WWUTT 1783 Christ Has Set Us Free, Part 1 (Galatians 5:1-15)

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Surely you've heard it said that freedom is not free. The freedom that we have from sin and death is not free either.

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It came at a cost, the life of Jesus Christ for our sins, when we understand the text.

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This is When We Understand The Text, a daily study in the Word of God that we may be conformed to the image of Christ.

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Visit our website at www .utt .com and don't forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

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Here once again is Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. As we've been going through this study of the book of Galatians, I've gone into my archives and I've been playing sermons from a series that I preached several years ago when

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I preached through Galatians. The church that I was pastor of in Kansas was a military church.

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Most of the congregation was military. And this particular sermon I'm playing today, I preached on Memorial Day.

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You'll pick that up here at the start of the sermon. This is part one of a sermon entitled

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Christ has set us free. And then we'll get to part two on Monday next week.

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We begin with our text, Galatians chapter five, verses one through 15. This is the word of the

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Lord. For freedom, Christ has set us free.

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Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. Look, I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision,

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Christ will be of no advantage to you. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law.

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You are severed from Christ who would be justified by the law.

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You have fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness.

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For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything but only faith working through love.

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You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion is not from him who calls you.

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A little leaven leavens the whole lump. I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view, and the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is.

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But if I, brothers, still preach circumcision, why am I still being persecuted?

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

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For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.

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For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

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But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.

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Let us pray. Our Heavenly Father, we come to you this morning and open up your word, and we desire to have your

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Spirit speak to us. Convict our hearts, all the ways of this world that we've been bombarded with all week long, and we come this morning to open your word and be reminded of the hope that is in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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We come to justification before God. We have come to salvation and citizenship in your kingdom.

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Not by any work that we have done, but the work that Christ has done on the cross.

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We receive the blessings of righteousness in your kingdom and the forgiveness of sins and adoption and fellowship with God.

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All of these things are given to us by faith, by faith in Jesus and no other way.

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And that is good news, that we do not have to work to acquire these things. The work has been done, and it is the gift and the blessing of God that these things have been given to us.

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So let us be reminded once again that the love of God falls upon us through faith in Jesus Christ, our

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Lord. And it is by faith that we know that we have an entrance into your eternal kingdom.

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Let that be our hope and peace. And we pray these things in Jesus' name and all

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God's people said, amen. Thank you. You may be seated. This Memorial Day weekend marks a federal holiday for remembering and honoring those who died serving in the armed forces.

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Many view Memorial Day, the last Monday in May, as little more than the beginning of the summer vacation season, with Labor Day, the last

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Monday in September, signifying its end. But most of you being soldiers,

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Memorial Day is truly more significant. Some of you have seen combat.

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Some of you have seen your fellow soldiers die before your very eyes.

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Tomorrow is not just another day for barbecues, watermelon, and running through the sprinkler.

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It is a sacred day. It is a day that we remember blood was spilled for the freedoms that we are privileged to have and so often take for granted.

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I have often said that as a pastor, it has been an honor to serve at a church that is greater than 60 % military in this congregation, worshiping

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God and growing in the knowledge of His word alongside our servicemen and women. The nature of the duty of a soldier is a reminder for me that freedom is not free.

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It comes at great cost. The freedom we enjoy as Americans came at the cost of blood.

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Those who gave their lives on the battlefield so that we could live in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

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The freedom we enjoy as Christians also came at the cost of blood.

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The Lord Jesus Christ, who gave His life on the cross so that we could live in the land of promise and the hope of eternal life.

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In Galatians 5 .1, here we are reminded, For freedom

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Christ has set us free. Jesus Christ died so that His people would be free from the bonds of slavery to sin and to death.

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Titus 2 .14 says that He gave Himself to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession who are zealous for good works.

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The people of God are not to be enslaved. We are to be free to show that we belong to a

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God of freedom. The Spirit says, Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

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A yoke, as you will recall, is a wooden crosspiece fastened over the necks of two draft animals like oxen, horses, or mules, which is then attached to a plow or a cart that the animals are to pull.

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To be under a yoke of slavery means that we would be attaching ourselves to the works of the law, believing that our ability to keep the law will be our salvation.

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But how can the thing that enslaves us also be the thing that sets us free?

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The notion is absurd. And so are our efforts to keep the law, believing that keeping the law makes us righteous.

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As Paul points out in verse 3, anyone who tries to keep one part of the law is obligated to keep the whole law.

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So this yoke of slavery is not merely a picture of oxen yoked to pulling a plow. It's as if we were yoked to Mount Sinai, and we were trying to pull an entire mountain behind us.

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It cannot be done. The specific law that Paul singles out that has enslaved the

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Galatians is the command to be circumcised. We know from Acts 15 .1

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that the Judaizers were spiritually terrorizing the churches by telling the

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Christians, unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.

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This is what had happened to the churches in Galatia as well. They had been convinced that faith in Christ was not enough for their salvation.

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They also had to keep the law, starting with the order to be circumcised.

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Maybe then if I'm circumcised, God will accept me. I will be forgiven. I will have eternal life.

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Such a wish becomes a confession that the sacrifice of Christ was not sufficient for the forgiveness of sins.

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Paul says, I say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be no advantage to you.

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Rather, the comparison Paul makes is rather wincing. Look at verse 4. You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law, you have fallen away from grace.

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So if you sever your foreskin in order to be accepted by God, you have actually severed yourself from God.

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I express myself both spiritually and physically when I say, Ouch! Remember that grace is demerited favor.

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What we deserve is judgment and wrath. But what we receive is forgiveness and love.

