not go from house to house.
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Whenever you enter a town, and they receive you, eat what is set before you, heal the sick in it, and say to them,
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The kingdom of God has come near to you. That's very important. The kingdom of God has come near to you.
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But, he said, whenever you enter a town, and they do not receive you, go into its streets, and say,
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Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off against you. Nevertheless, nevertheless, know this,
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Jesus told them to say this, know this, that the kingdom of God has come near you.
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I tell you, Jesus said it will be more bearable on that day than for Sodom, than for that town.
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In Luke chapter 10, verse 21, in the same hour, the 70 return, in that same hour,
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Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit, and he said to them, or he prayed, I thank you,
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Father, Lord of heaven and the earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and the understanding, and that you have revealed them to little children.
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Yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my
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Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the
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Father is except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.
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Then turning to the disciples, he said privately, Blessed are the eyes that see the things that you see.
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For I tell you, many prophets and kings have desired to see the things that you see and to hear the things that you hear, but they have not heard it.
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So, there we have a quick summary of what
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Jesus taught. He taught the gospel of the kingdom of God. Now, what is the gospel of the kingdom of God?
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The Greek word for gospel is euangelion. The active verb, the doing of euangelion, is euagelizo, and what that means, euangelion, is good news.
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To euangelio, to evangelize, to proclaim the gospel, means in the Old Testament, it was used to announce glad tidings, particularly the joyful tidings of God's kindness, in particular, the
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Messianic blessings. So, we have the promise. How were saints in the Old Testament saved?
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By looking forward to the Savior to come. How were saints in the New Testament saved?
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By looking at Christ. How are folks saved in our day, in our time?
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By looking to Jesus Christ. So, no matter what point, what period in history, it is about looking unto
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Jesus Christ. Look unto God, ye ends of the earth, and be saved, is what the
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Scriptures say. So, the good news in the New Testament, again, used the glad tidings, particularly in the
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New Testament, of the coming of the kingdom, and the salvation that was to be obtained in it, through Christ.
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Now, what is the kingdom? The kingdom, I'm not going to go in depth on these, we've been through these in detail a couple of times over this last year, but the kingdom, the word used there for kingdom, is basileia.
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And what kingdom is, it's the territory of dominion and rule.
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Now, what is the territory of Christ's dominion and rule? He is king of heaven and earth.
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He rules over all things. Abraham Copper, the theologian, said this, there is not one square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which
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Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not proclaim, that is mine.
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It is all the Lord's. R .C. Sproul said this concerning the kingdom, the whole
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Old Testament called attention, not to a kingdom that would simply appear in people's hearts, but to a kingdom that would break through into this world, a kingdom that would be ruled by God's anointed
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Messiah. And for this reason, during his earthly ministry, Jesus made comments such as, if I cast out demons by the finger of God, surely you will know this, the kingdom of God has come upon you.
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That's Luke 11, 20. And similarly, when Jesus sent out the 70, what we read to you there, remember he sent out the 70 on the preaching mission?
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He instructed them to tell the impenitent cities that the kingdom of God had come near to them.
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The kingdom of God was near them because the king of the kingdom was there.
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So Christ is the ambassador of the kingdom of God come to earth.
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The king himself came and proclaimed the good news of the fact that what the
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Old Testament saints look forward to, he was fulfilling. It is beautiful.
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Zachary Croft and one of the old Puritans made this comment about how that we as human beings tend to place our confidence and our hopes in the kingdoms of this world.
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Zachary Croft said this in his work entitled Defense Against the Dread of Death. Now listen,
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I don't believe that there's anybody who at some point in their life hasn't feared death.
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We dread death coming. We dread death coming to our loved ones. We dread death coming to ourselves at times.
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But this is what Zachary Croft had said. He said, why is my removal by death my terror?
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Why is that my trouble? This removal will transmit me into a station not more permanent than glorious.
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For I am removing to a better house. Yay, to possess a kingdom. A kingdom not like the kingdoms of this world.
