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So as I said throughout the service so far, we are starting a new sermon series, Simply

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Irresistible, where we are going to look and kind of journey through the entire book of

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Hebrews.

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Now to do the entire book, verse by verse, justice, would take a year and a half.

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So we, like we do a lot, we're doing a 10,000 foot view of the major themes that we see

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in the book of Hebrews.

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One of the reasons how and why I like to preach this way is for you to do further study throughout

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the week.

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So we're going to hit a part of chapter one and throughout the weeks the different chapters,

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but for you to really dive in and dive in how each chapter connects to itself.

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But there's a theme throughout the entire book of Hebrews and we're going to come back

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to it time and time again that Jesus is just that, simply irresistible.

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Now irresistible is a funny word, and a word that I really struggle spelling.

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I don't know why, but it was always wrong when I was typing it out, so I had to autocorrect.

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But in life, what do we find, and if you're new or a guest to Munster Church, I like to

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kind of engage a little bit.

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A, it keeps you awake because I may call on you, and B, it's helpful to kind of see where

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you guys are with some of these concepts that we find throughout the Bible.

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The word irresistible, now keep it appropriate, what do you find is irresistible in your life?

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Your wife, good job, alright, way to go, Laird.

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Did Nancy pay you to say that?

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No, okay, well you didn't answer, but that's okay.

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So, okay, our spouses, that's okay, right?

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To say that my wife is irresistible is fine, right?

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Knowing that they are and having that kind of interaction is great, what else?

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Now that Larry's pretty much gone to the top, I don't really know how we can answer any

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other things, but Teddy, go ahead, what do you find, oh, what do you find irresistible?

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Stuffed animals, okay, so things like stuffed animals, so especially as a child, they can

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attach to these things.

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Is there anything else in life, I've already said Jesus, so that's off the table, anything

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else in life that we find irresistible?

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Okay, addiction, that's a very interesting answer, okay, that could take this sermon,

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that would be, wow, I only have 30 minutes, okay, so, but yeah, that is true, the addictiveness

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that we have inside ourselves or those that struggle in addiction, that's part of the

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addiction, that whatever they're addicted to is irresistible, man, that was a good answer,

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wow, and then someone said chocolate, not nearly as good, but okay, irresistible, right,

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chocoholics, all of those kind of things, right, that could be, friendships, absolutely,

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yeah, hand over there, yeah, coffee, yeah, absolutely, coffee, sweet water, oh, food

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and water, okay, maybe even sweet water, I don't know what that is, but okay, food and

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water can be irresistible, anyone else, Jack?

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Chocolate chip cookies, okay, we could just kind of say all dessert foods, fair enough,

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God's word, someone give Dolores a high five, that was a great, no, I didn't say give her

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a hand, I said give her a high five, we don't want her to become prideful, right, good job,

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Dolores, and that's really where we wanted to go, that do we think of God's word as irresistible?

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The funny thing is the word irresistible is a heavy theological term, especially in Reformed

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churches, this understanding of irresistibility, if you will, comes out in one of our confessions,

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okay, now our confessions, help me out, the three confessions that we hold to are Dan

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you can't answer, no Dans can answer, right, we have a lot of Dans in this church, no Dans

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can answer, the three confessions we hold to that are not above scripture but help us

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understand scripture, without scripture the confessions would mean nothing, but what are

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the three confessions?

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The Belgian confession, my favorite one, okay, what was that?

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Heidelberg catechism and it's the canons of Dort that brings us to this understanding

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of irresistible grace, so the canons of Dort can easily be understood by the word tulip,

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a lot of you are catechized under the understanding of the Heidelberg, of the canons of Dort,

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and the acronym tulip, okay, and that's all well and good, but the tulip has some verbiage

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that we don't really use a lot, right, I don't know how many of you just go up to other people

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and go, wow, you're really depraved, you may think it, I doubt you say it, but there's

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some heavy theological terms and in the mid-90s Jim Osterhaus out of Grand Rapids came up

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with another acronym that I actually like a little more, sorry elders, sorry Dan, is

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the acronym faith, it has a little more living language that I like to kind of work through

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and I want you to remember this because this is what we're gonna go through and walk through

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in the season of Lent next year, we're gonna walk through this understanding of grace and

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that's really what the canons of Dort is about, it's about a lot of things, but understanding

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and receiving God's grace in our lives, why?

