Is God A Perfectionist? (part 2) - [Matthew 5:4]

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Bible In A Year - Revelation (part 3)

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Well, they say when you preach a sermon that you should get interest, grab people's attention, and then kind of draw them into the topic.
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The verse this morning I don't think needs any of that. Jesus said, therefore you are to be perfect as your heavenly
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Father is perfect. If I can't get your attention with those words,
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I can't get your attention. So let's turn our Bibles to Matthew chapter 5 in our sequential exposition of the
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Gospel of Matthew, specifically the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, 6, and 7. And today we come to Matthew 5 .48
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again, kind of a pivotal transition here in the
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Gospel of Matthew. Jesus is working his way through the Sermon on the Mount and he closes this chapter with these words that should shock us.
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They should stop us dead center and make us say what the psalmist often says in the
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Psalms, Selah, S -E -L -A -H, which basically means, most scholars think, stop and let that sink in.
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Just stop and think about it before you rush on to the next thing. Here stop and let that sink in.
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And so the way I've organized last week's message and this week's message is in light of Matthew 5 .48,
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God requiring perfection to be in his perfect heaven, how does this verse help us debunk some common myths that we see in Christian circles, in evangelical circles, maybe even in our circles.
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And so several are in review, but I'm adding some extra information. So if you're coming today for the first time, you'll get all the information.
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And so I'm going to look at several lies about God and his salvation that this verse, Matthew 5 .48,
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helps us get rid of, helps us debunk. And so Matthew 5 .48, several myths about God and his salvation that Jesus will help us with as we understand this passage better.
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There'll be some overlap and it's intentional. There's some duplication that I want placed on these points so we see this passage in every different side, so it's full and complete.
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Myth number one that we saw last week that this verse helps us understand and therefore debunk is that God requires less than perfection for his heaven.
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The myth is you don't have to really be perfect. And when you ask a person a question, do you have to be perfect to go to heaven, 99 times out of 100, they will say no.
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And when you look at these verses here, it's very, very clear that there would be wrong. I mean, the
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Greek word for perfect means perfect. And it could either be that something's perfect because it has every side to it.
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You have a tractor and a tractor has wheels. That would be a perfect tractor. A tractor without wheels would be what kind of tractor?
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An imperfect tractor. But it also can mean something along the lines of blameless, or sinless, or holy, that something is either complete, therefore perfect, or something has to be sinless, or holy, to be perfect.
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And so Jesus is saying for his followers to be in his heaven, there must be no blemishes.
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If you're going to be a sacrifice, a lamb or a dove, it had to be what kind of sacrifice? The worst?
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No, the best. It had to be perfect. And so when it comes to our righteousness, nothing is to be lacking.
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When it comes to our sin, there must be no sin to get into heaven. And immediately we think, well, how could we do that?
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Jesus has almost one -upped what he said earlier. He's taken something to a degree higher up the ladder.
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Look back at Matthew 5 .20. The verse really that unlocks all of the Sermon on the Mount. If you'd like to understand this sermon, the greatest sermon ever preached,
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I don't mean my sermon, but Jesus' sermon. I know today's going to be a great sermon, not because I'm preaching it, but because it's the words of Christ.
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But here in Jesus' sermon, you want to unlock the key. If you want the code, this is the code right here,
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Matthew 5 .20. Jesus says, for I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and the
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Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. The most religious people, the zealots.
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And lots of times we say, well, the Pharisees and the scribes, you know, they're just lame. They're just hypocrites.
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They're just irreligious. The first two things are correct, but the third one wasn't correct at all.
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Come with me, if you would, to Matthew chapter 5, and I want to show you just how religious... Matthew 23, sorry.
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Did I say Matthew 5? I meant Matthew 23. Come with me from Matthew 5 to Matthew 23, and I want to show you just how religious these people were, so you can understand
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Jesus' words. You want heaven? You have to be more religious than this. You would like to have eternal life in the presence of God?
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Then you have to be more exacting in your religion than these people. And so let's just take a quick look of Matthew chapter 23.
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In this chapter where Jesus gives all these woes to the Pharisees, you'll see how religious they were, though.
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Very interestingly, he says in verse 5 of Matthew 23, but they do all their deeds to be noticed by men, for they broaden their phylacteries and lengthen the tassels of their garments.
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I mean, when it comes to religiosity, they even wore religious garments. I mean, how many of us can say that here?
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How many people wear religious garments to work? I don't even wear some backward collar.
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I mean, I see these people here, and the way they dress, you go into your closet, and you have all your wardrobe there, and it's all religious stuff.
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It's all gowns and cloaks and things like that. It would be different for them, but I'm just trying to bring it to modern age.
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It affected the way they dressed. Verse 14, he says,
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Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, devourer of widows' houses, pretense, you make long prayers.
