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God's Gospel · Passing On The Faith

0:00
SPEAKER_02: And this specifically applies to Jesus.
0:02
SPEAKER_02: See, there is this humiliation, then this need for exaltation, for glorification.
0:08
SPEAKER_02: The resurrection means that there will be an end, a success, a victory, a glory, an honor, a life.
0:17
SPEAKER_02: We've used this analogy before.
0:19
SPEAKER_02: You don't just leave Snow White dead.
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SPEAKER_02: And then you say goodnight, kids.
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SPEAKER_02: That's your story for tonight.
0:28
SPEAKER_02: Snow White died.
0:29
SPEAKER_02: Have a good sleep.
0:31
SPEAKER_02: Nobody says that.
0:33
SPEAKER_02: At least to your children.
0:35
SPEAKER_02: You know, you're going to say, well, what happened after that?
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SPEAKER_02: Well, there was the resurrection.
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SPEAKER_02: There is there is there is a good ending to the story.
0:45
SPEAKER_02: So there is success, there's victory, there's honor and life.
0:48
SPEAKER_02: There's this ruling over everything, a kingdom, our relationship with God and Jesus and our justification and sanctification, glorification, everything for us.
0:57
SPEAKER_02: This is what has to happen.
0:59
SPEAKER_02: It has to happen this way.
1:01
SPEAKER_02: It cannot but happen this way.
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SPEAKER_00: You're listening to Passing on the Faith, a podcast from generations.
1:08
SPEAKER_00: Every week, we bring you a powerful moment from one of our sermons, audiobooks, webinars, or conference talks.
1:15
SPEAKER_00: Handpick to help you build a strong biblical foundation for your family.
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SPEAKER_00: This week's episode is a sermon from Reformation Church of Elizabeth, entitled God's Gospel by Kevin Swanson.
1:30
SPEAKER_02: Romans 1.
1:34
SPEAKER_02: Paul, a bond servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated the gospel of God, which he promised before through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures, concerning his Son Jesus Christ, our Lord, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead.
2:00
SPEAKER_02: Through him we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all the nations for his name, among whom you also are the called of Jesus Christ, to all who are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints, grace to you, and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
2:20
SPEAKER_02: This is the very word of God.
2:40
SPEAKER_02: Father, that this would transform us, even as the gospel has transformed nations over these two thousand years, transform this little group in this room today by your spirit and by your power.
2:52
SPEAKER_02: In Jesus' name.
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SPEAKER_02: Amen.
2:55
SPEAKER_02: Please be seated.
2:59
SPEAKER_02: First, I'd like to give a little historical background to the book.
3:04
SPEAKER_02: So it was written probably somewhere around A.D.
3:07
SPEAKER_02: 58, 25 years after Jesus rose from the dead.
3:13
SPEAKER_02: Paul was looking forward to visiting Rome.
3:18
SPEAKER_02: It was written probably a year or maybe two or three.
3:21
SPEAKER_02: We don't know exactly, but it was somewhat before he went to Jerusalem and he was arrested in Jerusalem.
3:27
SPEAKER_02: You remember he was in prison for three years in Jerusalem.
3:32
SPEAKER_02: That goes by pretty quickly in the book of Acts.
3:35
SPEAKER_02: So it's hard to imagine it took that much time for Paul to make it to Rome.
3:39
SPEAKER_02: But Paul was looking forward to going to Rome, and so he was probably in Rome four years after writing this book.
3:46
SPEAKER_02: Now Claudius Caesar had kicked the Christians, or at least the Jews, including some Jewish Christians, out of Rome somewhere around A.D.
3:57
SPEAKER_02: 49.
3:59
SPEAKER_02: So that would have been about nine years before Paul wrote this book.
4:03
SPEAKER_02: And Aquila and Priscilla were part of the early church there in Rome.
4:09
SPEAKER_02: So Paul met up with Aquila and Priscilla, probably in Ephesus.
4:16
SPEAKER_02: And the church at Rome had been in place then for about ten years prior to the writing of this book of Romans.
4:26
SPEAKER_02: At least ten years.
4:27
SPEAKER_02: Could have been a little bit before that.
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SPEAKER_02: Peter was not the first pastor or the first evangelist in Rome.
4:33
SPEAKER_02: We don't really know who it was.
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SPEAKER_02: We know that Clement was an important pastor.
4:42
SPEAKER_02: We don't know exactly when Clement began.
4:45
SPEAKER_02: But we do know all the way back to, say, A.D.
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SPEAKER_02: 48, 47, 46, the gospel somehow had made it into Rome.
4:52
SPEAKER_02: That's pretty extraordinary.
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SPEAKER_02: Just 12, 13 years after the resurrection of Jesus, the word of the gospel had made it in there.
5:00
SPEAKER_02: And it's possible that the first pastors in Rome were Aquila or Narcissus.
5:06
SPEAKER_02: The household of Narcissus were in Christ.
5:10
SPEAKER_02: We read that in Romans chapter 16.
5:12
SPEAKER_02: So the first pastors or first evangelists in Rome were probably men like Aquila or Narcissus.
5:19
SPEAKER_02: Alright, so Paul was not the first evangelist to Rome, but he did make it there somewhere around A.D.
5:27
SPEAKER_02: 62.
5:28
SPEAKER_02: Alright, let's move on to the major themes in the book.
5:32
SPEAKER_02: This is probably difficult to pull out, but I think you're going to see these strands as we go through the book of Romans.
5:40
SPEAKER_02: But the first major theme in the book is power.
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SPEAKER_02: And I take that from Romans 1 and verse 16.
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SPEAKER_02: That the gospel of God is the power of God unto salvation for all those who believe.
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SPEAKER_02: So this is the first of the major themes.
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SPEAKER_02: The gospel is the power of God.
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SPEAKER_02: It's a supernatural dynamite.
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SPEAKER_02: The word is dunamis.
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SPEAKER_02: So it's the supernatural dynamite or power of God working in the salvation of sinners.
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SPEAKER_02: It's the power of the grace of God, the power of the love of God.
6:16
SPEAKER_02: Nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus, neither principality or power or things present or things to come.
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SPEAKER_02: The power of the love of God and the grace of God is so intense that we cannot be separated from it.
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SPEAKER_02: So the power of God comes through again and again.
6:37
SPEAKER_02: So by God's infinite grace, Jesus Christ died for us.
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SPEAKER_02: By his infinite power, he rose again.
6:44
SPEAKER_02: And for what reason?
6:45
SPEAKER_02: We read in Romans 5, as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one man's obedience many were made righteous.
