Sanctification By Faith

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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All right, we are going to pray and we will get started. Lord Jesus, again, as we open up your word and we thank you for the restoration of the core doctrine of the

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Christian faith, the good news that Christ has died for all of our sins and that salvation and justification is a gift that is received by faith.

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We pray now that as we consider the other side of the sanctification, we may rightly believe what you have revealed there through your

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Holy Spirit so that we do not undermine the gift that you have given us and by our sanctification undo our justification.

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We ask this in Jesus' name, amen. Okay, so I know our normal habit is to ask questions.

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I'm gonna hang on to any questions that show up at the moment because I would like to get into the topic.

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And you'll note, this is a relevant one because when I was first introduced to the proper distinction between law and gospel and was hearing from a man who clearly wasn't working very hard on his sanctification how free we are in Christ and how salvation is totally by grace through faith apart from works,

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I thought the guy was lying to me. And I'm talking about Dr. Rod Rosenblatt. I tell the story with frequency about when

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I was a freshman at Christ College Irvine at Concordia University that Rosenblatt wonderfully in an annoying way, every single class found a way to tell everybody about Jesus and then crucified for our sins.

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And I thought that was nuts because I heard the gospel when I made the decision for Jesus. Why would I need to hear it again?

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I gotta get busy learning how to control my sinful nature and stuff like this and not listen to secular music.

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Again, I'm still bitter about the fact that I ended up destroying my entire, I had the full collection of all the

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Beatles albums. I'm still very thankful for my son -in -law who had mercy on me a few years back and for one of our celebrations gave me the gift of the white album and vinyl.

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So I feel better, I feel better. But all of that being said, here's the issue is that we all know that as Christians, the scriptures are clear that we are to mortify our sinful flesh, that we are not to persist in sin and that daily we live in repentance.

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And you'll note that the biblical expectation is that somehow there's some kind of progress along these lines, right?

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But the question is, how does it work? And the answer is obvious when you think about it but not so obvious because there's just so much bad teaching as it relates to the

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Holy Spirit. Let me explain, okay? So each of us have been impacted to one degree or another by kind of light forms of the charismatic

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Pentecostal doctrines. And the basic premise behind the charismatic movement, if you read them historically in the

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Pentecostal movement, the claim that God had restored the second baptism of the

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Holy Spirit as evidenced in speaking in tongues, the whole modus operandi behind that was a belief that that was a gift that would supercharge your sanctification and that it would lead to noticeable holiness.

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And more than a century later, it hasn't led to more holiness, it's led to more outright avarice, greed and some just really awful, sick sexual stuff.

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Todd Bentley, right? So you'll note that within the Pentecostal circles, the one thing that seems to be missing is holiness, right?

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All right, so if that isn't objective proof they've got this wrong, then

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I don't know what is. But historically, how has the church understood sanctification, especially since justification is by grace through faith apart from works, all right?

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Answer, it is by faith through the Holy Spirit.

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You say, wait, you Lutherans believe in the Holy Spirit? Yes, we do, okay.

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And he actually does something in us. He produces holiness, right?

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And which is a painful process, by the way. It's just, it's awful having to deal with just how deep and mucky our sin is.

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But all that being said, I would like you to consider this. I'm gonna go to Galatians. It doesn't seem like the standard text to go to when it comes to sanctification because it's this wonderful treatise on justification, right?

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So if we were to back up in the context, like Galatians chapter one, you'll note that in the sermon today,

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I made a big to -do about the fact that the apostle Paul was an apostle of Jesus Christ. Christ sent him, he spoke with the authority of Jesus.

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As Jesus is apostle, when you hear the apostle Paul, you hear Jesus. That's Christ's theology, not mine, all right?

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And so what had happened, if you know the story, the apostle Paul was quite the missionary. He would go on missionary journey after missionary journey after missionary journey, and what would he do?

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He'd breeze into a town he'd never been in before, find the synagogue, that's the place where the word of God is being preached in the

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Old Testament, and he would proclaim to them the fulfillment of all the prophecies of the Messiah being fulfilled in Christ, and proclaiming him in Christ is the forgiveness of all of our sins and the ability to be cleansed from all the things that the

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Mosaic covenant couldn't cleanse us of. And what would happen is that in some places after Paul left, well, wolves would come in, and that's kind of the story of the church, if you would.

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And always and again, these wolves would come up with these really interesting, slanderous statements that they would speak about the apostle

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Paul. In 2 Corinthians, we learn about the so -called super apostles who questioned

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Paul's apostolic credentials and took the fact that Paul didn't charge money.

