SUNDAY SERMON - Can Anything Good Come From The Gospel Coalition？ ｜ “All Truth Is God’s Truth”
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 1 minute
Harmful content
Misogyny
7
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Toxicity
5
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Hate speech
24
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Summary
In order to understand the good news of the gospel, we must first understand the bad news. The good news is that God himself has come to rescue and renew all of creation in and through the work of Jesus Christ, and to the praise of His glorious grace. The bad news is sin. And yet, many evangelicals treat the law of God as though that were the enemy rather than our sin.
Transcript
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All right, we are going to begin a sermon series in the book of Joshua two weeks from today,
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Lord willing. For this morning, we're going to be looking at a multitude of biblical texts
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as we seek to better understand the incredible, majestic depths of the gospel,
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of free grace, of the life, death, and resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ
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as a substitute for sinners, to be received by grace alone, through faith alone, in him alone.
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Learning to better understand the gospel, learning to believe and even preach the gospel to ourselves,
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next week lord willing easter sunday will focus primarily on the resurrection of jesus and then
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as i've already said two weeks from today lord willing we'll begin our bread and butter the
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primary preaching diet for covenant bible church which is expositional preaching through whole
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books of the Bible. Okay, let's begin. First, learning to preach the gospel to yourself. If
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you have your notes, I've written the following. The word gospel literally means good news. The
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good news of the gospel is that God himself has come to rescue and renew all of creation in and
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through the work of Jesus Christ, for the good of his people, and to the praise of his glorious
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grace, per Ephesians chapter 1. So why does all creation, this is the question that that begs,
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including you and I, need rescuing? The answer is sin. In order to properly understand the good
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news, we must first understand the bad news. Before sin is an action, it is a condition.
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Psalm 51 verse 5 says this, behold, David speaking, I was brought forth in iniquity,
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and in sin did my mother conceive me. Let's pause. In order to understand the good news
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of God's gracious reconciliation, restoration, salvation, glorification for all of creation,
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which includes you and I, through the person and work of Jesus Christ, His Son, by grace alone,
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through faith alone, that is the gospel, in order to understand the brilliance of the diamond,
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the good news of the gospel, we must properly place it in its context, that is on the backdrop
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of the black velvet of sin. We must understand the bad news in order to properly understand the
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good news. And again, I want to pause here for a moment because many Christians misunderstand
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this point. The bad news is sin. Let me say that again. And here I'll give a parenthetical
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disclaimer. In addition, the bad news is sin, not the law. The beauty of the gospel of free grace
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does not shine as good news because of the backdrop of the bad, nasty, mean-spirited law of God.
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no you read this book and it's a pretty easy story to figure out it's not complicated
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if you want to get the headline of the story of the overarching story and narrative of the bible
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and you want to figure out who the protagonist is who the enemy is what's the good news what's the
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bad news? What's the hope? What's the problem? With a plain reading of Scripture, you will find
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undoubtedly that the problem is not the holiness of God. The problem is the sinfulness of man.
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And yet, many evangelicals treat the law of God as though that were the enemy.
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rather than our sin. That is the equivalency of treating an MRI as something that gives you a
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sickness rather than revealing the sickness that's already there. Now that said, I don't trust pretty
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much 99% of medicine anymore. Thanks to all the experts discrediting themselves. So an MRI in
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objective terms might actually give you sicknesses at this point. You know what I mean? There's no
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conspiracy too far, right? I've run out of conspiracies because in three to six months,
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they all come true, right? So I don't know, but just, you know, suspended disbelief for a moment.
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For those of you who are thinking MRI is not a good analogy, Joel, right? I went down the Reddit
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hole on this one. Just, okay, just humor my ignorance for a moment. Let's just assume that,
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you know, that Dr. Fauci is not involved and all that kind of stuff and assume, you know, what the
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basic individual thought about MRIs, you know, 20 years ago before everybody, you know, became
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a mad evil scientist, you know, gathering, you know, in Switzerland with George Soros trying
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to figure out how to, you know, lower the human population, right? That's, you know, that's going
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on, sadly. So let's pretend, you know, without that in our minds that MRIs are good. I don't
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know. I don't know. Let's just assume for the point of argument. The point is that I'm making
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the device or procedure or method or person or expert or whatever that reveals a problem
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is not the problem itself. That's the point that I'm making.
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In fact, the person or device or method or procedure that reveals the problem is actually
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a help. That person or method or invention is a blessing to you. And that is the law of God.
