United in the Gospel

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Colossians 2:11-15

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Turn your Bibles this evening to Colossians 2. Colossians 2, our text this evening will be verses 11 -15.
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I am going to read verses 6 -15 just to help us get a little bit better context of 11 -15.
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So if you found Colossians 2, beginning in verse 6, if you would please stand tonight as we reverence the reading of God's holy word.
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Colossians 2, beginning in verse 6. Therefore, as you received
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Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.
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See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.
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For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him who is the head of all rule and authority.
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In him also you were circumcised with the circumcision made without hands by putting off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God who raised him from the dead.
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And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh,
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God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands.
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This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in him.
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Let's pray. Father, I'm so thankful,
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Lord, for your church. I'm so thankful for this church. Lord, as we sang these songs, my name is graven,
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Lord, in your hands, it's on your heart. Lord, who am I? Who are we?
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Lord, we are nobody. I am nobody. Lord, forgive me of my sinful pride to when
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I think that I am somebody, that I am worthy of this. Forgive me for that sinful pride, for I am not worthy.
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We are not worthy. Father, we are worthy of condemnation. We are worthy of eternal condemnation and hell.
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We are worthy of your wrath to be poured out upon us for all of eternity. Lord, just the sinful thoughts that I've had today are worthy of punishment for all of eternity.
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Lord, just my lack of boldness, my lack of faith today is worthy of damnation for all of eternity.
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But you have been so rich in mercy and grace. Lord, we are thankful for that.
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I am thankful for that. I'm thankful for your gospel tonight. Help me to articulate it well above my ability, because I have no ability to do this.
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I pray that you would help me to speak rightly according to your word. That you would help me to exposit this text rightly, not according to my thoughts or my feelings, but according to what is plain in your word.
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Lord, I pray that your word would not return void tonight. Lord, for believers here that we would be reminded of this glorious gospel and this glorious truth.
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Lord, that we would grow in our love and adoration for you all the more. For the unbeliever here, whether it be an adult or a child,
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I pray that you would pierce their heart, Lord, that conviction would fall upon them, Lord, that they would be made to see their sin and need for Christ.
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They would repent of their sins and trust in him, Lord, and for it is in his name that we pray, amen.
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So as you well know, and as both Pastor Poitro and myself have mentioned multiple times, we'll be traveling to Mexico two weeks from tomorrow.
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And we have been given topics to preach upon. We have an overall theme of the conference, if you want to call it a theme.
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I don't know if that's the right word. Maybe it is. But the theme or the focus of this conference is unity.
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And the text that I'm going to be preaching this evening comes from here in Colossians verses 11 through 15.
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We're going to work our way through this. But when I was pondering this thought of unity over the last couple of weeks,
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I've pondered that a lot. And I began to think of things that unite people.
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First thing that came to my mind is I'm united with my family. I'm united through the relationship
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I have with my family, with those who are my relatives, with those who, you know,
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I have unity through my family, you know, this family here, my extended, my parents, my brothers.
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You have that unity with your families. We have unity with family. We have unity with people of like jobs.
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I know we have in our church and throughout the last couple of years, we've had many that fall under things with computers and computer programming, and they've been united in that.
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We have others here that have shared unity in their type of work that they've done.
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We have at our jobs, we do have unity as in we are all working towards the same goal at whatever job that you're doing.
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If it's Gunner and he's on a job, he has a group there that they're all working with the same goal.
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Many of you that work, you have the same thing. We have hobbies that unite us. You think of hunting.
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There are many in here that enjoy hunting and fishing. I think of these boys, I think of either even us younger men and some of the women that enjoy hunting and fishing.
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And we're united in that joy to go outdoors and to kill deer or turkeys or whatever's in season, to fish, united in that.
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We have unity just in the fact that we are under the same government.
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We don't agree on everything, but we are American citizens.
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We even have some that have came from Canada and Alex, I think, is hoping to be a
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United States citizen and will be united in that. We have unison in ethnicities, many things that unite people.
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But friends, I want to tell you this evening that there is something greater.
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We have something much greater than all of these things that unites us or that can unite us for those who aren't in Christ.
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And this is a lasting union. I think everybody in here knows what
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I'm talking about when I'm talking about what unites us. But if you don't, it's the gospel, the gospel of Christ unites us.
