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Andy Stanley - Ninety Part 4 New World Order · Andy Stanley Sermons

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Speaker 1: Now, if you are not a particularly religious person, or
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Speaker 1: you used to be, and then you walked away from that,
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Speaker 1: I am absolutely confident that you had a good reason
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Speaker 1: to do so. And the reason I think you had
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Speaker 1: a good reason to do so is because you're a
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Speaker 1: reasonable person. So today I want to give you a
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Speaker 1: reason to reconsider faith. But more specifically, I want to
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Speaker 1: give you a reason to reconsider specifically Jesus. Now, what
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Speaker 1: we said throughout this series is that Jesus came into
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Speaker 1: this world to introduce something brand new. He came introduce
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Speaker 1: something brand new. This was not He didn't come to
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Speaker 1: introduce the extension of something. This wasn't some kind of
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Speaker 1: religion two point zero. He didn't show up to complete
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Speaker 1: a book. He came to replace something and to bring
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Speaker 1: something absolutely brand new to the world, but also for
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Speaker 1: the world. And the part that is indisputable, the part
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Speaker 1: that you can verify, is that, and this is the
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Speaker 1: most amazing thing to me, is that, against all odds,
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Speaker 1: against all odds, a band of Jewish blasphemers who were
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Speaker 1: following a dead carpenter went into the streets of Jerusalem
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Speaker 1: with no territys. They had no territory, they had no military,
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Speaker 1: and in the beginning, they had no sacred text, and
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Speaker 1: they had the audacity to announce to their world that
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Speaker 1: the final sacrifice, the final sacrifice for sin, had already
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Speaker 1: been made, not just for Jewish people, but the final
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Speaker 1: sacrifice for sin had been made to for everybody in
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Speaker 1: the whole world, for every generation. And that sacrifice for
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Speaker 1: sin had been made right outside the walls Jerusalem. I mean,
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Speaker 1: this was crazy. I mean, it just goes right by us.
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Speaker 1: But they declared that animal sacrifice for every nation and
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Speaker 1: every generation was no longer needed. Now this flew right
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Speaker 1: in the face of all Roman religion, Greek religion, Egyptian religion,
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Speaker 1: and even Jewish religion. There was a sense in which
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Speaker 1: the whole world could have looked at this little group
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Speaker 1: of Jesus followers and said, hey, who died and left
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Speaker 1: jew in charge? A question that they actually had an
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Speaker 1: answer to. Now the most amazing thing, I mean, this
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Speaker 1: should just make you sit up straight. Three hundred and
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Speaker 1: forty seven years later, or about three hundred and forty
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Speaker 1: seven years later, with no territory, no authority, and no
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Speaker 1: military in the year a d three eighty Emperor Theodosius
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Speaker 1: the First, and that through the theessal and Ika declared
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Speaker 1: Christianity the soul authorized religion of the very empire that
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Speaker 1: crucified Jesus and tried to crush his movement. Unbelievable. Just
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Speaker 1: three hundred or so years later, the very religion, the
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Speaker 1: very movement, the very person that the Roman Empire crucified
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Speaker 1: in the movement they tried to crush, became the empire,
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Speaker 1: became the religion of the Empire. Now that's that's unimaginable,
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Speaker 1: but it was. It was particularly unimaginable to John the
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Speaker 1: Baptist a bunch of years earlier, standing there and hip
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Speaker 1: deep water, he just and he's baptizing somebody. He looks
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Speaker 1: up and there stands Jesus, and he announces to the
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Speaker 1: world for the first time, please welcome, you know, the
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Speaker 1: look the Lamb of God who comes to take away
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Speaker 1: the sin of the world. And sure enough, over time,
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Speaker 1: not that much time went by, and before long pagan
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Speaker 1: temples were being torn down because of Christianity. Other pagan
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Speaker 1: temples were being repurposed to become houses of worship for Christians,
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Speaker 1: and ultimately, pagan worship in the Roman Empire was outlawed.
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Speaker 1: All because a group of people who declared that the
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Speaker 1: final sacrifice for sin had been made outside the walls
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Speaker 1: of Jerusalem, and nothing could shut them up. They were
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Speaker 1: shoved in between the power of the temple and empire.
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Speaker 1: And in the end, and in the end, they not
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Speaker 1: only won an empire. In the end, their message reached
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Speaker 1: all the way around the world. Unimaginable. But I'm getting
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Speaker 1: way ahead of myself. So yeah, So last time that
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Speaker 1: we met, you know, previously on ninety here's where we were.
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Speaker 1: Jesus had been baptized, Jesus had been tempted. Jesus had
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Speaker 1: gathered a few followers, you know, we met Peter, Andrew, James,
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Speaker 1: and John. And the text tells us that news about
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Speaker 1: him spread through the whole countryside. He was teaching in
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Speaker 1: their synagogues, and everyone praised him. But everyone was praising
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Speaker 1: him as a teacher. Everyone was praising him as a
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Speaker 1: new rabbi with a new spin on things. Everybody was
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Speaker 1: praising him as a prophet. They viewed Jesus as an
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Speaker 1: extension of something old, rather than the beginning of something new.