6:55
SPEAKER_02: That is where Adam had brought sin into the world, Jesus came to bring righteousness and life.
7:03
SPEAKER_02: So this is the powerful outworking of Almighty God upon us in this world that righteousness and life would be revealed in Jesus and realized in our justification and sanctification.
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SPEAKER_02: There are 50 references to life and 51 references to righteousness in the book of Romans.
7:25
SPEAKER_02: And so you see, these are probably the most mentioned words in the book of Romans, except for faith and believing.
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SPEAKER_02: So these are the themes.
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SPEAKER_02: God's power comes to bring righteousness and life to us.
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SPEAKER_02: And then the second theme is faith.
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SPEAKER_02: We are to believe this.
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SPEAKER_02: To believe in Christ, to believe that he died for our sins and rose again from the dead.
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SPEAKER_02: And thereby, as we believe in Jesus, we identify with him, we participate, we associate with him in his death and his resurrection.
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SPEAKER_02: And then we reckon ourselves to be dead to sin and alive to God.
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SPEAKER_02: And so there are 70 references to faith and believing in the book of Romans.
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SPEAKER_02: So we have these three major themes.
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SPEAKER_02: The first is power, the second is faith, and the third is life.
8:17
SPEAKER_02: Now that we have life, we are debtors to live after the Spirit, not after the flesh.
8:22
SPEAKER_02: We present our body as a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable to God, because, after all, that is our totally reasonable service.
8:29
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so I'm kind of quickly working through the entire book of Romans.
8:33
SPEAKER_02: I want to do that practically every week so we understand where we are.
8:36
SPEAKER_02: You've got to get your bearings.
8:38
SPEAKER_02: I don't think it's right to look at a book and just pull one part of it.
8:41
SPEAKER_02: You've got to see the whole picture.
8:42
SPEAKER_02: What is Paul bringing out to us here?
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SPEAKER_02: He's bringing the power of the gospel, he's bringing in the admonition to faith, and then he explains to us the importance of life and living after the Spirit, not after the flesh.
8:54
SPEAKER_02: Okay, well, let's now get into the book of Romans, Romans chapter 1, with a prologue and the preface of the book.
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SPEAKER_02: And that shows up in verses 1 through 17.
9:05
SPEAKER_02: So this is the introduction or the salutation or the preface to the epistle to the Romans.
9:12
SPEAKER_02: First of all, Paul says, very beginning, Paul a bondservant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated to the gospel of God.
9:20
SPEAKER_02: So these are Paul's credentials.
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SPEAKER_02: He introduces himself as having some authority, something to share, and the authority of God behind him.
9:30
SPEAKER_02: But we don't see in Paul's credentials a THD or PhD or a master's in divinity or anything like that.
9:37
SPEAKER_02: Rather, I think what stands out more than anything else, and this should stand out for any of us who serve as ministers, pastors, teachers, any kind of a servant in the household of Jesus, he says, first of all, that he is a bondservant of Jesus Christ.
9:53
SPEAKER_02: And that's the doulos.
9:55
SPEAKER_02: That's the one who was enslaved to Jesus Christ.
9:58
SPEAKER_02: This is really the lowest in the economic structure of the Roman approach to business.
10:06
SPEAKER_02: This is the person who is absolutely at the lowest economic stature in all of human society.
10:13
SPEAKER_02: And it is the true of all of us.
10:15
SPEAKER_02: We are the same as this.
10:17
SPEAKER_02: We are the servants of Jesus Christ.
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SPEAKER_02: We are not our own.
10:19
SPEAKER_02: We are bought with a price.
10:21
SPEAKER_02: And so the idea of redemption is that Jesus bought us, that we were enslaved to somebody else.
10:27
SPEAKER_02: Jesus paid the money for us, and now he owns us.
10:31
SPEAKER_02: We belong to him.
10:33
SPEAKER_02: This is our identity, and this is Paul's identity.
10:36
SPEAKER_02: He is a bondservant of Jesus Christ.
10:39
SPEAKER_02: He is in this all-controlling relationship with Jesus Christ.
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SPEAKER_02: On the Damascus Road, remember, we read about that in Acts chapter 9.
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SPEAKER_02: My brother will be there in a few weeks.
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SPEAKER_02: But Saul was on his way to kill Jesus, to persecute Jesus.
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SPEAKER_02: Jesus said, Why are you persecuting me?
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SPEAKER_02: He was off to drag Jesus' people off to prison to kill them.
11:04
SPEAKER_02: And then everything changed on that day.
11:06
SPEAKER_02: And I want you to listen one more time to what happened to the apostle.
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SPEAKER_02: Now, of course, this is Saul at that time.
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SPEAKER_02: He has taken on the name of the first king of Israel.
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SPEAKER_02: His name is soon to change to Paul.
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SPEAKER_02: But there he was on the Damascus Road.
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SPEAKER_02: He fell to the ground.
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SPEAKER_02: He heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?
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SPEAKER_02: And he said, Who are you, Lord?
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SPEAKER_02: There it is.
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SPEAKER_02: Then the Lord said, The Lord said, This is key.
11:35
SPEAKER_02: The Lord said to him, I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.
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SPEAKER_02: It's hard for you to kick against the goats.
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SPEAKER_02: And so he, trembling and astonished, said, Lord, what do you want me to do?
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SPEAKER_02: So here Paul is, or Saul at this time is going the wrong direction.
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SPEAKER_02: He's heading out to kill Jesus, and he becomes the bond slave of Jesus, from the killer of Jesus to the bond slave of Jesus.
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SPEAKER_02: And this is a radical change in the life of this man.
12:02
SPEAKER_02: It's a 180-degree change.
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SPEAKER_02: It's really been the pattern, the picture for any kind of conversion.
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SPEAKER_02: That as at one time we were not interested in Jesus, we were opposed to Jesus.
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SPEAKER_02: We weren't submitting to Jesus.
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SPEAKER_02: We would have a hard time referring to ourselves as the servants or the bond slaves of Jesus Christ.
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SPEAKER_02: We rarely put that in letters.
12:23
SPEAKER_02: If any time we put it in a letter.
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SPEAKER_02: And yet now, here the switch has occurred.
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SPEAKER_02: He is no longer that which opposes Jesus, but that which supports him, that which serves him.
12:36
SPEAKER_02: He becomes the bond slave of Jesus.
12:38
SPEAKER_02: He went out to arrest Jesus, but Jesus arrested Paul on the road to Damascus.
12:43
SPEAKER_02: So you see, a tremendous change in this man's identity.
12:47
SPEAKER_02: Now he's under the all-controlling influence of Jesus Christ.
12:51
SPEAKER_02: What is it to be a bond slave?