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And I have a very simple message for you this evening. A lot of men could preach this message much better than I can.
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But I borrowed a quote from George Whitefield. I think Quatro or somebody's given this quote, but I love this quote from George Whitefield.
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Other men may preach the gospel better than I, but no man can preach a better gospel.
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The sermon tonight will be laid out very simply as we work through this text.
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This text, by God's grace, we hope to answer four questions. What is the gospel?
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Who does it unite? How does it unite and what do we do with it?
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So the first one diving right in, what is the gospel? We all know the gospel, but the gospel is right here in our text.
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So I'm going to work through this through our text as Paul here. He's highlighting the gospel.
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And there's some words that he uses here that I really want to us to understand what he's talking about.
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So beginning in verse 11, he says in him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands.
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So what circumcision? He says circumcision. What circumcision? Well, to understand, most of us know what circumcision is.
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Most in here, males have been, I assume have been circumcised with circumcision.
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If you go back to the Old Testament, was that the distinctive sign of an
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Israelite or of the of the to be children of Israel in the
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Abrahamic covenant? It was Abraham was who God had told to to go and to to circumcise of the men.
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And it was a requirement and a sign that continued for Israel until the new covenant.
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And here, Paul, he uses the term to help these Colossians understand the new covenant to help them understand the gospel.
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Well, he said, what does he mean? Like, how is he taking this this Old Testament, this old covenant sign that was given to Abraham to to set apart the children of Israel?
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How does he use that to represent the gospel? Well, here he uses circumcision to represent regeneration.
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So let's read this thinking of that in him. Also, you are circumcised with a circumcision made without hands.
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So he's speaking here of a circumcision, not a physical circumcision, but rather he is speaking here of a circumcision of the heart.
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A circumcision of the heart, and we will we're going to talk about baptism here in just a minute, but I do want to note of the comparison used is circumcision and regeneration, and we may see that circumcision related to baptism.
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We're going to talk about that, but we don't see baptism related to circumcision. That's kind of confusing.
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That may make more sense in my mind than it does you. But what I'm saying here is circumcision takes place at a
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Christian's spiritual baptism or upon regeneration.
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Baptism is not the New Testament version of circumcision, as Pato Baptist would say.
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But here he uses it to relate to the working of the
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Holy Spirit in the hearts of those who are changed by the working of the
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Holy Spirit. Paul argued in Romans 2, and we don't have time to go over there, but in Romans 2, you can look at that later, that circumcision was always about the heart.
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That this sign was to illustrate the working, the inward working of the
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Holy Spirit in regeneration, even in the old covenant. Deuteronomy 36, and the
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Lord your God will circumcise what? You'll circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring so that you will love the
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Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all that you may live. So what he's saying there is upon regeneration, you're going to have a circumcised heart.
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So here we see circumcision related to regeneration. So what is this regeneration or this circumcision mentioned?
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What are some elements of this? Well, it says in him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands.
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So the first element of this circumcision of the heart of regeneration is, it's not by human hands, made without hands.
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This circumcision, this regeneration is not an act of man.
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This is an act of God. It has always been an act of God. Old Testament saints were not saved by the working of man's hands.
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They were not saved by the slaughtering of bulls and goats. They were not saved by their works of obedience.
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This circumcision regeneration has always been a work of Yahweh. It has always been a work of God.
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It says made without human hands by the putting off, by putting off the body of the flesh, or elements of it made without hands.
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The second one, the putting off of the flesh. What is he talking about? The putting off of the flesh.
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So you could picture circumcision there as putting off of the flesh. But to speak in spiritual terms, what he's talking about with regeneration is the putting off of our fallen flesh, our sin nature delivered from the dominion of sin.
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In regeneration, the circumcision mentioned the old flesh, the old nature is replaced with a new nature.
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Our old self is crucified with Christ and the remaining corruption is more and more killed through what we call progressive sanctification.
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So made without hands by the putting off of the flesh. And then look at the end there, verse 11, by the circumcision of Christ.
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What does that mean? Means that this circumcision is done by Christ.
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It is through Christ, made possible through Christ. We couldn't do this.
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Reiterating that it was not made by human hands, it was not done by human hands. Rather, it was done by Christ.
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And through Christ, we had failed. We stood as an enemy of God, as a child of wrath in Adam.