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The law of God does not impute sin. The law of God reveals sin.
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the problem is not that we have a thrice holy god the problem is not that he demands
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that we live in such a way that would garnish our own joy and his glory
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that's not the problem the problem with humanity is not that there is a god in heaven
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who has rules. The problem for humanity is our own defiance towards that God in heaven.
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The fact that we hate his rules when left to ourselves.
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So the problem, the bad news, which is the proper backdrop, the proper context for rightly being
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able to compare and contrast and appreciate the good news, the bad news is not the law.
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The bad news is that we are transgressors of the law. The bad news is not God's holiness.
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The bad news is man's sinfulness. And this sinfulness is not just something that we do,
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but it is a condition that precedes any action.
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but fertilization from the moment that the seed of the father connects with the egg of the woman,
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that is a person in the sight of God with equal dignity, equal value, equal sanctity of life,
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which is why, therefore, Christians must hold to the position that if we truly believe the unborn child
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is fully human and carries, therefore, the same degree of sanctity of life,
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then they deserve the same measure of protection for those who have been born.
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And if we are to authentically say that we are going to have the same protections
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for the born human being as for the unborn human being,
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to protect them from anyone who would have the intent of doing them harm.
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One of the chief protections is that the one who might seek to do them harm,
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that person knows that if they go through with their malice and evil intent,
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that this person is an unprotected class of people.
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But there is one oppressed class, truly, objectively, according to God's immutable standard oppressed class,
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And how is it that you could do something so heinous as murder an unborn child
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One of the chief ways that you can do this with absolution
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is because the primary people who do this are women.
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And women, as we know in our culture today, are sinless.
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is because there are two positions a culture can take.
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A culture can either worship women or save babies.
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Our culture currently has chosen to worship women.
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We even are beginning within the pro-life side of things
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to entertain penalties for the abortion doctor.
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the pro-life industry that's the same rhetoric it is the same narrative well the real victim here
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is the person who murdered it should come as no surprise to us when we quickly see
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from the white house in our nation our hearts go out quoting right now our hearts go out
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to the transgender community who is under attack.
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Days, I think two days, maybe even just one day,
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after a member of the trans community, not all of them,
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but a member literally attacked Christians.
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i mean that that is that is a level of gaslighting that would make orwell blush he wouldn't even
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write it into one of his fictional stories because it's so unbelievable you say that i mean come on
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you've got to have a little bit more artistic creativity if you're going to sell a book if
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you're going to have a believable plot line right you can't write a narrative where the white house
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and that the group that was killed in cold blood
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It's not even believable within a sci-fi fantasy genre.
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you are not a sinner because you sinned you sin because you're a sinner
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i'll say it again you are not a sinner you did not become a sinner in terms of identity
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because you once sinned it is not as though you were conceived in innocence in a state of
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integrity, would be the theological terminology, as God created Adam and Eve in the garden before
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sin entered the world. They were created in a state of integrity, a state of innocence, able to fall,
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able to not fall. Both options at their disposal. But ever since sin entered the world through our
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first father, Adam, by virtue of his federal headship, all his posterity sense has been
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conceived in sin. You are not a sinner because you sinned. You sin because you are a sinner.
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And for all those who would reel and rock and object to the concept of federal headship,
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Let me be clear that apart from representation, there is no salvation.
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Because remember, brothers and sisters, the only reason why we are redeemed
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is because there is one who represented us perfectly.
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And by his work, not ours, he has garnished for us the very righteousness of God.
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If you object at being represented by Adam, then you have no logical and consistent basis for being represented by Christ.
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And Adam, for the record, did not misrepresent you.
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and subjecting all the others to be represented by him.
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But to the praise of his glorious grace, forever and ever, there was a greater champion.
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Compare with me for a moment, Adam and the last Adam, Christ.
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The first Adam, in seeing the providence and mercy of God.
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The first Adam, who was appointed as our federal head to represent all mankind,
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he did not begin his life as a babe, or a toddler, or a teenager.
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God did not expect a three-year-old to resist the temptations of the serpent.
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able to rationalize as a man with all the powers of logic and discernment of a man.
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And he was not placed in a pit of vipers, in a wilderness or a desert without provision.
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He was placed in the garden. The scripture says that Adam was actually formed from the dust of
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the world in a wilderness type place. But he was quickly transitioned by God and placed in
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a protective environment, a place of plenty, a place of provision. And Adam was not set in the
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garden with one tree that would be morally right and proper to eat from, but all the others off
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limits. It was the reverse. There was only one no in the Garden of Eden. Everything else was yes.