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Because we are fallen, we need to understand that we are adopted by God, that there is

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an intentional atonement, that Jesus' work on the cross means something very specific,

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though broad, very specific, that we are transformed by the Holy Spirit and that we are held by

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God and you will see side by side what we're gonna look at this sermon series is what's

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highlighted, this irresistible faith or if you're gonna take the faith, excuse me, the

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faith acronym transformed by the Holy Spirit.

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So let's read from the canons of Dort today.

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So this is from the canons of Dort, we don't have that in there, okay, we don't have a

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slide for the canons of Dort, so I will read it.

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When God accomplishes his good pleasure in the elect or works in them true conversion,

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he will not only cause the gospel to be externally preached to them and powerfully illuminated

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their minds by the Holy Spirit that they may rightly understand and discern the things

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of the Spirit of God.

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It's so powerful and then here are these words, oh, just lost my place, but by the efficiency

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of the same regenerating Spirit pervades the inmost recesses of the man, meaning the Holy

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Spirit is constantly at work in us, he opens the closed, he softens the hardened heart

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and he circumcises that which is uncircumcised, infuses new qualities into the will which

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though here for dead he quickens of being evil and disobedient, he renders good, obedient

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and strengthens us.

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So where there is deadness in us, where there is depravity in us, the Holy Spirit breathes

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new life into us.

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Remember, your salvation was never your idea.

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The idea of wanting to be saved is a concept depraved people can't get to on their own,

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it is impossible.

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But the Holy Spirit regenerates, grows in us faith and that faith opens our eyes and

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the kind of church we are, Muncie Church being a part of the Christian Reformed Church denomination,

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the way that we see this play out, and I'm going to use Lincoln as an example, that Lincoln

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four or five months, it's debatable, how old he is now, that maybe in 12, 13, 14 years he

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may have been regenerated by the Spirit that this understanding, seeing mom, dad, grandma's,

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grandpa's, aunt's, uncle's, youth group's, Sunday school, all these things come to play

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in his life where Jesus is going to make sense to him.

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And he may come to me, Lord willing, and say, Pastor, I want to make profession of faith.

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Following what the book of Romans says, that if we confess Jesus as Lord and believe in

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our heart that God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved.

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That he will come on his own conscience, his own understanding of the good news of Jesus,

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but it goes up more than that, the bad news of his sin.

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That's why you don't have a lot of four, five, six year olds make profession of faith.

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Though they understand that Jesus died for them because we celebrate that on Good Friday,

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Monday, Thursday, or Monday, Thursday, Good Friday, we celebrate that at Easter.

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It's understanding the weight of your sin.

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To understand the good news and the irresistibleness of the gospel, you have to understand the

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bad news.

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Because if you don't understand that, the good news isn't saving you from anything.

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That's the difference.

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And all along the way, as you see through all of those, you will see that the Holy Spirit

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is guiding.

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The Holy Spirit is doing the work.

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And so the book of Hebrews starts off in a very specific way that I hope we would understand

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that Jesus is the irresistible one.

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That the Holy Spirit is waking those that are asleep, bringing to new life those that

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are dead.

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To who and what Jesus is.

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Why Jesus is supreme.

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Why as the title shows, he is the period at the end of the sentence.

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You can't get any better than Jesus.

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Though people try, though people want to substitute Christ for other things in their life, he

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is better.

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And the writer of Hebrews, we don't fully know who it is.

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Some scholars believe it was Paul, but there's some real non-Pauline writing that happens

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in the chapters of Hebrews.

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Some people think it's Apollos, one of the disciples we see in the first century.

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They place it written anywhere between 50 and 70 AD, but we don't have any really other

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writings of Apollos to liken it to.

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Some people think it's John, because he talks, as we're going to see, about angels and kind

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of more the apocalyptic, like the book of Revelation.

