Romans 2_1-5： How to Spot a Legalistic Church
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Summary
In this episode of Real Christianity, we begin to confront the matter of legalism in the church. Moralism and religion is still highly prevalent today, in fact you might even be in a legalistic church and not even know it! Stay tuned to learn how you can spot these works-based gospel counterfeits, and more coming up right now.
Transcript
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In this episode of Real Christianity, we begin Romans 2 and confront the matter of legalism in
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the church. Moralism and religion is still highly prevalent today. In fact, you might even be in a
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legalistic church and not even know it. So stay tuned to learn how you can spot these works-based
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gospel counterfeits. All that and more coming up right now.
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Welcome to Real Christianity. My name is Dale Partridge. Today's episode is titled
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Romans 2, 1 through 5, How to Spot a Legalistic Church. Now, as you know, this show is an audio
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and video ministry of relearn.org. If you're watching this video recording of this episode
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now, please be sure to subscribe or follow for more biblical content. If you're listening from
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donate. Again, that's relearn.org forward slash donate. Now, speaking of resources, I just finished
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writing a 13-page PDF ebook titled How to Study Your Bible, a five-step process for faithful
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biblical interpretation. First off, it's only five bucks and 20 minutes of time. You're going to learn
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study techniques that you're going to use for the rest of your life. If you want to pick up a copy,
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just go to relearn.org forward slash study. All right, guys, let's go ahead and get our
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episode rolling today. We are on Romans 2, 1 through 5. I'm going to be reading this passage
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of scripture in the ESV, so go ahead and follow along. It says, therefore, you have no excuse,
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O man, every one of you who judges, for in passing judgment on another, you condemn yourself because
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you, the judge, practice the very same things. We know that the judgment of God rightly falls
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on those who practice such things. Do you suppose, O man, you who judge those who practice such
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things and yet do them yourself, that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you presume on
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the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is
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meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your hard and impenitent heart, you are storing
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up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed.
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In the previous chapter, chapter one, we learned about the wrath of God being revealed against
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all ungodliness from heaven for those people that denied God, even though we can see clearly
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that the existence of God and the things that are made. And we learned about the self-afflicted
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judgments of God that are carried out upon those as God withdraws himself from the life of these
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individuals that have become essentially atheists and idolaters and have rejected God. And these
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handing overs, there was, I believe, four handing overs that God hands them over to the lust of
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their flesh, to the desires of their bodies, that ultimately manifests itself in sexual immorality,
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specifically homosexuality, and culminates in this depraved mind with all these godless
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characteristics, and we're coming off the heels of that. So we just learned about the tragic ending,
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essentially of every atheist with that descriptive view, you know, debauched view of all things
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and these kind of God-denying heathens and where they were going and what they look like.
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And we learned that it's not just these eternal consequences that come for those that reject God,
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but essentially we learned about these real-time consequences that would affect their character now,
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the joy of their life now, the things that they do now. I can't not make the correlation with
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those individuals that are in the modern day, these anti-life individuals that are for pro-abortion.
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As you're watching at the fall of Roe v. Wade, you're seeing these protests all over the country
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that are basically calling for the blood of babies.
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They are deeply frustrated at the fact that they can no longer,
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And we're seeing this, again, very manifestation of Romans 1 characteristics,
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this debased mind, this inability to determine what is right and wrong,
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this emotional-based living that has been handed over to them
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so that they seek the lust of their flesh, the desires of their mind. And it is actually happening
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right before our eyes here in the culture. Now, as we go into chapter two, the apostle turns his aim
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from that Greco-Roman world, that pagan world that doesn't know God, at least the more practical
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knowledge of God being revealed through scripture or through the Jewish people in redemptive
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history but he now he's actually shifting it towards the jews and so he shifts his focus again
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towards this again people that don't have the knowledge of god uh historically and now he's
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moving his angle towards those who do have the knowledge of god the the religious israelites
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now you might be wondering how did the audience shift if you look at the context of chapter two
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you're going to see clearly that he's shifting from a pagan audience focus to a Jewish audience
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focus. And he makes it abundantly clear that those individuals from the Greek and Greco-Roman world
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to the Israelite world are different people groups, and he needs to speak to them in different ways.