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Speaker 1: In fact, the text says of Jesus, they said, a
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Speaker 1: great prophet, a great prophet has appeared among us. They said,
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Speaker 1: God has come to help who God has come to
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Speaker 1: help his people. But Jesus had come to do a
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Speaker 1: lot more than that. Jesus had come for a broader
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Speaker 1: audience than that. And so very early on in his teaching,
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Speaker 1: Jesus begins to drop hints that something new was coming.
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Speaker 1: Jesus began to drop hints that something new is coming,
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Speaker 1: that he was about to replace just about everything that
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Speaker 1: was in place. He began dropping bread crumbs. There were hints,
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Speaker 1: there were parables, there was teaching, There were things that
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Speaker 1: created tension with his audience. But he was so good
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Speaker 1: and he was so powerful, and he would heal as
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Speaker 1: he went along. So he kept the crowd even though
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Speaker 1: his teaching was so different and so new. And the
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Speaker 1: Sermon on the Mount, or we call it the Sermon
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Speaker 1: on the Mount, really represents a sharp curve in the
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Speaker 1: road in terms of his messaging. Now we call it
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Speaker 1: the Sermon on the Mount. This that's the title somebody
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Speaker 1: gave to this particular teaching many many years ago, But
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Speaker 1: it wasn't the title that Jesus necessarily gave it. And
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Speaker 1: the reason he didn't call it that is because scholars
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Speaker 1: believe New Testament scholars believe that the content of the
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Speaker 1: Sermon on the Mount is content that Jesus delivered over
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Speaker 1: and over and over and over and over and over.
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Speaker 1: In fact, if you took Matthew, Martin Luke and John
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Speaker 1: and put it together chronologically, all of that could have
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Speaker 1: happened in about, you know, six months or eight months,
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Speaker 1: except for the passovers. So we know in the festivals,
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Speaker 1: we know that there was a whole lot more that
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Speaker 1: Jesus taught and Jesus did. In fact, John, the gospel
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Speaker 1: writer John, Matthew Martin Luke, John said he said, look,
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Speaker 1: we just scratched the surface. He says this at the
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Speaker 1: end of his gospel. He said, if we had written
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Speaker 1: down everything that he had done, if we had written
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Speaker 1: down everything he would taught, the world would not be
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Speaker 1: able to contain the books. Now, clearly this was hyperbole,
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Speaker 1: but it was his way of saying, hey, we just
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Speaker 1: gave you the highlights. So people believe in scholars believe
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Speaker 1: that the content of this particular message, Sermon on the Mount,
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Speaker 1: was something that Jesus repeated over and over and over.
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Speaker 1: But here's the fascinating thing, and here's the thing we miss.
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Speaker 1: This content represented his upside down, not of this kingdom,
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Speaker 1: not the kingdoms, of this world worldview. This particular content
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Speaker 1: was so contrary to everything these Jewish men and women
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Speaker 1: had been taught that it was very difficult for them
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Speaker 1: to get their minds around. Now when we read it
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Speaker 1: in the twenty first century as English Bible readers, we
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Speaker 1: missed the tension in these words. So I want to
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Speaker 1: try to extrapolate some of that surface, some of that
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Speaker 1: for you, so you can understand what they must have
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Speaker 1: thought and felt. It begins like this, and many of
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Speaker 1: you have memorized these verses, perhaps as children. He said,
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Speaker 1: blessed are you who are poor, which was absolutely crazy
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Speaker 1: because they had been brought up with the worldview. They said,
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Speaker 1: God blesses the rich, and if you're rich, or blessed
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Speaker 1: by God. Besides, all the patriarchs were rich. Abraham was rich,
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Speaker 1: Isaac was rich, Jacob was rich, David was rich, Solomon
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Speaker 1: was rich. How can you say that God has special
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Speaker 1: favor for the poor, the poor or out of favor
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Speaker 1: with God. That's what we've been taught all of our lives.
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Speaker 1: He said, blessed are the poor, for yours is the
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Speaker 1: kingdom of God. Or another case, yours is the Kingdom
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Speaker 1: of Heaven. And this was good news to the poor
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Speaker 1: because they thought they had been left out of the
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Speaker 1: Kingdom of God. They'd been left out of the Kingdom
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Speaker 1: of Heaven. And everything that follows in this message, every
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Speaker 1: single time he gave it was completely upside down and
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Speaker 1: backwards to what they had been taught childhood. He said,
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Speaker 1: the meek would inherit, the merciful were blessed. The peacemakers,
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Speaker 1: not the power brokers, were in God's favor. And then
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Speaker 1: he said this, This is one of my favorite lines.