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When he would go and plant a church, he would get a day job as a tent maker, or he would get support from other churches so that he can go and plant a church and not be a financial burden.

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And the so -called super apostles said, you know the reason why the apostle Paul never charges you when he comes here or when he does his work, is because he's such a terrible public speaker that he couldn't charge money if he could.

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But God has blessed us with special speaking abilities and we can charge the highest dollar, which proves our worth as opposed to the apostle

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Paul's worth. And they had a point. The apostle Paul is the only man I know of who actually killed somebody during a sermon.

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In the book of Acts, some poor fellow, Paul was waxing on into the night and he fell out of a window and died.

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And it's true, Paul didn't have any great public speaking ability, but thankfully he can operate in the signs of the apostles.

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So the guy handed accidentally killing in a sermon, he was able to raise from the dead and dust him off and say it's all good.

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But all of that being said, in the churches of Galatia, it was a different thing altogether. After Paul left, the

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Judaizers, the circumcision party, which by the way, it doesn't sound like a fun party. The circumcision party came in and they were basically challenging the apostle

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Paul's credentials and saying he's not really an apostle. He didn't hang out with Peter, James, and John.

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He wasn't there when Jesus preached his sermon on the mount. He wasn't there when Jesus was walking on the water and he definitely wasn't there when

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Christ was crucified. However, Paul is an apostle of Jesus Christ, Christ called him, and he is an eyewitness of the resurrection.

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But that being the case then, you're gonna note how then this epistle begins. Paul, an apostle, not from men nor through man.

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You think he's getting right to the point. I mean, this is like ding, ding, ding, and he's got the boxing gloves out and he's taking on the

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Judaizers and just going right for the face with those jabs right immediately. So not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the

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Father who raised him from the dead and all the brothers who are with me to the churches of Galatia. And then he says grace to you and peace from God our

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Father and Lord Jesus Christ who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age according to the will of God and of our

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God and Father to whom be the glory forever and ever, amen. And now it really comes out.

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I'm astonished. It sounds like my mother's scolding me, all right. I cannot believe this pigsty that you are living in.

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All right, that's the way my mother would talk. All right, I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and you are turning to a different gospel.

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Not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached, let him be accursed.

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As we have said before, so I say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.

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The Greek word anathema means damned, all right. We're not talking about a fleas of 1 ,000 camels infest his armpits.

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We're talking about hell here, something very much more significant. That being the case, then note what he says.

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I'm astonished that you are so quickly deserting him. And here's where we can see then, if we pay attention to the rest of the epistle, where the train got derailed, all right.

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Let's talk about where did the train get derailed because the Galatians, they heard that their justification, that means their right standing, their innocence before God, was given to them on account of Christ.

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They are justified by grace through faith in Jesus. So how did they fall off the tracks?

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And Galatians 3 gives us the answer to it, okay. And in Galatians 3, we read these words, and this should sound familiar to all of us.

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Oh, foolish Galatians, who's bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.

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So let me ask you this. Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?

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So that's your first question. Did you receive the Holy Spirit, that's the Spirit, by works of the law or by hearing with faith?

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Answer, by hearing with faith. And then watch the next question.

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Are you so foolish, having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?

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Let me work this out for you, all right. So the Judaizers come and say, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're justified by grace through faith, but you're not really truly saved, and your sanctification requires you men to join the circumcision party.

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Again, not a good party to join, all right. What did they do?

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They smuggled in salvation by works under the guise of sanctification.

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Having begun by the Spirit, they are now being perfected by the flesh.

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Now, immediately you're gonna ask yourself the question, but isn't that how it's done? Isn't that how it's done? Let me ask you this, okay.

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Being perfected by the flesh, let's just kind of put that under the category of works righteousness. What that basically means is that, well, now that Jesus has cleaned me up,

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I gotta keep myself clean, and the way I keep myself clean is by my obedience. How good is that obedience of yours?

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Let me ask you a different question. Are you the one responsible to produce within yourself the fruit of the

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Holy Spirit? No, you're not. So here's where the difference is then, and you'll note where the

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Galatian churches jumped the tracks was smuggling in justification by works under the guise of sanctification.

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Having begun by the Spirit, they were trying to be perfected by the flesh. It don't work that way.

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Did you suffer so many things in vain? If indeed it was in vain, does he who supplies the

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Spirit to you and work miracles among you do so by works of the law or by hearing with faith, just as Abraham believed

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God and it was counted to him as righteousness? Okay, real quick, there was a question.