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So in this section, Paul is speaking to the very people who think that they're saved by religious
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works and who rejected the very righteousness from God, that is Jesus. And he's aiming in on
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these individuals. So the point of this chapter really is to level the playing field between the
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Gentile world and the Jewish world, to demonstrate, again, specifically to the Jews, that outside of
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Jesus Christ, outside of the righteousness of Christ, every person stands equally condemned.
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And that's really the point of this transition here.
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Both the Jew and the Gentile will perish equally
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Paul is coming again off the heels of articulating the absolute depravity of those who do not know
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God. But then again, like this fire hose, he shifts and he turns his correspondence to the Jews
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who do know God. They do know the moral law of God. They do know what God expects of them.
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And he's starting verse one this way. He says, therefore, you have no excuse,
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Oh man, every one of you who judges, for in passing judgment on another, you condemn yourself
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because you, the judge, practice the very same things. We know that the judgment of God rightly
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falls on those who practice such things. The Jewish people were a prideful bunch. We know
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this, right? They were bathed in this posture of elitism and they looked down upon anybody that's
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outside of the Jewish culture, but especially when you use the phrase Gentile world,
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absolute, an absolute snobbery that came with the Jewish culture. And we see this pride at the
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woman at the well, the way that the Jewish culture would treat the woman at the well, or how shocking
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it was that Jesus spoke to her, or the story of the Good Samaritan in the gospel. They basically
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slighted anyone that didn't have the Jewish heritage. So the Pharisees obviously were the
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worst at this. And a lot of the religious garbage that came from the Pharisees was
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infecting the Jewish Christians. This was still a cultural issue that they've been bathed in
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since they were born. And so this stuff is on them and the way they think about themselves
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as being more righteous than the outside world. So Paul, again, essentially just slaps them in
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the face with a stark reminder that while the pagans may have rejected God in creation, the Jews
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actually rejected God in the flesh. And so this is, I think, the anchor behind what's going on here,
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the frustration. And there's really no reason for them to have this pride anymore. The fact that
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they crucified the Messiah really should chop away any pride right at the roots of the Jewish
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people. Yes, it was the Jews who were given the oracles of God, but it was also the Jews
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who murdered the Messiah. And so again, this is some context that I think is possible to be helpful
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for this passage of scripture. The practical point that Paul, and I should say even the more direct
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point that Paul is making here, is regarding their prideful posture as it results to the religiosity.
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And so he wants to make clear that no amount of religious practice, no amount of law following
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or moral living of animal sacrificial systems can earn the righteous position and permit
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them to be in a position where they can look down on others that have a less righteous
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for whoever keeps the whole law, but fails in one point, has become guilty in all of it.
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So let me just give you a hypothetical for a second. I'm going to give you an impossible
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hypothetical. We all know that we're born in sin, meaning that sin's not just an act. It's also a
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condition that's handed down from Adam to all people that are born of Adam. And it's why we
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need to be born again of Christ. Now, again, hypothetical here. Let's just say that you were
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born sinless. And then you sinned one time at the age of five. And then until you were 80 years old
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and you died, you had no sins. You lived a completely perfect life. All of your righteousness,
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all of that righteousness before that first sin at five, all of that righteousness after that,
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none of it would mean anything. You broke the law one time and you're hell bound as a result.
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So we need to understand that this kind of leveling
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because we have not been able to keep God's law perfectly.
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Now, the only way that we can essentially be perfect
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And so we need to have the righteousness of Christ
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because there's no way that we can be perfect on our own.
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And this is why, again, Romans 3, 10, 12, 10 through 12 says,
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No, not one. No one understands. No one seeks for God. All have turned aside. I want you to catch
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that. All have turned aside. Together, they have become worthless. No one does good, not even one.
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So without the perfect righteousness of Christ, you and I can never be made perfect. This is some
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bedrock doctrine that needs to be clarified to everybody, but specifically people that are in
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the legalistic religiosity, or in this specific circumstance, the Jews, Christ is our only hope
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to be found righteous and to be justified before a perfect and holy God. So anyone who believes
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that they have the right to look down on another person's moral state is blind to their own moral
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state. So all sinners, again, were condemned outside of Christ. We cannot judge. We cannot
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boast because the only reason we're righteous is because of Christ's righteousness. So we can boast,
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but we can boast in Christ alone. And that's essential that we need to grasp this. We cannot
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cast judgments from a moral high ground, which again, the Jews were criminal at this. The Jewish
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culture was criminal at this. We can only boast in Christ. So this is exactly the opposite of what
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the Jews were historically doing. They viewed themselves as righteous and above everybody else.