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We had broken God's law in every way and stood beneath the judgment of the righteous judge.
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We were guilty. We deserved his wrath. But God, in his love and mercy, he sent his only son,
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Jesus Christ, to succeed where we have failed. The true and better Adam, the firstborn of many brethren.
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He was born of a virgin. He lived a perfect life. He kept God's law perfectly in our place, and he died the sacrificial death of the cross.
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All we like sheep had gone astray. All had turned to our own way. But the
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Lord laid upon him the iniquity of us all. He was the propitiation, the wrath satisfying sacrifice.
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We couldn't do this circumcision by our works. It was only done through the work of Christ.
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I do want to note that our response to this truth is by grace through faith to repent of our sins and believe this gospel, to trust in the finished work of Christ, of the circumcision of Christ.
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And by the working of the spirit to live in obedience to him. And part of living in obedience to him as believers is to follow
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Christ in baptism and join a local church. Look at verse 12 for me, we've got some things to unpack here in verse 12.
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Having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God who raised him from the dead.
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So we find here where Paul, he's mentioning baptism. And in this text, he is linking,
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Paul is linking baptism to regeneration. As is consistent with the entire
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New Testament, not regenerated by baptism, but those who are, why is he using baptism?
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Well, those who are regenerate, they are baptized. And you know, this is why we're Baptist and only baptized believers.
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Water baptism is a sign that regeneration has already taken place in the heart of a believer.
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And the mode of baptism, it pictures this meaning. So we need to picture this meaning.
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We are buried with Christ in baptism. So look here, look in verse 12, having been buried with him in baptism in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God who raised him from the dead.
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We are buried with Christ in baptism and we are raised with him in baptism.
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So this is what you could call a spiritual baptism or rather a baptism of the soul, our physical baptism.
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When we do have a physical baptism, it is symbolic of this spiritual baptism, being buried and raised with Christ.
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Having been buried with him in baptism in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God who raised him from the dead, buried and raised with Christ through what?
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Look at our text through what? Through faith, through faith, those who have been born again and given the gift of faith, it is representing what has taken place, the burying and raising, buried the old self condemned by its depravity is put off and washed away.
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When somebody dies, what do we do with their body? We bury it upon regeneration, the old man dies and is buried and then raised, we are raised a new creature raised in Christ.
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Through faith, verse 12 says, through faith in the powerful working of God, so through faith by God, look at the last part of verse 12, who raised him from the dead, through faith by God who raised
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Christ, I stopped earlier short of the resurrection on purpose.
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Not only did he die as the propitiation for our sins, he rose again three days later, just like he said he would.
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This signifies our justification, the debt was paid in full and we need no other payment as God raised
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Christ from the dead, who raises us? Is it us?
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No, it is the powerful working of God. This is his work and not ours.
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Oh, what grace. Verse 13, and you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh dead.
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So he illustrates this and regeneration even further here in verse 13, dead and trespasses and sins dead.
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We must recover this biblical language in viewing who we were and are apart from Christ.
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We are not merely poor beggars who dabbled in sin, but could just walk out of it any time that we wanted.
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Dead men don't walk. I think Votie Bauckham has something along those lines. We weren't kind of good.
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You know, like, oh, he's lost, but there's good in there. That's unbiblical. We weren't just bad, we were dead in our trespasses and sin.
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Leonard Ravenhill, I've used this quote during our tent revival. Jesus did not come into the world to make bad men good.
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He came into the world to make dead men live. We don't need to just be good, we need to live, we need to be brought to life because we're dead in our trespasses and sin.
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John 7, 37, on the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood and cried out, if anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.
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Whoever believes in me, as scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.
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John 4, he tells the woman at the well, everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give will never be thirsty again.
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The water that I will give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. He is the living water, those who drink will never thirst again.
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We are dead in our trespasses and sins. Why does baptism symbolize being buried?
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Because we were dead and that old man needed to be buried. We were uncircumcised in our text, in verse 13, in the uncircumcision of your flesh.
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Spiritually, we were uncircumcised. And as death calls for resurrection, uncircumcision calls for circumcision.
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Upon regeneration, we have been spiritually circumcised and made alive in Christ.
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We've been saved. You who are dead in your trespasses, in the uncircumcision of your flesh,
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God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands.