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So in the Pentecostal churches, being baptized by the Holy Spirit is a big part of your sanctification. Jeff, I would note when

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I was in the Nazarene church, we had a doctrine that was akin to the doctrine of baptism of the

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Holy Spirit. So you'll note the Phineas Brzee of the Nazarene church was a contemporary with the guys at Azusa Street.

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In fact, Azusa Street is in Los Angeles and Phineas Brzee of the Nazarene church, he's the one who concocted the idea of what he calls second blessing holiness.

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And in the Nazarene church, they believe not in a second baptism of the

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Holy Spirit as evidenced by speaking in tongues, but a second blessing of the Holy Spirit whereby you can supernaturally attain perfection.

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It never worked out. The people claiming it were the worst people ever. Okay, biggest gossips and slanders on the planet, but that's a whole other story.

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So you'll note here, the Holy Spirit has something to do. Let's put this out there. The Holy Spirit has something to do with your sanctification and it requires not obedience to the law, but faith.

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And let me kind of put it this way, and I'm gonna use a metaphor that, gotta think about this, because there's a missing ingredient, if you would.

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If there's a missing ingredient, is it possible for somebody in their marriage to go through all the motions, but still have no love for their spouse?

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Absolutely, and I mean, and I'm gonna say this, all the motions, okay?

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It doesn't matter if they go through all the motions. That marriage, at its core, is as hollow as hollow gets.

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Okay, and so you're gonna note something, and that is that we are called to the obedience of faith, but just stark, naked obedience to commandments on the outside will look similar to the obedience of faith.

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But what's called for is faith. Putting it another way, is it possible for somebody who is an unbeliever to not murder their neighbor?

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Yes, I'm thankful for this, okay? Is it possible for an unbeliever to be faithful to their spouse?

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Yes, it is. Does that mean they're saved? No, because they don't have faith.

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And so the idea then here is that the Christian life from beginning to end, from justification through sanctification, calls for faith.

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And you'll note, with faith, you have an object of your faith, that's

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Christ, and you have to have legitimate promises that he's promising you.

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Has Jesus promised you the full forgiveness of all of your sins because of his death on the cross for your sins?

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Yes. Has Jesus promised you eternal life and a new earth? Yes, he has.

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Here's the other bit. Has Jesus promised you the Holy Spirit? Yes, he has.

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So here's where the rub is. And when you read the writings of the church fathers, you see this so clearly.

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It's like a missing ingredient in much of the preaching today because of all the weird stuff being taught regarding the

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Holy Spirit. You cannot be sanctified by your own steam or your own efforts or your own law -keeping.

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You cannot be perfected by the flesh. And the question is, do you believe what these texts then say as it relates to sanctification?

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Because you're gonna know, in Galatians, there is zero quarter, zero compromise, not even a millimeter given to the

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Judaizers. Not one anything. He condemns them and says that they are damned.

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And yet, it is in this epistle that you begin to hear so clearly the faith that is necessary, how we focus that faith on the promises that are in Scripture for us regarding the work of the

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Holy Spirit in our sanctification. And you sit there and go, well, if I believe that, then

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I don't have to make any New Year's resolutions. And right, exactly, you shouldn't be doing that anyway.

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You break them and you make yourself out to be a liar. So I just gave up. I made a resolution. I wasn't gonna make any resolutions.

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And I've kept that one. Amen. All right.

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So note, then, we do not begin in the Spirit and then are perfected by the flesh.

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That's not how this works. So watch where he goes. Know, then, it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham.

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Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, in you shall all the nations be blessed.

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So then those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. Now watch where this goes.

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All who rely on works of the law are under a curse.

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Does this say that you're cursed if you obey the law? No, you are cursed if you rely on it.

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I do not rely on the law of God to give me the strength to bear the fruit of the

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Spirit. The law was given to condemn me, and it does it wonderfully daily, right?

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All who rely on works of the law are cursed, for it is written, curse is everyone who does not abide by all the things written in the book of the law and keep on doing them.

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It's evident no one is justified before God by the law. For the righteous, and watch this.

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This is a quote, then, from Habakkuk chapter two, and this is not about vision boarding.

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I just want to make that clear. That the righteous shall live by faith.

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The righteous will do what? Listen to the sentence again. The righteous shall live by faith.

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How shall we then live as Christians? By faith. You see the implication?

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The law is not of faith. Rather, the one who keeps on doing them shall live by them.

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Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written, cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree, so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the

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Gentiles, so that we might receive, watch this, we might receive the promised

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Holy Spirit. How? Through faith. That Holy Spirit, Jesus said, would convict the world of sin and unbelief.