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And again, Paul is coming here and leveling the playing field.
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So they wrongfully estimated their standing with God.
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They thought that they were saved by the religious works.
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They thought that religious working would somehow make them righteous when in reality,
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no matter what the level of religious works, no matter how long you've carried out those
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religious works, you sin once, you sinned all, you're condemned.
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And again, they didn't even take the reality that total depravity that were born of Adam,
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sin as a condition, not just an act. No matter what, we are born dead, spiritually unrighteous,
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needing to be justified, needing a foreign righteousness, needing Christ. And so this is,
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again, why Jesus would often say things like, you are whitewashed tombs. You look beautiful on the
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outside because your works are great, but on the inside, you're full of dead bones. This is the
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structure, why Jesus was so anti-self-righteous religiosity. And so this is the condemnation of
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legalism. You cannot be found righteous without Christ. We don't contribute to our righteousness
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whatsoever. So we have to get these lies out of our head. If you're in a legalistic church or you
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grew up around this kind of stuff, you can't believe that your law keeping, your obedience
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adds any value to your status as a child of God.
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You are actually just a sinner in everything you do.
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You're giving, none of it makes you more righteous.
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The only way that you stand righteous before God is again in Christ.
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And so the Jews did not understand this, especially coming out of a legalistic culture.
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I know many Christians that came out of legalistic churches and still struggle with this.
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They find themselves, they're constantly condemning themselves that they did this and they did that.
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Yes, we need to repent when we walk in sin, but that repentance is a renewal of the original repentance,
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the big R repentance, that when we turned away from our sin and came to Christ and we were
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justified by our faith, there is nothing that can take us away. We cannot lose our salvation
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because our salvation wasn't resting upon our righteousness. It was resting only on the
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righteousness of Christ. And so lots of people have this struggle with religiosity and legalism
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that they think that if they don't do enough, that God's angry with them, or if they do something
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that good news that we can be righteous in Christ.
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rightly falls on those who practice such things. So essentially, Paul is saying, because you have
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not the righteousness of Christ, you are equally as wicked. You are no longer, you never were,
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having any higher ground than anybody else. These people wrongfully interpreted their position
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with God the Father. And so they have a veneer of light, but they're essentially darkness on
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the inside. And again, Paul wants to make this absolutely clear to them. They practice self
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righteousness, again, which is an abomination to God. When we practice self, when we think that
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our works have some sort of contribution to our standing before him. And basically, Paul is saying
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you remain under the judgment of God if you believe these things. So Christianity is not
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about what to do. It's about what's been done. That's essential for us to understand. And as a
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result of what's been done, we can joyfully do. So basically obedience and righteousness and
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Bible reading and church attendance and compassion on one another and truth, these things are
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fruits of a good root, but they are not the root themselves. The root is Christ and he is the
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source of all those good things through the Holy Spirit in us. So even those righteous works that
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we do, we can't take credit for. And so we need to be, we just need to remember that Christ,
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if we want to say for from him and through him and to him are all things, all glory be to Christ
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and him alone. We need to realize that all those good things come from Christ and not from us,
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But we need to, again, remove that desire to approach God on our own, through our own
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Again, we can do righteous things from the Spirit of God to the glory of Christ, but
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those things that we do in terms of our religious life or our piety aren't contributing or
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making us any more righteous or any more loved by doing those deeds.
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And so verses three through four, we'll get some more direct context here. It says,
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do you suppose, oh man, you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself,
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that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness
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and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?
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and to the Christian, it might be a rhetorical, right?
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Do you suppose, oh man, that you who judge
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and we are righteous because look at how we live our lives. Look who we are. We are God's chosen
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people. That's that posture that Paul is trying to address here. He uses the term, O man, which
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again, in Paul's writings is a term of earnestness. He uses it later in chapter nine, who are you,
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oh man, to essentially evaluate God. And so at the core, Paul is calling the Jews hypocrites.
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That's really what he's saying here. And when you look at all these individuals who live a certain
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way and walk another way or speak one way and walk another way, this is the sin of hypocrisy.