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But the author, it doesn't matter at the end of the day.

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What matters is how he is going to describe for us in the coming weeks the who, what,

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when, where, why of Jesus and why Jesus is the supreme being.

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Like I said, you don't get any better.

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So let's jump in.

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So we start with verse five.

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I'm going to read really quick.

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I'm going to read, no, we're going to start with verse five.

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For to which of the angels, because in the first four verses, the writer of Hebrews introduces

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us to the understanding that Jesus is higher even than the angels.

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So he's starting in the spiritual realm.

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He could have said Jesus is higher than all mankind, but trust me, he'll get there.

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For to which of the angels did God ever say, you are my son, today I have begotten you?

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But before we do this, let's do a little bit about angels.

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Because angels, for a lot of people, and a lot of you have come and talked to me about

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this topic, this understanding of angels is weird, right?

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The supernatural, the spiritual realm, it can be scary.

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There's a lot to it.

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And it's a sermon series we'll probably get to in 2037.

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And that's fine.

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If you don't think you'll be alive by then, study it now.

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That the understanding that angels are real, because we see it in God's word.

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We see angelic beings.

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The word angel or angelos occurs in 34 of the 66 books of our canonized Bible.

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We see it in the Old Testament 108 times.

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We see it in the New Testament 165 times.

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So angels, what God wants us to understand about angels is something.

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There is something of sustenance.

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That we're scared, because how many of you in the last five years of your life have gone

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to any of your friends and go, you know what, I believe in angels?

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No, we don't.

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Because in some ways we're like, well, we can't really back it up.

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No, you can.

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You can back it up.

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And God's ways are higher than our ways.

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And he has an angelic, heavenly host that their primary job is to worship.

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God sends them to help protect and guide.

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We see that throughout the Scriptures.

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And that one day we will be with them.

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Now, we can do a deep dive, but I don't have time for that.

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On angels, I would encourage you to do that.

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Hebrews 1, 14, as we're going to see, describes them as ministering spirits.

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Now, some people may say, I don't believe in Christianity because I don't believe in

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angels.

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And to me that doesn't hold a lot of water, because the idea and understanding of angels

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are not salvatic.

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When we baptized Lincoln today, I didn't say, and may you believe in angels with all of

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your heart.

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It's a rough, it's hard, it's confusing at times.

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But what I'm telling you, it is an open-handed issue.

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It is not something you need to grasp in order to find salvation in Jesus.

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But what the writer is wanting us to understand as he or she starts is that Jesus is even

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higher than the angelic beings.

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Jesus was not an angel like Lucifer or Michael or Gabriel.

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He is higher.

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He is better than that.

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And so we see in verse 5, or sorry, go back to verse 4, for which of these angels did

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God say, you are my son?

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We see this throughout the Scriptures.

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We see this in very specific places.

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We see it in the birth of Jesus.

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We see this in the baptism of Jesus.

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That God is calling Christ his son.

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That the Trinitarian understanding, Father, Son, Spirit is engaged and active.

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And if we are to be sons and daughters of the King, right, then you have that same label

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on you that you are part of your father's family.

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We do this with our own kids.

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We've talked about this before.

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Both, all of my boys, right, they bear mine and carry his name.

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That when people see them, they go and said in two very different ways, oh, that's a

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Holland donor.

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But also said with, oh, that's a Holland donor.

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And insert yourself there, too.

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I guarantee the same thing will be said about the Nadelberg boys.

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They'll be like, oh, that's a Nadelberg.

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Oh, that's a Nadelberg.

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I could hear it in Lighthouse right now.

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May the Lord bless and keep all of our Lighthouse teachers and leases as they do that.

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But what about it is the good part that we represent a family of faith that God has organized

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and set apart, and the angels are not in that.

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Jesus is higher than the angels.

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Let's continue.

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For which of these angels did God, or again, I will be to him a father and he will be to

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me a son that Jesus is the son of God we see in the book of Luke that Jesus calls himself

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the son of God or the son of man.

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It's one of the reasons why he was almost killed in the beginning.

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Because to say that you are the son of God means something.