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This passage, this epistle says that the Holy Spirit produces within us the fruit of the

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Spirit. So we receive the Holy Spirit, how? By going, look,

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Holy Spirit, I didn't kill my neighbor this week. Okay, oh, good on you,

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I'm so happy for you. Right, you know, this is not how this works.

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Now let me show you a cross -reference here so that you see what I'm talking about is actually a consistent thought in the theology of Paul.

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In Romans chapter one, listen to the opening here and you'll see it.

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I'm gonna read a little bit of this. Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, this one's a little bit less tersely written, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through the prophets in his holy scriptures concerning his son, who was descended from David according to the flesh, who was declared to be the son of God in power according to the spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead

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Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about, and watch the words, the obedience of faith.

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Faith through the power of the Holy Spirit produces in us obedience.

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You, by your own flesh, trying to figure this out how to do it, you're gonna keep falling on your face.

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This is a consistent thought with the apostle Paul. We are truly called to obedience because why? Sin is slavery.

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I don't wanna be a slave anymore. I'm sick of it. It's absolutely hollow.

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Have you noticed that the devil takes all the good gifts of God, hollows them out of all the good things and gives you an empty form?

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And at the end of the day, you are left absolutely lonely, broken, and in shame.

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You know this. Personally, we've all been down this road. True happiness is found in the law of perfect freedom.

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But I do not have within my flesh the power to obey its commands.

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And the law doesn't give me the power to obey Christ. The Holy Spirit does.

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And that happens humbly through faith. So coming back then, you're gonna know, we're gonna go forward just a little bit in the book of Galatians.

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We're gonna go to chapter five. Now, I apologize for jumping around a little bit, but I wanna stay focused on the topic at hand.

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So everybody here is in agreement. Paul isn't giving any ground to the

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Judaizers. And he's flat out condemned the idea of starting by the

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Spirit and then trying to be perfected by the flesh. It don't work. That's how you end up in self -righteousness.

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And when your sanctification is devoid of the work of the Holy Spirit, and it's by your own efforts, you end up shipwrecking your faith and derailing justification and end up back into self -righteousness.

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That's how the loop gets busted open. So Paul then, you'll know, Galatians five.

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And I'm gonna read these bits out even though the Apostle Paul is such a hateful person, and he's just not politically correct.

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And if he said these things today and you posted them on Twitter, the SJWs would cancel him, but oh well.

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Watch what he says. It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. No, we're dealing with the exact same topic that Christ was speaking of in John eight in our gospel text.

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If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. Everyone who sins is a slave to sin.

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The slave does not live in the house forever, the Son does. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

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This is the same topic straight up. So stand firm then and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

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Trying to be sanctified or justified by your flesh and keeping commandments is not going to work.

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That's a yoke of slavery. Look, I, Paul, say to you, if you accept circumcision,

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Christ will be of no advantage to you. I testify to every man who accepts circumcision, he's obligated to keep the whole law.

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You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law. You have fallen away from grace.

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For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.

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So note again here, faith does stuff. Faith works through love, not the flesh trying to obey commandments.

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Faith works through love. So you were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth?

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This persuasion is not from him who calls you. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. I have confidence in the

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Lord that you will take no other view. The one who is troubling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is, but if I still preach circumcision, why am

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I still being persecuted? In that case, the offense of the cross has been removed. So I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves.

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That's right, you circumcision party guys, you haven't cut deep enough, you just need to lop it all off, all right?

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The Apostle Paul really pulls no punches. And then now, here's where the segue is into the second part of the corrective.

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Because remember, Galatians 3 says, having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?

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So Paul not only has to put his feet down and anchor and dig in hard on justification, he's required by virtue of the fact that they got derailed into justification by works by a misunderstanding of sanctification.

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That's his point, he has to clear this up now and give us what does it mean to be sanctified by faith?

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What does it mean? You were called to freedom, brothers. Don't use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love, serve one another.

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For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you're not consumed by one another.

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Sounds like church council meetings I've been a part of. Anyway, sorry, still in therapy about that.

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So here's where he goes then. I say, walk by the

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Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. Full stop.

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Let's unpack this a little bit here. So Paul's a Jew. Paul is

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Hebrew. And throughout the Old Testament, one of the ways in which the Hebrew mind works is they don't really deal with the abstract concepts of the philosophers of Greece.

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They instead have idioms that are always grounded in something that's a little more tangible and concrete.

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So when Paul says walk, he's not saying grab your purse or your backpack and then go from here to the bus stop.