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They judge the Gentiles for the idolatry that they commit, when in reality, they're committing
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their own form of idolatry, which is self-righteousness. They're believing that
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law-keeping will actually make them righteous, which again is to reject the Messiah, is to
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reject their need for a Savior. So again, the question that was asked is, do you suppose,
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oh man, you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourselves, that you
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will escape the judgments of God. And so moral people, the problem with moralism and the problem
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with self-righteousness is that these are individuals who know the law of God. And while
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they might not openly carry out these acts as prevalent as those in Romans chapter one,
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they commit these things in their secret life. They commit these things in their heart. And this
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is again why Jesus would often say it's not just that you've heard that it was told that if you do
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these things physically, he says, no, but I'm looking at the heart. And so this is again,
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this moral high ground and Jesus raising the standard of the heart, leveling the playing
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field. The Jews, the Greeks were all under the same condemnation. None of us are righteous. No,
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not one. And so again, the Jews had grossly overestimated their standing with God. They
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genuinely believed that their religious law keeping was sufficient to render them righteous.
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And again, this needed to be purged from the Jewish mind and the Jewish culture. This is
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something that they still live and believe in today. And so what this again illustrates is a
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total miscalculation of the holiness of God and the sinfulness of man. And this is Paul's ministry
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as a whole, is he constantly wants to talk about the holiness of God and the sinfulness of man,
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and the bridge that bridges the gap, right, is Christ Jesus. And so the Jews viewed the law as
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a ladder that could bring man to God, when in reality, the law was intended to demonstrate
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man's inability to ever reach God. The reason we teach our kids the law of God is why? We want to
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teach them the Ten Commandments because very quickly they're going to learn that they can't
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keep them and that they are going to be guilty and that they need a Savior. We know that the Old
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Testament, the law, was a tutor unto salvation. It taught us our need. The problem is that the
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Jews missed this, and obviously they crucified the Messiah. This is fresh on the mind of Paul
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He is the only way to the Father, and you just need to rest in Christ. That is a shift that needs
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to occur. We know that Isaiah 64, 6 says, we have all become like one who is unclean, and all our
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righteous deeds are like a filthy rag. Again, even our good works, that they're not done to the glory
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of Christ. And you know that I'm reteaching, right? I'm teaching here in concentric circles.
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So I said this a couple minutes ago. I'm saying it again. Sometimes we need repetition to learn
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these things. So we have to realize that if we do a good work, say we go and we give some money to
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the homeless shelter, if that is done not to the glory of Christ in faith, then that is not viewed
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by God as a righteous deed, because if it's not done the glory of Christ, it's done to the glory
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of self. If it's making you feel good for you, that is sin. Later in Romans, Paul says anything
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that is done not from outside of faith is sin. And so anything that's done outside of a desire to
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glorify Christ is sinful. And again, many of us today still miscalculate our self-righteousness.
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We think that somehow by rule following, we're going to have God be happier with us or he's
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going to love us more. We basically perform for God when in reality, we just need to go praise
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Christ, praise Christ, because he is the one who did everything. He did it all from start to finish.
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And we need to recognize that as Christians. And so every good thing in you is of Christ. That's
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just something that we need to constantly remind ourselves in a world that wants to perform. Every
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good thing is of Christ. Every bad thing in me is of self. So Paul anticipated the blindness of the
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Jews. Why? Because he understood the absolute depravity of the lostness of his religiosity.
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Paul was the perfect individual to write Romans because he understood legalism to the core. Paul
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was a Pharisee of Pharisees. He was the chief of sinners. He understood that the posture and
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the thinking and the structure of the religious system the Jews were so entrenched in. So he asks
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another question. He says, or do you think lightly on the riches of his kindness and forbearance
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and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? And so he's
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saying, do you think that you deserve a righteous standing? Are you blind to the riches of his
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kindness and forbearance and patience towards you? Are you blind to these things? He's given you
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knowledge. He's given you understanding. He's given you the scriptures. He's given you the
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prophets, right? Do you not see that he has patiently restrained his wrath toward the Jews?
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They killed the Messiah and he's patiently restraining the wrath against the Jews. But
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most of all, he's asking, do you not know that the purpose of all these divine mercies, again,
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that kindness, that forbearance, that patience, is not meant to affirm that Israel was not in
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need of more mercy or of mercy in general, it was meant to lead them to repentance. That was the
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purpose of that kindness and that forbearance and that patience, right? God's kindness towards
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someone in giving them knowledge, knowledge of his moral law, knowledge of his son, knowledge
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of the scriptures, knowledge of the words of the prophets, again, like he did with the Jews,
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is not to affirm them that they're fine just the way that they are. The knowledge is not sufficient
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to save. It's to teach them that they're great in desperate need of a Savior. It's a gesture
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of mercy intended to show them their desperate need for forgiveness and a Savior. That's the
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purpose of God's patience and kindness toward us, is to show us our need. He's patient towards us.