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Speaker 1: He said, Blessed are the pure in heart. Blessed are
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Speaker 1: the pure in heart. And to think of this, for
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Speaker 1: they shall see God. And there was a murmur in
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Speaker 1: the crowd, because blessed are the pure in heart. It's
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Speaker 1: such an internal thing we've been taught all our lives.
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Speaker 1: That blessed are the ceremonially clean, the ceremonial pure, those
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Speaker 1: that have done the right washings, those that kept themselves
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Speaker 1: from contaminated things, those that stayed away from gentiles, those
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Speaker 1: that stayed out of gentile homes, those that never touched
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Speaker 1: dead things. Those were the people that were pleasing to
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Speaker 1: God and Jesus is no, the things are changing. Blessed
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Speaker 1: are the pure in heart. The pure in heart will
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Speaker 1: have the ability to see and to recognize the activity
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Speaker 1: and the work of God. And then he blew their minds.
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Speaker 1: He said, you, you Jewish people who have chosen to
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Speaker 1: fill me. You're the salt of the earth. You are
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Speaker 1: the light of the world, to which they thought, wait
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Speaker 1: a minute, we're not the salt of the earth and
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Speaker 1: the light of the world. We've been taught to stay
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Speaker 1: away from the world. We don't dress like the world.
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Speaker 1: We don't eat like the world. We don't wear their clothes,
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Speaker 1: we don't eat their food. We don't marry their daughters,
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Speaker 1: we don't allow our daughters to marry their sons. We've
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Speaker 1: been taught since childhood that we were to stay away
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Speaker 1: from all things gentile. And now you're telling us that
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Speaker 1: somehow we're the salt of the earth and we're the
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Speaker 1: light of the world. In the same way he said,
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Speaker 1: he just kept going, in the same way, let your light,
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Speaker 1: your life shine before others. And they knew what this meant.
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Speaker 1: This meant non Jewish people. It's like, no, wait, let
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Speaker 1: our lives shine beyond you know, non Jewish people. We
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Speaker 1: don't even like others. We want, we don't want the
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Speaker 1: others around. In fact, the reason we're hoping for Messiah
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Speaker 1: is so that Messiah will come and get rid of
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Speaker 1: all the others, so we could have our nation back,
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Speaker 1: that they may he just keeps going, that they may
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Speaker 1: see your good deeds and glorify your father in heaven.
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Speaker 1: And they thought, we don't care if outsiders glorify our God.
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Speaker 1: We want outsiders to fear our God, like the days
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Speaker 1: of Joshua when we had power, in the days of David,
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Speaker 1: when people feared our king, the days of Solomon, when
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Speaker 1: we were a wealthy nation. And they thought to themselves,
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Speaker 1: this is not very messianic. This does not sound like Moses,
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Speaker 1: This does not sound like the prophets. This is this
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Speaker 1: is new. And Jesus knew that they knew that it
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Speaker 1: was new, because he knew the hearts of men. And
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Speaker 1: so he says, he anticipates this. He says, wait, wait, wait,
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Speaker 1: before we leave, do not think, do not assume, do
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Speaker 1: not think that I have come to abolish the law
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Speaker 1: or the prophets. Now I got to stop here and
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Speaker 1: explain something to you. If you ever read the New Testament,
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Speaker 1: which I hope you do. This is big. During the
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Speaker 1: first century, in preceding centuries, the Jewish people did not
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Speaker 1: call their Bible the Old Testament. In fact, Christians are
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Speaker 1: the ones that started calling it the Old Testament. That
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Speaker 1: started about one hundred and thirty and about eighty one
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Speaker 1: hundred and thirty. Way long after all of this, Jewish
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Speaker 1: people in the first century referred to their sacred Scripture
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Speaker 1: as the Law and the Prophets, which included all the history,
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Speaker 1: included the poetry, included everything basically that we would consider
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Speaker 1: the Old Testament. They didn't call it the Old Covenant
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Speaker 1: because it wasn't old, it was the current Covenant. They
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Speaker 1: didn't call it the Old Testament because testament means covenant
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Speaker 1: and it wasn't old. Jesus, the Apostle, Paul, everybody in
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Speaker 1: this region during this time they referred to what we
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Speaker 1: call the Old Testament. They just called it the Law
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Speaker 1: and the Prophets. So Jesus says, look, I've not come
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Speaker 1: to abolish your Bible. I've not come to destroy it
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Speaker 1: abolish it. I've not come to change it. I've not
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Speaker 1: even come to edit it. Now, why would he say this,
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Speaker 1: Why would he say, do not think that. And the
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Speaker 1: reason he said that is because the things that he
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Speaker 1: had said before that would lead them to think that.
