FOR Those Who Believe

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern

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Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

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And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. The Holy Gospel according to St. John, the 8th chapter.

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So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in Him, If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

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They answered him, We are offspring of Abraham. We have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say you will become free?

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Jesus answered them, Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.

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The slave does not remain in the house forever. The son remains forever. So if the son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

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This is the gospel of the Lord. In the name of Jesus. Human beings love a good underdog story.

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You've got to admit, we're kind of addicted to these things. And at the risk of gloating, I would note we had an underdog story that appeared on Friday night, first game of the

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World Series, Dodgers Stadium. It's gone into the 10th inning. They were tied at the beginning of the 10th inning.

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The Yankees score a point, and now the Dodgers have got to come back if they want to win the game.

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And of course, they load the bases, but there's two outs. And our wounded Freddy Freeman comes to the plate.

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And in one pitch, he hits a grand slam home run, walk off, and everybody loses their minds.

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And we sit there and go, this is the best thing ever! But here's the thing. A lot of people think that this is how salvation works.

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Work with me here. Every single human and demonic religion, and those are their origins, humanity and the demonic, every single human and demonic religion says, you earn your salvation, either in whole or even in part.

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And so here's how this works. If you are truly a Christian, well, then you're going to get your act together.

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You're going to go out and you're going to slay your Goliaths. You're going to do all this kind of stuff, and you're going to know this is a tiring type of religion.

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And you'll note it doesn't provide you with any, and I mean any assurance whatsoever.

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And so people who follow these types of religions, they oftentimes delusionally think, you know, at some point

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I'm really going to get my act together, and then in the 10th inning I'm finally going to hit that grand slam, and I'm going to defeat

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Satan. I'm going to defeat Jezebel. I'm going to defeat my own sinful nature, and I'm going to waltz into heaven, and God's going to go, well done.

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Wow, that was impressive. It's delusional. It's absolutely delusional.

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And here's the thing. Don't let your love of a good underdog story make you think that's how salvation works.

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In fact, when we consider what the Scriptures teach regarding our fall into sin,

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I must assure you it's far worse than you have ever imagined. It's so bad that I don't care how intentional you are.

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I don't care how many New Year's resolutions you make. I don't care how much you apply yourself to it.

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In fact, go ahead, lock yourself up in a monastery, see if that helps. You will not in your own strength have the power to free yourself to slavery, to sin, death, and the devil.

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These mighty, and I mean mighty, oppressive foes, you have no ability to win against them, none whatsoever.

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And if you think you're going to somehow pull it off in the 11th hour, you are out of your mind.

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Instead, the Scriptures teach something way different. And I would note this, when you look at all of these man -made versions of religion, demonically inspired versions of religion, you know what's at the core of this?

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A God who is an insane, unloving, unmerciful tyrant.

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You ask somebody who says that they're a Christian who embraces this kind of self -righteous religion, you ask them, so what was

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Jesus doing on earth? You might get an answer like this, well, Jesus came and he lived a perfect life to show us how it is done, so we've got to get busy doing it ourselves.

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And you sit there and go, whoa, that's not good. But let me just give you just a couple of samples of just how bad the badness is.

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In the Gospel of John, chapter 1, we read these wonderful words, in the beginning was the

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Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God. John starts his

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Gospel, like the other Gospel writers, focusing on Jesus Christ, as we all should be focused on him, and describes him as the

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Logos, the Word, the Word that was with God and the Word that was God at the beginning. He was in the beginning with God, all things were made through him, without him was not anything made that was made, in him was life, and life was the light of men.

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The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. And then we read, the true light which gives light to everyone was coming into the world.

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He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him.

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You say, what? No, this is absolutely true. I'm convinced if you were walking down the streets of Grand Forks, and Jesus walked out of a coffee shop and was walking down the street, you wouldn't recognize him.

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You wouldn't. And that's a terrifying thing. It always bothers me whenever I read those Gospel texts where we have demons.

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They know exactly who Jesus is, and as soon as they see him, we know who you are, you're the

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Holy One of God. And Jesus is all, shhh, quiet, come out of him, right?