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These men prayed. These men were very enthusiastic prayers.
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These men did not pray, now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord himself will take me from my grave. They didn't pray those.
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They didn't pray, thank you God for this food, in Jesus' name, amen. They didn't pray, come
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Lord Jesus, be our guest, let this food to us be blessed, amen. Those prayers that I grew up with, which are, by the way, fine prayers.
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They had long prayers. Look at verse 15. We can get another little insight into how religious these people were.
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They were enthusiastic evangelists. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel on sea and land to make one proselyte.
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Of course, they do it with bad motives. They do it with hypocrisy. They do it with an eye for self -congratulation, but they do it.
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How many people take plane trips across the world to make one proselyte? How many people say, you know what,
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I'm going to just do everything I can, the resources that I have are to get followers. These people were on short -term mission trips, long -term mission trips.
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They were religious. Verse 16, woe to you blind guides who say, whoever swears by the temple, that is nothing.
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Whoever swears by the goal of the temple is obligated, and he goes on to talk about this kind of swearing. They had the
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God talk. You ever meet people who know the God talk? They had it. Their religion affected the way they dressed, their religion affected the way they spent their money, how long they prayed, what they talked about.
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They were very, very religious. They were the most religious people in all of Palestine. Look at verse 23.
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Boy, this is amazing. Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. You tithe mint and dill and cumin and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law.
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Last night we had some food, and I wanted to have some cayenne pepper on top of my clam chowder.
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Call that a sin if you may. Just wanted something on there. Can you imagine when we had a couple families over from the church, and we're over there having dinner, and before I decide to put some of the ground cayenne on top of my clam chowder,
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I said, oh, wait. Let me get some of that out and measure it. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine.
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Put it over here. One goes over here. These people were religious. I mean, that's what they did.
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And look at verse 26. This is not hygiene cleaning.
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This is ceremonial cleaning. You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the dish so that the outside of it may become clean also.
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They put on all these extra rules for cleaning things, and when it comes to eating, it wasn't just pull up and eat.
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They had rules and regulations and cleanings and ceremonies. They were meticulous. What else did they do?
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This is something that I've never met anyone in my life who is a religious person who does this. I know they exist, but I've never met anyone like this.
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Verse 29, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous.
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They were so religious that they built religious monuments. They were so into ceremony and ritual and religion, they would build monuments, and once the monuments were already built, then they would adorn them with all kinds of garlands and things like some kind of World War II decoration.
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Building monuments. Are you so religious that you build monuments? And then lastly, I think my point has been made.
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If you look at verse 34, therefore I am sending you prophets and wise men and scribes.
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Some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city.
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How religious were the Pharisees? They were so religious that they killed blasphemers. How can any of us be this religious?
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Do any of us dress religiously? Do we have long prayers? Are we evangelistic like they were?
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Do we have all the God talk down like they did? Do we tithe a tenth of what we have for seeds, ceremonial cleansing, building monuments, and killing blasphemers?
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I think they were religious people. Jesus says in Matthew 5 .20, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, no heaven.
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What kind of exceeding must we do? If they do all that, there must be something more.
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It's like double that or triple that or just try a little harder. Build a few more monuments. Tithe eight out of two.
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God talk a little longer. Pray a little bit longer. Have my tassels on my robe a little bit longer.
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That's what I must do. But Jesus with Matthew 5 .48 slams down the house of cards and says, here's the most religious people in the world.
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They are very religious and your religion has to exceed that. But I'll tell you how far it has to exceed it by.
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What do you say in Matthew 5 .48? Perfection. Let's go back there. That is the standard.
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It's not more. It's not better. It's not on top of. It is perfection. Perfection is needed to get into our perfect God's perfect heaven.
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And that's why when we preach the gospel to our friends, we need to keep pushing God's standards towards them so they'll see, you know what?
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I fall short and I need what? Grace, I need a savior.
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There's no way I can do it. And when people say, you know what? I can do that. I've met many people in my life.
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I had one guy come to our house in North Hollywood a long time ago. And he sat over on the couch.
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I know exactly where he sat. And I was asking about things. And call me naive, but I don't really preach the savior until the people know they need one.
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And so I was preaching about sin. And I never got to the savior. Why? Because he looked at me. And I thought it was a joke to start off with.
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And he said, he's 18 years old. He said, I've never sinned one time in my entire life. I thought, you want to bet?
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You just did. But I didn't say that. I was looking. You know, you just look, listen.
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He needed to understand the standards of God are not some kind of standards of doing.
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The standards of God is God himself. The standard is a person. And so until people know that they've sinned against this
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God and they can't save themselves, well, there's no need for a savior. And that's exactly what Jesus is doing, saying the standard is too high.