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That's not what he's talking about. This is a Hebrew idiom on how one conducts and lives their life.

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So watch what he says. Walk by the Spirit.

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Conduct your life by the Holy Spirit. And when you do that, you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

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In other words, who's the operative person in the Trinity who is making it possible for you to not gratify your sinful desires?

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It's the Holy Spirit. All of a sudden, the

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Holy Spirit seems to take on a super important role, does he not? When you understand sanctification and justification by faith, the

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Holy Spirit all of a sudden comes front and center in your daily prayers and in your daily walk.

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Walk, conduct your life by the Holy Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

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And we all know that to gratify your flesh's sinful desires is to disobey

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God's commands. Notice what he didn't say here. Get your act together and start obeying the 10

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Commandments. He said walk by the Spirit and you will obey the 10

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Commandments. You see the difference? For the desires of the flesh, they are against the

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Spirit, the Holy Spirit. The desires of the Spirit are against the flesh. These are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things that you wanna do.

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So if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now, let me clear this up also.

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Being led by the Spirit does not turn you into a Jedi. All right? That's Buddhism and stupid mysticism, all right?

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So many people think that to be led by the Spirit means, well, there I was. I was at the grocery store and I was waiting in line in aisle number eight and I just felt prompted by the

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Holy Spirit to go over to aisle number two instead. And I was able to lead four people to Christ and they were all on their knees right there at Walmart in front of the

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People Magazine. That's not what that means, okay? To be led by the

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Spirit is to be led by the Word of God because all Scripture is God -breathed.

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All Scripture was inspired by God, the Holy Spirit. This calls for faith.

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Desires of the flesh are against the Spirit. Desires of the Spirit are against the, to keep you from doing the things you want.

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If you're led by the Spirit, you're not under the law. Now, the works of the flesh, they're evident. Sexual immorality, check.

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Impurity, sensuality, idolatry, check, check, check. Enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, church council meetings, divisions, envy, drunkenness.

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I slipped that one in there. And things like these.

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I warn you as I warned you before. Those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the what?

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Spirit. The fruit of two pneumatas, the

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Spirit. That's the Holy Spirit. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self -control.

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Against such things, there is no law. Those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and its desires.

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What did Romans 6 say about that? When did that take place? In your baptism. So if we live by the

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Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.

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So when you read the writings of the early church fathers, and Augustine's really good on this also, how does this then look?

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This idea of sanctification by faith through the

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Holy Spirit? It's the daily grind, in the best way

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I can describe it, and it goes something like this. You wake up in the morning and you go, Lord, please keep me this day from sin and every evil.

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And you can even expand on that and say, Lord, my sinful flesh really wants to do that.

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And I don't wanna do that. I wanna obey your law, but I can't. I do not have the power in me to just somehow white -knuckle this.

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And so I pray then, God, through the power of the Spirit, that you would lead me today, that you would give me the strength today, and that the

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Holy Spirit would produce in me the fruit of the Spirit, and that I can walk in the obedience of faith.

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And Augustine wrote extensively on this concept. There's a whole book that he wrote kind of talking about this.

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And one of his main points is that when you white -knuckle it and he didn't use those terms, that's

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Roseborough's paraphrase. When you white -knuckle it and you just kind of pull yourself up by your bootstraps and you say,

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I'm gonna be obeying those commandments today and all this kind of stuff, you become the most arrogant person on planet

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Earth. And you become extremely boastful. Oh, look what

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I did. Oh, look what I did. But walking by the Spirit and praying to the

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Holy Spirit to give you the strength, trusting in his promise, one of the things

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I pray back to the Holy Spirit is I pray back to him, I say, you said in your word that if I walk by the

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Spirit, I will not gratify the desires of the sinful flesh. You said that, not me.

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I believe you, therefore, you need to make that happen in my life. And it's kind of blunt, but that's the idea.

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But when the Holy Spirit is the one who then gives you the strength to mortify your sinful flesh and to not gratify the desires of your flesh, do you have anything on Earth to boast about?

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Not a thing. Not a thing. And that's the difference.

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You'll note that justification and sanctification by works creates arrogant, conceited, delusional people that think that they have a lot to boast about in themselves.

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Justification and sanctification by faith leaves us with nothing to boast about because at the end of the day, if I'm able to collapse in bed and go, ah,

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I didn't spend my day wrestling with and fighting with my sinful nature and having to constantly battle it all hours of the day regarding not gratifying its sinful desires.

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And at the end of the day, when that happens, you sit there and you go, thank you, thank you.

