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Galatians 5, if you've got one of these Bibles it's on page 945.

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It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.

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Stand firm then and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

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Mark my words.

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I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all.

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Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law.

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You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ.

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You have fallen away from grace.

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For through the Spirit we eagerly await by faith the righteousness for which we hope.

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For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value.

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The only thing that counts is faith, expressing itself through love.

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If you are running a good race, who cut in on you to keep you from obeying the truth?

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That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you.

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A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough.

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I am confident in the Lord that you will take no other view.

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The one who is throwing you into confusion, whoever that may be, will have to pay the penalty.

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Brothers and sisters, if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted?

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In that case the offence of the cross has been abolished.

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As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves.

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Good morning everyone.

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If we have not met before, my name is Michael, I am one of the pastors here and it is an absolute delight to have you with us.

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Please, after the service, do not feel like you need to run off.

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We have tea, coffee, a bit of morning tea and we would love to get to know you and talk to you a bit.

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If you have any questions from today's sermon or anything about the Christian faith,

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then please feel free to ask us. We would be delighted to answer any questions that you might have.

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We are going to come to an interesting part of our passage of our book this morning in our series.

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So let us come before the author and ask for his help this morning.

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Would you please pray with me?

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Father God, it is indeed a wonderful thing that you have so graciously and mercifully brought us here this morning.

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Together around your word.

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To sing together, to pray together and to rejoice in the victory of the gospel.

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This morning we asked that as we peer into the words of eternal life, life giving words, words that you have given to your church.

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We asked that you would work through your Holy Spirit to show us Christ.

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That we might leave this place focused on the gospel and not on ourselves.

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We ask for this in his name. Amen.

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I came across an interesting word this week, recidivism.

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Now, if you haven't heard that word before, recidivism is when a prisoner who has been released from incarceration

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reoffends so that they end up back in jail.

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Prisonfellowship.org shows statistically that one third of released prisoners will reoffend in the first year.

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Within three years, that number jumps to 50% and then 75% over five years.

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Psychologists saw McLeod states, even though it's easy to define recidivism, it's really not easy to say,

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figuring out its root cause is a much, much deeper problem.

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This is one of the most difficult questions to answer, he states.

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For those who have been released from prison are reoffending and thus repopulating the system from which they've been set free.

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I mentioned that to you this morning because in a way, that's what Paul is dealing with here in the book of Galatians.

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He's dealing with a whole bunch of people that were on a slippery slope and in danger of going back to what they had been released from.

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Not to prison, of course, but to a mindset of religious slavery, but this time under the guise of the Jewish law.

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You see, as we've seen in this series, the Gospel came to Galatia and these people, they were set free from paganism.

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And for a while they were doing great, walking in the truth of the Gospel.

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But as we've also seen, things didn't stay that way for very long.

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No, they'd been infiltrated by a group of teachers that said that the Mosaic law was required to be kept to really have Christ be of any benefit to them.

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In other words, they were being sold a Christ plus something more doctrine in that they had to practice the law with all of its requirements to really be saved.

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So over the weeks we've seen Paul, our apostle, defend the Gospel of grace.

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And he's shown that even though the law is good, it was only ever given to function like a guardian to lead people to Christ.

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But now that Christ has come, the law has done its job and thus there's no reason for Jew or Gentile to go back to a system that had become obsolete.

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Now this was no trivial matter as we've seen.

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Our apostle, he's played with these people saying you can't have it both ways.

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You can't have a foot in both camps.

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You're either of the mindset of the flesh and living as a slave still under the curse of the law or you've been set free by Christ and His work.

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You can't have it both ways.

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And Paul sums that argument up for us here in verse one of the chapter that we're looking at this morning.

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He says it's for freedom that Christ has set us free.

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Stand firm then and don't let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

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It's for freedom that we've been set free.

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That is what the Christian has.

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So don't fall into recidivism.

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That's what our passage is about today.

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It's about knowing what God has done for us so that we might stand firm in the gospel and not go back into a mindset of a works-based righteousness mindset.

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In verses two through to four, Paul will show us that we have to be careful of this.

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We really do, but shows us that there is something that the Christian has that makes all the difference in the world.