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But there's the disciples in the early part of the Gospel of Matthew, and Jesus had had a long day of ministry, and they were crossing the

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Sea of Galilee on a boat, and of course one of those storms comes up, and the disciples are freaking out, and what's

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Jesus doing? He's sleeping. He needs a little bit of R &R. He's sleeping on the captain's couch of this little boat, and they wake him up.

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Don't you care that we are perishing? It's like Jesus doesn't care, right?

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And of course Jesus then gets up, and I kind of picture him kind of annoyed, like dealing with a badly behaved dog.

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Any of you who have dogs as pets, they're loyal, they're great.

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They're stupid sometimes, and oh man, they are. Anyway, so you've got a badly behaved dog, and this is what's going on, and Jesus kind of wakes up and goes, shhh, quiet,

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I'm trying to sleep here. I had the last part. And so what happens? Like an obedient dog, the weather just goes, okay.

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It goes silent. And there's the disciples in the boat going, who is this?

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That even the wind and the waves obey him. Who is he indeed? Well, he's our

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God. He's the God who made us. And here's the thing. Get all of your ideas about God that you've learned from the self -righteous religion, from your own sinful nature, that seems to think that you can somehow earn your salvation.

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Put it all aside. God isn't like that. God is merciful. He's kind.

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He's slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and he pardons iniquity. You'll note

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God also will punish iniquity. But here's the thing. People sometimes ask, what is

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Roseboro like? Well, ask my wife. She'll tell you. And here's the thing. There's normal Roseboro, and then there's

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Roseboro under stress. There's normal Roseboro. He's pretty chill. And then you've got Roseboro when he feels provoked, and he's not happy.

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He's grumpy. He wakes up on the wrong side of the bed. So the idea then is, what is God like? Is he grumpy, just waiting to take your little scrawny carcass and flick you into the fires of hell?

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And you sit there and go, yeah, I've been waiting to do that. Yeah. No, God isn't like that at all.

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In fact, he takes no pleasure, none whatsoever, in sending people to hell. It's not his will that any should perish, the scripture said.

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You sit there and go, anybody? Yeah, including Hitler. Work that one out. It's not his will that any should perish.

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So the fact that people perish is their own stupid fault. Right? So what is

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God like? He is amazing. But here's the thing. We don't eat in our sin and in the darkness of sin.

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If God were walking among us, we wouldn't even know it. I think of that song that I remember. There were some really good songs from the 90s, but there was one that just kind of stood out.

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I remember hearing it for the first time. And the lyrics went something like this. What if God was one of us, just a slob like one of us?

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Like a stranger on the bus trying to find his way home. Every time I'd hear the lyrics, it'd go, he was one of us.

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He came to earth, born of the Virgin Mary. He came to save us. And yeah, he was a stranger.

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People didn't even recognize him. I don't think of Jesus as a slob. I think he cared for himself pretty well.

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But if Jesus were on the bus, would you recognize him? If you were on the tube in London, would you see him and go, oh, there's

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Jesus? No. That's how deep our sin is. In fact, the

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Apostle Paul gives us a very unflattering picture in just three verses of just how far gone we are.

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In Ephesians 2, he says, and y 'all, talking to the church in Ephesus, y 'all were dead in trespasses and sins.

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And by the way, stop with this idea it's only mostly dead. That's a notion from the

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Princess Bride. Miracle Max was funny. I get it. But this is not where you get your theology. We weren't mostly dead.

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We were completely stone cold dead in trespasses and sins.

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And corpse don't do nothing. Have you noticed we never invite the people in the graveyard in for coffee during fellowship time?

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We don't. So you were dead in trespasses and sins in which you once walked, how you conducted your life, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the son's disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of our sinful bodies and minds, and we were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.

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And I can hear some Karen going, oh, that's horrible. Are you saying that children aren't innocent?

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That they're born dead in trespasses and sins? No, lady, I didn't say that. God did.

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Right? And you'll note this offends us. You talk to an unbeliever and tell them they're a sinner, you might get punched in the face.