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Religion makes believers think that God accepts them on the basis of what they do
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instead of on the basis of what Christ has done.
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And a lot of us have this little piece in our heart
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that we think that we're just going to add something.
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We're going to keep ourselves saved by staying in this amount of sin.
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But if we sin a little bit more, maybe that means we fall away.
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I used to be in a church where someone says, you know, there's a canyon there.
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And if you get too close to the canyon, you're going to fall in.
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What that kind of mentality does is that it basically makes me work to keep myself saved.
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And it also gives me a little bit of glory that I can tap my shoulder and say, you know what?
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that person that was a Christian that walked away because they fell down the canyon,
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you know what? I'm better than them because I kept myself saved, and I had more discipline
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than they did, which is, again, absolutely wrong. If someone is saved, if someone is truly in Christ,
00:28:48.000
born again, a child of God, God will keep you saved. We know in John 10, verses 24 through 25,
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and I'm going off memory here. Jesus says, my sheep know me, they follow me. I give them
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eternal life and they will never perish. No one can snatch them out of my hand because no one's
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strong enough to snatch them out of my father's hand. Me and my father are one. Again, that's the
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paraphrase there, but they will never perish. And so we have to realize that he who began a good
00:29:17.720
work in you will finish it. So that the perseverance that you have in the faith,
00:29:22.760
your ability to maintain obedience, your ability to walk and keep your faith strong. It has nothing
00:29:28.600
to do with you. It's Christ in you. Because again, he who began a good work in you will finish it.
00:29:33.280
We know this in Hebrews. It says that Jesus is the author and finisher of your faith. Your faith
00:29:39.660
itself is a gift from God. It actually is the very thing that keeps you sustained. And so we can't
00:29:45.100
say glory be to me. We could say all glory be to Christ who does these works for us. And so
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And at the very end, verse five, it says, but because of your hard and impenitent heart,
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you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be
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revealed. So the phrase hardness of heart that's used here would produce images for a Jewish
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culture of Moses's story with the account of Pharaoh and God hardening their heart.
00:30:25.300
And so Paul's using language that was historically used
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He's saying that they're storing up wrath for themselves,
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that sin can be accumulated and punished accordingly.
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You can store up wrath with self-righteous behavior.
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It's really when you walk into a legalistic structure of your relationship with God,
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you cannot contribute whatsoever. What we do is we obey because of what Christ has done.
00:31:19.400
We don't obey to keep ourselves saved. It is gratitude and love that leads us to obedience,
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not fear and law that is the motivation or the motive behind why we obey.
00:31:43.860
Again, this is talking about Jews that are not saved,
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He's opening up again, we're in Romans chapter two.
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that he's condemning those who are outside of Christ.
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And so you gotta understand who the audience is right now.
00:32:02.300
These are, the letter sure is to the church that's in Rome.
00:32:06.140
But it's clarifying that there are individuals, Jews, Gentiles, that are not saved, and they're
00:32:11.680
giving them gospel doctrine. And so, in other words, those who rest on religious works
00:32:18.280
reject the sufficiency of Christ, and they squander the mercy of God, extend to them
00:32:23.620
by grace, and they store for themselves wrath that's going to be delivered to them
00:32:27.980
on the day of judgment. And again, the Jews had a special grace that was given to them
00:32:33.200
from the prophets, from the scriptures, from the fathers that were before them. The law of God was
00:32:38.620
delivered to them. They had the oracles of God. They had no excuse and God extended kindness and
00:32:44.680
mercy to them and handed them, given them gift after gift after gift. And so Paul is passionate
00:32:49.080
about this, but they need to see that their righteous ways or their righteous works will
00:32:52.900
not contribute. They need to realize that Christ alone is their righteousness. And so the day of
00:32:57.840
judgment that he's talking about is the day where all of those people who did not keep the law will
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receive the eternal consequences that they've sinned against an eternal God. That day of judgment's
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coming. And if you're standing there and you're trusting in your own works, you're done. You need
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to trust only and solely on the righteous work of Christ. So Christians, on the other hand, for us,
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we don't need to worry about this stuff because we trust in the righteousness of Christ. And
00:33:26.280
there's a promise to Christians for those who are in Christ about the day of judgment and the
00:33:31.440
condemnation that comes on that day. It's Romans 8, 1 through 4, and I'm going to read it to you.