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And then in verses seven through to twelve, he'll warn us to be on guard against teachers that will be out to get us dragged back into slavery.

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But it will also show us how to spot them.

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So if you have your Bibles with you this morning, it would be really helpful as we're going to be in our text quite a bit.

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So read with me verses two through to four.

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Paul says, Mark my words.

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I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all.

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Again, I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he's obligated to obey the whole law.

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You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ.

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You've fallen away from grace.

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Now, straight off the bat, you might notice that our apostle, he repeats himself here.

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And he does that because like any parent who repeatedly tells their child before they cross the road,

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look both ways, look both ways.

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That's what Paul's doing here.

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He sees the danger because look what's at stake.

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He says if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all.

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I haven't done it already, but the Galatians were like little children that were in serious danger

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of getting taken out by that car as they crossed the street.

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And it all had to do with circumcision.

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Now, to really understand what's going on here, we need to see something in context.

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You see, circumcision was a sign that was given to the Jewish people to show the world

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that they were in covenant with the living God.

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It was incredibly important in the Old Testament.

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It was first given to Abraham and then re-emphasized in the covenant at Sinai.

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Every Jewish boy had to get the sign, and if they didn't, they would be cut off from their people.

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Now, we might say that's a bit drastic nowadays, but what sits behind this was the reality that

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anyone who had this sign, well, they were shown to be in relationship by covenant with the living God.

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It was like a signature in the skin, if you will.

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And those who had this signature had to follow the terms and conditions perfectly.

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I'm sure most of you have had to sign a contract before,

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and we do that because our signature, it locks us into the terms and conditions of that contract

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so that you get all the benefits of that thing that you're signing up to.

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Well, very much in the same way, to be circumcised was to sign on the dotted line

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that you were submitting to the Sinai covenant.

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And to sign on the dotted line meant that you were signing up to all the terms and conditions that went along with that.

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And that's why our apostle is so serious in his warnings here,

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because he's saying if you get circumcised, you're signing up to the whole law.

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Not just the moral things, mind you, but the ceremonial things like the special festivals,

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dietary requirements, the temple sacrifices,

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and if you get circumcised, you need to follow those things perfectly,

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otherwise you'll be in violation of all the terms and conditions.

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And that was to be under the curse of God.

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Now, as we've seen in this book, Paul has showed us that not only has Jesus followed the law perfectly

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and thus received all the benefits and blessings of the covenant on behalf of his people,

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but he took the full penalty of all their contract breaking and lawlessness,

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the curse for his people upon himself at the cross.

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And that perfect work is given to anyone from anywhere who has done anything who calls upon the name of the Lord.

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And when they do that, well, they're set free from the Sinai covenant,

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because Jesus has kept it perfectly for them.

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So Paul's warning here is if you've heard the Gospel and you want to go back and sign up to a system

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that was only ever given to point out sin and to point to Jesus,

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then that is absolutely ludicrous.

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And it shows something drastically wrong with your understanding of the Gospel.

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Haley, my wife and I, we've got to the point in our parenting where we're discussing what chores the kids need to do.

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And we're thinking about all the different ways that parents can go about it,

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like how to reward our little ones for helping out kind of thing.

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All that to say at no point in our discussions on the matter,

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have we ever said if they do the dishes, if they clean their rooms,

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if they feed the pets then and only then will they gain and earn their status in the family.

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And I mention that because I think that's how some of the people in the Galatian churches were treating the Gospel of grace.

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They'd heard the good news, they'd somewhat accepted some of the claims,

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but were wanting to look for more ways to be accepted by God because they hadn't fully grasped what Christ had actually achieved for His people.

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That Jesus alone makes people, His people, a permanent member of God's household,

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permanent members of the kingdom of heaven.

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That's why they were really wanting to go and get circumcised and adopt the law.

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It was because they thought if I just do these certain works, then I'll really now earn my place in God's family.

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And though it may have seemed attractive to them, Paul, our apostle, couldn't be any more sobering in his warning here.

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Saying if you go and you sign on the dotted line, you're placing yourself under terms and conditions

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that will only ever cut you off from blessing and put you under the curse.

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And all that is being held out to you, well Christ will be of no value to you at all.

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You'll be alienated from Him and you'll fall from grace.