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By the way, if people could save themselves, why would Jesus even come? There's a reason why the savior came to save.
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Myth number two. The first myth is God requires less than perfection. The second myth that floats around there is that God compares us to other people and uses kind of a bell curve deal.
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We're not as bad as other people. Therefore, God must really like us. And, you know, with families that have lots of kids, at least you're not as bad as you're the worst brother of the family or the worst sister of the family.
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You're the good one. But for unbelievers, they have to compare themselves to God himself.
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We talked about that a lot last week. And even, by the way, as a side note, for us as Christians, I like to hear the cross preached more even to Christians.
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Why do I say that? In our day, I believe there's more focus on holy living than the holy
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Christ himself. Which one should be at the top? Of course, we know both go together, right?
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Jesus is holy, therefore, he wants us to be holy. But if you had to hear one sermon, you say, I get one a year, would your sermon choice be,
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I want to hear about the holy life of Christ Jesus himself and what he did, or would you rather have six ways to be a better worshiper?
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Even when it comes to preaching the cross, we've somehow forgotten it. We've almost kind of bell -curved our sanctification and we want personal transformation and we've been abused when we've been kids and we've been hurt.
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Matter of fact, we have probably been abused and we have been hurt. But we can't confuse salvation with sanctification.
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Rome does that. We don't want to do that. We want to say we've been saved. Let's focus on God. When we understand him better, it's easier to obey in light of who he is and what he's done.
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This happens a lot. John Wesley thought if we preach the cross too much in justification, we'll forget sanctification.
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So often, he preached pietistically without the cross. Many times, he did preach the cross, of course.
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How perfect are we supposed to be? Not more perfect than our friends, but as perfect as what does your text say,
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Matthew 5 .48? As your heavenly father is perfect. How much sin is in the heavenly father?
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A trace, a smidgen, a thought, maybe a deed?
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I could ask it this way, imposing Matthew 5 .21 and following on the father. Did God the father ever lust?
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Did God the father ever deceive? Did God the father ever unrighteously retaliate?
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These words should never be used of God, right? Never, ever. So we are supposed to be as righteous as God is righteous.
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And boy, those standards are high. We should not compare ourselves to other people. We should say we compare ourselves to God.
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Myth number three, God requires something new in the New Testament for salvation compared to the old.
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In other words, there's a change of salvation between Old and New Testament. We looked at Leviticus and 1
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Peter last week. It's the same God, same salvation, same Savior because of the same sinners.
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Number four, salvation is humanly possible. Left to ourselves that we can actually save ourselves.
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Autosotirism, saving ourselves. But when you look at Matthew 5 .48, we should just say, that can't be.
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How can we be perfect? If we change the definition of perfect, maybe. But if we keep it as blameless and holy and perfect, we could never save ourselves.
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With men, this is impossible. With God, as we said last week, all things are possible. God chooses his rules, his standards, and he is the standard.
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Therefore, because of that, we should approach with the song of Joseph Hart. Come ye weary, heavy laden, bruised and broken by the fall.
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If you tarry till you're better, you will never, what? Come at all. Not the righteous, not the righteous, but sinners
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Jesus came to call. Number five, myth number five, still in review.
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Modern religion is good. Modern religion is good. It helps the community. It helps everything go smoothly.
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It helps traffic, and it's nice to be in a moral society with religion.
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But I put a few notes down here in my text. Religion without the cross is like putting a tuxedo on a corpse.
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Ever go by Mr. Tuck's? Can you imagine? Swing by Mr. Tuck's, and then swing over to the
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Worcester County Medical Center, and find out where the morgue might be. And oftentimes, since I understand hospitals, it's kind of ruined my trips to the hospitals in many senses, because if you ever see a gurney go down the hall, and the gurney is empty, but the gurney has curtains and skirts down below where you can't see the metal or anything underneath, my trip is usually ruined.
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Why? Because that's how they escort the corpses throughout the hospitals, so the patients over by the gift shop trying to buy a
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Diet Mountain Dew don't go into apoplexy, and you see some kind of corpse going through.
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Just imagine, you swing by Mr. Tuck's, and you swing by Worcester Medical Center, and you have to put that tux on that corpse.
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You think, you know, I know religion's kind of good, and so just the tux won't do.
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I think I'll get a little Calvin Klein cologne and spray that on too. Just a little underneath.
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You know, I'm teaching Luke how to put cologne on and stuff like that, and you know, this is not the way you do it.
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You know, that's not the way. Just spray a little here and kind of rub it in and up on your face, and off we go.
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Now, religion may help society, but modern religion is damning. In light of Matthew 5 .48
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with religiosity, it is like putting Armani on a skeleton. Greater righteousness is required, verse 20 of Matthew 5.
