Adoption Day

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Well, good morning.
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Take out your Bibles and turn to Galatians chapter 4.
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Yeah, 4.
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We have completed chapter 3.
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And we're moving on.
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Before we read, hold your place there.
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Before we read, I want to kind of begin with a little story.
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I know some of you have heard me talk before about this, so I'm not simply repeating myself because I've lost my mind.
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I want to remind you of something.
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If you know it, if you don't, it'll be something that you should know for this lesson.
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I will never forget November 18, 2006.
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For everybody else, it was pretty much a normal day.
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But for me and my wife, it was the day that we became parents.
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We had been married for 7 years.
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We got married in 1999.
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I was 19 years old.
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And our first few years, we tried to have children.
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We weren't able to have children, at least seemingly.
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In 2004, a lady in our church was a foster mother.
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And she began to bring these two young kids.
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They were 4 years old and 6 years old.
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And they would come to church with her.
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And at that time, I was working with the youth, so I would get to see them a lot and get to interact with them a lot.
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They were the sweetest little kids, boy and a girl.
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And so I asked her, I said, are these children who are in foster care going to come up for adoption? And she said, well, it's possible.
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Their parents are right now still going through the court process, and they don't seem to be seeking to get them back, and so they will probably be up for adoption.
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And so I said, well, what do I need to do to become their foster parent? And I had to go through 40 hours of classes and have background checks done.
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They came to my home.
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They investigated my home.
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They made sure that all my medicine was locked up.
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I've told this story before, right? This was how I became a parent.
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And in 2006, November 18th, after about a year and a half, the judge brought us into the courtroom, and we stood up in front of the judge, and he asked us, are we willing to take these children to be our legal heirs? And he made the point.
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He said, they're not going to be your foster children anymore.
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And they're not even really going to be adopted children.
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They're going to be your children.
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The birth certificate will say your name.
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They will become your children.
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So on that day, Ashley Marie Blaylock became Ashley Ann Foskey.
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She took my wife's middle name.
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And Cody Lee Blaylock became Medford Cody Foskey, took my first name.
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For those who don't know, my first name is Medford.
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And so we received, on November 18th, 2006, our children by way of adoption.
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Adoption is an amazing experience, both for the one being adopted and for the person who is doing the adoption.
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And the sense of becoming a family is really an incomparable one.
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And the reason why I remind you of this, again, some of you didn't know, and those who have heard the story, I'm bringing it up, is because this is the language that God uses when He is describing the relationship between Him and us.
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He uses the language of adoption.
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And so that's what we're going to read as we open to Galatians 4.
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This is the Word of the Lord as it comes to us from the Apostle Paul.
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He says in verse 1, I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything.
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But he's under guardians and managers until the date set by his father.
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In the same way also, when we were children, we're enslaved to the elementary principles of the world.
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But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons.
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And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father.
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So you are no longer a slave, but a son.
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And if a son, then an heir through God.
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Father in heaven, I come to You in Jesus' name.
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And I pray, Lord, that this morning as I preach, that first and foremost, as I always pray, Lord, that You would keep me from error.
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For, Lord, I know that I am a fallible man and I am capable of preaching error.
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So for the sake of Your name, for the sake of my conscience, and for the sake of these men, I pray that You would protect from error, that You would guide us into the truth.
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I pray that You would fill me with Your Holy Spirit, and I pray, Lord, that the men who are here would be taught by the Holy Spirit.
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For, Lord God, if the Holy Spirit is not active in teaching, there will be no instruction to the heart.
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And I pray, Lord, that for those who are believers, that today they would understand afresh their adoption, which comes through Christ by grace through faith, that they would understand that they now have access to You not only as King and Lord and Master, but also as Father.
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And, Lord, for those who have not yet bowed the knee to Christ, that they would understand that, Lord God, You are either in the end going to stand as our loving Father or as our terrible judge.
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So, Lord, may it be that we receive You as Father before it be too late.
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In Christ's name, Amen.
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What have we learned so far about the book of Galatians? Now, looking around, most of you have been here.
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You remember that Paul planted the churches in the region of Galatia.
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And after he planted those churches, what happened? The false teachers came in.
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We call them the Judaizers, and they're called the Judaizers because of what? The laws of circumcision and the Sabbath.
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Yep, I'm hearing it all.
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Yes, yes, that's right.