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No other messianic figure, because there were other messiahs, lowercase m, that were all

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in the first century.

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Jesus was the capital M messiah, capital S, son of God.

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I don't know about you, but that's pretty cool.

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That's almost irresistible to not want to believe in him.

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Because Jesus was not fallible, though he was fully God and fully man.

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He did not sin because of his royal, holy lineage.

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And he invites you into that family.

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We don't follow anybody else.

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We don't say, well, I'm a Paulian.

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I don't believe in Jesus, I believe in Paul.

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Or I believe in Apollos.

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Or I believe in these.

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No, we believe in Christ.

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Because all of them pointed to Jesus.

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Did they do it perfectly?

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No.

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But they point to Jesus.

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Hopefully, you're getting the understanding early on that everything we do should point

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to Jesus.

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And that should excite us and convict us at the same time.

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Because everything we do should point to someone that is held higher than the angelic beings.

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Let's continue.

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And again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says, let all God's angels worship

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him.

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We talk about this at Easter.

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Who were the first ones to engage the heavenly host?

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The shepherds.

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Oh, you know, they were watching over their flocks by night and lo and what happens, behold,

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the angelic heavenly host is there singing.

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Now, you say this out loud.

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I get it.

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You sound like a crazy person.

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Because the world doesn't believe it.

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But I'd say go ahead and be crazy then.

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Because God is setting up an understanding for those shepherds and for you today, September

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10, 2023, that the angelic host is worshiping the newborn savior of the world.

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And after the sermon series, we're going to go right into Advent.

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And we're going to talk about that more specifically.

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But this is setting apart who Jesus is.

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Let's continue.

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And of the angels, he says, he makes his angels wins and his ministers a flame of fire.

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That angels are useful by God, but God and Christ are connected.

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The angels are not.

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Now I see in a lot of your face, like, Jim, we get it.

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Jesus is higher than the angels.

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Move on.

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But we will in time.

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The writer of Hebrews wants us to understand and get this placed right in our lives.

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Don't overlook it.

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Because if you believe in Christ, then you need to believe that Christ is higher than

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the cosmos.

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He's higher than creation.

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That he is the son of the living God, which came down to die for you.

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To die for me.

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For the sins that were, the sins that are, and the sins that will be.

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That, my friends, is the gospel.

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Short and simple.

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But it means so much.

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And the reason, as we're going to see, why the writer of Hebrews is going to be so specific,

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is because the writer of Hebrews knows, even in the first century, middle to late part

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of the first century is when it was most likely written, that temptation and other things

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are going to want to take that place of Christ in your life.

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Let's move it to 2023.

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That's time travel, by the way.

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What is trying to take the place of Christ in your life?

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God is telling you, Christ, right?

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The Spirit is telling you, you've got to place it higher than even the angelic beings.

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Even more than your understanding, you put your trust in Christ.

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The understanding that Christ is the highest.

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Let's continue.

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But of the Son, he says, your throne, O God, is forever and ever.

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The scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom.

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You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness.

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Therefore, God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.

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There's a lot there that to believe in Christ is to believe and to live in the righteousness

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given to us by Christ at the cross.

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What does that mean?

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Theological terms, it means imputed righteousness, that on the cross, Jesus gave us his righteousness

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because in of ourselves, we can't stand before God on the last days or whenever our last

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day is and say, God, I did enough to get into these gates.

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When we get up there, we cannot show our spiritual resume and say, I taught lighthouse, I helped

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with catechism, I had a trunk at the trunk retreating the fall family night at Munster,

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I was an elder twice, I was a deacon, I was a committee leader.

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No.

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All of that is filthy rags to God.

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Though it is good for us here, the call has been to be holy as Christ is holy and on the

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cross, his righteousness bathed us.

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Whether you like it or not, if you claim Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you are living

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in his righteousness and there's the rub, there's the friction, there's the conflict.

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Because rarely do I have office hours where someone comes in and just tells me how good

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at Christianity and how good at Jesus they are.

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In 16 years, I've never had someone come in and go, you know, pastor, I'm pretty holy.

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Nor have I ever had anyone come in and say, you know what, I think I'm perfect.