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Before we move on and unpack the rest of our passage, I want to acknowledge that these words have really troubled many sensitive Christians over the years.

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And I think unnecessarily.

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You see, people will often read these words and worry that Paul is actually contradicting himself,

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particularly in places where he affirms in holy scripture the eternal security of the believer.

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So what do we do with what Paul is saying here?

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Can true believers fully and finally fall away from Christ?

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Well, I think the question is answered by the attitude of some people that Paul was addressing there in Galatia.

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They were in the visible church, but they hadn't trusted Christ with all that they were.

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That's why they desired to sign up to a system of works to make them more acceptable to God.

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And they wanted to do that because they didn't trust that Christ had done everything necessary to make us right with God.

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That's why they desired to add to it.

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But I don't want to skip over this too quickly this morning, because I want you to see what Paul is doing here.

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You see, he's essentially holding out a decision that every single one of us has to make.

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And that decision is, do you trust what Christ has done for you?

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Do you believe that he has done everything necessary to make you right with the holy God of the universe or not?

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To put it simply, he's asking everyone in the visible church to reflect on where we're at.

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He's asking, do you think you can add to Christ without subtracting him?

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And our answer will highlight something to us.

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Christ is either your everything or he's not.

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And now we answer that makes all the difference in the world.

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And so in saying that church, we see that circumcision wasn't really the problem.

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We'll see more about that in just a moment.

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It was actually the mindset that sat behind it all.

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There were people in the church that wanted to go and sign up to a system of workspace righteousness

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because they had a fundamental faithlessness in the message of the gospel from the get-go.

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That is the real problem here.

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There were people still wanting to earn their place in the kingdom of heaven by their own works

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as they weren't trusting in the work of Christ alone.

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Christ alone.

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A couple of years ago, a friend and I, we were walking in Frio and we saw this guy preaching on the side of the street.

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It was great.

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And so we wanted to go and encourage him.

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And the conversation was really pleasing at first.

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That was until if he asked if we spoke in tongues

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to which then he proceeded in telling my friends that they weren't really saved

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because trusting in Christ alone wasn't enough.

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No, they needed this particular work to really be accepted and to know that they were accepted by Christ.

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And I use that example because going out and getting circumcised and signing up to the Mosaic covenant

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doesn't seem to be the biggest problem in the church in 21st century Western Australia.

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The warning is the same.

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A something more than Christ alone doctrine must be seen for what it is and avoided.

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So we must all take heed.

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You might go to church, you may have gone for many years, but when you take your eyes off Jesus alone

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and look to something other than his sacrifice so that you can hold it up to God and say,

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see, I deserve to be in heaven.

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I've earned this.

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I've earned this by doing fill in the blanks.

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Well, that's the danger that Paul is pointing out for us here this morning.

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That's the mindset that is highlighting that leads to the prison system all over again.

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Will we be tempted to do this?

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Absolutely. Absolutely.

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Each and every single one of us will be tempted to look to something more than or other than Christ alone

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for the rest of our Christian walk.

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That's why God has given us the book of Galatians.

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But there is a fundamental reason why the true believer won't ultimately and finally fall away from Christ.

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And Paul explains that fundamental reason to us in verses five through to six,

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saying, for through the spirit we eagerly await by faith the righteousness for which we hope.

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For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value.

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The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.

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I want you to notice, church, a contrast that's happening in just these first few verses.

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There's a contrast between the real believers of five through to six that have come to rest on the gospel

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and those in verses two through to four who hadn't and were in real danger of rejecting Christ.

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And what's the difference?

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Well, Paul says it has to do with the work of the Holy Spirit,

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the Holy Spirit who produces faith and hope in the life of his people.

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Notice that language there in verse five.

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Paul says it's through the spirit that we eagerly await.

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Therefore, Paul is the fundamental difference between a life of legalism and one of peace.

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The fundamental difference between standing firm eagerly awaiting for the promise that has been held out to us

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rather than slipping back into the mosaic mindset.

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It's through the spirit that believers eagerly await for the things promised by God.

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And they do that because of faith.

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We see that there in verse five.

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Now, Paul will explain elsewhere to the Ephesians that faith is actually a gift from God.