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Speaker 1: That's exactly what he came to do. Goes on. He says,
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Speaker 1: I have not come to abolish them. But but you
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Speaker 1: aren't imagining things, but you aren't hearing things. But the
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Speaker 1: tension that you feel in my words, the contrast between
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Speaker 1: what you grew up hearing and what I'm saying, that
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Speaker 1: contrast is real. Change is coming. I'm not adding to
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Speaker 1: I am, in fact replacing. I'm not gonna change what
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Speaker 1: you've always been taught. I'm going to challenge you to
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Speaker 1: abandon what you have been taught. I'm not come to
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Speaker 1: abolish them, but to fulfill them. In other words, if
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Speaker 1: the Old Covenant, if the Old Testament, if the Law
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Speaker 1: and the Profits was an assignment, Jesus said, I'm here
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Speaker 1: to complete it. If the Old Testament, if the Old Covenant,
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Speaker 1: if the Law and the Profits was a math problem,
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Speaker 1: Jesus says, I'm here to solve it. If the Old Covenant,
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Speaker 1: if our Old Testament at the Law and the Profits
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Speaker 1: was a he says, I'm here to land it, and
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Speaker 1: eventually I'm going to invite everyone, including the Jews, to
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Speaker 1: dis embark that the Law and the prophets, the Old Covenant,
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Speaker 1: the Old Testament had an expiration date. Something was about
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Speaker 1: to change. In fact, the Old Testament approach to life,
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Speaker 1: the Old Testament way, was going away. It was about
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Speaker 1: to expire. For truly, I tell you, he says, I mean,
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Speaker 1: you could have heard a pin drop at this point
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Speaker 1: in the message every time he shared this message. For truly,
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Speaker 1: I tell you, until Heaven and Earth disappear, not the
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Speaker 1: smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will
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Speaker 1: by any means, disappear from the law. And they all
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Speaker 1: exhaled like ah, and he smiled and said, until that,
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Speaker 1: it's not going to disappear. I'm not here to edit it.
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Speaker 1: I'm not here to change it. I believe this my
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Speaker 1: personal opinion, this is the most overlooked preposition in the
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Speaker 1: entire New Testament. And the fact that the Church has
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Speaker 1: overlooked this for so long, and I understand why, and
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Speaker 1: I'm not throwing stones, and I'm not being critical. We
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Speaker 1: can talk about that on another day. But because we
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Speaker 1: have overlooked this preposition, and because we have overlooked the
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Speaker 1: implications of what comes next. There has been so much confusion,
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Speaker 1: there has been so much legalism, there has been so
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Speaker 1: much gracelessness, there has been so much faithlessness, there's been
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Speaker 1: so much loss of faith. In fact, the fact that
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Speaker 1: you have not been taught what's on the other side
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Speaker 1: of this preposition is one of the reasons perhaps that
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Speaker 1: you lost faith, that you walked away from faith, or
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Speaker 1: that you're reaching for the door to leave faith. He said,
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Speaker 1: none of it's going to disappear. None of it's going
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Speaker 1: to change until until everything is accomplished, until everything is
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Speaker 1: in place, and then it will disappear, along with everything
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Speaker 1: associated with it. That was unimaginable. Jesus, Wait, Jesus, I
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Speaker 1: mean you're good. I mean you're good. You are, But okay,
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Speaker 1: you're telling us that our whole understanding of God, and
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Speaker 1: our whole approach to God, and everything associated with our
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Speaker 1: covenant with God and the temple system and the sacrificial system.
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Speaker 1: You're saying all of that, at some point it's going
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Speaker 1: to disappear. That's impossible. Forty years later, on August sixth
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Speaker 1: AD seventy August sixth a d seventy, at the hands
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Speaker 1: of Titus and the Roman tenth legion. Ancient Judaism went
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Speaker 1: out of business and it has never been practiced since
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Speaker 1: you can't practice it without a temple on that next week.
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Speaker 1: Do not miss next week. Now, here's the point of
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Speaker 1: all this, and here's the point Jesus was eventually going
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Speaker 1: to make. This is the point that the apostle Paul
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Speaker 1: would look back later and explain to the rest of
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Speaker 1: the gentile world that Jesus came to introduce something new
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Speaker 1: to the world and for the world. But in order
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Speaker 1: for that to happen, Jesus was born under God's covenant
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Speaker 1: with Israel. In other words, he was born to obey
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Speaker 1: the law that God had given Israel through Moses on
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Speaker 1: Mount Sinai. He was born under the law. But he
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Speaker 1: came into this world under the law to fulfill it,
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Speaker 1: to end it. And here's the good news, and to
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Speaker 1: replace it, and to replace it with something new and
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Speaker 1: something better, to replace it with a covenant that was
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Speaker 1: not between a God and a nation, but to replace
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Speaker 1: it with a covenant that was between God and all mankind.
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Speaker 1: And all of this teaching and all of these parables
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Speaker 1: were foreshadowing, foreshadowing, foreshadowing. Here it comes. Here it comes.
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Speaker 1: Get ready, here it comes. Change is in the wind.