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Because they came in saying Paul's gospel is insufficient.
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They said, Paul has given you grace and faith, but we are going to tell you that that's not enough.
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You must also have the law.
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For if you do not keep the law, especially the laws of circumcision and the dietary restrictions, if you do not keep those laws, then you are not being faithful to God.
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Paul has made the argument first, he is an apostle.
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His gospel is the gospel.
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If you violate the gospel he has taught, you're violating the one true gospel.
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If you add to the gospel that he has given, then you're adding to the one true gospel.
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If you violate and go against the gospel that he has given, you are to be anathema according to chapter 1, verses 6-9.
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An anathema means to be cut off, to be cursed.
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So Paul is not playing games.
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He's in a very serious mode.
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We call this book a polemic.
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Do you remember what that word means? Argument.
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He's arguing against the false teachers.
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He's coming and he's saying this is wrong and you're going to have to stand before God one day and you do not want to be wrong about the gospel.
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There's a lot of things you can be wrong about.
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You could be mistaken about the mode of baptism.
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You could be mistaken about the spiritual gifts.
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You could be mistaken about which translation of the Bible you should use.
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There's a lot of things you could be wrong about.
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But you cannot be wrong about the gospel.
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For the gospel, there is only one and it is the only thing that is the power of God unto salvation for those who do believe.
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The gospel cannot be edited.
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It cannot be subtracted from.
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And it cannot be added to.
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And Paul has made this argument in chapter 1-3.
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And in chapter 3, he made his case from experience.
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He said, did you receive the Spirit of God by the law or by faith? And the answer, of course, is by faith.
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He used an argument from history.
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He said, did Abraham receive his promise by works or by faith? The answer, of course, is by faith.
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And then he argued from Scripture.
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He said Christ became a curse.
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And the Scripture says every man who is hung on a tree is under a curse.
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And the righteous shall live by faith, quoting Habakkuk 2.
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And then he gives an example.
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And this is where we've been the last few weeks.
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He gives the example of the covenant of promise.
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And he says, because God made a covenant with Abraham that wasn't based on the law, and we are made part of that covenant by faith, that we also do not base our understanding of God on the law, but we base our understanding of God on the promise, or our relationship rather, not our understanding, but our relationship.
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Our relationship with God is formed by grace through faith, not by keeping the law.
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This is why Paul says in chapter 3, by the works of the law, no one will be justified.
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So, think back.
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Paul says you're saved by grace through faith.
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Here comes a group of people.
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No, you're saved by grace through faith plus the law.
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Paul comes back and he says, by works of the law, no one will be justified.
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So this is Paul's counter argument.
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They have argued against him.
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He's come back and said, no, you are wrong.
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You are dead wrong.
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And your being wrong is deadly to the souls of men.
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You are endangering the souls of men by your false teaching.
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So this brings us to chapter 4.
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In chapter 4, Paul does not really begin a new argument.
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Paul continues the argument that he completed at the end of chapter 3.
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In fact, if you read verse 1 of chapter 4, you'll notice that the same illustration that he was using in the last chapter, he uses again here.
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Let's look at it and we'll see.
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Paul says, I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything.
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But he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father.
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Alright, remember chapter 3.
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Yes? One says stewards, stewards, managers.
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Yes, and I was going to actually bring that up.
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The word guardians here, oikonomos is the word, it means household manager.
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And the other word is epitropos, it means a person who is an administrator.
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So yeah, it's an overseer kind of thing.
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Epitropos is the word...
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Yeah, I'm sure.
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But it's not that word.
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See, that word is used in chapter 3.
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For the word schoolmaster is the word pedagogos, remember? Pedagogos was the one who was the disciplinarian.
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He was the one who would walk them to school, he would walk them home, he would discipline them, he would stand behind them in class, make sure they were doing their work.
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It was because this child is part of a family of affluence, and so the master of the house had the ability to afford slaves and helpers and workers, and so his children were raised not really by him and the mother, but they were raised by a surrogate who was known as the pedagogos.
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The pedagogos would follow the child around, and if the child would get into any type of thing that it shouldn't be in, they would wrap them, they would discipline them, sometimes even through striking them.
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You know, the idea of sparing the rod, right? Well, the pedagogos had the rod.
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And so that is the picture in chapter 3.
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And Paul says the law was like the pedagogos.