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And here he says it's because of this faith that believers won't ultimately be drawn back into a life of trying to secure their own righteousness before God

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because they trust that Jesus has done it all.

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And so you might say that the spirit is the agent and faith is the instrument.

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And that's because of God's work in the believer they will live a life of hope.

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Hope not in their own works, but looking to Christ's perfect work

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and looking forward to the fullness of his righteousness being realized in their lives.

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And that ultimately will work its way out in the life of those in Christ.

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We see that language there in verse six.

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For those in Christ, we won't be drawn to look to anything in the flesh,

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but live our faith out on this side of eternity in a way that will be manifested in love.

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And we'll have a look at what that really means next week.

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So again, we see a contrast between real believers in verses five through to six

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and those in verses two through to four that we're wanting to sign up to a works-based righteousness.

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True believers, we have the spirit.

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They've come to trust on Christ by faith and lived their lives out in the hope and the obedience of the gospel.

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All that to say the fundamental difference of those in Christ to those who aren't

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is the continual looking to and relying on Jesus Christ as their only hope in life and death.

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Brothers and sisters, we will struggle and strive with the flesh.

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All of us, we will struggle with being tempted to look to something other than Jesus for assurance from time to time.

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But it's as we see here because of the supernatural work of the spirit in the lives of God's children,

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we will continue to live in hope and not ultimately fall away.

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It's because of the Holy Spirit of God and all that He has done in us

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that we now live by faith in what Jesus has done for us.

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That's why the true children of God won't ultimately fall away into a system where they will want to work for heaven once again.

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No, we'll stand firm with our eyes raised to Christ because of the work of God Almighty on our part.

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We know and trust that Christ has done everything that needs to make us right with Him for all eternity.

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Our work's important, absolutely.

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And the rest of this letter, as I said, will show us that.

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But those works are a manifestation of the hope that we have, not the hope that we have in and of themselves.

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Again, there's a world of difference between those who were tempted by legalism

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and those who desire it enough that they will do anything to get back into that system again.

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And the work of the spirit, the gift of faith and the hope we have is that difference.

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So that's first.

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We have to be careful of falling back into a works-based mindset.

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But the Holy Spirit of God, we're not alone in this.

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The Spirit of God is with us in the battle.

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Second, we have to be on guard against those who will want to drag us away from the gospel and back into slavery.

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And Paul shows us how to spot them.

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If you have your Bibles, look with me at verses 7 through to 12.

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Paul says, you were running a good race.

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Who cut in on you to keep you from obeying the truth?

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That kind of persuasion doesn't come from the one who calls you.

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A little yeast works its way through the whole batch of dough.

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I'm confident in the Lord that you'll take no other view.

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The one who is throwing you into confusion, whoever that might be, will have to pay the penalty.

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Brothers and sisters, if I'm still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted?

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In that case, the offence of the cross has been abolished.

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As for those agitators, I wish that they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves.

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It's funny, just this week I was looking at some footage online of a runner approaching another runner in a race

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and punching him in the back of the head during the whole thing.

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This happened at the Tiger International Festival in Florida.

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And the punched runner, he fell straight to the ground and he was taken out of the race completely.

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But incredibly, the competition continued as other runners were kind of dodging and running over him,

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totally ignoring the incident, but that's not what our apostle is doing here.

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These people, they'd been set free, they were running a good race, but then these false teachers,

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they were in the track, so to speak, and they were a real threat to these people,

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to the point that some could be taken out of the race completely.

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And Paul couldn't ignore it because this wasn't from God.

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A Christ plus something more doctrine doesn't come from the one who calls us.

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And I saw that with my friend and that guy going back to that thing in Frio that happened.

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For a moment, admittedly, they thought to themselves, do I need to do something more?

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Do I need to go and speak in tongues before God will actually and fully finally accept me?

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Well, imagine if they didn't know the gospel, imagine if they didn't trust Christ implicitly.

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Imagine if they believed that person's twisting of the gospel, of getting them to go and doing something other,

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they're looking to Christ alone, the results would have been devastating.

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And that's why God's warning against those false teachers is so drastically sobering.

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Paul uses, you may have noticed, incredibly graphic language in our passage this morning.

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We won't go into all the ins and outs of it for the sake of time,

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but he's essentially saying that he wishes these false teachers would be so maimed

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that they wouldn't be able to stand with the people of God in his presence.