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And that's the difference. Justification and sanctification are part of a whole package.

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The two go together, you can't unbuckle them. And they are all by faith.

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Do you believe these words or not? Walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

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Do you believe that or not? So to walk by the Spirit, to be led by the

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Spirit, to live by the Spirit is to live by His power, His strength,

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Him convicting us of our sins, Him giving us the power to say no because we are free.

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We are not slaves. You don't have the power to say no. He has the power to give to you to do that.

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In other words, there isn't a day that goes by where you do not need the Holy Spirit. And I'm not talking about clucking like a duck, barking like a dog, convulsing violently on the floor.

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That's demonic spirits, okay? I'm talking about the actual Holy Spirit that produces in us holiness.

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And so every time we then come around to some of the penitential seasons, we got a penitential season coming up in Advent, we look then at our lives and look at the different ways according to the

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Ten Commandments where we need the Holy Spirit to give us more strength to mortify our sinful flesh so that we by faith can serve our neighbor in love.

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You see the difference? There is a difference, but justification by faith and sanctification by faith go together.

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All right, I'm gonna scroll back up to the questions here. And of course, anybody here, you can ask questions as well. So, all right, so the question is, does

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Sabbath -keeping of the seventh -day Adventist come under justification by works? I would say, technically, no.

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It can, though. And the issue is that Ellen White, she's a false prophetess.

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There's just no way around it. And much of what is in Adventism is extremely legalistic.

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That doesn't mean that there aren't Christians within Adventism, that's not what that means. But when somebody says, though, you're not a true

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Christian unless you worship on Saturdays, now we've gone into the

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Judah -Isaac heresy, okay? Not only that, it's a complete misunderstanding of what the Sabbath is all about anyway.

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So I would note then, when I was a Christian, when I was a Nazarene, I was told, if you're truly a

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Christian, you don't listen to Van Halen, Duran Duran, to Journey, to Foreigner, you listen to Petra and De Garmo and Key and all this kind of stuff, right?

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Because nobody who's truly a Christian would ever listen to anything that would pollute their mind, is what you're told. And the problem is that Christian music sucked compared to the secular stuff.

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It just was terrible. I mean, I think of, what was the name of that cartoon, King of the

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Hill, where Hank Hill, he confronts one guy who's supposedly a

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Christian rock artist, and he basically says, I forgot how to go, you're not making

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Christianity better, you're making rock and roll worse, you know?

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It's a great line. I'll tell you what. I'll tell you what, that's right. All right, let's see here.

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So Jen, unfortunately my in -laws had a 35 -year marriage that was empty. They divorced once,

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Dane was 21, then they went through the motion. You don't sanctify yourself to be declared holy.

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Someone who is already holy needs to do that. Exactly, exactly, good point. So New Year's resolution, 1

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Corinthians 2 .2, for I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except for Christ, named crucified.

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That's a good one, that's a good one, but that's not a New Year's resolution. That should be a life thing, you know?

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And Carlos, I would say this, is that as one who has been in the ministry and intends to continue in the ministry in preaching

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Christ, let this be your thesis statement for everything you preach and teach publicly, you know?

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And may you never depart from it. All right, Matthew says, so then does simply having faith in Jesus, the

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Holy Spirit, make it so the Holy Spirit will silently work in you to bring you more into obedience? Yeah, you're gonna know, the

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Holy Spirit is going to, for sure, work in you to give you the strength to mortify your sinful flesh.

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And when you're struggling and it just feels like the devil, the world, and your sinful flesh have all teamed up together and just been beating the snot out of you for week after week after week, keep coming back and say, you said, if I walk by the

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Spirit, I will not gratify the desires of the sinful flesh. You got a problem here, right now it seems like everything's going the opposite direction, so you better fix this.

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And you'll note, my prayer life is actually kind of that blunt at times, you know? You said this, this is happening, there's a problem here because what you said isn't what's happening, you gotta fix it, okay?

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It's wonderful not being God, by the way, and having one. All right, let's go on here, so Rachel says,

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I once heard a Word of Faith preacher use Galatians 3 .13 to say we need to obey the law to not be cursed.

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He clearly failed fourth grade reading comprehension, okay. Wow, okay, and went back to Deuteronomy 28 to show us what we needed to do to obey not to be cursed.

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She says, smashing my head, I knew he was dead wrong and completely missed the point of the verse and the entire book of Galatians.

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I mean, talk about, I mean, that's not even, I can't even say he missed the forest because of a tree.

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It's like, he like looked at the tree upside down and declared it right side up, that's, wow.