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The law was with the people of Israel to keep them in line.
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It was a guardian, it was a tutor, it was a schoolmaster, it was a disciplinarian.
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Think about this.
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When your kids are small, maybe you don't have kids, so maybe I'm being a little presumptuous, but if you do have children, when your children are very, very small, you have to structure their life much differently than when they're older.
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For instance, now I have a 2-year-old, a 4-year-old, a 7-year-old, a 19-year-old, and a 22-year-old.
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I basically don't have to do anything for my 22-year-old except provide her a house to live in.
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She wakes herself up, she goes to work, she goes to college, I don't have to tell her, go take a shower, go brush your teeth.
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Those are not necessary anymore because she's reached a point of maturity that she doesn't need that kind of constant walking behind her and making sure that she's doing what she's supposed to.
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My 2-year-old, however, is my feral child.
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You know, like a feral dog.
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You know, they're just everywhere.
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She's 2 and she's into everything.
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The other day, I got a picture on my phone, the other day, didn't know where she was, walked in, we have a pedestal sink in the bathroom.
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She had climbed, I don't know how she got up there because there ain't no way to climb.
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She'd gotten up into the sink, sitting on the edge of the sink, playing with the water, turning it off, turning it on, washing her feet in the water.
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That's my feral child.
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And she's everywhere.
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I have to, everything in the world we have to do for her.
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All of the little, I mean, you have to tell her when to eat, you have to tell her how to put food in her mouth, you got to do the airplane thing, you got to do all those things.
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Now, my 4-year-old's a little better.
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My boy, he's a little spoiled because his mama treats him.
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Never mind, I'm going to get that on the recording.
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I call him little Lord Fauntleroy.
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Because he just walks around like he owns my house.
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And he's a little different because he's at the point where he can brush his own teeth.
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And he can go get his own snack if he wants to.
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He's a little more independent.
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And my 7-year-old, she's autistic, but she's still very independent.
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She doesn't hardly need me for nothing.
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She's very bright and very smart.
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She has a little social connection issue, but ultimately she cleans herself, washes herself, does her own...
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So what I'm saying is the law had the function of being the disciplinarian.
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Think about how many laws the Jews were given.
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It was like they were little kids.
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They were given all of these things.
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How are you going to dress? How are you going to eat? Where are you going to live? Where are you going to put your clan, your group? You know, each tribe had its own area.
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Where are you going to be? How are you going to come into the house of God, the temple? And who's going to be able to do that? Only the Levites are going to be the priesthood.
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And there's going to be all these things.
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And Paul's comparing this to basically being like little kids.
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He's saying they were given all these restrictions.
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They were given all of these things as a disciplinarian, as a pedagogos, as a guardian to watch over them.
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It wasn't intended to save them.
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You have to understand.
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We talk about Law Mountain and Gospel Mountain, right? You cannot climb Law Mountain.
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You will never get saved by the law because you can't.
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The law's purpose is not to save.
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The law's purpose is to discipline and to condemn.
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And so Paul is carrying that same analogy from chapter 3 into chapter 4.
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And like I said, remember this, chapter and verse divisions were not added to the Bible when it was written.
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The chapter divisions came in around the 1300's.
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The verse divisions came in around the 1500's.
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So the idea of stopping at chapter 3 and going to chapter 4, that wasn't something that was known until about 500 years ago.
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Before that, it was just read along.
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So he hasn't changed the idea of what he's saying.
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He's simply continuing the same argument.
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And the argument is this.
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When you were a child, you were like a slave because you were disciplined.
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The person followed you around, made sure you were doing what you were supposed to do.
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When you were a child, you didn't have the benefits of really being a son.
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You were pretty much the same as a slave.
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What was the difference though? You're the owner of everything.
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Even though you're like a slave, you're really not because you are the son.
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And that's the thing about Israel.
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They were God's people.
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But God was disciplining them and He was managing them in a very specific way because He was going to use Israel as His vessel to bring about the coming of His Son.
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Israel is the tool God is using to bring about this promise that He'd given to Abraham.
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What was the promise that God gave to Abraham? Through you, all the nations of the world will be blessed.
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What does Paul say? That's the Gospel.
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And how is the Gospel fulfilled? In Jesus Christ.
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Because it's in Jesus Christ that all the world would be blessed.
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So Jesus is the fulfillment of the promise given to Abraham.