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That's an Old Testament illusion.

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That's how serious he takes false teachers and those who twist the gospel.

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And the church has to do the same.

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So with that in mind, we need to be careful, dear ones, of who we listen to,

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which books we read, with whose ministries we subscribe to.

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Because when it comes to the gospel, there isn't just a bit of fun or interesting,

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it can be dangerous to the Christian and a little bit of it can spread right through the church.

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We see that in our text this morning in verse 9.

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I know of whole ministries that have been sidetracked because of the health and wealth movement

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that's come out of America.

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And they were sidetracked because people were obsessed with teachers on YouTube.

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Never has false teaching had so much reach into the church, into the life of the Christian

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than it does at this very moment with the rise of the Internet.

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We have to be on guard.

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We must be on guard with what we let into our heads and hearts.

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But Paul helps us to spot the difference, to help us with what's good and what is error.

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And he points to the defining factor, the dividing line, if you will, there in verse 11.

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And it all has to do with the cross of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

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And Paul points to the cross because Christ and Him crucified is the sole grounds of our hope and salvation before God Almighty.

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The cross church is the difference between freedom and slavery between the gospel and account of it.

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The cross says Paul, the preaching of the cross is the defining factor because it puts Christ at the center of the gospel.

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Christ is all.

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Christ alone.

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Our only hope in life and death.

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And that is offensive.

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That is offensive to those who would have you adopt a different gospel,

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who would put you on a different course of Jesus plus, Jesus plus.

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So that said, whatever you hear, whatever you read, whatever you tune into,

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don't trust a ministry that leaves out calling people to the cross,

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that leaves out putting your trust, your hope in Christ alone.

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Paul has called us, church, to stand firm in the knowledge of what Jesus Christ has achieved for us

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and to not go back and get tangled up with a works-based mindset.

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And we can do that. This is our hope because of the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

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God set us free, brothers and sisters. Our chains are gone.

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We are free.

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All we have to look forward to is a realization in full of the righteousness which is ours.

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That's our hope and that's our hope because we have received this by faith.

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Maybe you'll hear this morning you've never heard of the good news of Jesus Christ.

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Never heard that you need to be saved or set free.

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Well friend, you are here by no mistake this morning.

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God calls you to trust in His Son who has done everything on your behalf to make you completely right with your Creator forever.

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He lived a perfect life. He took sin's curse upon the cross and He offers freely His righteousness to anyone who would call upon His name.

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You don't need to go clean yourself up first. You don't need to go and make things right first.

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No, what you need to do is to call upon Him and trust that He has done it all.

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That He has paid the price for your law-breaking.

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If you want to speak a little bit more about whatever that means, please come and find me after the service.

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I would love to speak to you.

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Maybe you'll hear this morning and you truly believe the Gospel.

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At one point you were living in wonderful freedom but then something or someone came along and distracted you.

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Maybe someone came along and told you that you needed to do more in order for God to actually accept you.

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Maybe you were told that you had to go to church a certain number of times, that you had to pray in a certain way.

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Maybe you were told that you had to join a particular group or that you had to get baptized or visit a certain part of the world before you would really be acceptable to God.

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I don't know what you've been told but what I do know is that if you realize where you have held onto or are holding onto something other than Christ,

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then there is forgiveness at the cross.

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There is forgiveness for anyone who sees their sin and calls upon the name of the Lord.

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Would you pray with me?

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Father God, we thank you for the Gospel.

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We thank you that it is indeed amazing news, that you have set us free, that you have filled us full of the Holy Spirit,

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and that you are the one who causes us to stand firm.

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Father God, we are so thankful for Jesus.

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There's no words to express how thankful we are for Him.

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We are the one who deliberately, with foresight, who planned to rescue His people.

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From love and you met the wrath that we would do on the cross.

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We ask Father that we would be a people that would live in the light of the Gospel.

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Lord, you would cause us daily to not look to ourselves, to not look to our pasts, but to look to you and know that we have been forgiven.

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Lord, would you cause us to love the Gospel so much that it would bubble out so that we would share it with others?

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And we ask this for the sake of Christ and your glory on this earth.

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Thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.