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Because they don't want to come to grips with that. But here's the thing, there's no place for this in the church.

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We began the divine service by confessing our sins. And none of us painted a glowing picture of ourselves.

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But you're going to note here, it doesn't end there. And here's the thing, confessing what you are is a very anxiety -producing experience.

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Because when you say, I don't have my act together, I am a sinner, there's no hope if it depends on me, you, at this point, have nothing to hang on to in and of yourself.

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And this is a good thing. But it's anxiety -causing. Because now the question is, what next?

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So Paul, in the immediate context of our epistle text today, he says these important words.

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And he's quoting from the Psalms. So he's echoing exactly what the Old Testament says in two different places.

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None is righteous. No, not one. No one understands. No one seeks for God.

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And I've got to tell you, your sinful nature is sitting there going, well, that's not totally true. This doesn't exactly apply to me.

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Oh, really, it does. Well, this hurts my self -esteem. Good. That satanic little self -esteem of yours needs to be crushed and destroyed.

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No one is righteous. Not one. And here's the problem. We all know that on the

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Day of Judgment, if we don't have righteousness, we're not going to be able to stand before God.

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You can't. If none is righteous, now we've got a problem. No one's able to stand on the

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Day of Judgment. Because you need to be righteous in order to be able to stand.

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But Paul says none is righteous. And now we begin to scramble. And like Adam and Eve in the garden, we think, ah, fig leaves.

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That'll fix the problem here. Let me give up alcohol. Let me stop dancing.

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Don't do that, by the way. That's a Norwegian thing. Go ahead and dance. Let me stop smoking.

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I know I'll lose 30 pounds, and I'll go to the gym five days a week. I'm going to really clean up my act, and I'm going to do good at work, too.

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And I'm going to stop cheating at night and have snacks and things like this.

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Do you think for a second that that is going to be able to be the currency that you can offer to God on the

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Day of Judgment? Your paltry, anemic, half -hearted, sin -tainted good works?

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Good luck. It's not going to work. So we come back to the problem, the conundrum.

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None is righteous. No, not one. No one understands. No one seeks for God, and, yes, that includes you.

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It includes me. All have turned aside. Together they have become worthless. Uh -oh.

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Well, Todd White was wrong when he said that the reason why Christ died is because you were so special, you were so worth it.

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No, the text says you were worthless. Well, then, if we were worthless because of sin, why would

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God even send His Son? Because He's that good.

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Because He is that kind and merciful and loving. No one does good, not even one.

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The throat is an open grave. They use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.

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Their feet are swift to shed blood, and their paths are ruin and misery. And the way of peace they have not known.

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There is no fear of God before their eyes. And if this is true, the most logical question to ask is, now what?

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Because you'll note that Scripture paints a picture of complete hopelessness when it comes to you being able to stand before a holy

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God on the day of judgment. It describes you as a perpetrator, as a criminal, as a trespasser, as one who has committed iniquity, as somebody who is unrighteous and ungodly.

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And until you come to grips that this is a perfect description of you and of me, you are not ready to hear the gospel.

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You're just not. Because as long as you think that there's something good in you that you can bargain with God and that God will sit there and go, you know, everyone else was unrighteous, but you were the exception to the rule.

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And in our delusion of sin, we oftentimes think of ourselves as that. Put it out of your mind.

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So Paul then, here's our epistle text at the beginning. We know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may be held accountable to God.

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God did not give us the Ten Commandments so that we have ten easy steps, if we just apply ourselves, that we can climb the ladder into heaven and Jesus would pat us on the head and go, oh, good boy, good girl, you figured it out.

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The purpose of the law is to let you know you are dead. You are guilty.

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There is nothing you can do. You are a transgressor, and you have earned, to the fullest extent,

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God's wrath against your sin. You are not somebody who's got their act together.

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You are a complete spiritual screw -up. You are not somebody who's rich spiritually.

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You are 100 % bankrupt and poverty -stricken. You've got nothing to offer

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God, and that's what the law says. And the whole purpose of the law is to make you aware of the direness of your situation and the hopelessness of your ability to save yourself.