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What kind of greater righteousness? Perfect righteousness. You can't cover all those bases because you're trying to reflect the character of God.
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If religion says, do something, Jesus is basically saying, be something, and then you'll be able to do it, and we can't be those things when we're sinful.
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That's why he's giving the law, the law, the law. And I have a great statement that should help all those who think the moral majority or moralism or politics is the savior.
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I don't think many at this church think that, but here is the newsflash. Newsflash for those who think politics and moralism and religion is going to help the world.
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Here's the ticker tape right here. God justifies the wicked.
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Why don't you turn with me to Romans chapter 4? God justifies the wicked. Hey, we can't be perfect, so let's try to be a little bit better so then
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God will look down upon us and say, you know what? You're not quite as bad as the rest, and you're making a good effort. That will never do, so we have a
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God who justifies the wicked. He justifies the ungodly. This is an amazing thing. This will increase your praise.
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This will make you think, you know what? I don't need some new advice on how to get a new job or some new advice on how to be a better neighbor.
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I think I need to realize what God has done for me undeservedly because he wanted to out of his great love.
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Romans chapter 4 gives the illustration of Abraham, and it says in the first verse, but what then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh, has found?
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Many Jews thought, well, Abraham was a good Jew, and he was better than most, and therefore God was pleased with Abraham because he was good, and God helps those who help themselves, and he kind of earned it somehow.
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But Paul won't have any of that. Verse 2, for if Abraham was justified by works, if he was declared righteous with the gavel of God by something he did, he has something to boast about.
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I did something, therefore in light of that, in response to that, because of that, God did something back to me.
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And you might brag to other people, maybe even to other Jews or Gentiles, but there will be no bragging in the courtroom of God, but not before God.
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Paul says, if there's been any Pharisees kind of getting involved with your thinking about this, I'm going to root that out, and there's justification by faith alone.
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Verse 3, for what does Scripture say? Abraham believed, that was it. It's not even a meritorious belief.
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He believed in God, or believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness. Now, to the one who works, his wage is not credited as a favor, but what is due?
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When you go to your job, and two weeks later, you get a paycheck, and your boss says to you, by the way, the company has been looking at their stock portfolio, and the investments, and we really have a lot of extra money, and so we'd like to give you a gift today, and here's your gift.
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And you look at it, and you think, wow, I get a gift today, and it's the exact same amount you got paid two weeks ago. That's not a gift, you earned that.
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And so you look at the verse, the one who works, his wage is not credited as a favor, but what is due? Verse 5, but, here's the contrast, but to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the, mark it down, ungodly.
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We don't use moralism and religion to make people better so that God can save them, because God only saves the wicked, the ungodly.
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His faith, this person, is credited as righteousness. Now, different words are translated for ungodly.
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One would be wicked. Another would be impious. Another would be irreverent.
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And my favorite definition of this Greek word is destitute of reverential awe to God.
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Destitute of reverential awe to God, Thayer's lexicon. These people have no awe that should be given towards God.
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And the way that God acts, how do you describe something that's not typical? If this is typical, you act in a way that's not typical, we call that what?
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Atypical, alpha privative in front of it. If you put an A in front of godly, you get what?
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Something that's the exact opposite and you get ungodly. That's the exact word for this. They have no awe towards God and it's a double sin because there's no awe towards God and there's going to be awe towards someone or something else.
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Moralism and religion says we got to put a band -aid on the patch of somebody who's being good and God saves so graciously the undeserving.
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We have always been undeserving, we always will be undeserving, yet Jesus goes on a seek and save mission.
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I love reading about Navy SEALs and other kind of tactical groups that have to go in and rescue people.
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That's the idea. At their own expense, they'll lay down their lives for rescuing this brother in harm's way.
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Getting the mission done. The person who's not working is the one who's justified. Religion says work, do, be.
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Perfection, beloved, is needed. Not being, not working. Myth number six.
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Jesus lived a perfect life only as an example of love. Let's turn to Isaiah chapter 61, please. Jesus lived a perfect life only as an example of love.
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Was it an example of love? Yes, but it was not only as an example of love. It was not only an example of what a martyr will do.
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It's not the demonstration only of love. It is a demonstration of love, but it is something more.
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Jesus' perfect life answers the question, how can we be perfect?
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It's one thing to have your sins forgiven and get back to where Adam was, sinless.
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It's another thing to be more righteous than Adam. You know, Christian, you're more righteous than Adam before the fall.
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Before the fall, Adam had his own righteousness, yes? Did he do right things? Yes. He fell.
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After he fell, God looked, of course, towards the cross in anticipation and granted him
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Christ's righteousness. But we are more righteous than Adam was before he fell because we have been clothed with the righteousness of Christ.