12:52
SPEAKER_02: Almost nobody here or anybody in our day understands what it is to be a bond slave.
12:58
SPEAKER_02: It means that you don't own anything.
12:59
SPEAKER_02: It means you belong to the person who has bought you.
13:03
SPEAKER_02: We don't own any of this.
13:06
SPEAKER_02: We don't own any of our own stuff.
13:08
SPEAKER_02: We don't own this church.
13:10
SPEAKER_02: We don't own the people who work for us or anything of that sort.
13:14
SPEAKER_02: We are owned.
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SPEAKER_02: Jesus owns all of it.
13:18
SPEAKER_02: He is our master.
13:21
SPEAKER_02: It's very defining for the apostle.
13:23
SPEAKER_02: And then secondly, he calls himself an apostle, which is a word means just a messenger or an envoy sent by somebody under authority in authority, an ambassador.
13:32
SPEAKER_02: And so Paul is the apostle who is here to convey a message.
13:37
SPEAKER_02: This is very central to the entire introduction and to the book of Romans.
13:42
SPEAKER_02: Paul is sent one.
13:44
SPEAKER_02: And we say that, we put that in the capital letter, apostle, in the sense that Jesus specifically selected Paul for this purpose.
13:54
SPEAKER_02: Paul wrote 13 of 27 books of the New Testament, almost half of them.
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SPEAKER_02: 25% of the content is attributed to the Apostle Paul.
14:02
SPEAKER_02: Now it's interesting that Matthias replaced Judas, but we don't hear very much of Matthias.
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SPEAKER_02: Rather, it seems that Jesus added his own man later on.
14:12
SPEAKER_02: We see that with the Apostle Paul.
14:14
SPEAKER_02: I think that's just interesting.
14:15
SPEAKER_02: Not to say that Matthias wasn't used in some capacity, but it seemed that Jesus had an interest in selecting somebody himself, and thereby Paul became an apostle.
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SPEAKER_02: So if anybody pretends to be an apostle, that's impossible today because Jesus hasn't selected that person out as he did directly with the apostles in the New Testament and in the case of the Apostle Paul.
14:41
SPEAKER_02: Then thirdly, here's the third identification that Paul puts upon himself.
14:46
SPEAKER_02: He says, not only is he a bond slave of Jesus, an apostle, but he is separated to the gospel of God.
14:55
SPEAKER_02: He is called, he is enslaved, he is set apart, he's dedicated to this major task.
15:02
SPEAKER_02: This is the thing he is all about.
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SPEAKER_02: And this, I think, is very much the focal point for pastors who carry on the mission of God as well.
15:13
SPEAKER_02: Those who are dedicated to pastoring the church in our age.
15:19
SPEAKER_02: First and foremost, pastors are not life coaches.
15:24
SPEAKER_02: They're not counselors, they're not seminary professors, they're not the rah-rah guys, the mega motivational speakers that get 4.9 ratings for their churches on Google.
15:38
SPEAKER_02: That's just not pastors.
15:41
SPEAKER_02: A pastor is one who carries a message.
15:46
SPEAKER_02: He preaches, heralds, conveys a message.
15:50
SPEAKER_02: He's dedicated to a message.
15:53
SPEAKER_02: So the apostles are humble men.
15:56
SPEAKER_02: They're there to pass along a message, a very important message from God to everybody.
16:05
SPEAKER_02: Ambassadors are important men, typically considered important by nations.
16:10
SPEAKER_02: If you offend an ambassador of the United States, you shoot his son or you attack him or put him in prison, you're not going to be in very good relationship with ascending country, will you?
16:27
SPEAKER_02: So the apostle has an authority about him.
16:32
SPEAKER_02: He's conveying a message, an important message, from God to everybody.
16:37
SPEAKER_02: So what is this?
16:38
SPEAKER_02: Well, here we see in verse 2 that he is separated to the gospel of God at the beginning of verse, or the end of verse 1, beginning of verse 2, he is separated to the gospel of God, which he promised before through his prophets in the Holy Scripture concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
16:56
SPEAKER_02: So this is the gospel of God.
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SPEAKER_02: This is the good news of God.
16:59
SPEAKER_02: The word is simply good news.
17:02
SPEAKER_02: God has good news to bring to us.
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SPEAKER_02: If I told you I have good news, or if Donald Trump was to say, I have good news for you, I'm going to write more STEMI checks, free money for you, perhaps you'd consider that to be good news.
17:22
SPEAKER_02: But if God came to us and said, I have good news for you, what would you say?
17:27
SPEAKER_02: If God would bring good news to us?
17:30
SPEAKER_02: If I said, I have good news, you'd say, Well, that's great.
17:33
SPEAKER_02: I want to hear it.
17:34
SPEAKER_02: But what would you say if God said, But I have good news for you.
17:38
SPEAKER_02: This is the good news of God.
17:40
SPEAKER_02: Does that make any difference?
17:42
SPEAKER_02: And why would that make a difference?
17:45
SPEAKER_02: Well, it makes a difference because it's God.
17:48
SPEAKER_02: It's God's good news.
17:52
SPEAKER_02: So that's why when a pastor or an evangelist steps out in front and says, Here is good news from God.
18:03
SPEAKER_02: Again, if I were to say, good news.
18:06
SPEAKER_02: Or if somebody in your house, a husband, a father, whatever comes home, says, I've got really good news for everybody, most of you would want to hear it.
18:18
SPEAKER_02: Why is that?
18:19
SPEAKER_02: It's because there's a lot of bad news going on in the world.
18:23
SPEAKER_02: Because we're all aware of the difficulties and struggles and challenges that we face in life.
18:31
SPEAKER_02: So that's why I believe that when somebody comes in and says, But I have good news, then we tend to respond with, Well, tell me about it.
18:41
SPEAKER_02: Because we need to hear good news.
18:44
SPEAKER_02: We are the kind of people that languish after good news.
18:48
SPEAKER_02: We need good news.
18:49
SPEAKER_02: We are burdened under the bad news.
18:52
SPEAKER_02: And that's true of everybody.
18:53
SPEAKER_02: I don't care if it's a believer or unbeliever.
18:55
SPEAKER_02: If you're an unbeliever in here this morning, and I was to tell you, I've got some really good news for you, you would say, tell me about it.
19:03
SPEAKER_02: Just the way we are.
19:04
SPEAKER_02: That's the way you are.
19:05
SPEAKER_02: If you're an unbeliever or a believer, it doesn't matter.
19:08
SPEAKER_02: You want to hear the good news.