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That's its purpose. And then, to punctuate the point, Paul says this,

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By works of the law, no human, in the Greek, no man, that means all of mankind, no human being will be, important word, dikaiao, justified.

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Dikaiao, what does that mean? Well, dikaiao is a court term.

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It's a legal term. It's forensic. Dikaiao means that you are standing before the judge, and the judge slaps his gavel down and goes,

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Not guilty. So listen again to the text. By works of the law, no human being will be declared not guilty in God's sight.

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So there you are on the day of judgment. The law says you're guilty.

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You've done this, this, this, this, this, this, this, and it goes on for hours and hours and hours, days and days and days, listing off all the things you've done wrong.

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And you sit there in your defense and you go, Yeah, but I worked at a soup kitchen on Thanksgiving in the year 2014.

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Woo -hoo. I decided to be kind to my wife one time. Oh, you are such a saint.

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You see the problem here? Nobody will be declared not guilty in God's sight through works of the law since through the law comes the knowledge of sin.

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And like I've pointed out many times, and I'm going to note something here. As I've gotten older, I've noticed that I've begun repeating myself like my grandparents did.

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And so if I ever repeat myself, just look at my gray hair and say,

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Oh, he's getting old. I need a little bit of slack here. I've pointed out before, and I'll continue to point out, the word but always has this weird magical thing that it does.

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It erases the stuff before it. And as I've said before, I hated working in the corporate world.

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I hated working in retail. I hated having to get my annual review because every single annual performance review began like this.

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You know, Chris, we love that you did this, and we think that this is great that you're doing that.

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And these are the things that we're really thankful that you are a member of our team. And then comes the magical word, but.

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And everything else that follows has this magical way of making all of the good things they said just completely go whoosh, all right?

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And you're sitting there going, Well, how bad could it be? Let me be blunt with you, okay? I'm a sinner like you, okay?

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I have strengths. I have weaknesses. I have things that are legitimate gifts, and then there's parts of me that are just ornery and awful, okay?

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And you put me in a group of people, guess what? There's some people who are going to sit there and go, Roseboro's a mess.

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And you know what? They're right. I am, okay? You should try working with me.

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My poor wife. I feel bad for her. Okay. So here's the idea. The but here in verse 24 of our epistle text.

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And you'll note a but also appears in Ephesians 2. Note that the but comes after the bad stuff, not after the good stuff.

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You are dead and trespasses and sins. None is righteous. No, not one. No one seeks for God.

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But is God really going to erase that, all that negative stuff?

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That's the point of the but. But now, listen to this. The righteousness of God has been revealed apart from the law.

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I love the fact that in my Greek class this week, I asked my Greek students. Ah, we were translating this text.

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The diakosunetheou, the righteousness of God. I asked, whose righteousness is this?

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And James DeBoer chimed up and said, it's God's. Good.

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How do you know this? Well, because theou is in the genitive and it's possessive.

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So listen to the but. But the righteousness of God. Whose righteousness? God's righteousness.

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Not yours. Not mine. His righteousness has been revealed apart from the law.

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Although the law and the prophets bear witness to it. And you sit there at this point and you go, okay, yeah, so the righteousness of God has been revealed.

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But what good is that? Well, the text continues, verse 22. The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ.

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And then the most important word in the whole sentence. For all who believe.

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Remember, the problem is this. None is righteous. No, not one. That's the problem.

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You and me included. But here we read in this text of God's righteousness.

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And here's what the text says. It is for all who believe.

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That's you and me. If our problem is that we don't have any righteousness, then the solution is, well, we've got to have some.

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Where are we going to get it? By faith, God gives it to you.

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In fact, let me do this. I'm going to add a text to my sermon. It's not part of my manuscript, so I'm just going to have to hunt this down real quick.

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In Ephesians chapter 5, we have these wonderful words about what husbands are to do for their wives.

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Listen to these words. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church. And how did

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Christ love his church? Sacrificially. And gave himself up for her so that he might sanctify her.

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Sanctify, to make her holy. So that he might make her holy. Having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word.

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A reference to baptism. So that he might present the church to himself in splendor.