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Our sins have been paid for by Jesus, and we're not just now to zero. We go forward in a positive way.
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And listen to how the book of Isaiah describes this clothing language.
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So picturesque. The Hebrew is wonderful here. How can we be perfect? Isaiah 61 .10.
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You know the verses, and after I get done saying the verses, you'll just want to say, that is glorious.
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Isaiah 61 .10, I will rejoice greatly in Yahweh. My soul will exalt in my
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God. Why? Why do you rejoice? Why do you rejoice greatly? Why does your soul exalt?
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For he hath, what? Clothed me with garments of salvation.
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He has wrapped me with a robe of righteousness. And then the picturesque language even gets better, especially for those getting married this year.
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Think about your wedding. As a bridegroom decks himself with a garland.
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I love to be the officiator of weddings, and I usually get to come out of the door there with the groom, and the groom is just looking fine.
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Got his vest on. Just some kind of, what do they wear?
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Some flower, carnation. I don't know what they wear. They just make me sneeze. He's looking good.
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There's almost nothing that looks better than a decked out, adorned groom.
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Until that door right over there opens up. And as, look at the text, a bride adorns herself with jewels.
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Could there be anything more celebratory, festive, great? Sadly, people don't even get dressed up for weddings anymore.
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At least the bride and groom tend to. Because I make them. With the language, the most exquisite language in all the
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Bible, in all of culture, how does God wrap up and clothe and make complete, our all -sided, our perfect, the life of the
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Christian? Well, yes, by taking sins away, Christ bears them on His body on the
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Calvary, and then God says, I'm not finished with that. I'm going to wrap you up. I'm going to just package you in such a way that you're going to have the garments of salvation.
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And everybody will praise with that, because look at verse 11. For as the earth brings forth its sprouts, and it surely does, and as a garden causes the things sown in it to spring up, the earth causes sprouts, the garden causes things to spring up, so the
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Lord God will cause to sprout up, if you will, righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations.
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That is glorious. That is not what false teacher Phinney said, quote, was impossible and absurd, end quote.
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He called the imputed righteousness of Christ, the doctrine of justification by Christ's righteousness, declared to our account as impossible and absurd.
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I think I'll stick with Paul. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
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If you understand Matthew 5 .48, God declares that we must be perfect, then He also gives us the way to be perfect, and that is based on what
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His Son has earned and accomplished. Jesus perfectly conforming to all the law of God.
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So we ought not to then add our works to Christ's work, because what would that say about Christ's work?
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Not really good enough. Jesus, you know, I know you paid two billion dollars for this costly enterprise, but I think, here's two bits, here's 25 cents,
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I think that'll help. No, John Flavel, the
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Puritan said, how dangerous it is to join anything of our own to the righteousness of Christ, in pursuit of justification before God.
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Jesus will never endure this. It reflects upon His work dishonorably. He will be all or none in our justification.
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If He has finished the work, what need is there of our additions? Did He finish the work?
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And will He ever divide the glory and praise of it with us? No, no, Christ is no half
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Savior. Myth number seven. Understanding Matthew 5 .48
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helps us understand doctrine. This may be the most important verse in all the Sermon on the Mount, when it comes to this hinge with 5 .20.
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Myth number seven. God loves you more when you obey, and He loves you less when you disobey. I said to myself,
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I wasn't going to cry when I discussed this story, but when I had a father, who in many ways was a good father, and provision and all that, was not a
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Christian man. This is my relationship with my father. If any of you want to be psychoanalytical, psychoanalysis driven, psychoanalytical, and understand why
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I'm so weird or crazy or whatever, it's because of what my dad did to me. Don't do it too much, because you come from a dysfunctional family too, called sin.
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I live in a dysfunctional family. Well, welcome to Adam's race. But anyway, back to the story.
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I felt if I did the right things, my father would love me more. And when I disobeyed, my father loved me less.
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It was always measuring up to the standard. Don't you think that's pretty lame?
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Don't you think it's wrong that if you're a child in a family, that you have status as a child, and that there might be things that might please your dad?
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Things that might discourage your father, mother? But there's nothing you can do to undo your relationship with your father.
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You are always an Ebendroth. I'll never forget the time that I drove my father's car.
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He was meticulous with his cars. No wonder why I'm just the exact opposite slob. You know, whatever your father is, you're kind of the opposite.
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I remember driving home one day. We had a really small garage, single house in Omaha. And I came driving up, and really wasn't paying attention.
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And I scraped the side of that car on the railing in the garage.
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Instantly, I just started to sweat, thinking, oh, and my dad's 6 '4", 240. I go, what kind of lie am
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I going to tell to get out of this one? Some kind of crazy evangelical born -again freak said if I didn't repent, they'd smash my car.