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So a full-grown man without the sin nature created in a state of integrity and placed
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in a protected and provided context with only one no. God did not sabotage us.
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In the same way that elsewhere the scripture says that Abraham paid tithes and Levi with the Levitical priesthood, the head of the priesthood, paid tithes in a sense to Melchizedek as the higher priest, the forever priest, because he was there in Abraham's loins.
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he had not yet been born but by virtue of his father his lineage Abraham doing one thing
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it is as though in biblical terms that Levi did it also in the same way although you and I were
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not there you and I send in Adam and for any who would still object at this principle of federal
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headship not only do you therefore have to reject the gospel and being represented by christ
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but one of the greatest proofs that you send in adam is your own sin again you are not a sinner
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because you send you send because you are a sinner and you send in adam our covenant head
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established in a covenant of life which was also a covenant of works in the garden and he failed
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and each time you and i in our lives sin against god's holy law we are ratifying the covenant
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your sin in real time in the objective and literal sense each of your sins is you taking your pen
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to the covenant of works that was broken by your father Adam and you giving your consent
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I stand with Adam. I ratify the covenant. I re-amend the covenant to say once again
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to give my consent that we are covenant breakers. You did sin in Adam and there is only forgiveness
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in Jesus. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.
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Before sin is an action, it begins as a condition. Our behaviors are determined by our emotions.
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Our emotions are determined by our thoughts, and our thoughts are determined even deeper by desire.
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you do sinful things because you feel sinful in sinful ways you feel in sinful ways because you
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think in sinful ways and you think in sinful ways because your desires at the bare bottom
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of the barrel your desires are polluted this is what scripture teaches what is the source
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of sin. If we were to get down to the bottom of it, James chapter 1 verse 13 through 15 says,
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let no one say when he is tempted, I am being tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted with
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evil and he himself tempts no one. So God is not the source of our sin and transgression.
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what is the primary source then? Verse 14. But each person is tempted when he is enticed by
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his own desire. Then desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin. And sin, when it is fully
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grown, brings death. In your notes, I've written this. People usually try to blame their sin
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on their circumstances. They might say, I got angry because someone cut me off in traffic.
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I started to worry because I lost my job and my finances are low. I yelled at my roommate because
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they weren't listening to me. However, the reality is that our circumstances are not the cause of our
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sin, but merely serve to illuminate what is already in our hearts. Everything we say and do
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is rooted in our desires and how we go about fulfilling our desires is shaped by what we
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believe. So the process is like this. Action. Behaviors. The sin that you do. It stems from
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emotions, feelings, sin at the level of emotions, which stem from thoughts, sinful thinking,
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which ultimately stems from desire. Now here we must distinguish. There are desires that in
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themselves are inherently sinful, but in many cases there are desires that are inherently good,
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but the way in which we go about seeking the fulfillment of that said desire is sinful.
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lest there be found in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart,
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this is the apostle speaking not merely to brothers according to the flesh because they are
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Hebrews but also brothers in the spiritual sense he is speaking to the church and even in that
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context speaking to the church he says a stark warning be careful church be careful brothers
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Lest there be found, even in you, an evil, unbelieving heart that would lead you to fall away from the living God.
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What is it that causes us to fall away from the living God?
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That is, to apostatize, to shipwreck our faith?
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evil unbelieving heart these are not two kinds of hearts that are both negative but one in the same
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an evil heart is an unbelieving heart and an unbelieving heart is in fact an evil heart
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all sin ultimately stems from unbelief so sin at the level of action it stems from emotion
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And where these inherently sinful desires spring from,
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or even inherently good desires, although pursued in sinful ways,
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in both cases, that stems from the deepest part, which is belief.
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What you believe about God, what you believe about man, what you believe about the world in which we live, and what you believe about yourself, that will ultimately shape and guide and even as strong as dictate every desire you have and every method you utilize for fulfilling certain desires,
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which will shape the way you think, which will shape the way you feel,
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And perverse desires, or even good desires pursued in perverse ways,
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It is what you trust as well as what you treasure.
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When the scripture speaks of faith and implicit personal trust in Jesus,
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it is to trust in the sense of believing it is true, objectively and factually true.