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Speaker 1: I'm not going to add on. I'm going to take
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Speaker 1: out what is here and replace it with something new,
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Speaker 1: something better, something broader, something for the whole world. A
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Speaker 1: complete and total break was coming. And here's the thing.
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Speaker 1: The early Church, and when I say the early Church,
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Speaker 1: I mean after the Resurrection, when the church launched, the
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Speaker 1: early Church had a difficult time making a clean break
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Speaker 1: from all that came before. In fact, we're going to
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Speaker 1: see twenty twenty five years after the Resurrection that the
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Speaker 1: first century Church they're still struggling, to say, wait a minute,
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Speaker 1: like a complete and a complete and total break. And
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Speaker 1: the twenty first century Church, and the twentieth century Church,
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Speaker 1: and the nineteenth century Church and the eighteenth century Church
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Speaker 1: has struggled with this as well. And this is why
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Speaker 1: for many of you it is so difficult to maintain
17:51
Speaker 1: faith in the world in which you live. Now. If
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Speaker 1: there was any question in Jesus' audience that he really
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Speaker 1: had come to contrast himself and to pitch himself against
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Speaker 1: all that came before, this made it abundantly clear that
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Speaker 1: they were not hearing things and that they weren't misunderstanding
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Speaker 1: because six times in the message that we have recorded
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Speaker 1: in Matthew. Six times he says something like this. You
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Speaker 1: have heard it said that you have heard that it
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Speaker 1: was said to the people long ago. But I tell
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Speaker 1: you you have heard it said that you have heard
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Speaker 1: that it was said to the people long ago. But
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Speaker 1: I tell you six times he repeats this. He says,
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Speaker 1: you have heard it said do not murder, But I say,
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Speaker 1: don't even hate. You've heard it said don't commit adultery.
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Speaker 1: I say, lust is a sin. You men, He said,
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Speaker 1: you've heard it said that if you write your wife
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Speaker 1: a certificate of divorced, then you're good to go with God.
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Speaker 1: I say not so fast, and over and over and over.
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Speaker 1: He pitched himself against the law of Moses. And his
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Speaker 1: audience sat there and they thought, wait a minute. When
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Speaker 1: you say you have heard that it was said to
18:48
Speaker 1: the people long ago, you're talking about what Moses said. Wait. Wait,
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Speaker 1: you can't set yourself up against Moses. Who do you
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Speaker 1: think you are. You can't replace the lawgiver Moses. You
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Speaker 1: can't replace the covenant maker Moses. It was Moses that
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Speaker 1: came down from Mount Sinai with the ten commandments and
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Speaker 1: all six hundred other commandments. It was Moses that said,
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Speaker 1: our nation has a unique relationship and covenant with Almighty God.
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Speaker 1: And you're showing up and saying that somehow your law
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Speaker 1: is better than his, that your law is to take
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Speaker 1: the place of his. Who do you think you are?
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Speaker 1: So he wraps up with something so simple and so
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Speaker 1: powerful that we have been quoting it for two thousand years.
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Speaker 1: And he knew the tension in that audience every time
19:36
Speaker 1: he shared this message, and he says, so, so let
19:40
Speaker 1: me wrap it up for you. Let me make it simple.
19:42
Speaker 1: We've covered a lot of territory. I know you're confused,
19:44
Speaker 1: so let me put the cookies on the lower shelf.
19:46
Speaker 1: Let's get down to the first rung of the latter.
19:48
Speaker 1: So in everything, and I'm telling you, the crowd loved this.
19:52
Speaker 1: So in everything, due to others, what you would have
19:57
Speaker 1: them do to you for this sums up for this,
20:05
Speaker 1: wraps up for this is the bottom line of the
20:09
Speaker 1: law and the prophets. And I'm telling you we're going
20:13
Speaker 1: to see in a few weeks. This was foreshadowing that
20:16
Speaker 1: something new was coming, something far less complicated, but something
20:22
Speaker 1: far more demanding. And when Jesus finished, when Jesus finished
20:30
Speaker 1: saying these things. The crowds were amazed at his teaching.
20:36
Speaker 1: Why because he taught as one having authority, and not
20:42
Speaker 1: as their teachers of the law. The teachers of the law,
20:48
Speaker 1: the temple leaders, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the groups of
20:53
Speaker 1: people that didn't even get along found a common enemy
20:55
Speaker 1: with Jesus. And throughout the Gospels we find them coming
20:58
Speaker 1: to Jesus saying, the law says, the loss says, the
21:00
Speaker 1: low says, Moses says, Moses says, what about the temple?