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So Rachel, how do you walk by the Spirit? So conducting your life by the Spirit, Rachel, is the daily practice, if you would, of literally, by faith, standing on a promise like this and calling on God the

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Holy Spirit to give you the strength to mortify your flesh, to not gratify your sinful desires, and to love your neighbor and produce within you love, joy, peace, patience, kindness.

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You got a note here. I always like to point this out to people who are wrestling with their own issues.

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The absence of a bad behavior also is not the presence of a good one, okay.

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I want you to think about this for a second, okay. Because the self -righteous points to God and goes, well,

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God, I didn't murder my neighbor today, all right. And, but that's, the absence of the bad behavior is not the presence of the good behavior.

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The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self -control.

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Which means not putting a knife in the back of your neighbor, although that's a good thing, okay.

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Love for neighbor is going to then extend to the point of what are you doing to help your neighbor in his bodily needs.

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And befriend your neighbor and be there for him, okay. Yeah, do any of you talk to your neighbors anymore?

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I don't, you know, I just talk to you guys, so. Pete, did you have your hand up? Yeah, Pastor, I was wondering about Galatians 5.

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Mm -hmm. Severed from Christ.

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Yeah. We're seeking to be just raised. Yes. Is there a reversal for that though?

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Yes, repentance. That's it. Yeah, that's, it's absolutely repentance. There is a reversal for that. So the idea then is that the

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Lutherans unlike the Calvinists, we actually believe that somebody can apostatize. And that there are different ways that you can abandon the faith that has been given to you.

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And so the dangers generally come in from two directions. False teaching, like the teaching of the Judaizers, which takes your eyes off of Christ and puts them back on yourself and your progress.

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Or, on the other hand, the kind of growing, debilitating strength of practicing sin.

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Okay, the sin that you practice in the dark can overcome you and the devil can use that for the purpose of knocking faith out of you.

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And generally, when that happens, it kind of goes one of two ways. The person despairs, believing they can't be forgiven because their sin is so special.

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It's not. Or worse, they just abandon themselves to that sin. You know,

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I think of, I can't remember the guy's name because I didn't read the book. But back in the 90s in evangelicalism, there was a guy who wrote a book about the importance of kind of challenging kids to, teenagers, to save their virginity from marriage.

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It was part of the purity culture of the 90s. And there's not, absolutely, Christians are not supposed to be having sex before marriage.

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This is true. But this guy was leading the way on this, and you know what it was? It was pure sanctification by works.

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And just a couple years ago, he came out as having walked away from Christianity.

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And no sooner did he announce that he was no longer a Christian, on his social media, he was at gay pride parades.

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All right? So we look at somebody like that. Now, the Reformed Baptist would say he was never a Christian to begin with.

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The Lutheran goes, no, he was baptized and he had a confession of faith. The problem is, is he both apostatized and was nursing sinful behavior.

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And so sin is not your friend. At the end of it, it leads to death.

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I mean, like, eternal death. So then, it's through the Holy Spirit, then we confess our sins and we cry out to God to give us the strength to mortify our sinful desires.

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The obedience of faith, not the obedience of self -righteousness, or by the law.

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Does that make sense? Big difference altogether. And so a lot of people don't even have this category in their thinking.

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And you're gonna note here, when you're talking about mortifying the sinful flesh and not gratifying the desires of the sinful body, you're not, you can't be accused of being lawless.

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It's like, are you nuts? Of course, it's through the Holy Spirit that we're obeying the law.

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Right? All right, so you get the idea. So sappy music is essential for the

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Holy Spirit to be present. I know some people think that. It's like, over and again, that's part of the liturgy of evangelical churches.

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So you get five verses out of context in a kind of a self -help kind of way.

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And usually it's topics that are super relevant. The Lord wants you to be a better steward of time management and so at the end of it, right as the pastor's winding up, you got the guy on the keyboards kind of playing lightly in the background and go, now, if you feel that the

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Lord is telling you that you need to go right now to the Franklin Covey store and buy yourself a day planner, come on up right now and we're gonna pray for you.

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And you can tell the Holy Spirit is working because of the keyboard guy in the back. What's the minimum amount of reverb on the guitar necessary to call down the

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Holy Spirit? That's a good question. I think you'll have to check the Book of Armaments on that, so. Got it. All right, yeah.

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The question was, how much reverb is needed on the guitar before the Holy Spirit will respond?

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Yeah, it's just weird. Okay, Jen says, human merit is regarded as a grace from God.

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Augustine declared, when God crowns our merits, he crowns his own gifts. Exactly, can we just be blunt?