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I mean, I didn't know what I would tell him. Some strange kid up the street. We all have Cub Scout uniforms on. He's got some kind of a manna t -shirt on with a bunch of awards.
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I thought a manna people were in Iowa selling refrigerators, but they're in Omaha too. And then I realized it wasn't a manna, but it was a wanna.
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And I thought, maybe it's that I wanna kid that did it to me. But the righteous
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Father on earth, if He is reflecting our righteous
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Father in heaven, will in no wise cast out a son who disobeys.
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Will He? Turn to John chapter 17, and I think I can illustrate this to you.
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If you understand that you are perfect in Christ Jesus, not in practice.
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It's not that we disobey, but I'm talking about position. I'm saying as God sees you, as God looks at you, you're perfect because you're in Christ.
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You're wrapped in His robes. And God, when He looks at you, He sees Christ. That's how we can be perfect.
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So it begs the question, if God sees me in Christ, then how does God see Christ? Because how
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God sees Christ, He will then see me. And instead of trying to live up to somebody's standards of sonship and daughtership to be having the
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Father allow me in the family, instead it'll be the other way around. We'll realize how much we're loved, and then we can offer sacrifice of praise, even if it's half -baked, even if it comes from sinful hands, even if our motives aren't perfect.
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John 17, 22 tells us how God the Father sees God the Son. So in the back of our mind, we'll answer the question, so then how does
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God see us since we're in Christ? John 17, 22, the real Lord's Prayer. The glory which you have given me,
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Jesus said in John 17, 22, I've given to them that they may be one, just as we are one.
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I in them, and you in me, that they may be perfected in unity. What reason?
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Why would you pray that, Jesus? So that the world may know that you, Father, sent me, and love them.
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How do people, sinners, know that God loves them? Jesus was sent by Him. But to what degree is that love?
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How do we know that it's not just kind of half -baked love, or a love of reciprocal nature?
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No. Even as you loved me. How much does
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God love those in Christ? As much as He loves Jesus Himself. That is absolutely amazing to me.
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And He says in verse 24, Father, I desire that they also, whom
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You have given me. Now it becomes focused here. Be with me where I am, so that they may see my glory which
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You have given me. For You love me before the foundation of the world.
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Jesus is about ready to be crucified, and He prays this great prayer to the Father. And He says,
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Father, I want the world to know how much You love me. I want the world to know how much
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God is going to love His people because it's the same love that You've loved me, and I want them to see.
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If you notice the text in John 17, 24, so that they may see my glory.
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Kind of a bad English word for see. I just go right over it and go, see, take a look. This is the gaze forever.
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This is the kind of stare. This is take a picture. This is take a video. Looping it over and over and over where you just keep looking and looking.
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So that they may see my glory which You have given me. And then
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He prays, O righteous Father, although the world has not known Me, verse 25, yet I have known
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You, and these have known that You sent Me, and I made Your name known to them, and will make it known, so that the love which
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You love me may be in them, and I in them.
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Righteous Father, Holy Father, He prays in this prayer. I know You. I know
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You deeply. I know You intimately. I know You're going to hear my prayer. The world doesn't recognize anything that I do in our relationship, but my disciples do.
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And I want You to have love towards them like You love me. And so I would just say, because time is fleeting,
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God cannot love... If you're a Christian, God can't love you anymore. No matter what you do as a
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Christian, am I promoting sinfulness? No. Who would want to sin against a Father like this?
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But you cannot un -sin yourself out of the kingdom. Because God has declared you righteous in Christ and has made you perfect, and He loves you like that.
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And if God the Father can say, Son, you have no eternal security.
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Son, you cannot persevere. Son, I won't persevere with you. I won't preserve you.
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If the son can lose his sonship, then you can lose your sonship. So you know what
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I like about this? I like that it motivates me to do good works.
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It frees me up. Do you think I was motivated to serve my Father with this enthusiasm and vigor?
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Many times He was kind, and I'm not here to try to trash my dad in front of you or on the internet or anything.
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I'm just saying, I probably treat my kids this way because I just inherit some of those things to my father, and I'm also sinful.
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But it was like a slave. And you know, if the slave knows that the master is a task master exacting perfection, that slave doesn't work very hard,
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A. And B, the work he does is like a cringing dog. I'll still never forget the time. I'm sure it's because I'm lazy, but also because of this.
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My father would say, I want you to go trim the backyard. Mow it and trim. Why bother?
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I have no reason to do this because I'm going to mow, and I'm going to mow back and forth this way, and he's going to say, why don't you go diagonally?
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And then I'm going to trim around every tree, and he would walk around the backyard, I kid you not, finding one blade out of order, and then he was going to go, didn't do it right.
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Job half done isn't done at all. So you know what I would do? I mean, the picture of my laziness, of course, and sinful response.