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But it is not only faith in that sense, trusting in the truth of the matter,
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but it is also faith in the sense of personal adoration, of affection, of love,
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Be careful, brothers, lest there be found in any of you an evil heart
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which is an unbelieving heart and an unbelieving heart which is an evil heart. Sin is never truly
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conquered by simply changing our outward behaviors. It is never merely conquered by
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solar bootstrapion, gritting your teeth and pulling yourself up. Sin is only mortified,
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not merely managed, but killed when sin is hated. And sin will only be hated
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when Christ and His covenants and His promises are cherished.
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And we love Jesus when we come by grace to see His love for us.
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1 John 4, 19, we love because He first loved us.
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we then love him and if we love him we will obey him seeking to do that which is right
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and seeking to mortify all that which is an offense to god namely our sin sin is never
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truly conquered by simply changing our outward behaviors what really needs to change is what we
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are believing in our hearts. All sin is a heart issue and the gospel is the only message that
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has the power to change the human heart. All of this is true. And to be honest, I don't often
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preach messages like this anymore. Because this message has been preached for the last 15 to 20
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years by the Gospel Coalition, and Acts 29, and the SBC, and every gospel-centered, centered
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gospel organization in the world. And so I often assume that everyone knows these things.
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But I realize, pastorally, that not everyone does. That many of you, like me, have a similar
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journey. You were part of a gospel-centered network, denomination, movement, theology,
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whatever. But when you began to see their hypocrisy and compromise, then you moved on
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and you began to embrace a biblical and historic and confessional view of not only the gospel,
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Or you appreciate the stance that we've taken by God's grace in regards to social justice and critical race theory and LGBTQ, LMNOP.
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But you're not coming with the background of 15 years of being a church planter with some gospel-centered organization.
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And the reason I'm preaching this message is a refresher and reminder for all of us, but especially for you.
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And I don't want to throw out the baby with the bathwater.
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We want to have a historic, reformed, confessional, biblical theology.
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Now, I think we might have to have more discernment
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Tim Keller can be much more sneaky than Don Lemon.
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the way to mortify sin is not merely behavioral modification but it is at the root first and
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foremost heart transformation and the heart is changed by the power of the gospel believing
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In fact, the scripture goes so far to say that faith without works is dead.
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And as we seek to critique the compromises of the gospel-centered, evangelical, shallow, watered-down world,
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When the heart believes the truth of the gospel
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shapes the means by which we go about seeking to attain our desires,
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which shapes the way we think, shapes the way we feel,
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His nature, His character, His covenants, His promises.
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revealed in the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ.
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Number one, God is great. Number two, God is glorious. Number three, God is good. And number
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four, God is gracious. I'll say it again. God is great, glorious, good, and gracious. Again,
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this concept comes from some of the gospel-centered guys, which includes some guys I still like,
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like Tim Chester and some guys that I'm ashamed from the pulpit to even say their name
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like Paul David Tripp. But all truth is God's truth. And the heretic does not have
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rights to the intellectual property of God's eternal truth.
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And so it must be preached from time to time. What do we mean by God is great? In this instance,
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we're speaking of the omnipotence and power and specifically the sovereignty of God.
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God is great in the sense that He sovereignly controls every molecule in the universe.
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How do you, brother and sister, keep from your heart surrendering to utter despair
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after witnessing the tragedy of this past week?
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How do you protect yourself from spiraling into constant, incessant worry and fear?
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In part, you protect yourself from fear by being vigilant, wise, shrewd, and strategic.
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But you also protect yourself from fear by believing that God is sovereign over all things, including suffering and sin.
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God is in control, which frees us up from having to be in control.
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For the one who does not believe in the absolute sovereignty of God,
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that he is controlling all things, and not merely controlling all things
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as some kind of irrational, angry, paganistic God,
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but controlling all things in a benevolent way,
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not only for his glory but for the good of those who love him and are called according to his
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purposes as we see in Romans 8 verse 29 for the one who does not believe that who does not believe
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God is sovereign over all and he is working not just salvaging God is not just salvaging and
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fixing things on the back end but God is working that is orchestrating designing decreeing all
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things from the beginning, even suffering, even sin for his glory and your good. For the one who
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rejects that, that person must be in control. If God is not in control and the one who is sovereign
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and in control of all things is not also loving and benevolent and controlling and working all
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things for you and your eternal good, then that person will be given to fear. That will be an
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emotional, fretting, anxious person. It only makes logical sense. But for the person who believes
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that God doesn't just salvage bad things, but he controls and dictates all things.