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Without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. So that she might be holy and without blemish.

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But here's the thing. The bride of Christ is not any of those things when he finds her.

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The bride of Christ has blemishes. The bride of Christ is not holy.

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The bride of Christ is not full of splendor. And the bride of Christ instead is full of sin.

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He sanctifies her. He washes her. He presents her to himself in splendor.

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Where did that splendor come from? Christ. And so the scriptures describe righteousness in this way.

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It is imputed to us. It's Christ's righteousness. He comes to us and finds us stinking, rotten, decomposing sinful corpses.

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He raises us to life. He clothes us in his righteousness. And so the text says,

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But the righteousness of God has been revealed apart from the law, although the law of the prophets bear witness to it. And this is the righteousness that is through faith in Jesus Christ.

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And it is for all who believe. Are you saying that everyone who is a believer in Christ is given

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God's righteousness as a gift? No. The text says that. That's what

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God says. You see, the problem is we're sinful. God, knowing full well that we cannot free ourselves, we cannot do enough to save ourselves to pay our debt.

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He cancels the debt by going to the cross and paying our debt in full with his own sacrificial suffering, bleeding and dying for your sins and mine.

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And as a result of it, then when we are brought to faith in Christ, we are clothed with the actual righteousness of Christ.

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And it says it is for all who believe. Problem solved.

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You don't have any righteousness. God says, I give you my own. For there is no distinction.

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All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And they are declared not guilty by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ, whom

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God put forward as a propitiation by his blood. Christ's death on the cross legitimately expiates.

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It appeases the wrath of God against our sins. God rightly, rightly has anger and wrath against sinful humanity.

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Christ's death on the cross expiates. It propitiates the wrath of God and turns his wrath away from us because he took it all in himself so that we can be pardoned and forgiven.

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And all of this is received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance he had passed over the former sins.

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It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

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So then now the question, considering that we unrighteous sinners have been clothed with the righteousness of God and have been gifted with the verdict of not guilty because of God's grace and his love and his mercy for us that Christ won for us on the cross, what then becomes of boasting?

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Have you guys ever been in self -righteous churches where the gospel doesn't even make an appearance?

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Have you noticed how insufferably, intolerably boastful people are?

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When I was in Nazarene it used to just gall me because as a young man I hadn't quite figured out the ruse that was going on.

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And so we on the stage at the Nazarene church that we were attending in Pasadena, Pasadena Nazarene, there was a constant parade of people getting up and talking about how they had slayed their

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Goliath sins and how they are now walking in perfect freedom and how they are doing this.

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And I'm sitting there going, how did they pull that off? You know? As a 17 -year -old

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I still had hormones raging through me, right? I couldn't be in the presence of a cute girl without going, ehhh.

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And then going, oh no, I sinned, right? How are these people living in victory over sin?

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Here's the answer to the question. They're not. They're lying. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

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And so here you've got this parade, this constant parade and litany of people talking about how they are pulling it off.

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I recently was watching a video with Todd White and he has this big old t -shirt that he's selling in his merch store and the front of the t -shirt says,

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I am a giant slayer. What?

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No, no you're not. You see, in true Christianity there is no room for boasting.

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I've got nothing to boast about. I am legitimately a rank sinner who

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God has had mercy on. In my sin I was completely worthless.

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But God had mercy on me and forgave me. Same with you. So what then becomes of boasting?

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Paul says it is excluded. You know you are in a bad church when people are boasting about their sinlessness.

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Because Paul says boasting is excluded. And then he asks a question, by what kind of law?

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By the law of works? No, it's excluded by the law of faith. And then here's the kicker.

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For we hold that one is declared not guilty by faith apart from works of the law.

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Hmm. You know, Luther's translation of this verse is hilarious. Because Luther translated, we hold that one is justified by faith alone apart from works of the law.

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He added the word alone. And of course Rome lost their minds. Luther, you can't, you can't, the text doesn't say alone.

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And Luther said, I know what the text says. And that's exactly what it means.

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We hold that one is justified by faith alone. If you're not justified by works of the law, and in fact the text says apart from works of the law, what else is there to be justified by?