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I just got tired of doing it, and he wouldn't even buy me one of those electric snippers either. So it was this all day long.
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And the grass grew up into the fence. I couldn't really get in there. I mean, I didn't know whether to gnaw on it like an animal or what.
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I couldn't do it. We didn't have one of those electric things and the eight pound test line comes flying out.
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It was nothing. So I figured, you might as well get some rest. So I remember laying down on my side, head like this, just kind of snipping.
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And once in a while, I'd switch to this side. Now, you know, boys are lazy, men are lazy, and that's because of the fall, and we ought not to do some of those things.
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We ought to respond properly to authority. But when you know your father says, you know,
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I couldn't love you anymore, and so what you offer me isn't perfection, isn't every blade of grass, but I'm glad you did it for me.
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I'm glad you did it with an eye towards, you know, I like things done like this around the house a certain way. I can perform freely now in fear no longer of punishment or displeasure.
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John Calvin said, those bound by the yoke of the law are like servants assigned to certain tasks for each day by their masters.
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These servants think they have accomplished nothing and dare not appear before their masters unless they have fulfilled the exact measure of their tasks.
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But sons do not hesitate to offer them incomplete and half done and even defective works, trusting that their obedience and readiness of mind will be accepted by their fathers, even though they have not quite achieved what their fathers intended.
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No fear of divine displeasure and kicking you out of the family when our works are complete.
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That's because God loves you in Christ Jesus to the infinite degree and He could never love you less and He could never love you more because you're in Christ.
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Number eight. All right, we're going to have to speed her up. Here we go. Get some
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WD -40 on your Bibles. In light of the new book coming out, when
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I return from the Shepherd's Conference, I think I'll do a two -week series on the book. The overview of the book. What does the book teach? Why is it important?
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And so I don't want to have part three hanging as a dangling participle. So we need to finish part two now.
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So far all I've done is reviewed all last seven points. But I gave you new stuff. Do I do point eight or nine?
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All right. Number eight. The resurrection only proved that death could not hold
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Jesus. Myth number eight. Regarding salvation, the resurrection only proved that death could not hold
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Jesus. This is not exactly out of Matthew 5 .48, but it has to do with Matthew 5 .48.
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There are three components to standing perfect before God. A. Jesus died for our sins at Calvary.
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B. Jesus lived a perfect life of obedience to the law. And there's a third one.
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It has to do with the resurrection. The resurrection. The resurrection is vital to Christianity.
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Paul, matter of fact, in 1 Corinthians 15, he says, I delivered to you as of first importance that what
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I received. What's the first importance? Religious liberty? Living in a world of ungodly people?
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No. Jesus' life, death, burial, resurrection. And people run around and try to deny the resurrection all the time.
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I found several theories this week. One was called the fraud theory. It's kind of the faux theory that Jesus just really knew the
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Old Testament well and He was just clever and He was just kind of a guy that could distort everything in such a way that people would believe
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He was the Messiah and He was just a fraud. He never was raised from the dead. I also found the swoon theory that Jesus kind of fainted on the cross.
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They came over and gave Him a little CPR, mouth -to -mouth stuff. And the tomb, by the way, was kind of chilly, so it made
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Him kind of wake up. You know, the bright light was inside when the tombstone was rolled away.
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I found this one was the weirdest one I found, the vision theory. The apostles had kind of a vision and they took some kind of apostolic acid,
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LSD, and they saw things. They found some kind of peyote root and they ate it and then they saw
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Jesus in their mind. He didn't raise from the dead. They just thought He did. And they took some of that fake peyote, apostolic acid, and they handed it to the other disciples and the other 500 people that saw
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Him. I found the spirit theory.
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Jesus' body wasn't raised up, but just His spirit. And the one that I hate the most is the heart theory.
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That Jesus really wasn't raised from the dead, but He was raised from the dead in the hearts of Christians.
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The resurrection is important for many reasons. Of course, death couldn't hold Jesus. But that's not the only reason it's important.
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It's important because it validated the work of Christ, His perfect life and His death.
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Turn to Romans 4 .25, last verse of the morning. It was a validation. When I think of confirmation in religious terminology, what do
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I think of? What do you think of? If I say religious setting confirmation, you say what? I went through the ordinance of some kind of highly liturgical church.
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For me, it was a Lutheran church. For many, it might have been Catholic. And you learn some things and you do some things and then the church says, we formally accept you and you now are what?
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Confirmed. Well, here's the confirmation of God the Father confirming the
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Son. How do we know that God accepted it? How do we know that God said, you know what? Great death.
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Perfectly drinking every drop of the cup. And great life. There wasn't one thing that you did that fell short of loving me with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and loving your neighbor as yourself.