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If you don't believe in the sovereignty of God, how do you sleep at night?
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You may attempt to console yourself by saying, well, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
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What about your drunk neighbor who doesn't serve the Lord, who gets behind the wheel of the car?
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And as you're both entering the neighborhood, he's choosing to be a fool and threatening the lives of your family by his negligence.
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Brothers and sisters, it's not enough to say, well, I have chosen to submit myself to God's sovereignty.
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If sovereignty is something that you must submit to in order for it to exist, it's not the biblical
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sovereignty that we see spoken of of God. God is controlling all things. We see even in the
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narrative of Joseph in Genesis, he says to his brothers when they finally repent for selling
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him into slavery in Egypt, he says, brothers, you meant it for evil, but God took your lemons and
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turned it into lemonade. You meant it for evil, but God changed it and salvaged it on the back end
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and made it good, as good as possible, of a situation out of a very bad scenario. Said the
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Bible, never. No, it's the same word. You meant it in intent. You planned it before it was even done.
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It was your plan, your motive, your intent, your design to do me evil.
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You designed it and you bear moral culpability for your sin.
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And yet standing above and beyond you is an infinitely wise and powerful God
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who works through the creature to orchestrate that which is good and pleasing in his sight.
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It's not only that God salvaged the situation that you intended for evil,
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but God planned it for good. You meant it for evil. God meant it for good. And he goes on to say
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that a very many people might be saved. Had Joseph not gone to Egypt and risen through the ranks,
00:44:22.620
and become the second-in-command viceroy under no one but Pharaoh himself,
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interpreting Pharaoh's prophetic dreams and with wisdom and discernment coming up
00:44:33.480
with a strategy and plan to prepare for the famine of seven years.
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Had it not been for that, everyone would have died.
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Thrown into the pit as Christ was thrown into the grave.
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risen from the pit but sold and betrayed by his brothers for silver just as judas betrayed jesus
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he then rose though he ascended to the right hand of pharaoh as christ has ascended to the right
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hand of god and through joseph and his wisdom many did not perish but were saved just as christ by
00:45:14.440
his life, death, and resurrection has saved eternally many souls. All of this was not salvaged
00:45:22.340
by God, but planned and decreed by God. So how do you resist the feelings of worry and anxiety
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and fear that give way to actions and speech that come out of anxiety and worry and fear
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and thoughts incessantly bent on anxiety and worry and fear?
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You believe that we live in a world that's tarnished by sin and evil.
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But that there is a God who is not only powerful, but also good.
00:46:10.660
if he if he makes lemonade it's not because man gave him lemons and it's all he had to work with
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if he makes lemonade it's because he gave man those lemons because god wanted lemonade because
00:46:23.580
it's delicious god made the decision god is in charge second god is glorious in this instance
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it signifies gravitas, weight, significance, seriousness.
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So the belief that God is glorious would fend off what temptation?
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see there have been times where i've had and i'm not exaggerating and i'm not playing the world's
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smallest violin because it doesn't bother me because i believe god's glorious by his grace
00:47:11.320
praise god okay so don't feel bad for me that's that's not my intent but there have been times
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where i've had a thousand people in one week in one week say really horrible things and and and
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i'll leave the email i'll leave the comment all this unless it's vulgar and has cursing in it
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That's about it in terms of my standard of editing.
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And then there may be one of you, my beloved flock.
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They come to me and say, Pastor, man, I loved that sermon.
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And I saw you getting a lot of flack online, but I loved it.
00:47:53.120
The takeaway from this sermon is not, let's stop encouraging the pastor.
00:48:00.740
However, that is not ultimately significant enough to sustain me.
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Because it's not a matter of kind words versus mean-spirited words.
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Not just the message, but who is it coming from?
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if a thousand people hate me and one of you loves me it's not enough to tip the scale
00:48:27.480
see it's not just a matter of having a gracious a gracious thing to say but it's also the weight
00:48:35.700
and significance from the one who's saying it so what is the antidote to the fear of man
00:48:42.960
the fear of god do not fear man who can kill the body but after having done so can do no more to
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you but rather love god fear god who can both destroy the body and after having done so can
00:49:01.860
cast the soul into hell's fire god is weightier see some of you here's the deal you have to believe
00:49:10.960
all four of these. God is great, glorious, good, and gracious. Some of you, here's your problem.