19:10
SPEAKER_02: And if I was to say it's not just good news from Kevin, but good news from the President of the United States, or it's good news from God Himself, you would say, tell me about it.
19:19
SPEAKER_02: You would want to hear it.
19:22
SPEAKER_02: Because the good news from God is a really big deal.
19:25
SPEAKER_02: It's really the best news in the universe.
19:28
SPEAKER_02: The message comes across as if it's not the best news in the universe.
19:34
SPEAKER_02: If somehow in our churches or in the religious institutions of our day you hear good news that just doesn't really sound like good news.
19:46
SPEAKER_02: Or God's good news.
19:47
SPEAKER_02: There's a problem with that.
19:49
SPEAKER_02: In fact, I believe that the most significant, important indication of a cult or a world religion, or a nothing burger world religion, is that there's really no power in it.
20:00
SPEAKER_02: There is no sense that this is really good news that comes from God.
20:06
SPEAKER_02: It's just simply some guy.
20:10
SPEAKER_02: That's what it sounds like.
20:12
SPEAKER_02: It sounds like it's coming from some guy.
20:16
SPEAKER_02: Just make it very, very simple for us.
20:18
SPEAKER_02: If the message is this, I'm here today to tell everybody.
20:27
SPEAKER_02: Just do better.
20:31
SPEAKER_02: And you can do it.
20:33
SPEAKER_02: You can do it.
20:36
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I might be the best motivational preacher of that message on planet Earth.
20:42
SPEAKER_02: Just do better.
20:44
SPEAKER_02: Do better.
20:45
SPEAKER_02: And let me tell you something.
20:47
SPEAKER_02: I am so positive, I'm so hopeful, I am so encouraging and encouraged that you can do it.
20:55
SPEAKER_02: That's not good news.
20:58
SPEAKER_02: That's not good news.
20:59
SPEAKER_02: That's nothing, burger.
21:01
SPEAKER_02: That's a nothing message.
21:03
SPEAKER_02: And that's what characterizes the cults and humanism and all of the world religions.
21:10
SPEAKER_02: That's it.
21:11
SPEAKER_02: That's the message.
21:13
SPEAKER_02: That's not good news.
21:14
SPEAKER_02: That's not a gospel.
21:16
SPEAKER_02: That's a nothing gospel.
21:21
SPEAKER_02: So why is Paul so dedicated to it?
22:49
SPEAKER_02: Why is a guy dedicating his whole life to this message?
22:54
SPEAKER_02: Goes to prison six, ten, eighteen, thirty-eight times, takes stripes above measure, and deaths often from the Jews, five times forty stripes, minus one, three times beaten with rod, stoned once, three times shipwrecked, a night and a day hanging on some piece of boat in the open water, and journeys off in perils of water, perils of robbers, and perils of my own countrymen, and perils of the Gentiles, and perils in the city, and perils in the wilderness, and perils in the sea, and perils amongst false brethren, weariness, toil, sleepless.
23:24
SPEAKER_02: Often hunger, thirst, fasting is often cold, nakedness.
23:27
SPEAKER_02: All of this over a gospel message?
23:31
SPEAKER_02: All of this over some kind of good news he wants to share with people.
23:38
SPEAKER_02: I mean, you've just got to step back and say, this guy really seems to be dedicated to the message.
23:44
SPEAKER_02: Doesn't that sound like that to you?
23:47
SPEAKER_02: It sounds like he's dedicated.
23:49
SPEAKER_02: I mean, like, really dedicated.
23:53
SPEAKER_02: Like this is a really big deal.
23:56
SPEAKER_02: Like this is the biggest deal in the universe.
23:59
SPEAKER_02: That God has a message for us.
24:02
SPEAKER_02: And I do believe it's a universal message.
24:04
SPEAKER_02: It goes all over the world.
24:06
SPEAKER_02: God so loved the world, it's got to get out to the whole world.
24:09
SPEAKER_02: And you know, we talk about this a lot, that we as a congregation have a passion for the gospel and getting the good news out to the entire globe.
24:19
SPEAKER_02: We want to see every tribe and nation hearing the good news that the Son of God has come.
24:24
SPEAKER_02: Jesus is here.
24:25
SPEAKER_02: Jesus has given his life for us.
24:28
SPEAKER_02: He's risen from the dead.
24:29
SPEAKER_02: God gave up his only begotten Son that if we believe in him, we'll have eternal life.
24:34
SPEAKER_02: We want to get this message out.
24:37
SPEAKER_02: The message is universal, it has to get out.
24:39
SPEAKER_02: It's a big message.
24:40
SPEAKER_02: It's a worldwide kind of message.
24:43
SPEAKER_02: It's intended to transform the whole world.
24:45
SPEAKER_02: Here's the problem: sin ruined everything.
24:49
SPEAKER_02: Sin ruined everything.
24:52
SPEAKER_02: Dude.
24:53
SPEAKER_02: Sin ruined the world.
24:56
SPEAKER_02: Sin ruined us physically, materially, dying.
24:58
SPEAKER_02: It set off the second law of thermodynamics, the entropy.
25:02
SPEAKER_02: I'm growing old.
25:02
SPEAKER_02: I ran into somebody I hadn't seen in ten years.
25:05
SPEAKER_02: Somebody related to Czech, like 10 years ago.
25:07
SPEAKER_02: I couldn't recognize him.
25:08
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, who are you?
25:10
SPEAKER_02: This was Christmas a year ago.
25:12
SPEAKER_02: I saw him, I couldn't even remember who he was.
25:15
SPEAKER_02: He's so aged.
25:17
SPEAKER_02: I'm thinking to myself, I wonder if that's going to happen to me.
25:20
SPEAKER_02: He was probably thinking the same thing I was thinking.
25:22
SPEAKER_02: You know, he's thinking, who are you?
25:23
SPEAKER_02: You know, same thing I was thinking.
25:25
SPEAKER_02: I was like, who are you?
25:25
SPEAKER_02: You know, because why?
25:26
SPEAKER_02: Because we're aging.
25:29
SPEAKER_02: I mean, some of us in here are aging.
25:31
SPEAKER_02: Some of you young people are not as much.
25:33
SPEAKER_02: I know you look pretty good.
25:34
SPEAKER_02: You're 48 years old and you still don't have any wrinkles and things, but you hit 58, it's over.
25:41
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
25:44
SPEAKER_02: Sin came into the world.
25:46
SPEAKER_02: Sin ruined things, guys.
25:48
SPEAKER_02: Physically, biologically, economically, human, animal, you name it, spiritually as well, everything's been affected by the fall.
25:57
SPEAKER_02: It's just a disaster.
25:59
SPEAKER_02: It is a disaster.