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Abraham's given a promise in Genesis 12.
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It's reiterated in Genesis 15.
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And that promise is fulfilled in Jesus Christ.
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In the interim time, you have the law that is given.
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Paul asked why was the law given? The law was given to be a disciplinarian.
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It was given to be a way of watching over God's people until the right time would come.
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And that's what it says.
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Notice what it says here in verse 2.
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It says, "...but He is under guardians and managers until the date set by His Father." In the same way also, when we were children, we were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world.
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"...but when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of woman, born under the law." So here's the picture Paul's giving.
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The people of Israel were under the law.
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They were under the guardian.
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Just like a child is under the steward and manager of the home until he becomes an adult, until he reaches maturity, until he reaches that point where the Father says, okay, now you are no longer a child, but you're a man.
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And now that you're a man, you receive the benefits of adulthood in the home.
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You have the authority.
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You have the resources.
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You have the ability to do what is allowed by the authority.
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No longer a slave, but now a son.
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This example, Paul says, is the example that Israel has been given because they were essentially under the slavery of the law.
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Now, let me say something about that just for a second.
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When I say that Israel was under the slavery of the law, some might get the idea that what I am saying is the law was bad.
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Or they might even think worse.
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They might think that's what Paul is saying.
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Paul does not say the law was bad.
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What's that? It was necessary.
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But it was insufficient because it didn't save.
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It wasn't bad.
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The law is good.
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In fact, you guys read the Psalms, right? As part of your studies here, do you all read through the Psalms? Psalm 119.
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What's Psalm 119 all about? Loving the law of God.
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Oh, how I have loved Your law.
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Oh, I have kept Your statutes.
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Oh, I have sought after Your commands.
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And you read Psalm 119, and it's over and over and over how he loves the law of God.
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Yeah.
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And so, for us to come in and say, well, Paul here is saying the law is bad.
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No, he's not.
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He's saying the law had a purpose and it was a good purpose.
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It was a heavy burden, but it was a good purpose.
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Remember Jesus, when He came, He talked about burdens.
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He said take My yoke upon you because My yoke is light.
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They are heaping upon you heavy burdens.
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And who was the they? The Pharisees.
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Because they had added to the law.
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They had added things that were ungodly to the law.
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He said they are adding burdens that are ungodly, but take My yoke upon you.
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My yoke is light.
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So my point is to simply say this, because I'm talking about the law as essentially a pedagogos, it's a disciplinarian, because I'm using that language, I don't want you to come away from this thinking that what I'm saying is that the law is bad.
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No, the law is good and it had a good purpose, but its purpose was completed.
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It was fulfilled when Christ came.
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And that's what verse 4 is all about.
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When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son born of a woman.
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Mine doesn't say born of a woman, it says born of woman.
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Born under the law.
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This verse actually has tremendous depth because it causes a lot of questions.
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The first question would be what does He mean when He says the fullness of time has come? What does it mean when He says the fullness of time? That's not a term we use.
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I doubt you have ever been talking to somebody, you know, when the fullness of time had come, we'll go to dinner.
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You know, it's not a language that we are used to using.
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Yeah, it's become a part of your vernacular, right? The fullness of time has really been debated a lot by scholars as to what exactly is Paul saying here.
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Well, some people say what he's talking about is this was the perfect time for Jesus to come because there were a lot of external factors that made it good that Jesus would come now as opposed to any time before.
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One of them was what was known as the Pax Romana.
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That's the peace of Rome which had only recently at this time in history become established where Rome was no longer at war, but they were at peace.
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And so there was an ability to travel.
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There was an ability to move about without fear of wars and battlefronts.
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And so the Pax Romana made it a special time in human history where there was commerce and travel without fear.
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And with that, there was the building of roads and byways and passageways.
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You've heard the term, all roads lead to Rome.
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And the idea is because at that point, that was the idea.
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We want to make Rome not only the center of our empire, we want to make Rome the center of the world.
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Right? And so Rome had this very important place.
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And so not only was there the peace of Rome, but there was this sense in which there was travel and there was interstate commerce.
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How could Paul do the work that he did as a missionary? He went from town to town.
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And essentially, he did so safely.
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Now there were times when he was attacked, but it was always because of his religious faith.
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It wasn't because there were wars and battles going on.
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It was because he was stirring the pot, as it were.