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Not a narrow, empty, envied, distracted, divided, shaken, sinful, transient, and a temporal kingdom.
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Not a kingdom subject to wars, tumults, fire, famine, pestilence, ruin, and desolation.
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And yet with ambition men do seek, with joy they remove into, and with difficulty and danger they obtain these miserable earthly kingdoms.
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But my kingdom, Crofton said, my kingdom to which I shall pass is a spiritual kingdom.
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It is a heavenly kingdom. It is an unshaken kingdom. It is a united kingdom.
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It is an ample kingdom. It is an abundant kingdom. It is an undefiled, undisturbed, peaceable, and an everlasting kingdom.
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It is a kingdom not subject to any invasion or usurpation. It's not a kingdom that's given to confusion or commotions.
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It's not a kingdom that is given to any mutations or violent revolution or to any alteration or danger because it is a living, unshakable kingdom of God established by the true and the living
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God himself. Lastly, let's look at these three questions. Who is
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Jesus Christ? Why did Jesus come in the flesh? And what did Jesus' life and death accomplish?
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These can be answered quite simply, church, if you look in the 1689
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Confession in Chapter 8, Sections 1 and 2 concerning the person of Christ.
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Who is Jesus Christ? Well, Jesus Christ is the virgin -born son or the only begotten son of the true and the living
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God, in short. The Confession states it this way. God was pleased in his eternal purpose to choose and to ordain the
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Lord Jesus, his only begotten son, according to the covenant made between them, to be the mediator between God and humanity.
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So Christ, Jesus Christ, is the only mediator between God and man.
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Why do we need a priest? Because we are sinful. And we are guilty of sin.
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And we need someone to mediate between man and God. And there is one man, and there is one mediator, and that is the man
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Christ Jesus. God chose him to be the prophet, priest, and the king, and to be head and to be savior of the church.
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He is the heir of all things, and he is the judge of the world. From eternity,
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God gave to the Son a people to be his offspring. In time, these people would be redeemed, called, justified, sanctified, and glorified by him.
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Jesus Christ is the Son of the living God. He is the second person of the
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Holy Trinity. And he is truly and eternally God. He did not begin to be
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God, and he will never cease to be God. He is God.
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The Scripture states, he is the brightness of the Father's glory. He is the same in substance and equal with him.
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These statements are so profoundly important because throughout the years of church history, there have been these heresies that have been taught that will mix and that will mingle the divinity of Christ and they will try to change or mutate what
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God has established and what God has set out in his words. But these statements are true.
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When the fullness of time came, the Scripture says that he took upon himself human nature.
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Jesus took upon himself human nature with all the essential properties and common weaknesses of it, but he was without sin.
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This is what the Scriptures teach us. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the
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Virgin Mary. The Holy Spirit came down upon her and the power of the Most High overshadowed her.
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Thus, he was born of a woman from the tribe of Judah, a descendant of Abraham and David in fulfillment of the
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Scriptures. His two whole, perfect and distinct natures were inseparably joined together in one person without converting one into the other or mixing them together to produce a different or a blended nature.
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This person, Jesus Christ, is truly God and truly man.
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This is who Jesus Christ is. Why did Jesus come in the flesh? The Lord Jesus in his human nature was united in this way in the divine person of the
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Son. He was sanctified and anointed with the Holy Spirit beyond measure. He had in himself all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge and the
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Father was pleased to make all the fullness of the Godhead dwell in him, so that he,
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Jesus, so that he, being holy, heartless and undefiled, full of grace and truth, that he was thoroughly qualified, thoroughly, truly, completely and absolutely qualified to carry out the office of mediator between God and man and the guarantor of our faith.
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He did not take this office upon himself but was called to it by his Father who put all power and judgment in his hand.
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The confession states this. Now the Lord Jesus most willingly undertook this office.
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He didn't have to be convinced. He didn't have to be tricked into it. He most willingly undertook this office to discharge it.
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He was born, as the book of Galatians states, under the law, and he perfectly fulfilled the law.