26:00
SPEAKER_02: I know we like to mention some of the bad news from time to time because otherwise you're not ready for the good news, but you don't even need to.
26:07
SPEAKER_02: I mean, unbelievers understand this.
26:09
SPEAKER_02: They complain about it all the time, so you don't have to, you know, tell them, oh, by the way, we have aches and pains and we die eventually, and you know, all this.
26:17
SPEAKER_02: They're talking about it non-stop.
26:18
SPEAKER_02: They talk about the bad news all the time.
26:19
SPEAKER_02: Go to Fox News.
26:20
SPEAKER_02: It's nothing but bad news.
26:22
SPEAKER_02: I guess, pretty much, right?
26:25
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
26:26
SPEAKER_02: Have you done the percentage?
26:27
SPEAKER_02: Maybe it's 2% good news.
26:28
SPEAKER_02: I don't know, but it's it's pretty much bad news.
26:31
SPEAKER_02: So do I have to stand up here and tell you the bad news?
26:36
SPEAKER_02: Do I have to go on and on about it?
26:37
SPEAKER_02: No, no.
26:38
SPEAKER_02: We know the bad news.
26:40
SPEAKER_02: It's just, what did God do about it?
26:42
SPEAKER_02: That's the question.
26:43
SPEAKER_02: He came to fix it.
26:45
SPEAKER_02: Now, assuming that God created the world, we messed it up, what's God gonna do?
26:51
SPEAKER_02: Assuming that God is good, God achieves his maximum glory and will achieve maximum good.
26:58
SPEAKER_02: Is he going to say, Uncle, when the devil jumps all over everything?
27:01
SPEAKER_02: Is God gonna give up?
27:03
SPEAKER_02: No, he's going to continue the story.
27:06
SPEAKER_02: The story continues.
27:07
SPEAKER_02: It makes sense, doesn't it?
27:10
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
27:11
SPEAKER_02: I heard a little baby go, yeah.
27:13
SPEAKER_02: Boy, we need that, don't we?
27:14
SPEAKER_02: Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings.
27:16
SPEAKER_02: Let's get the babies in here.
27:19
SPEAKER_02: So this is a comprehensive message.
27:21
SPEAKER_02: It's a core message.
27:23
SPEAKER_02: I like the word core.
27:25
SPEAKER_02: What do I mean by core?
27:27
SPEAKER_02: I mean essential.
27:29
SPEAKER_02: Essential.
27:30
SPEAKER_02: Tying into everything we say.
27:32
SPEAKER_02: Suppose I was lecturing about electricity today, and I didn't mention the electron and the atom.
27:41
SPEAKER_02: What would you say?
27:42
SPEAKER_02: You know, I'm going on and on.
27:44
SPEAKER_02: I've got a 25-part lecture in a university classroom on electrical engineering, electricity 101, and I forget to mention the atom and the electron.
27:53
SPEAKER_02: What would you say?
27:55
SPEAKER_02: Or if I was to lecture on biology, the human body, and I didn't mention the cell.
28:04
SPEAKER_02: What would you say about me?
28:06
SPEAKER_02: If you were the guy in charge of the university, you would say, excuse me, but you forgot something core that's kind of essential.
28:12
SPEAKER_02: It kind of sort of half a ties in, actually totally ties in to every other part of this presentation.
28:19
SPEAKER_02: This entire class.
28:20
SPEAKER_02: If they don't get the electron, if they don't understand the cell, how can you have a class on it?
28:26
SPEAKER_02: It's core.
28:27
SPEAKER_02: It's core to the material.
28:29
SPEAKER_02: And that's, I believe, the point of the gospel.
28:34
SPEAKER_02: It's not just foundational.
28:36
SPEAKER_02: There are foundational truths.
28:37
SPEAKER_02: I want to distinguish between foundational and core for just a moment.
28:40
SPEAKER_02: Foundations are one thing, and that's worldview stuff, I get it, but there are also core truths that have a direct and important and significant tie-in to every other part of the message.
28:52
SPEAKER_02: Now, I'm not saying, what I'm not saying is that this is all there is to the Bible.
28:59
SPEAKER_02: All I'm saying is this is what ties into the rest of it.
29:03
SPEAKER_02: Teach electricity or biology, it's not just the cell, it's not just the atom and the electrons.
29:10
SPEAKER_02: There's a thousand other things to learn about electricity for electronic engineers.
29:15
SPEAKER_02: But if you don't get the core and how the core ties in to all of the other aspects of the subject matter, then you've totally messed everybody up.
29:28
SPEAKER_02: And we're gonna we're gonna pull you as university professor.
29:32
SPEAKER_02: We're just gonna pull you.
29:33
SPEAKER_02: That's it.
29:34
SPEAKER_02: You're out.
29:38
SPEAKER_02: So you can't understand everything else without tying this into all of it.
29:45
SPEAKER_02: Now let's move on to the specific descriptions that are given to the gospel in verses two through four.
29:51
SPEAKER_02: So if you got a couple different descriptive parts of Paul's introduction here concerning the gospel of God.
30:03
SPEAKER_02: And the first thing he says is the gospel of God, which he promised before through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures.
30:09
SPEAKER_02: So, children, this is the first of your five points.
30:12
SPEAKER_02: Five points here describing the gospel.
30:14
SPEAKER_02: The first is it was promised through the prophets in the Holy Scriptures.
30:18
SPEAKER_02: Prophets promised this.
30:20
SPEAKER_02: They gave it to us.
30:22
SPEAKER_02: And this comes all the way over a period of 4,000 years.
30:26
SPEAKER_02: 4,000 years, where God is encouraging his people to believe the promise, all the way back from the seed of Adam, where in Genesis 3 the seed was to come and crush the head of the serpent.
30:38
SPEAKER_02: You remember that?
30:39
SPEAKER_02: And then that's passed on to the seed of Abraham, and then the seed of David, so you have the seed, so it's more specific in some senses.
30:46
SPEAKER_02: You've got Adam and Eve, and then it kind of narrows down into Shem and then into Abraham, and so we have this clue that's gonna come by the seed of Abraham, and then it narrows down even more 400 years later or 800 years later, as the seed of David.
31:01
SPEAKER_02: And so we have these clues throughout Scripture.
31:03
SPEAKER_02: The seed is to come, the seed is to come, the seed will come and crush the head of the serpent.
31:08
SPEAKER_02: God's not gonna just let the serpent, Satan, get his way in the world.
31:14
SPEAKER_02: Isaiah 9 and verse 6, for unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government will be upon his shoulder, and his name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, of the increase of his government and peace, there will be no end, upon the throne of David and over his kingdom to order it, establish it with judgment and justice.