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A, that's never been the call and B, it's not attainable.

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So when people come in and we share in that time of grief and mourning, it's usually over

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the active sin in our life.

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The things that are distracting us from God's word.

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The thing that are distracting us from living out the gospel.

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Relationships, lust, alcoholism, not being able to forgive.

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That's one of the biggest ones, that people come in and say I'm so mad and I'm holding

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this grudge.

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What can I do about it?

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That's where I tap into frozen theology.

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Got to let it go.

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Thank you for laughing, Nikki.

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But it's true.

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You've heard that, I don't know who said it, but holding a grudge is like drinking poison

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expecting the other person to die.

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It doesn't work.

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For as a believer, we call to hold grudges.

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How dare we hold grudges?

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Because if we ever ask for forgiveness, and guess what, he gives it when we ask it, how

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dare we hold a grudge and not forgive other people?

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For little things or big things.

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Some of the best, most fruitful time in the pastorate is sitting down with family members

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who haven't talked for 15 years over something that in hindsight is pretty dumb.

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But seeing those relationships restored.

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Having someone sit in my office or myself spending all of the time and the energy not

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forgiving.

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If you're here this morning and you're in that, how exhausted are you?

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Because that takes an active work to not forgive.

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I don't want to minimize your hurt and your pain.

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Christ doesn't want to minimize your hurt and your pain.

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But Christ says, I have forgiven you, therefore you ought to forgive.

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Forgive as the Lord has forgiven you, Colossians.

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Go and sin no more, the book of John.

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That we're living as living sacrifices that live out who Jesus is.

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Jesus is the embodiment of justice, mercy, and forgiveness.

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But all too often we live lives the opposite of that.

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We live lives of injustice, we live lives of hatred, and we live lives of evilness.

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How dare we call ourselves believers then because someone who has been held in such

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high authority by God himself and we're going to claim that and live that way?

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As we're going to see throughout this sermon series, that cannot happen.

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Let's continue.

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Well done.

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And you, Lord, laid the foundations of the earth in the beginning and the heavens are

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your work of your hands.

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They will perish, but you remain.

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They will all wear out like a garment, like a robe, you will roll them up.

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Like a garment, they will be changed.

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But you are the same way and your years will have no end.

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Now I know that in a couple years my oldest is going to be taller than me.

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And that's not much of an accomplishment.

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Okay, I get it.

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But we are learning now that he is growing at a rapid rate where the pants we bought

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him six months ago, he wears them.

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I'm like, where's the flood?

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And so we had to go and buy more.

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All those things, those clothes will be worn out.

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Anybody that believes in things other than God and Christ will be worn out in the end.

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I love the imagery here.

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He'll be rolled up, right?

371
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And we can't even give it over to Teddy because he's on the same track.

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The nice thing is Jack is not.

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So he'll be fully clothed for the rest of his life, right?

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And we will roll all of these up, we will put it in a box, and we will give it to him

375
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when he gets there, hopefully.

376
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But the same will go with anything that has not put, anybody who has not put their hope

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and their faith in Jesus.

378
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Do you want to be rolled out and put away like a garment?

379
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I don't.

380
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But at the end, this is going to happen.

381
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So where are you with your beliefs?

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You may be here this morning and you may struggle with them.

383
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I get that.

384
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Some of you here this morning may flat out not be okay with Jesus right now.

385
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Guess what?

386
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You're still loved.

387
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But it's time to work it out.

388
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Maybe you're harboring a grudge against God.

389
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You took someone too early.

390
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This relationship has not ever been restored.

391
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What are you doing about it?

392
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Nothing.

393
00:28:06,280 --> 00:28:07,280
Huh, interesting.

394
00:28:07,280 --> 00:28:14,320
And maybe you're here and you're just exhausted by the faith.

395
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The book of Hebrews is going to speak to you.

396
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You have my permission, go and read the whole book today, this afternoon.

397
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It won't take long.

398
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We're going to get to all of those things.

399
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And really the only reason why I think the writer of Hebrews is going to put all of these

400
00:28:28,400 --> 00:28:35,520
things in there is because whoever that was, was feeling the same things.