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Nothing you did. I can find no hole there. And I find everything perfect.
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My anger has been assuaged. I agree. I confirm it. I validate it. I corroborate it.
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I have substantiation. I will ratify this contract. Romans 4 .25
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tells us that by the resurrection, God demonstrates that He accepts perfect obedience, perfect death.
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How do we know that Jesus Christ was a perfect sacrifice so that we might have perfection? He who was delivered up for our transgressions.
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That's just not the sin of missing the mark. That's a bad transgression. Here's the line and we step over it.
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He was delivered up because of our transgressions and was raised because of our justification.
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Do you want proof that it worked? Do you want proof that the Father said, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased, not just at baptism, but at Calvary by raising
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Him from the dead the third day. Confirmation. And sometimes when people get confirmed in religious settings, they get a name of a saint after they've been confirmed.
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They get a new name. I've got a new name for Jesus. Victor. That's what He was. He was Victor over the grave.
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He had said earlier, I'm going to be risen and then I'm going to go to heaven and it was true. And Jesus is the perfect sacrifice.
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So when it comes to His perfection, it's all linked together. By the way, I've taught you the last two weeks, justification by faith alone.
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The doctrine that the church either stands or falls by. And Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, you go to America and what you see is
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Protestantism without justification. Be good, act good, but not
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Jesus paid perfectly for my sins. Jesus perfectly gave me His perfect life because He's God. He can infinitely apply it to all those who would ever believe.
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And God said, I'll raise you from the dead. And I am so glad that since I am a
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Christian saved by the sacrifice of Christ, I also have Him as a mediator. And I know that when
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I sin in my life and I ask to be cleansed, will God hear? You ever think about what it would be like if God didn't hear your prayers and you didn't know if you were forgiven?
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You didn't know Jesus would raise from the dead. Think about it. Let's say Jesus lived a perfect life.
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He died at Calvary and He was never raised from the dead. How would you know that you have your sins forgiven? And how would you know that you could pray to God?
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How would anybody ever know? You wouldn't know. You would hope that when you died, you would know.
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But you wouldn't know until you died. And here's how you would pray. Here's a prayer found in the library of Asher Bannipal, an ancient
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Near Eastern library, and it is called A Prayer to Every God. Why do you pray to every
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God when you have sin? Because I want one to listen. I don't know who there is of a
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God. So this is a prayer to the unknown God is basically what it is. And hear the angst and the people crying out not knowing they would ever be forgiven.
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A prayer to every God. May the fury of my Lord's heart be quieted toward me.
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May the God who is not known be quieted toward me. May the Goddess who is not known be quieted toward me.
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May the God who I know or do not know be quieted toward me. May the Goddess whom I know or do not know be quieted toward me.
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May the heart of my God be quieted toward me. May the heart of my Goddess be quieted toward me. You can hear the torment.
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is there forgiveness? And then he gives the excuse, in ignorance I have eaten that forbidden of my
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God. In ignorance I have set foot on that forbidden by my Goddess. O Lord, my transgressions are many, great are my sins.
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The transgressions which I have committed, indeed I do not know. The sin which I have done, indeed
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I do not know. The forbidden thing that I have eaten, indeed I do not know. The prohibited place on which I have set foot, indeed
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I do not know. I don't know what to expect, I don't know what your standards are, I don't know what you're going to do to me, but I know my conscience is telling me
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I'm in sin. When the Goddess was angry with me, she made me become ill. The God whom
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I know or do not know has oppressed me. The Goddess whom I know or do not know has placed suffering upon me. Although I'm constantly looking for help, no one takes me by the hand.
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When I weep, they do not come to my side. I utter laments, no one hears me.
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I'm troubled, I'm overwhelmed, I cannot see. Whether man is committing sin or doing good, he does not know.
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Oh my Lord, do not cast thy servant down. The sin which I have done, turn into goodness. The transgression which
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I have committed, let the wind carry away. My many deeds strip off like a garment.
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But we don't have to pray that way, because God has raised Jesus from the dead.
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Lord, we pray to you, the God that we know, whom we know, and we know not because we figured you out, but because you revealed yourself to us.
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It was a divine act of mercy, in the incarnation that Jesus would come and save us.
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Thank you for that. Lord, we rejoice today that even though we fall short in sins, and our offering to you in our ministry, my offering to you as a pastor is far from perfect, that you see us in Christ Jesus, and you're pleased as a father would be with his son.
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Lord, I pray today that we would rejoice in this truth, and I also pray, especially for me, fathers and mothers, that we might love our kids in spite of what they do, and who they are, so we might show them more what it's like to be loved by a righteous father.
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Help us, Lord, we could never do this on our own. We need your grace and your Spirit's empowerment. In Jesus' name,