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You've heard us use that term, the active obedience of Christ. He also experienced the punishment that we deserve and that we should have endured and suffered.
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That is the passive obedience of Christ. He was made sin and he was made a curse for us.
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For the scripture states, cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.
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He endured extremely heavy sorrows in his soul and extremely painful sufferings in his body.
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He was crucified. He was buried. He remained in the state of death for three days, yet his body did not decay.
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And on the third day, he arose from the dead with the same body with which he suffered.
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In this body, he ascended into heaven where he sits at the right hand of the Father, interceding.
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He will return to judge men and angels at the end of the age. So who is
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Jesus Christ? Why did Jesus come into flesh? To be the propitiation for our sins?
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And last of all, in closing, what did the life and death of Jesus accomplish? The Lord Jesus has fully satisfied the justice of God.
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This is what he accomplished. The blood of bulls and of goats could not accomplish what the blood of Christ, God's only begotten
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Son, accomplished for mankind. For the remission, the propitiation, and the atonement of our sin, only
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Christ could do this. And only Christ accomplished this. He obtained reconciliation and he purchased an everlasting inheritance in the kingdom of God for all those given to him by the
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Father. And he has accomplished these things. How? By his perfect obedience. And by his sacrifice on the cross for which he once and for all offered up to God through the eternal
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Spirit. The price of redemption. Let's note this too. So what did the life and death of Christ fully accomplish?
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Let's make a quick distinction here as we move to a close. In our confession it states, the price of redemption was not actually paid by Christ until after his incarnation.
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This is very, very important. Because if it was only a theoretical sacrifice, it could have been just assumed for all eternity that this was the case and therefore it would have been the case.
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But the propitiation for sin, the atonement for our sin was made when
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Christ actually hung on the cross for our sins. When the sky went dark and he cried,
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Eloi, Eloi me! It happened at that moment.
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And the benefit of it was imparted to the elect in every age since the beginning of the world in and by those promises, by those tithes, by those sacrifices that revealed him and pointed to him as a seed and the lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
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He is the same yesterday, the book of Hebrews says, today and forever more.
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So, with these questions, what was Jesus doing? He was teaching thoroughly, line upon line, verse upon verse, word upon word, line upon line, text upon text, precept upon precept.
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What was he teaching? The gospel of the kingdom of God. What was the gospel of the kingdom of God?
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It was the good news of the Messiah come to make atonement for the sins of mankind. Who was
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Jesus? We heard it. What did, as the question is,
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I want to make sure I say this right, why did Jesus come in the flesh? Because it was absolutely necessary that there was a literal propitiation for our sins.
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And what did his life and his death accomplish? It accomplished eternal salvation for his name.
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What it did, it accomplished, it made possible for you who may be hearing this gospel message today, it made it possible that you might have heard the gospel a thousand times and it ain't never done nothing for you, but maybe this is the day which salvation has come to your house.
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And this might be the day where the Lord called unto Zacchaeus, Zacchaeus you come down.
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The Lord called you by name and you today might be translated out of darkness into the marvelous and the glorious life of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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Oh church, how do we, so what's said here? He said, the scripture says here, back to summarize 47 and 48, he was teaching in the temple, this is what he taught, this is what he did, what he taught, the person work of himself, the chief priest, the scribes, the principal men of the people were seeking to destroy him, but they did not find anything they could do for all the people who were doing what?
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Hanging on his words. You know what? I'll be honest, you all have seen the karate kid, right?
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Most everybody's seen the karate kid. You know who Miyagi is, right? Daniel -san, right?
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He was, Miyagi taught Daniel -san karate, how? By learning, by Daniel -san learning to paint the tents, by Daniel -san learning to wax on and wax off, cleaning all his cars up, by sanding the floor, so on and so forth.
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He didn't realize it, but what he was doing, he was learning. And you know what?
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When we come to God's house and we gather and we sit under the taught word of God, we sit under the preached word of God, what our aim and our goal is, is that you might hang on every word of Christ.
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That you might desire the sincere milk of the Word, and that you won't be satisfied with anything less than that.