401
00:28:35,520 --> 00:28:40,600
Do you not think that the writer is warning about being worn out like a garment or rolled

402
00:28:40,600 --> 00:28:43,680
up and put in storage because they've never felt that way?

403
00:28:43,680 --> 00:28:49,520
I guarantee you they have because every believer did in the first century because it was hard

404
00:28:49,520 --> 00:28:54,380
to be a Christian in the first century.

405
00:28:54,380 --> 00:28:56,800
What about 2023?

406
00:28:56,800 --> 00:29:04,680
Some ways it's hard, but in some ways we've made it hard because we've messed up.

407
00:29:04,680 --> 00:29:12,280
We've built systems of religion that has done nothing but hurt, nothing but cause harm and

408
00:29:12,280 --> 00:29:14,520
pain.

409
00:29:14,520 --> 00:29:16,200
We have not loved God with our whole heart.

410
00:29:16,200 --> 00:29:20,720
We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves and for the sake of Jesus, come in and cleanse

411
00:29:20,720 --> 00:29:21,720
us.

412
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Iron out the wrinkles.

413
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Let's keep going.

414
00:29:26,320 --> 00:29:31,240
And to which of the angels has he ever said, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies

415
00:29:31,240 --> 00:29:33,400
a footstool at your feet.

416
00:29:33,400 --> 00:29:36,200
And there's one more, correct?

417
00:29:36,200 --> 00:29:42,080
And they are not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who inherit

418
00:29:42,080 --> 00:29:45,720
salvation.

419
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And that's the word I want to end on today.

420
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Though I would like to preach for another hour and a half.

421
00:29:52,240 --> 00:29:54,360
Inherit salvation.

422
00:29:54,360 --> 00:29:56,480
Now inherit is a weird word.

423
00:29:56,480 --> 00:29:59,320
Because inherit, you're like, oh, I can't do anything to get it.

424
00:29:59,320 --> 00:30:00,320
You're right.

425
00:30:00,320 --> 00:30:07,700
But just like when a loved one dies and you inherit something, it may be money, it may

426
00:30:07,700 --> 00:30:12,240
be a car, it may be a pocket watch that doesn't work, it may be land, whatever it is, it was

427
00:30:12,240 --> 00:30:20,160
given to you as a gift thought out by someone who went before you.

428
00:30:20,160 --> 00:30:23,960
What does that sound like?

429
00:30:23,960 --> 00:30:24,960
Salvation.

430
00:30:24,960 --> 00:30:31,280
That there was a plan put out before the beginning of the world, right?

431
00:30:31,280 --> 00:30:37,680
Genesis chapter 3, we see sin enter the world and right there salvation is there.

432
00:30:37,680 --> 00:30:41,120
You will strike his heel and he will crush your head.

433
00:30:41,120 --> 00:30:42,760
Jesus.

434
00:30:42,760 --> 00:30:48,840
But today, you may be trying to find salvation in other things.

435
00:30:48,840 --> 00:30:52,320
You may be trying to work your way through all of this salvation stuff.

436
00:30:52,320 --> 00:30:55,440
You know, pastor, I'm going to earn salvation.

437
00:30:55,440 --> 00:30:57,640
Good luck.

438
00:30:57,640 --> 00:31:01,080
That is a hamster wheel you'll never get out of.

439
00:31:01,080 --> 00:31:05,040
But God puts Jesus in such a place in our lives.

440
00:31:05,040 --> 00:31:09,500
And I love how he starts with angels and I'm landing the plane right now.

441
00:31:09,500 --> 00:31:12,120
We don't fully understand angels.

442
00:31:12,120 --> 00:31:16,400
Anyone that comes into my office, say I'm an expert on angels.

443
00:31:16,400 --> 00:31:24,040
I'm just going to slowly close my door, get in my car and drive away.

444
00:31:24,040 --> 00:31:25,680
Because we don't understand it and that's okay.

445
00:31:25,680 --> 00:31:28,320
Jesus trumps our understanding.

446
00:31:28,320 --> 00:31:31,320
He is higher than our understanding.