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This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. Your debt has been canceled by the work of Christ, through the work of Christ.
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And great was that debt. You say, what debt? What debt did I owe?
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Our condemnation from the law, the law promised life for those who kept it and curse and death for those who broke it.
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And we broke all of it. Every single jot and tittle, we broke all of it.
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And the debt we owed was our lives to be cursed and punished for all eternity, for our disobedience and our rebellion.
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This was removed for believers through the work of Christ. It was nailed to the cross through his sacrificial death.
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This is the gospel. This is the gospel and this gospel unites.
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Who does it unite? Well, verse six, look at verse six. Those who have received
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Christ Jesus, the Lord, verse 12, those who were also raised with him through faith and the powerful working of God, verse 13, those who
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God made alive together with him, having forgiven them all their trespasses. He unites believers.
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He unites believers, which believers? All of them, past, present, and future united in Christ, united in the gospel, regardless of color, status, how much money you have, the saints of the
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Old Testament, the saints of the new, the saints in China, the saints in Mexico, the saints in Arkansas, the saints in Canada, the saints in South Carolina, North Carolina, Belize, all united, all the saints, all united by what?
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The gospel. How are they united? How does it unite?
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Look at verse 14 through the cross, nailing it to the cross.
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How does it unite? Through the shed blood of Christ, his shed blood and his broken body through him taking upon the wrath that we deserved.
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And in verse 12, through his resurrection. And God raised from the dead without this gospel, we have no true unity.
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You know, I think I'll look around. There's a few of us here tonight, but I look around and there's some of us that you wouldn't be united in much outside of Christ.
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We have some in here that, you know, I like sports. I like all these things.
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And there's some in here that hate sports. We have some in here. I like hunting. There's some in here that hate hunting.
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Many of us apart from Christ, apart from this gospel together, suffer heartache about the
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Razorbacks and the Cowboys together. We enjoy those, those things. And we unite in those things.
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Like I said at the beginning, many of us unite in things such as hunting and fishing, but that unity is hollow.
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That unity is hollow. That unity will only go so far. Paul says in the verses preceding our text, he says, see to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, these things don't unite us.
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They are incapable of truly uniting us, but the gospel does unite us where these things fail.
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And that leaves us with one last question to answer. We have this gospel. We know who it unites.
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We know how it unites. What do we do with it? We proclaim it.
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We proclaim it. We may have been commanded to, but may we delight in its proclamation.
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May we proclaim it in our churches. May we proclaim it in our homes. May we proclaim it in the streets.
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And may this gospel grip you. It had gripped Paul that he was willing to proclaim it until they killed him.
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May the same be said of us, gripped in a way that we will gladly suffer for its proclamation, gripped in a way that our lives are built around it and we can't shut up about it, we must proclaim it.
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And may we find hope and rest in this gospel. Look at verse 15, and this is how we'll close.
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He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in him.
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May we find hope and rest that Christ is triumphant. When Christ was upon that cross, all of hell, the devil, and all his demons, they thought they were triumphant.
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He's dead. When actually Christ was triumphing over them all.
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Their demise was secured. Christ has continued to triumph through this gospel, and he will continue.
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Entire governments have sought to destroy the message and silence and kill its messengers, and many have died for it.
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But yet it prevails. The gospel prevails, the word of God prevails, and we trust that it will continue to prevail until Christ returns.
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We can trust that those apart from Christ stand condemned, so we can trust that.
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But also, listen, we can trust that all those apart from Christ stand condemned and will face punishment eternally.
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But there is hope in Christ. Repent and trust this gospel because we know that all who call upon the name of the
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Lord shall be saved because Christ is triumphant. May this give us hope in his gospel that no matter what may come, our governments may start destroying
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Bibles and killing Christians tomorrow, but we will not be silenced and the gospel will prevail.
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Hope in this gospel, brothers and sisters, hope in Christ.
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Let us pray. Father, we thank you for this gospel, this gospel that unites us, that,
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Lord, we may think of so many different things that may unite us, Lord, that are hollow, that cannot truly, they are incapable of truly uniting us.
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May we rest in Christ. May we be united in Christ, above all things united in him.
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Lord, and I pray for the believer tonight, that they would be reminded of these truths,
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I pray for the unbeliever. Lord, they would be convicted by your word, they would repent of their sins and trust in you.