21:03
Speaker 1: What about the Temple? On and on and on they
21:05
Speaker 1: would go. In one day, Matthew says, he finally just
21:08
Speaker 1: got fed up, and he turns to these religious leaders
21:11
Speaker 1: and he says something that when you read it in
21:13
Speaker 1: your English Bible you go right by it. But I'm
21:15
Speaker 1: telling you, this was a show stopper. This was a
21:18
Speaker 1: game changer, This was an Oh my goodness, this guy
21:21
Speaker 1: has lost his mind. He turns to them, I think again,
21:25
Speaker 1: with a grin on his face, and he says, I
21:28
Speaker 1: tell you, I tell you that something greater than the
21:33
Speaker 1: Temple is here. Hey, Jesus, you've been in the sun
21:38
Speaker 1: too long, Okay, there's nothing greater than the temple. How
21:40
Speaker 1: can there be something great? Have you seen the temple?
21:43
Speaker 1: I mean, there is nothing greater than the Temple. People
21:45
Speaker 1: come from miles around to see our fabulous the temple
21:48
Speaker 1: that Herod rebuilt for us. There's not what Jesus. If
21:52
Speaker 1: there's something greater than the Temple, then we don't need
21:55
Speaker 1: the temple, because the temple represents the presence of God.
22:00
Speaker 1: The temple represents the law. The temple represents reconciliation between
22:06
Speaker 1: God and the nation. The temple is where we house
22:09
Speaker 1: the Torah, the law. There is nothing greater than the Temple.
22:14
Speaker 1: If there's something greater than the temple, then we don't
22:16
Speaker 1: need the temple any longer, to which Jesus would have
22:20
Speaker 1: smiled and said, just wait, just wait, just wait. Now
22:28
Speaker 1: back to us, So is this important? Let me put
22:33
Speaker 1: it this way. Is this important to tenth grade boys?
22:37
Speaker 1: Is this important to seniors in high school who are
22:39
Speaker 1: just thinking about And you know, I didn't get my
22:40
Speaker 1: stretch school, so I'm gonna get into my less stretched school.
22:42
Speaker 1: But then maybe I can getting to my stretch school.
22:44
Speaker 1: And how long is this gonna tell? How long has
22:45
Speaker 1: he been talking? You know? Is this important to twenty
22:48
Speaker 1: five year olds who just moved to our city and
22:50
Speaker 1: you got that first really really good job and you're
22:52
Speaker 1: trying to figure it all out, and you know your
22:54
Speaker 1: mom back in wherever Madison, you know, or Rome, she
22:57
Speaker 1: wants to make sure you're in church. So you came
22:59
Speaker 1: today so you get say you're here and you're want
23:01
Speaker 1: is this important to you? Is this? Is this important
23:03
Speaker 1: to seniors? You know you're looking at the retirement thing.
23:05
Speaker 1: Is this important to me? Is this important? Yes? Let
23:11
Speaker 1: me tell you how important it is. It's important because
23:14
Speaker 1: once upon a time in our country and in the West,
23:16
Speaker 1: but let's just talk about us. Because once upon a
23:18
Speaker 1: time in our country, people took the Bible seriously. They
23:21
Speaker 1: didn't read it, but they took it seriously. I'm not
23:25
Speaker 1: going to read it, but don't put anything on top
23:26
Speaker 1: of it on Grandmama's coffee table. And the Bible was,
23:32
Speaker 1: you know, this was God's word. And then the Internet
23:38
Speaker 1: and now we have a generation of people who have
23:41
Speaker 1: so much misinformation about Christianity and so much misinformation specifically
23:45
Speaker 1: about the Bible, and people are leaving the faith and droves,
23:49
Speaker 1: especially teenagers, millennials and all mom and Dad have when
23:54
Speaker 1: they come home. Is well, the Bible says, The Bible says,
23:57
Speaker 1: the Bible says, So once upon a time, what I'm
23:59
Speaker 1: about to tell you really and all that important. But
24:01
Speaker 1: those days are long gone. And what Jesus said and
24:06
Speaker 1: what the New Testament represents, that it is represented for
24:09
Speaker 1: two thousand years that we've missed because it really wasn't
24:12
Speaker 1: all that important. It's more important than ever now. If
24:15
Speaker 1: you're a Christian and you love your church, and you've
24:17
Speaker 1: got your church friends, everything's church, church, church, and you
24:19
Speaker 1: know the hymns, and you know most of your friends
24:21
Speaker 1: are Christians. Anyway, you don't need this. But if you
24:24
Speaker 1: have seniors in high school, if you have college freshmen,
24:29
Speaker 1: if you care about your unchurch friends and your lost friends,
24:32
Speaker 1: if you're a person that grew up in church and
24:33
Speaker 1: you lost faith, and every once in a while you
24:36
Speaker 1: come and you sit on the back road at a
24:37
Speaker 1: church because you just there's something that just draws you,
24:40
Speaker 1: but you have so many unanswered questions. Then what Jesus
24:44
Speaker 1: taught over and over and over, the fact that he
24:46
Speaker 1: came to introduce something new, it's real important because you see,
24:55
Speaker 1: you have heard it said that if the Bible says it,
24:59
Speaker 1: that's it. Jesus said that the world view and the
25:05
Speaker 1: values from Exodus to Malachi had a shelf life, and
25:12
Speaker 1: they came to an end. That he came to fulfill them,
25:15
Speaker 1: to land that plane, to bring it to an end,
25:19
Speaker 1: and to introduce something brand new. And my friends, history
25:25
Speaker 1: proved him correct. You see, you've heard it said. There
25:31
Speaker 1: is no conflict between the Old and the New Testaments,
25:34
Speaker 1: the Old and the New Covenants. Jesus said, they are irreconcilable.