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You believe that God's gracious. You believe that what God believes, what he thinks, how he feels
00:49:22.960
about you is positive because, nothing in you, but because for the sake of his son, Jesus Christ,
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and because Christ is your federal head, your representative, because you have union with Christ
00:49:34.000
by the Spirit, through faith, by grace alone, so that no one can boast because of these theological
00:49:40.820
objective truths, you know and believe that God's sentiment towards you is nothing but yes and
00:49:48.580
amen. And yet you still fear man. Do you know why? Because you believe that God, that God,
00:49:57.220
as it were, feels positively towards you, but that God is not also weighty enough to outweigh
00:50:05.100
all the peanut gallery. See, you know God loves you, but the love of God is falling on deaf ears
00:50:12.760
because the love of God, not because it's not good news enough, it's not weighty news enough.
00:50:21.720
It would be like a small child. Everyone's mocking you and laughing at you, but a small child comes
00:50:27.860
up and says, I love you. Again, a beautiful sentiment, a beautiful gesture that we all
00:50:33.360
appreciate but it's not enough to sustain us we say thanks kid that really means the world but we
00:50:40.260
still go home worrying because a child likes us but a thousand adults hate us but if there's one
00:50:48.700
person who is for us and the one person happens to be the god of the universe if god is for you
00:50:56.220
then who can be against you? But the only way that that verse rings true is if God is waiting.
00:51:05.360
Glorious. Third, God is good. In this sense, I don't mean God is good in the sense that he is
00:51:11.940
loving and kind, but rather God is good like a dry-aged cowboy bone-in ribeye with truffle
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butter, gently melted on top, cooked rare, because if it's well done, you should have
00:51:31.760
just gotten a hamburger. God is good. As I use that term, I mean it in the sense that
00:51:40.240
God satisfies. In his presence, there is fullness of joy. In his presence, there is fullness
00:51:49.780
of joy, and in his right hand, there are pleasures forevermore. I've said this before, not
00:51:58.240
not in the last couple years here, in my past pastoral ministry, but it's worth saying to you.
00:52:08.420
Some people, they believe that God is, again, loving, but not waiting. So his word, although
00:52:15.380
his word, right? The blood of Christ speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. They know
00:52:19.860
that the word that God has spoken over them is a loving, assuring word of security and kindness.
00:52:27.380
But the word is, it's not that it's not positive, but it's weak. The word of man is louder in their
00:52:33.880
ears than the word of God. They have not come to fear God, to see him as weighty and glorious.
00:52:38.640
Likewise, and speaking of God is good, and meaning good in the sense that God fulfills and satisfies.
00:52:44.400
pleasures forevermore fullness of joy there are those of us myself included that we have come to
00:52:51.860
believe that God is gracious and loving but not that he is good and fulfilling so we will go to
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God for love but we'll go to sin for fun let me say that again if you believe that God is gracious
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but you don't believe God is good you will go to God for love but you will still go to God
00:53:14.420
for fun or go to sin for fun the reason why some of us we all sin for different reasons
00:53:22.240
all stemming from different desires ultimately shaped and dictated by different beliefs but
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one of the reason why some of us sin is not because we're looking for love in all the wrong
00:53:32.980
places for some of us it's because we're looking for pleasure and although we know that god is the
00:53:38.560
only source of love we don't believe that in god we might find pleasures forevermore we think god
00:53:47.260
is loving and boring and that sin we know hates us and in the long run only does more harm than
00:53:56.940
good but at least for a moment we can live a little get a bit of excitement
00:54:02.840
and this could lead to a host of idolatries the person who lives for the weekend the person who
00:54:12.100
constantly has to travel the person who's an adrenaline junkie who wants to go skydiving and
00:54:17.080
wants to go bungee jumping and wants to go this and that and that and this there's nothing inherently
00:54:21.660
wrong with these things the question is are you bound by them brothers and sisters the alcoholic
00:54:26.680
does not enjoy drinking. He must. He must. He doesn't do it for pleasure. Not anymore. That ship
00:54:33.700
sailed a long time ago. He does it because he's enslaved. And so too, it may not be alcoholism,
00:54:40.300
but so too, even a Christian can be bound by pleasure. Enslaved to pleasure. And where does
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that come from? Well, it comes from a desire to be satisfied and fulfilled, which inherently,
00:54:52.700
innately is not immoral but the desire is being pursued in a wrong manner and why are we pursuing
00:55:00.120
the desire of fulfillment in a wrong manner because we have the wrong belief we don't believe
00:55:05.780
that god is good that god satisfies sure he's gracious but can he make me happy
00:55:13.640
i go to god for security but sin for joy i go to god for love but sin for control
00:55:22.880
these things must be believed in concert in tandem all together god is great so i don't
00:55:32.200
have to be in control he's in control god is glorious so i don't have to fear man
00:55:44.220
God is good, so I don't have to look elsewhere for my satisfaction.