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We hold that one is justified by faith alone apart from works of the law.

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And I can hear all the self -righteous going, so you're saying that works don't matter? You're saying that you can just do whatever you want?

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No, that says a lot about you. It doesn't say anything about us. Absolutely works are necessary. Not in order to be saved, but because I am.

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So brothers and sisters, if I seem a little exercised, I am. But I would note, this sermon's not about Martin Luther.

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This is about Christ. This is about what Christ has done for us. And here's the thing.

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Take heart. When the law accuses you and you feel it's condemning words, and you know that it speaks the truth about you, do not wither under its voice.

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Because our God and Savior, he was not an underdog at all.

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He was the champion who came onto the field, and here's the deal. He didn't defeat

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Satan in the 10th inning. He defeated him soundly at every engagement.

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And he laid down his life and destroyed the dominion of darkness by taking away the ability for Satan to point his bony finger at you and say, you're guilty.

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Satan is the accuser of the saints. And Christ silenced him and said, nope, they're all accounted for.

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I've bled and died for every one of those sins. So then learn from this text to comfort yourself despite the terrorizing condemnation of God's law.

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Comfort yourself with these words. No one is justified by works of the law. And we hold that what the

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Scripture says, that we are clothed with the righteousness of God given to us by faith. We do not have any righteousness of our own, but Christ has gifted us with his righteousness, and he's declared us not guilty by faith apart from the works of the law.

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And though I deserve hell, he is giving me heaven. And same with you. 100 % gift.

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This is why Christ in our Gospel text gives a very important set of words.

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Jesus said to those who believed in him, if you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples.

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You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. The truth that Christ has died for our sins, that salvation is a gift, you will find it in no other place than in the

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Scriptures. You cannot find it in philosophy. You cannot find it in the holy books of other religions.

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It's not there. You cannot find this Gospel in the raving lunatic prophecies of today's so -called prophets who are out there declaring new seasons and sudden leaves and breakthroughs.

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You will not hear the Gospel in those words because God is not speaking through them. Stay in the word.

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Abide in Christ's word because God's word is the thing that teaches us the truth, and it is only the truth that sets us free.

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And let me push a little farther on that. Jesus says, I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life.

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That being the case, Christ is the one that sets us free. So listen only to His words.

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Do not listen to the false winds of doctrine blowing through the visible church today.

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They're all satanic voices designed to lead you away from the Gospel and the comfort that comes of the forgiveness of your sins, to bring you back into bondage and make you believe that you have to earn your salvation.

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But God's word teaches us the truth that Christ, our great

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Champion, has knocked the snot out of Satan. It wasn't even close.

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It was decisively won in the first inning. So Jesus says, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.

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This is true. And the slave doesn't remain in the house forever, the son remains forever. But note, the son who remains forever,

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Jesus, says that I am going to have you remain forever by giving you my righteousness.

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So if the Son sets you free, and He has, you will be free indeed. And indeed we are.

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I cannot think of a better way to celebrate the great reformation and the rediscovery of the

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Gospel of Jesus Christ than to preach these comforting words to you. Comfort yourself with them.

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You are forgiven in Christ. You've heard the absolution today. You will hear the words, this is the true body of Christ given into death for the forgiveness of your sins.

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Take heart and believe that your sins are forgiven. Take drink, this is the true blood of Christ shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins.

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And note then that when you have the Lord's Supper, it is for you, and you are forgiven.

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Not a single one of your sins is going to be remembered by God. That is the promise of the new covenant.

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God remembers to forget our sins, and He will never recall your sins on the day of judgment.

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Instead, He will only see you as one whom He has clothed in His own splendor, whom

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He has clothed with His righteousness, whom He has loved so much that He has washed away your sins and made you holy.

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What a great Jesus we have. He is nothing like the

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God of the self -righteous. He is truly loving and kind, and He gives salvation away as a gift because you couldn't earn it if you tried.

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In the name of Jesus, Amen. 15950 470th

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Avenue NW Oslo, Minnesota 56744 We thank you for your support.

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