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He would go in and he would deal with the Jews and then he would go out and he would deal with Gentiles and he would create a stir.
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But it wasn't as if it was because of what was going on.
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And some people have said, well, this is the fullness of time.
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This is what is meant.
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There was also a universal language.
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Really, for the first time in history, it was a language that allowed people to communicate across cultures.
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It was a language called the Greek language.
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And the reason why the Greek language was essentially a universal language in this part of the world at that time was because of Alexander the Great.
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Alexander the Great had conquered the known world at the time and because of his being brought up in that culture and that education, he believed everyone should have that culture and everyone should have that education.
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So he imposed upon the people this language that would become the universal language.
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That's why the New Testament is written in Greek, not in Hebrew.
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Because the Greek language had gone out into the world and everybody knew it.
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Because if you did business in the first century, you might not know all of these other languages, but if you knew Greek, you could do business.
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It's sort of like English today.
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My wife teaches English to Chinese students.
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The reason why she does that is because Chinese parents know if their children are going to be successful in today's economy, they have to be able to speak English.
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So every morning, from 5 o'clock to 8 o'clock, she's on the computer giving tutoring to children so that Chinese children can learn English.
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So you go back 2,000 years ago, it wasn't English, it was Greek.
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And Greek was the language.
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So some people assume that what Paul means by the fullness of time was that there was universal peace, there was universal commerce, universal travel, universal language.
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This was the time! This was the best time in history for Jesus to come because His message could be spread abroad like the seeds from the bag of the sower and it could go all around the world because of this thing.
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Now, I've said all of that to simply say this.
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I don't know if that's true.
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Now, I know all I've said is accurate, but I don't know if that's what Paul means by the fullness of time.
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Because I have another idea that I think may be more accurate, but again, I don't know for certain, so I'm giving you my thoughts and you can take them and use them as you will.
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But when Paul says the fullness of time, there is also the idea that the Old Testament Scriptures had been completed and the Old Covenant economy had reached its conclusion.
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What happened 40 years after the cross? The destruction of Jerusalem.
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The destruction of the temple.
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In A.D.
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70, we have the destruction.
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And since then, there has not been a rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem.
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There has been no sacrificing.
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There has been no Jewish worship in the sense of traditional Old Covenant worship because there's no temple in which to have the sacrifices.
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These things have not happened for 2,000 years.
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And you say, wait a minute, Pastor, that's after Jesus came.
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Yes.
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But I believe that it's all connected.
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Because what is the vast majority of your Bible? The vast majority of your Bible is the Old Testament.
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In fact, just for a second.
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This much is Old Testament.
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This much is new.
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Five, six times as much.
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And certainly more than that as far as bulk of writing.
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The vast majority of your Bible is Old Testament.
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But what is the purpose of the Old Testament? The purpose of the Old Testament is to set the stage for the Messiah.
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All the way back to Genesis 3.
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Right after man sinned, God spoke to the serpent.
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And He spoke of the seed of the woman who would crush the head of the serpent.
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Now, you said the Jewish temple hasn't been revealed.
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Not since AD 70.
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You know that in the mystery of Nicodemus, it said that the Antichrist was going to be sitting in the temple.
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Okay, well, I want to stop you right there because you're going into a direction of eschatology.
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And that means end time stuff.
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And there are those who believe there's going to be a temple rebuilt.
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There's those who don't believe that's necessary for the end times.
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There's two different views called premillennial and amillennial positions.
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And even though we could talk about it, it's not part of what I'm doing right now.
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It would take us on a 30 minute conversation in another direction.
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Let me just say this.
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Is it possible that another temple could be rebuilt in the future? Yes.
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But I don't believe it's necessary.
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And I will explain why maybe if we have some time to talk afterward.
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But certainly, right now there's no temple.
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We know that.
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Dispensation of premillennialism is a belief system that says there has to be another temple built because prior to Jesus' return, there has to be a reestablishing of sacrifices in the temple.
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I don't believe that.
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But that's a very specific...
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You're saying it so frivolously now, man.
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Yeah, but there's a lot that goes into that.
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I don't want to get off track.
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That was the first teaching.
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They were trying to say that Paul's teaching was...
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Insufficient.
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Insufficient.
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Yeah.
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Oh, I've read the Scripture in James.
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James 3 and 1, it says, Be not many masters.