447
00:31:31,320 --> 00:31:36,120
We don't need to fully understand it if we're inheriting it as a gift.

448
00:31:36,120 --> 00:31:41,800
When you get it, you need to do something with it.

449
00:31:41,800 --> 00:31:46,600
When that grace is afforded to us by the death and resurrection of Jesus, we ought to do

450
00:31:46,600 --> 00:31:48,800
something about it.

451
00:31:48,800 --> 00:31:50,240
Do something with it.

452
00:31:50,240 --> 00:31:51,320
It's tangible.

453
00:31:51,320 --> 00:31:52,320
How do we know?

454
00:31:52,320 --> 00:31:56,040
We celebrate it the first Sunday of every month and every time someone's baptized.

455
00:31:56,040 --> 00:32:04,520
A visible means of an invisible grace that is, oh, and this is going to hurt me too,

456
00:32:04,520 --> 00:32:10,400
that is and should be irresistible.

457
00:32:10,400 --> 00:32:17,360
So as you live out your life of faith, your family, your friends, do they look at your

458
00:32:17,360 --> 00:32:18,360
faith?

459
00:32:18,360 --> 00:32:19,640
Not your church, right?

460
00:32:19,640 --> 00:32:20,640
Not your pastor.

461
00:32:20,640 --> 00:32:22,560
I know I'm not irresistible, right?

462
00:32:22,560 --> 00:32:24,360
I get it.

463
00:32:24,360 --> 00:32:30,640
But the faith you're living out, do people see that and go, that's what faith is.

464
00:32:30,640 --> 00:32:33,880
Man, I want some of that.

465
00:32:33,880 --> 00:32:35,120
Where can I find that?

466
00:32:35,120 --> 00:32:38,320
Where can I get that?

467
00:32:38,320 --> 00:32:43,200
But unfortunately, all too often they're going, that's what that is?

468
00:32:43,200 --> 00:32:45,440
Why bother?

469
00:32:45,440 --> 00:32:48,240
That's what it means to be a believer?

470
00:32:48,240 --> 00:32:49,240
Over it.

471
00:32:49,240 --> 00:32:50,240
Done.

472
00:32:50,240 --> 00:32:51,240
No.

473
00:32:51,240 --> 00:32:54,200
We're going to journey together.

474
00:32:54,200 --> 00:32:59,520
My hope and my prayer is that we can take off all of those things that can cause the

475
00:32:59,520 --> 00:33:03,960
irresistibility to be resistible.

476
00:33:03,960 --> 00:33:13,040
Because we're in a world today that resists Jesus, resists the Spirit, resists grace,

477
00:33:13,040 --> 00:33:15,360
because they think they have something better.

478
00:33:15,360 --> 00:33:19,000
The writer of Hebrews is going to say, no, you're doing it wrong.

479
00:33:19,000 --> 00:33:20,000
Let's pray.

480
00:33:20,000 --> 00:33:27,680
Father, for this moment we give you thanks for the words that were shared today.

481
00:33:27,680 --> 00:33:29,760
May it not be of me.

482
00:33:29,760 --> 00:33:31,720
May it be of your Spirit.

483
00:33:31,720 --> 00:33:36,560
If there's any offense in me, God, that that would be called by the elders, that that would

484
00:33:36,560 --> 00:33:42,200
be talked through, repented of, Father, that we would understand that you have given us

485
00:33:42,200 --> 00:33:47,360
this gift, a gift you don't give the angels, the gift you don't put in creation except

486
00:33:47,360 --> 00:33:54,160
for us, those created in your image, co-image bearers of you.

487
00:33:54,160 --> 00:33:57,160
Forgive us if we're not responsible with it.

488
00:33:57,160 --> 00:34:00,200
Help grow in us a responsibility of that grace.

489
00:34:00,200 --> 00:34:01,200
We love you.

490
00:34:01,200 --> 00:34:04,280
But that pales in comparison to how much you love us.

491
00:34:04,280 --> 00:34:06,640
We pray this in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

492
00:34:06,640 --> 00:34:31,640
We all agree and said.