31:35
SPEAKER_02: And probably the most key text of all that really ties in this focus upon the salvation of God coming is Isaiah 25 and verse 9, which I know you've heard these texts before, but Isaiah 25, verse 9, I think brings the major theme of the entire Old Testament to bear.
31:53
SPEAKER_02: Underline it, if you will, because I think it is the key verse of the Old Testament prophesying the coming of the Savior.
32:00
SPEAKER_02: Isaiah 25 and verse 9, behold our God.
32:03
SPEAKER_02: And that's the basis, of course, of this beholding God in every part of our minds, our focus, our attention, always beholding our God.
32:14
SPEAKER_02: So there it is, behold our God.
32:16
SPEAKER_02: But why are we beholding him?
32:17
SPEAKER_02: We have waited for him, and he will save us.
32:23
SPEAKER_02: We are waiting for God, and God will save us.
32:29
SPEAKER_02: So the entire Old Testament is given as a picture of what man cannot do for himself.
32:35
SPEAKER_02: Man cannot save himself, and so God, as it were, raised rolls up his sleeves and says, I'm coming down, I'm gonna get it done, I'm gonna do it.
32:44
SPEAKER_02: God saving us, God personally involved, God coming down to do the work for himself.
32:51
SPEAKER_02: Isaiah 63 brings out the same thing.
32:54
SPEAKER_02: But we have waited for him, and he will save us.
32:58
SPEAKER_02: We have waited for him, we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation.
33:03
SPEAKER_02: And then the next section we find that the Savior is Jesus.
33:07
SPEAKER_02: Children, that's the second point.
33:09
SPEAKER_02: We have a name, we have a person.
33:12
SPEAKER_02: It narrows down.
33:13
SPEAKER_02: We understand exactly who it is.
33:16
SPEAKER_02: Who is this Son of God who will come?
33:20
SPEAKER_02: Who is this Savior who will come?
33:22
SPEAKER_02: God's coming.
33:23
SPEAKER_02: But will it be a man?
33:25
SPEAKER_02: Well, yes, it turns out to be a man, and we have that throughout Scripture.
33:29
SPEAKER_02: We find in the Old Testament that he is to be born of a virgin.
33:33
SPEAKER_02: So we understand that there will be a man to come, but there's also God coming.
33:38
SPEAKER_02: So we receive that in Isaiah 25 and verse 9.
33:40
SPEAKER_02: So it's a both and.
33:42
SPEAKER_02: I think you can see both natures of the Savior in the Old Testament.
33:45
SPEAKER_02: You all agree with me on that?
33:49
SPEAKER_02: Have you picked that up?
33:51
SPEAKER_02: If you didn't have the New Testament and you're just kind of carefully working through it, say, what is the Savior going to be like who's to come, the seed to come?
33:58
SPEAKER_02: Number one, you know he's a man because what he's coming from the womb of the virgin or from the womb of Eve as well.
34:04
SPEAKER_02: We find a sense of a human form, a human seed coming out.
34:09
SPEAKER_02: And then you also see these references in Isaiah 25 and elsewhere that this is God to come.
34:14
SPEAKER_02: God's coming down.
34:15
SPEAKER_02: He's doing this personally, he will be a personal savior.
34:18
SPEAKER_02: And then we get the name Jesus concerning his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
34:24
SPEAKER_02: He is the Son of God.
34:26
SPEAKER_02: He is Jesus, Yahweh saves.
34:28
SPEAKER_02: That's the term.
34:29
SPEAKER_02: And we've gone over that many times.
34:31
SPEAKER_02: Anytime you say the word Jesus, you've got to be thinking to yourself, not just some precious moments, picture of Jesus.
34:41
SPEAKER_02: Please don't think that.
34:43
SPEAKER_02: We get these caricatures.
34:44
SPEAKER_02: You know what I'm saying?
36:57
SPEAKER_02: Has anybody sensed we get caricatures that don't quite fit?
37:03
SPEAKER_02: Everybody notice that?
37:04
SPEAKER_02: Not exactly a precious moments.
37:08
SPEAKER_02: But a little more like Samson coming to slaughter a thousand Philistines.
37:12
SPEAKER_02: That's the picture you get.
37:14
SPEAKER_02: He's coming, he's coming with a vengeance and a mercy.
37:17
SPEAKER_02: And to show mercy and to redeem his people, yes.
37:20
SPEAKER_02: But there is this powerful Yahweh saves Savior that's to come.
37:25
SPEAKER_02: And that's the picture you get throughout the entire Old Testament.
37:28
SPEAKER_02: Jesus, Yahweh saves, to come.
37:32
SPEAKER_02: Next uh defining name for our Lord is Christ.
37:37
SPEAKER_02: Christ implies King.
37:38
SPEAKER_02: What was Christ?
37:39
SPEAKER_02: What is Christ?
37:41
SPEAKER_02: Christ is anointed.
37:43
SPEAKER_02: Who's anointed in the Old Testament?
37:46
SPEAKER_02: Kings are anointed.
37:50
SPEAKER_02: He's anointed to be the king.
37:53
SPEAKER_02: When you see the word Christ, think of king.
37:56
SPEAKER_02: You can also think of the Savior King, the one who is the general riding in the battle, anointed to the task.
38:03
SPEAKER_02: That's fine, but he is king.
38:05
SPEAKER_02: Certainly that is implied in the notation Christ.
38:12
SPEAKER_02: And then it says Jesus Christ, our Lord, our Master, the head of the household of God, our Lord, identifies him with us.
38:24
SPEAKER_01: This is our Savior.
38:25
SPEAKER_01: This is our Jesus.
38:26
SPEAKER_01: This is our Christ.
38:29
SPEAKER_01: Amen?
38:32
SPEAKER_02: Next phrase.
38:33
SPEAKER_02: Let's take this.
38:34
SPEAKER_02: Who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh?
38:39
SPEAKER_02: What is this?
38:40
SPEAKER_02: He was born.
38:42
SPEAKER_02: Flesh and bones, a man like us coming through the birth canal.
38:45
SPEAKER_02: So that's all part of it.
38:47
SPEAKER_02: Of the seed of David.
38:48
SPEAKER_02: Already talked about that a little bit.
38:49
SPEAKER_02: Let's move on to verse 4.
38:51
SPEAKER_02: And he was declared to be the Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead.
38:59
SPEAKER_02: Now, this is key.
39:01
SPEAKER_02: This is core gospel here.
39:03
SPEAKER_02: Paul defines the gospel in 1 Corinthians 15 and a few other places, but almost without exception, of course, without exception, he refers to the resurrection.