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I guess that's why James is warning us about being teachers.
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Yes.
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Yeah, and there is a danger about being a preacher, about being a teacher of the Word of God.
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The Bible says that new believers should not be teachers because they can get puffed up and prideful.
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It says that a man who is going to teach the Word of God as an elder should fit certain qualifications, that he should be above reproach, the husband of one wife, that he should be hospitable, respectable, and all those things that are in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 2.
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So yes, Paul met those qualifications.
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We don't know that the men didn't meet those qualifications, but they were false teachers.
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And so even if they met the qualifications, they had a wrong Gospel.
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I know some men who might meet the qualifications, but their doctrine is wrong and therefore they're disqualified.
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And that's the problem with the Judaizers was they were disqualified.
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So let me get back real quick to the fullness of time.
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The fullness of time is when all of the things that were required in the Old Covenant...
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Again, this is my opinion.
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I'm telling you what I think it means because again, I don't think we know for certain.
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Yeah, the Keith Standard version.
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So you have the fullness of time is when all of the Old Covenant promises and predictions and prophecies about Christ were fulfilled and was ready for their culmination.
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Think about all of the things that had to come together to bring about what was happening in the life of Christ at that time.
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Jesus Christ was prophesied to be born in Bethlehem.
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What had to happen for Him to be born in Bethlehem? Luke 1 tells us that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered.
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And the registration that happened is what took His family from Nazareth to Bethlehem because they had to go back to the city of their parentage.
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They had to go back to their hometown.
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And His father Joseph was of the line of David.
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And what was David's hometown? Bethlehem.
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And so he had to go back to Bethlehem.
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And we know the story.
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We read it every Christmas.
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We talk about the fact that Mary and Joseph had to go and travel to Bethlehem and there Jesus was born to fulfill the prophecy that He would be born in Bethlehem.
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Out of Bethlehem would come the One who would be ruler of all.
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Out of Bethlehem would come the Savior Jesus Christ.
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And so there's a fullness of time.
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There's things that are happening here.
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All of these prophecies and promises of the Old Covenant are coming together at this one moment in time.
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God had chosen it.
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And here's really the key.
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It shows the sovereignty of God.
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The text doesn't tell us what was special about the time.
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We can talk about the Pax Romana.
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We can talk about Bethlehem.
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All those things.
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But what we know is this was the perfect time God had planned from the foundation of the world to send His Son.
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It speaks of the sovereignty of God over time.
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The fullness of time is the time God had chosen.
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Could it be that Jesus was born a year earlier? Or a minute later than He was supposed to? No.
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Because God is sovereign over time.
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And when He determined the time had come, then He brought forth His Son.
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God does.
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God certainly does.
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The Bible says regarding the cross that the men who nailed Jesus to the cross, Herod and Pontius Pilate, gathered together to do what God had predestined to occur.
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That's Acts 4.
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God had determined that from the foundation of the world, which is why Jesus is called the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
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God from the moment of creation knew every moment of that created order from beginning to end.
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Isaiah tells us that.
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It says God has declared the end from the beginning.
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Now that's hard for us.
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Because we don't live that way.
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We live with a constant wonder about tomorrow.
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We don't even know if we're going to be here tomorrow.
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I went to school with a person who just last week was killed on 301.
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Because some horses had gotten to the road, caused an accident.
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She got out to help the person that was in the accident.
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Another car comes along and hits her.
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I'll tell you later.
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What's that? They were praying out there.
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Callahan Baptist for that situation.
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Somebody else pulled over.
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Yeah.
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It was like two different vehicles or something.
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I don't know the whole story, but I know who it was who died.
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But my point is, she didn't wake up that morning knowing she was going to be dead that night.
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This is why James tells us, don't say today or tomorrow I'm going to go do this, that.
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Say if the Lord wills, then today or tomorrow I will do this or do that.
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Because God is sovereign over time.
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And God is sovereign over your time.
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The heart that is beating in your chest right now beats at the command of Almighty God.
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And if He were to remove His hand from your life for just a second, not only would your heart stop beating, you would cease to exist.
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He is maintaining you and your life all the time.
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The Bible tells us that in Him we live and move and have our existence or have our being.
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And so, the fullness of time, it's the right time.
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That's the best way to translate it.
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In the right time, the time God had determined, not a minute before, not a minute after, at the right time, God sent forth His Son.