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We can do nothing to earn this. God gives grace to whomever

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He wills. As we are told in Romans 9 .15, I will have mercy on whom

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I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. It is through faith in Jesus Christ that we become recipients of the grace of God.

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Verse 5 now. For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait the hope of righteousness.

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This means that we do not rely on ourselves or on our own efforts to produce perfect righteousness.

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We can't. You on your own cannot be a good person.

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Your best deeds are as filthy rags before a holy God. Isaiah 64 .6 It is through the

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Spirit of God poured into your heart, which you have received by faith, that you become a man or a woman of God, capable of godliness.

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Romans 8 .13 -17 says, For if you live according to the flesh, you will die.

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But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

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For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry,

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Father, the Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God.

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And if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs of Christ.

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Living in the Spirit and not according to the flesh is a point

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Paul also makes here in Galatians. And we'll talk about this further later in the chapter when we come to the works of the flesh versus the fruit of the

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Spirit. Whenever we try to produce godliness by our own merit, by our own works, we will produce bad fruit.

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But with the Spirit of God working through us, we produce godliness.

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We are able to show true love to one another because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the

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Holy Spirit who has been given to us. Romans 5 .5 So verse 6 here in Galatians 5.

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Paul is not saying that he's opposed to circumcision. He himself was circumcised.

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All he's saying here is that in the category of salvation, whether you are circumcised or uncircumcised, you get no points for that.

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Paul said something similar to the Corinthians when he wrote, That's 1

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Corinthians 7 .19. Same thing.

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Once again, you cannot keep the commands of God in a way that produces true love for God and for others unless your works are carried out in Christ Jesus through the

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Holy Spirit that is within you to be received by faith. True faith produces true love.

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This world possesses a whole litany of definitions of love and every one of them is contrary to God's definition of love.

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As an example, consider the story that has been unfolding in recent days concerning the right to life for unborn children.

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Seven states now have passed some kind of abortion ban. The number is supposed to be eight, but in an all too familiar move, a federal judge blocked abortion ban legislation in Mississippi this past Friday.

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The liberal portion of our nation has responded with absolute rage, because of course they have.

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It takes hatred to kill a helpless unborn child, so naturally they're going to respond to their opponents with hatred.

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I've been on the receiving end of some of this hatred myself. Some of you know that I've produced videos advocating for the protection of the unborn.

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One man who said he was a professor contacted me and said that I was giving Christianity a bad name.

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A woman from Canada said, I'm sure your God already hates you plenty for wishing pain on another person.

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A man from the UK said, God has a special place in hell for you, sinner. A woman from San Francisco told me,

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Choosing to abort a clump of cells is far more Christian than forcing a woman to go through a full pregnancy.

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A woman from Florida accused me of some unseemly criminal behavior that I won't repeat, and said you're so sick, evil, perverted, and twisted, only an immoral

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Satan worshiper would approve of any of this. Several persons have wished a certain violent act would befall my wife and daughters, so that I could see what it was like to have a child

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I didn't want. One person pressed me and asked, What are you doing to help lower income single mothers?

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I replied, I married one. By the way, you can help lower income single mothers by filling up one of our baby bottles for the pregnancy care center.

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Our culture thinks that abortion is loving, and restricting it is unloving.

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My body, my choice, is a common refrain.

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But my friends, that is not true for anyone. No one has a right to use their body to murder someone else's body.

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A pregnant woman has another body inside of hers that is not her body.

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Does a pregnant woman have four arms and four legs? Does a pregnant woman expecting a baby boy become both male and female?

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Of course not, because the baby she is pregnant with is not her body. If your mantra is going to be, my body, my choice, where is the baby's choice?

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When definitions of love are dependent upon personal feelings and subjective standards of right and wrong, people die.

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The Bible says so. Proverbs 14, 12, There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.

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Self -defined love is selfish, not selfless.

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True love is always sacrificial. True love is defined by something outside of ourselves, not by ourselves.

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We find the true definition of love in the Bible. We see what true love should look like in the person and work of Jesus Christ, who gave

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His life for us that we would be set free from the curse of sin.

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Jesus Christ Himself is not a subjective figure. He's not someone that we can make up in our minds to be who we want

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Him to be. He is God, and He is self -defined. We see what it means to be

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Christ -like when we read His words in the pages of Scripture. None of this is to be left up to speculation.

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It's spelled out for us loud and clear in the Bible, which is the Word of God. Believing in God and taking

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Him at His word means that we have faith working through love, Galatians 5, 6, and we are keeping the commandments of God, 1

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Corinthians 7, 19. But the Galatians had fallen away from reliance on God. They had fallen into relying on themselves to be justified.

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That is not the way of salvation, nor is that the way of true love.

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Consider verses 7 and 8. You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth?

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This persuasion is not from Him who calls you. As you were able to hear in some of the insults people hurled at me, people will justify their sin insisting that they're the ones who are truly

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Christian. And many times I've encountered, and perhaps you've encountered this as well, a person who justifies sin by saying that they were compelled by the

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Holy Spirit to do it, or they believe that God just wants them to be happy.

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Right? When I was a teenager, there was a famous Christian singer who divorced her husband and married another man, and she justified her decision by saying,

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I believe God just wants everyone to be happy. In Lady Gaga's hit song,

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Born This Way, she sings, A different lover is not a sin. Believe in capital

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H -I -M. When you attach God's name to justifying a sinful behavior, that's taking the

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Lord's name in vain, by the way. The Spirit of God is telling us, this persuasion is not from Him who calls you.

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You've been listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, Gabe will be going through a

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New Testament study. Then on Thursday, we look at an Old Testament book. On Friday, we take questions from the listeners and viewers.