25:40
Speaker 1: So he closed the curtain on one, and he ripped
25:45
Speaker 1: the curtain away on the other, the Old. And please
25:50
Speaker 1: don't miss this, because I know I'll be misunderstood. The
25:53
Speaker 1: Old Covenant, the Old Testament, was a divinely created, a
25:58
Speaker 1: divinely inspired, and the purpose of that divinely inspired, divinely
26:05
Speaker 1: scripted cocoon, which was to release the love and the
26:10
Speaker 1: light of God into the world. For the world. This
26:16
Speaker 1: was Israel's purpose from the very beginning. But once the
26:22
Speaker 1: light of the world, once the love of God had
26:28
Speaker 1: been revealed, the cocoon is something we appreciate, it's part
26:34
Speaker 1: of the story, but it is to be left behind.
26:41
Speaker 1: You've heard it said, the Bible is our guide for life.
26:45
Speaker 1: Jesus never said that. Of course, when Jesus spoke, there
26:49
Speaker 1: was no the Bible. There was just the law and
26:52
Speaker 1: the prophets. But Jesus did say something about who would
26:56
Speaker 1: be your guide for life. Here's what he said. He said,
26:59
Speaker 1: look at me, I am the way, I am the truth.
27:07
Speaker 1: I am where you find life. Follow And this drove
27:12
Speaker 1: the Jewish religious leaders crazy. Follow me. And then in
27:20
Speaker 1: the end he made this unmistakably clear. And we've missed
27:26
Speaker 1: this for years because it really wasn't all that important.
27:28
Speaker 1: But it's important now. It's been important for about thirty
27:30
Speaker 1: or forty years, but it's more important than ever in
27:33
Speaker 1: the very end. And if you grew up in church,
27:35
Speaker 1: you've read this so many times. You've heard it preach
27:37
Speaker 1: on so many times. If you taught Sunday school, you've
27:39
Speaker 1: taught this so many times. If you left the church,
27:42
Speaker 1: when I read these words, you're going to go, oh, yeah,
27:43
Speaker 1: I remember that after he was crucified, after he was
27:49
Speaker 1: raised from the dead and was seen, he gathers with
27:51
Speaker 1: his followers and he gives them a farewell address. And
27:56
Speaker 1: I want to read it to you. And now I
27:58
Speaker 1: want you to listen to it through the ears years
28:00
Speaker 1: of someone who's been introduced to the idea that Jesus
28:03
Speaker 1: did not come to continue something, he came to replace something.
28:10
Speaker 1: Then Jesus came, The text says Matthew tells us he
28:12
Speaker 1: was there. Then Jesus came to them, and he said,
28:15
Speaker 1: and who would say this all authority? Remember when he taught.
28:19
Speaker 1: They were amazed because he spoke with authority. When he
28:22
Speaker 1: went into the temple and he cleaned the temple. And
28:25
Speaker 1: I wish we had time to look at those texts
28:26
Speaker 1: when he goes in and it just creates chaos in the temple.
28:29
Speaker 1: And this is so powerful. When he created chaos in
28:32
Speaker 1: the temple, the temple leaders did not say to him, Hey,
28:35
Speaker 1: what do you think you're doing? They did not ask
28:37
Speaker 1: him that question. Do you know what they ask him?
28:40
Speaker 1: They said, who do you think you are? Because he spoke,
28:46
Speaker 1: and he moved, and he behaved with an authority never
28:50
Speaker 1: seen before in the history of mankind. And he stood
28:55
Speaker 1: on the hill that day with the men and women
28:59
Speaker 1: who had seen him crucified and now back from the dead,
29:02
Speaker 1: and he said, all authority and heaven and on earth
29:04
Speaker 1: has been given to me. And when you're standing in
29:06
Speaker 1: front of someone who if you'd seen die and now
29:08
Speaker 1: they're alive, and they say they have all authority, you
29:10
Speaker 1: just go with it. All authority on heaven and earth
29:15
Speaker 1: has been given to me, not Moses, not the Law,
29:21
Speaker 1: not the Temple, not the Ten Commandments. And this rattled
29:26
Speaker 1: his audience, except they had seen him die. He says, Therefore,
29:33
Speaker 1: since I am the embodiment of the authority of God,
29:37
Speaker 1: here's what I want you to do, Matthew, write this down. Therefore,
29:42
Speaker 1: in light of that, I want you to go. Now,
29:45
Speaker 1: this is gonna be different. This is gonna be aye,
29:47
Speaker 1: this is gonna be uncomfortable, this is gonna be in
29:49
Speaker 1: contrast to everything you've been taught since you were little
29:51
Speaker 1: boys and girls. I want you to go, and I
29:53
Speaker 1: want you to make disciples of all nations. Oh what
29:57
Speaker 1: if we just stick around here. No. I understand that
30:01
Speaker 1: in the old days you were taught to secure your
30:03
Speaker 1: borders and expel the foreigners. I know that's what you
30:06
Speaker 1: grew up thinking. I know you've been praying for a
30:08
Speaker 1: Messiah that would secure the borders and expel the foreigners.