39:12
SPEAKER_02: Here he does not refer to the death of Christ, which is interesting.
39:16
SPEAKER_02: It doesn't refer to the death of Christ.
39:18
SPEAKER_02: He doesn't do so in Acts 17 either.
39:21
SPEAKER_02: He goes straight to the resurrection, and there are reasons for this.
39:24
SPEAKER_02: Why is the gospel the resurrection of Jesus?
39:26
SPEAKER_02: Well, it implies the death of Jesus, of course.
39:29
SPEAKER_02: But the resurrection of Jesus is core to the gospel.
39:32
SPEAKER_02: That's why he goes straight to the resurrection.
39:34
SPEAKER_02: Now, this is very essential because before we get into the rest on the gospel throughout the book of Romans, you've got to remember that the gospel is what?
39:42
SPEAKER_02: The death and the resurrection of Jesus.
39:46
SPEAKER_02: That's the gospel.
39:47
SPEAKER_02: So as you read about the gospel, as you hear the word gospel, and we say it a lot, you need to say, Oh, you mean the resurrection of Jesus.
39:58
SPEAKER_02: That's a short way to say it, but you need to be able to cut right to it and say, You mean that Jesus rose from the dead?
40:04
SPEAKER_02: Hallelujah.
40:04
SPEAKER_02: You could add hallelujah too if you want.
40:08
SPEAKER_02: Okay, there are two things in this gospel here.
40:11
SPEAKER_02: The first is that by the resurrection, Jesus was proven to be or declared to be.
40:17
SPEAKER_02: More declared to be, the Son of God.
40:20
SPEAKER_02: That word is somewhat debated among theologians, but I think the best thing to say is he's declared, and Psalm 2 ties directly into it.
40:27
SPEAKER_02: We're going to go there in just a moment.
40:28
SPEAKER_02: Psalm 2 is so important to this.
40:32
SPEAKER_02: But Jesus is proven to be, declared to be the Son of God by the Holy Spirit's seal upon our minds.
40:38
SPEAKER_02: Now he's already the Son of God.
40:40
SPEAKER_02: We know that.
40:42
SPEAKER_02: He's been the Son of God from before creation, before time, into eternity, always been the eternally begotten Son of God.
40:50
SPEAKER_02: But what does it mean to be declared or proclaimed?
40:53
SPEAKER_02: Well, it's for our benefit.
40:55
SPEAKER_02: If there is any doubt, Thomas doubted.
40:59
SPEAKER_02: Evidently, some doubted.
41:01
SPEAKER_02: A lot of them doubted.
41:03
SPEAKER_02: They doubted the resurrection.
41:04
SPEAKER_02: They doubted Jesus was the Son of God.
41:07
SPEAKER_02: They doubted that God would raise Jesus from the dead, despite the prophecies.
41:12
SPEAKER_02: There were some that doubted.
41:13
SPEAKER_02: Apostles, disciples, they were doubting Jesus as a resurrection.
41:18
SPEAKER_02: So we know that.
41:19
SPEAKER_02: Thomas saw the resurrected Jesus.
41:22
SPEAKER_02: And he fell down and worshiped him, said, My Lord and my God.
41:26
SPEAKER_02: Understood it at that point.
41:28
SPEAKER_02: He was slammed with the recognition of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and that Jesus was indeed the Son of God worthy of worship.
41:38
SPEAKER_02: And there wasn't a lot of worship of Jesus prior to his resurrection.
41:44
SPEAKER_02: How many instances?
41:45
SPEAKER_02: Anyone know?
41:47
SPEAKER_02: Maybe two or three times.
41:51
SPEAKER_02: Because I recall the wise men worship, didn't I?
41:55
SPEAKER_02: Children, do the wise men worship Jesus?
42:02
SPEAKER_02: But but here, the resurrection is something to Thomas.
42:08
SPEAKER_02: And I think to all of us.
42:12
SPEAKER_02: Now this important reference to the Son of God in the Old Testament.
42:15
SPEAKER_02: There's several references.
42:17
SPEAKER_02: This stands out above all the others.
42:19
SPEAKER_02: So you want to look at Psalm 2.
42:21
SPEAKER_02: If you want to see, is the Son of God mentioned?
42:24
SPEAKER_02: By the way, the Son of Man is mentioned in the book of Daniel.
42:30
SPEAKER_02: So the Son of Man is in the book of Daniel.
42:34
SPEAKER_02: But where is the Son of God?
42:36
SPEAKER_02: Where is this Son of God?
42:37
SPEAKER_02: Psalm 2, look at it.
42:39
SPEAKER_02: I think it's important for you to actually be there if you can.
42:43
SPEAKER_02: In the Bible, Psalm 2, verse 5.
42:45
SPEAKER_02: The kings of the earth have set themselves against the Lord and against his anointed.
42:49
SPEAKER_02: So they've set themselves against Yahweh and against the anointed of Yahweh, which is the Christ of Yahweh, which is, what do we just say, the Christ of God is the King.
43:03
unknown: Right?
43:03
SPEAKER_02: He's the anointed one.
43:05
SPEAKER_02: So they've set themselves against Christ, the anointed one, the king.
43:10
SPEAKER_02: They've set themselves against the king.
43:12
SPEAKER_02: He that sits in the heavens shall laugh.
43:18
SPEAKER_02: And by the way, this text is precisely the text used in Acts chapter 4.
43:23
SPEAKER_02: So if you say, does this have any implication?
43:27
SPEAKER_02: We're drawing into the immediate circumstance of Jesus' death.
43:30
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
43:32
SPEAKER_02: Acts chapter 4, the apostle says, this is it.
43:34
SPEAKER_02: The kings of the earth, including the Roman Emperor, Pontius Pilate, the rulers, the most powerful rulers in Jerusalem at the time, they had set themselves against the Lord and his anointed.
43:47
SPEAKER_02: So that's what we read in Acts 4.
43:49
SPEAKER_02: So we know for sure this referring to what happened with Jesus and everybody ganging up on Jesus.
43:56
SPEAKER_02: Okay, children, that's what happened at Jesus' crucifixion.
43:59
SPEAKER_02: All these powerful forces, the Romans and the Jews and others, were just ganging up on Jesus.
44:06
SPEAKER_02: We don't know who all was there, but there were quite a few yelling, crucify him, crucify him, and the Romans jumped on board and agreed that this should happen.
44:16
SPEAKER_02: Then in verse 6 of Psalm 2, let's keep going.
44:19
SPEAKER_02: Then he shall speak to them in his wrath and distress them in his deep displeasure.