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You have nothing, nothing that you didn't receive from God.

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The breath you just exhaled, God gave it to you. And God gave you the lungs to inhale that breath.

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If you have blood working through your veins right now, God made that blood.

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He made your brain, he made your body, he made everything about you. And the good gifts he gives you, he's the one who produces them.

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And the fact that he crowns them is basically God saying, I think I did a pretty good job. Right?

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Not what a smart boy or a good boy or a little good girl you've been. That's not how this works. Yeah, good point.

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All right, Lisa says, it sounds like churches in England are just as messed up as the ones in the U .S. Steve, there's nothing great about the great apostasy and it's in full swing.

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So, I mean, I keep pointing to the fact that so many of you are joining us online as proof positive that the lights are going out around the world.

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It's hard to find good churches now. And it's annoyingly bad. So, all right.

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So, okay, for the grace of God has appeared. Okay, so this is Titus. Jeff says, the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions right on and to live self -controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age.

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Not just in the world to come, in the present age. And you're only gonna do that by faith. You're only gonna do that by the power of the

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Holy Spirit. You don't have the ability to do this yourself, okay? All right,

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Lily says, at Resonation, you'll hear, can I get some keys? Let me reach in and grab.

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No, I think they're in my backpack. Yeah, anyway, all right. Let's see here. Charismatics will say you need to be holy and have a clean vessel for the

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Holy Spirit to come and live in. Okay, so Rachel, you're not wrong.

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That is exactly what they say. And so the idea, then, is you need to clean up your act in order for the

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Holy Spirit to have, I mean, you wouldn't want the Holy Spirit to come into your pig pen of a life now, would you?

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You had better clean up your act, otherwise the Holy Spirit's gonna go, eww, this place is gross, I didn't wanna be here.

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It's anointed juice glass. Okay, so I always point out the fact that, hello, what did the blood of Christ do?

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What did our baptism do? Oh, and if that's not enough, you heard the absolution. It was Christ doing the forgiving of sins again this

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Sunday. I just got to be the bailiff who got to unlock the handcuffs. Christ is the one who makes you holy.

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And I would point this out. Within the Roman Catholic Church, and Michael, I can get you an affirmation here via a nod.

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Isn't the whole goal for you to really strive, hit that perfection so that you can be recognized after your death as a saint?

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That's the whole goal of Catholicism, right? To become a saint, okay?

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And over again, I hear people say stupid things like this. Well, you know, I'm not a saint.

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It's like, really, is this what you think, okay? And so part of what we do in our catechism class,

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I'll show you this. I'm just gonna look for a word. I'm gonna look for the word saint, all right? And we're going to look for it in the epistles, all right?

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We're gonna note here, this word is used a lot, okay? And why are we doing this?

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Because I'm answering Rachel's question. Okay, so watch what happens. So when

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God calls Ananias and says to him, go visit Saul, he says,

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Lord, I've heard about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints,

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Christians, right? No, Christians and saints are synonymous. Peter went in here and there among them, and he came also to the saints who lived at Lydda.

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And he gave her his hand and raised her up, then calling the saints and the widows, he presented her alive.

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Saints, what's the word for saint? Hagios, okay?

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Let's take a look. Hagios, what is a saint? That is way too small.

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I really need to learn how to make it so that when I do that, I can actually read it. Okay, okay, dedicated to God, holy or sacred.

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Saints are already holy. When you are baptized, one baptism for the remission of sins, and what does

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Peter say in Acts 2? He says, repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins and you will receive the

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Holy Spirit. It is not my job to clean up my pigpen life so that the

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Holy Spirit will feel comfortable and have a place to live. Christ did that already.

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He washed away all of my sins. He washed away all of your sins. I is a saint.

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I am not striving to be one, and guess what? I did nothing to attain saint status.

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It was gifted to me by Christ. Same with you. So, I'm not gonna wait until I'm dead to be a saint.

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I'm on right now. Got a lot of room for improvement, so do you. Right? That's kind of the point.

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So, hopefully that answers your question, Rachel. I think you get the idea here. And then I'm gonna have to wrap up at this point here.

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Let's see here. Yeah, I gotta wrap up here because of my time. So, hopefully you found this helpful.

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And again, justification and sanctification, the whole salvation, the whole package is by grace through faith.

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And so, believe the Holy Spirit. Believe what he's written there. Walk by the Spirit. You will not gratify the desires of flesh.

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We are called to the obedience of faith, not the obedience of self -righteousness by the flesh.