30:12
Speaker 1: I'm saying to you something new has happened. It is
30:15
Speaker 1: time that you cross your borders and you take the
30:17
Speaker 1: love of God to foreigners wherever you find them, and
30:22
Speaker 1: you instruct them on what it means to follow Me.
30:29
Speaker 1: And you are to do for them what John the
30:31
Speaker 1: Baptist did for you, what my disciples did for you. You
30:34
Speaker 1: are to baptize them. That is, you were to ask
30:37
Speaker 1: them to identify with me and my message. And you're
30:40
Speaker 1: to baptize them in the name of and see, if
30:42
Speaker 1: we grew up in church, we know how this ends.
30:43
Speaker 1: In the name of We d dah d da da
30:45
Speaker 1: da da dah da da da dah. We've memorized that
30:47
Speaker 1: for the Jews in his audience, someone was conspicuously missing
30:51
Speaker 1: from the list. And you'll baptize them in the name
30:55
Speaker 1: of the Father and of the Son, and not Moses,
31:02
Speaker 1: and not of the prophets, and of the Holy Spirit
31:07
Speaker 1: of God. A lot of you were raised like me.
31:13
Speaker 1: You've said, the Bible, that's our guide for life. Jesus
31:17
Speaker 1: said something very different, he said, and after you've baptized them,
31:20
Speaker 1: you're to teach them to obey everything and the Bible no,
31:26
Speaker 1: and the Law no, and the Ten Commandments no. You're
31:32
Speaker 1: to teach them and my friends, this is so important.
31:34
Speaker 1: Do you know who them is? Them is you? Because
31:42
Speaker 1: eventually they would cross their borders. Come on, Eventually they
31:48
Speaker 1: would take this message all over the world. Eventually, this
31:52
Speaker 1: persecuted band of nobody's would topple an empire, and they
31:59
Speaker 1: wouldn't do it withy or military. They would do it
32:02
Speaker 1: with the love of God and the light of life.
32:06
Speaker 1: Who is Jesus and Jesus is Look at me, guys,
32:10
Speaker 1: I want you to teach them everything I have commanded you. Well,
32:18
Speaker 1: what did Jesus command? Don't miss week eleven. Now here's
32:25
Speaker 1: the point. I'm done. This is what I want you
32:28
Speaker 1: to understand. A new era had begun. It was the
32:35
Speaker 1: end of something old and something important. It was the
32:39
Speaker 1: end of something old and something necessary. It was the end.
32:44
Speaker 1: It was the end of the context that would release
32:47
Speaker 1: into the world the light of God and the love
32:50
Speaker 1: of God. That Jesus replaced everything that Moses and Solomon
32:56
Speaker 1: put in place. And the reason this isn't and the
33:00
Speaker 1: reason this is especially important for some of you, for
33:04
Speaker 1: those of you who have lost faith or have begun
33:06
Speaker 1: to doubt because of something in the Old Covenant, the
33:09
Speaker 1: Old Testament because of something you were taught in school,
33:12
Speaker 1: are something that you've sort of found on the internet,
33:14
Speaker 1: and it sort of confirms your suspicions. Here's why this
33:17
Speaker 1: is extraordinarily good news for you. It means that Christianity
33:22
Speaker 1: can stand on its own two nail scarred resurrection feet.
33:27
Speaker 1: It does not need propping up by the old Covenant
33:33
Speaker 1: because it is a standalone, brand new message for the
33:37
Speaker 1: entire world. And it stands straighter this way, it stands
33:41
Speaker 1: more defensible this way, and it has stood the test
33:45
Speaker 1: of time and the test of an empire this way.
33:51
Speaker 1: And if this is also confusing for you, and I
33:54
Speaker 1: can understand that, and if it seems a bit wrong
33:57
Speaker 1: and heretical, and you can understand, you can appreciate exactly
34:03
Speaker 1: how Jesus' first century audience felt when he began to
34:09
Speaker 1: take away the old and replace it with something better,
34:15
Speaker 1: something new, because after all, Moses was their guy, and
34:21
Speaker 1: after all, the Bible is our book. So don't miss
34:29
Speaker 1: next week