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Now that by itself is an amazing statement because what it tells us is that Jesus...
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And think about this now.
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Jesus preexisted Bethlehem.
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We know that because the Bible says in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
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But this verse tells us also because it says God sent Him.
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It doesn't say He created Him or that He made Him.
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It said He sent Him.
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He was already in existence.
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He sent His Son.
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And He was already the Son.
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See, the Trinitarian doctrine that Christians hold to is that Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God.
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He was already the Son of God.
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Not the incarnate Son, but the second person of the Trinity.
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He was already there.
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I don't want to get into a Trinitarian argument.
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You can argue with that.
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You can argue what you want.
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I'm just saying.
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Go ahead.
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I just wanted to...
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When you said in Isaiah, man, how profound this is when Isaiah 53, verse 10, it said, Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him.
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Yep.
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And you know what? For years, man, I was reading that.
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I couldn't understand that.
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What is he talking about? It pleased Him to bruise Him.
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And I think it was Pastor.
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And we were talking about this, man.
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And I said, oh, now I know why.
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It was for us.
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Yes.
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God bruises His Son so that He might not have to bruise His adopted sons.
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Christ is the only Son of God.
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You say, aren't we all sons of God? We are adopted into the family of God as sons.
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But Christ is Son by nature.
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He is Son by His relationship to the Father.
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God sent forth His Son.
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And He gives us two qualifying things.
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I need to kind of go a little faster because I do want to get through verse 7 if I can.
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He gives two qualifiers here.
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He says that God sent forth His Son.
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Two things.
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Born of woman.
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Born under the law.
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Why does He say those two things? Number one, born of woman, because He is relating.
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Some people say, well, this is a reference to the virgin birth because He doesn't say born of man and woman.
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It could be.
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That's not how this language is typically used.
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Yes, I believe in the virgin birth.
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And yes, Paul believed in the virgin birth.
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That's not the point.
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The point is He was born of woman.
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He was a man.
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God didn't send forth His Son as an angel.
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God didn't send forth His Son as an apparition or a phantom.
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God sent forth His Son born just like all babies are born.
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Now, He wasn't conceived like all babies are conceived because He was conceived by the Holy Spirit, but He was born natural birth.
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He lived a natural man's life.
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He had blood coursing through His veins.
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He had a heart beating in His chest.
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He had flesh and He had hair and He had eyes and ears.
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He was born of woman.
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He was man.
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And this is why we say as Christians we believe Christ is fully God and fully man.
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Now, I don't say 100%.
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I don't want to correct you.
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The reason why is because I don't get into percentages when we talk about God.
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I say fully God and fully man.
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Everything that is God and is necessary to be God was in Jesus Christ.
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All the fullness of the Godhead dwelt in Him bodily.
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Colossians 3.15 So all that was God was in Christ, but all that is man was also in Christ.
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He was not lacking anything that was man.
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And He was not lacking anything that was God.
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He was the God-man.
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And so, born of woman is referencing His humanity.
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Born under law is representing His duty.
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Because Christ came as a Jew eight days after He was born.
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What happened? Circumcised.
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Jesus was circumcised.
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Why was Jesus circumcised? We don't have to be circumcised.
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Why was Jesus circumcised? Because He was born under the law.
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And He was born to keep the law.
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And He kept the law perfectly.
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He kept every single law perfectly.
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I heard recently there was a pastor who made waves because he said, Jesus broke the law for love.
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Hodgepodge, hooey, and garbage is what that is.
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It's baloney.
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Jesus never broke the law.
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Don't bring that nonsense to me.
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Sorry.
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Jesus was impeccable.
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Now there is a debate about the question of if Jesus had the capacity to sin.
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People say, well, if He didn't have the capacity to sin, then He really wasn't ever truly tempted.
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And the Bible says in Hebrews that He was tempted in every way as we are, yet was without sin.
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That's Hebrews 4.15.
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Couldn't be truly man without sin? Okay, that's a thought.
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That's an interesting thought.
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And I don't want to go too far into it, but let me simply say this.
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When we talk about capacity and potentiality, it's actually a philosophical concept.
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What is potential? What is actual? We know Jesus actually never sinned.
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The Bible says that.
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But is it potential that He who is God in the flesh would even entertain the notion of sin? So that's what we have to get into.