00:55:52.120
He loves me so that I don't have to seek man's approval,
00:55:56.060
but also so that I don't have to seek approval from myself.
00:56:02.020
Hebrews chapter 4, verse 14 through 16 says this,
00:56:05.280
Since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession, for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.
00:56:23.500
let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and
00:56:30.900
find grace in help and help in time of need if god is in control but he's not gracious
00:56:40.020
you're doomed that means god he's orchestrating every molecule in the universe but not for your
00:56:47.260
good. That's actually bad news. Now, if God is great in control, but not gracious, you're doomed.
00:56:56.560
If God is good, he satisfies, he has pleasure, he's the source of all real pleasure, but he's not
00:57:03.040
gracious, he's not in your corner, he's not for you, then God becomes a tease. He's merely eternally
00:57:09.900
holding out he has pleasure but you'll never get an ounce and if God is great and good but also
00:57:19.140
glorious he's weighty but not gracious well then he has the most significant opinion of you and
00:57:26.400
guess what if he's glorious but not gracious the most weighty opinion in all the world towards you
00:57:32.320
is nothing but condemnation. Now, God's goodness, he satisfies, is good news when he's also gracious.
00:57:41.660
He's for you. God's glory, that he is weighty, is only good news that he's significant, that he
00:57:51.060
matters. It's only good news when he's gracious. He's for you. And God's greatness, that he's
00:57:56.980
controlling and working all things for his glory is only good news when he's also gracious.
00:58:02.080
He's working it all for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose.
00:58:07.820
He is for you. The great God who is sovereign, the good God who satisfies, and the glorious God
00:58:16.540
who is waiting is also, brothers and sisters, the gracious God, which means all his benevolence,
00:58:25.280
all his omnipotence, all of his gravitas is being worked and targeted and funneled toward you.
00:58:36.400
Your eternal joy. Your eternal joy. There is nothing that will ever pass through the banner
00:58:44.480
of God's sovereignty. There's nothing suffering, sin, sickness, tragedy, nothing that could pass
00:58:52.760
through the protective banner of his sovereignty unless unless he knew that it was for not only
00:59:00.760
his glory but your long term that is eternal joy and happiness let's pray father thank you for your
00:59:10.280
word thank you for the gospel help us lord to be disciplined in our behaviors and our emotions and
00:59:16.640
our thoughts and our speech, what we do and what we say, guided all in accordance to your moral
00:59:23.800
law. But Lord, we pray that you would empower us to do this by changing our hearts and what we
00:59:31.900
believe, that we would be a church that believes the gospel and therefore joyfully obeys your law.
00:59:40.500
We pray it for Jesus' sake. In his name, amen. Can I be frank with you for just a second?
00:59:46.640
right here at the end. Look, some of you guys, you're financially supporting this ministry,
00:59:51.240
and from the bottom of my heart, I say thank you. I cannot thank you enough. However, some of you,
00:59:58.480
you just, you can't afford it. In fact, some of you, you shouldn't afford it. Let's be honest.
01:00:04.900
I mean, we're living in Joe Biden's ridiculous economy. Our nation and our totalitarian
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political elites lost their minds over the last three years due to COVID. We have written checks
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that we simply cannot cash. It doesn't matter if people change the definition of a recession.
01:00:26.020
We are living in a recession right now regardless. Some of you are struggling to afford a carton of
01:00:33.680
eggs at the grocery store. You cannot support financially this ministry at this time, nor
01:00:40.280
should you, but you could still help us tremendously. I am asking you, please, if you're willing to do
01:00:47.260
so, take one minute of your time. Leave us a five-star review on your favorite podcast platform,
01:00:54.640
iTunes, Spotify, whatever that might be. This is the way the system works. We want to be innocent
01:01:00.920
as doves, but shrewd as vipers. We need to be strategic. You leave us a five-star review and
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our podcast shows up for more people. And the Word of God and courageous theology applied in
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practical ways to every realm of life gets out there. Help us get it out there. Thanks for tuning in.