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It says, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law
00:33:43.800
of the spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has
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done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do, by sending his own son in the likeness
00:33:57.260
of sinful flesh. And for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh in order that the righteous requirement
00:34:03.320
of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the
00:34:10.040
spirit. So again, if you break this down, man, I wish we had time to just break this down.
00:34:14.220
But essentially God is saying he fulfilled the requirement of the law for mankind in Christ.
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And our sins were actually nailed to Christ on the cross. He paid the price of us breaking the
00:34:27.240
law. And through faith, Christ imputes his righteousness to us. And therefore, there is
00:34:31.940
now no condemnation for us that are in Christ Jesus. It's an incredible passage of scripture.
00:34:36.460
I once heard a pastor say, quote, the essence of legalism is trusting in the religious activity
00:34:42.560
rather than trusting in God. It is putting our confidence in a practice rather than a person.
00:34:49.920
and without fail, this will lead us to love the practice more than the person. Okay, this was
00:34:58.580
and still is the posture of the Jews, the posture of the Roman Catholic doctrine of the church,
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the posture of the Mormons, the Jehovah's Witnesses, the other cults, the Seventh-day
00:35:10.200
Adventists, the Church of Christ, and many of those sects of the Church of Christ. And as a
00:35:16.580
result, this is what happens. Many people leave the practice because they never came to the person.
00:35:21.880
You've heard me say, so many people have come to church, but they never came to Christ. This is
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what I'm talking about here, is that if you didn't come to Christ and you come and you're just here
00:35:31.500
for the practice, you leave the church, you leave the church because you left the practice, not the
00:35:36.780
person, because you never came to the person. And they believe that Christianity is about something
00:35:43.560
to do. And when they get tired of doing it, they leave. And then we think for those of us that
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don't understand the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, or this once saved, always saved
00:35:53.840
doctrine, people think, oh, this person walked away from the faith. No, they never walked away
00:35:58.600
from the faith. They were never saved. They were never saved. If they were of us, they would have
00:36:03.140
remained with us as first John, I believe chapter two talks about that. And so we need to realize
00:36:08.000
is that when people come just to the practice and they leave the practice, they leave the church,
00:36:12.640
they never were born again. They need to be born again. And when you're born again,
00:36:16.440
you will never leave the church because God will continue to keep that desire and those
00:36:20.860
affections for God's people, and you will be sustained. So again, Christianity is not about
00:36:27.260
doing, it's about resting in what has been done. And this is what the Jews finally need to
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understand. And Paul is working incredibly hard to get that point across. This is the good news
00:36:42.800
to those who work. This is the good news to those who labor. You know, Jesus is talking about,
00:36:50.380
come to me, all who are weary, and I will give you rest. Come rest in Christ, in his perfect
00:36:58.180
righteousness. You don't have to labor to be righteous. You can't do it. The only thing you
00:37:04.080
can do is rest in Jesus Christ alone. So let's go ahead and pray, and then I'll close us out today.
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Father, we thank you, Lord, for your son, Jesus, Lord, that has made us righteous. And Lord, we
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pray for any of us that are listening or watching right now that are relying on their works or that
00:37:20.780
have confused the grace of God with a works-based gospel. Father, we ask that you would give them
00:37:25.920
wisdom to understand the difference and that you would bring conviction and clarity so that these
00:37:30.060
individuals can rest in the grace and the love of Christ. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, guys, thank
00:37:37.360
you for listening to this episode of Real Christianity. As you guys know, my hope is that
00:37:42.140
this podcast, this show is edifying for your walk with Christ, that it strengthens you, that it
00:37:48.100
gives you sound doctrine, that biblical and theological literacy continues to grow in you.
00:37:53.360
If you haven't subscribed to our channel or our podcast, would you do that? If someone just sent
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00:38:07.300
And lastly, would you prayerfully consider just making a donation to what we're doing here,
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00:38:18.880
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00:38:30.100
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joining us here today. You can always give at relearn.org forward slash donate.
00:38:41.160
My name is Dale Partridge. This is Real Christianity, and I'll see you next week.