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How do we understand potentiality? And so I would say Jesus is impeccable because of His divinity.
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He did not even in His flesh desire sin.
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Somebody says, well, how then is He tempted? Tempting is external.
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The devil tempted Him by putting things in His way.
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And what did he do? He responded with the Word of God.
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Not interested.
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See, when we get tempted, what do we do? We entertain the temptation, right? Well, I wonder if I can get away with this.
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We think about it.
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Jesus didn't have to think about it.
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Jesus didn't have to entertain it.
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There was nothing in Him that wanted it.
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I don't believe He had any internal temptation.
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Not in the sense of internal want.
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All of His temptation was external, placed upon Him by the devil and by others.
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But there was nothing in Christ that would want to do that.
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Because He was the God-man.
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He had no desire for those things.
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One day you...
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Think about it this way.
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One day you, if you are in Christ, are going to die and you're going to go into a situation where you won't have a desire for sin either.
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Think about that.
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And you won't be less free than you are now.
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You'll be more free than you are now.
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Because you will not be bound by the desires of sin.
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He was born under the Law to demonstrate His power over the Law.
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He had the power to overcome the sins that bind all of us.
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He showed from birth to death a perfect life.
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Absolutely impeccable.
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And so, why? Why did He do that? Verse 5 tells us why.
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To redeem those who were under the Law so that we might receive adoption as sons.
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And because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts crying, Abba, Father, so you are no longer a slave, but a son.
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And if a son, then an heir through God.
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I tell you, I've only got a couple minutes left.
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Well, I appreciate that.
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I don't know if I should just talk about this more next week, but the idea of redemption that Paul is giving here, those who are under the Law might be redeemed.
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That's what Christ did when He went to the cross.
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He made a payment.
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That's what redeeming is.
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You know, you redeem a coupon, you redeem something at a store.
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The word redeem we use in a transactional sense.
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That's the way it's being used here.
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In a transactional sense.
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There was a transaction that needed to be made.
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You have sinned against God.
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You.
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You personally.
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You.
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Every one of you.
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And me too.
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I'm pointing one at you, three at me.
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The fingers don't point around here.
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We are all sinners before God and we all deserve the wrath of God.
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And that's the debt.
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What does the Bible say? The wages of sin is death.
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And so what is a wage? A wage is what you owe.
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If you come to work for me and I don't pay you, that means I owe you.
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And I'm indebted to you.
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The Bible says the wages of sin is death.
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That means that's what we owe God.
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We owe God our very life.
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We owe God death because we have sinned against Him.
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Christ comes to redeem, to pay our debt so that we can be adopted into the family, so that we can be brought into the family.
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We have to have our debt paid.
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We have an entrance fee.
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And you can't pay it.
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There's an entrance fee that you cannot afford.
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Christ can afford it.
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Christ came and He paid it.
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And when He paid it, He made the way for you to then be welcomed in as a son.
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Not as a slave, but as a son.
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Now you get to call God Abba.
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Now don't confuse that with Allah.
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Because I know there's a lot of confusion in Muslim theology.
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And Muslims use the Arabic word Allah means God.
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But that's not the word that's being used here.
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The word that's being used here is an Aramaic word which simply means father.
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Or more colloquially, it means dad.
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I don't ever remember calling my dad father.
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Ever.
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Oh, father.
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I was never that kid.
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I mostly called him dad.
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Now we call him papa because he's the grandpa.
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But when I was a little boy, I would call him daddy.
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And I love it when I go home and my little spoiled boy talked about that earlier.
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When he runs to the door, he's usually the first one to meet me at the door.
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And he says, Daddy, I love you.
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I love you.
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You can't say love yet.
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But that's the relationship that we have with God through Christ.
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An intimate, fatherly relationship.
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Now I'm not one who goes around in my prayers and says, Daddy God.
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And I hear people do that.
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And I'm not saying it's wrong.
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It's just not something I feel like to me, it doesn't click with me.
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But it is a truism that God moves from being not only our Creator, but to being our intimate and loving Father because of Jesus Christ.
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If you've never received Christ, there is a Father available to you through the Son.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank You for Your Word.
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I pray that we would seek to really understand what it means to be adopted into the family of God and to truly appreciate the work that was done by Christ who died to pay the price that we could be made part of that family.
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And it's in His name we pray.
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Amen.