44:24
SPEAKER_02: Now what does he say?
44:26
SPEAKER_02: What is God saying to these kings?
44:28
SPEAKER_02: What is God saying to Caesar and to these Jewish leaders?
44:33
SPEAKER_02: Here's what he says.
44:45
SPEAKER_02: I have put my son, and he goes on to say, I will declare the decree, the Lord has said to me, You are my son.
44:52
SPEAKER_02: So whatever it is, what we discover here is what?
44:55
SPEAKER_02: Put all the pieces together.
44:56
SPEAKER_02: What are we finding in Psalm 2?
44:57
SPEAKER_02: That the Son of God will be the king.
45:01
SPEAKER_02: He will be the Christ, he will be the anointed one.
45:04
SPEAKER_02: So there's no question at all that Jesus is the one spoken of here, that God has said, You are my son, today I've begotten you.
45:12
SPEAKER_02: Ask of me, I will give you the nations for your inheritance and the ends of the earth for your possession.
45:19
SPEAKER_02: Jesus was humiliated to the greatest degree.
45:22
SPEAKER_02: Nobody's ever humiliated to the extent that Jesus was humiliated, humbled, all the way from the Father in heaven to crucifixion, all the way to the grave.
45:33
SPEAKER_02: But so God had a vested interest in what was going on with his son.
45:36
SPEAKER_02: Remember, this is his son.
45:38
SPEAKER_02: And this is the point that is brought out over and over again: Old Testament, New Testament.
45:43
SPEAKER_02: This is the Son of God.
45:46
SPEAKER_02: This is God's son.
45:47
SPEAKER_02: I have a son.
45:49
SPEAKER_02: I'm concerned for my son.
45:51
SPEAKER_02: I love my son.
45:53
SPEAKER_02: God loves his son.
45:54
SPEAKER_02: He has an eternal, infinite love for his son.
45:57
SPEAKER_02: And three days earlier, the son had prayed.
46:01
SPEAKER_02: This is three days earlier in the upper room, John 17.
46:05
SPEAKER_02: This is what Jesus had prayed to the Father three days earlier.
46:09
SPEAKER_02: When Jesus spoke in these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come.
46:16
SPEAKER_02: Glorify your son, that the son may glorify you.
46:20
SPEAKER_02: There is a vested interest.
46:22
SPEAKER_02: There is a need.
46:23
SPEAKER_02: This is an absolute binding issue with God.
46:28
SPEAKER_02: The Son must be glorified.
46:33
SPEAKER_02: He can't leave his son in humiliation.
46:36
SPEAKER_02: Psalm 22, you will not leave my soul in shale, nor will you allow your holy one to seek corruption.
46:42
SPEAKER_02: And this specifically applies to Jesus.
46:44
SPEAKER_02: See, there is this humiliation, then this need for exaltation, for glorification.
46:50
SPEAKER_02: The resurrection means that there will be an end, a success, a victory, a glory, an honor, a life.
46:59
SPEAKER_02: We've used this analogy before.
47:01
SPEAKER_02: You don't just leave Snow White dead.
47:05
SPEAKER_02: And then you say goodnight, kids.
47:07
SPEAKER_02: That's your story for tonight.
47:10
SPEAKER_02: Snow White died.
47:11
SPEAKER_02: Have a good sleep.
47:13
SPEAKER_02: Nobody says that.
47:15
SPEAKER_02: At least to your children.
47:17
SPEAKER_02: You know, you're going to say, well, what happened after that?
47:19
SPEAKER_02: Well, there was a resurrection.
47:23
SPEAKER_02: There is a good ending to the story.
47:27
SPEAKER_02: So there is success, there's victory, there's honor in life.
47:30
SPEAKER_02: There's this ruling over everything, a kingdom, our relationship with God and Jesus.
47:35
SPEAKER_02: Jesus and our justification and sanctification and glorification, everything for us.
47:39
SPEAKER_02: This is what has to happen.
47:41
SPEAKER_02: It has to happen this way.
47:43
SPEAKER_02: It cannot but happen this way.
47:46
SPEAKER_02: And without a resurrection, there is no good news.
47:51
SPEAKER_02: It would be irrational not to believe that God would raise his son from the dead.
47:56
SPEAKER_02: It would be irrational.
47:58
SPEAKER_02: You would never believe that.
47:59
SPEAKER_02: You could never believe that.
48:01
SPEAKER_02: That God would see his son crucified and leave him there to corrupt.
48:04
SPEAKER_02: It counters every purpose, every promise.
48:07
SPEAKER_02: It counters every aspect of God's nature we know about, every ounce of whoever God is, this counters it.
48:14
SPEAKER_02: This will be against it.
48:15
SPEAKER_02: He's got to raise his son from the dead.
48:18
SPEAKER_02: Period.
48:22
SPEAKER_02: Philippians 2 brings the same thing out.
48:25
SPEAKER_02: It's the same pattern.
48:27
SPEAKER_02: Follow it through.
48:28
SPEAKER_02: Christ is humbled, suffers even to the death of the cross, and so forth.
48:34
SPEAKER_02: But then we find in verse 9, therefore, therefore, it follows.
48:40
SPEAKER_02: Therefore, given that he's humbled to this degree, to the death of the cross, to the burial, what will happen next, therefore, this absolutely must happen that God has highly exalted him and given a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, those on earth, and of those under the earth.
49:04
SPEAKER_01: It's got to be this way.
49:06
SPEAKER_01: It's got to be this way.
49:07
SPEAKER_01: There's no other way.
49:08
SPEAKER_02: If God is God and you believe in God, now atheists, I get it, they don't believe any of that.
49:15
SPEAKER_02: But if God is God and God is good and you believe in God, this is the way it goes.
49:21
SPEAKER_02: He raises his son from the dead.
49:25
SPEAKER_02: He declares the decree.
49:27
SPEAKER_02: The resurrection makes the point.
49:29
SPEAKER_02: That's my son.
49:30
SPEAKER_02: This day I've begotten him.
49:32
SPEAKER_02: This is my son.
49:34
SPEAKER_02: That's my son.
49:35
SPEAKER_02: Not dead in the grave, on the throne.
49:38
SPEAKER_02: Calling the nations to bow the knee to Jesus here or later, either way, but they will bow the knee.
49:47
SPEAKER_02: Jesus, given a name above every name.
49:51
SPEAKER_02: Now sitting far above all principality and power in every name that is named.
49:57
SPEAKER_02: Jesus said, All power is given me on heaven and earth after his resurrection.
50:03
SPEAKER_02: Didn't say that before his resurrection, but now he's resurrected.
50:06
SPEAKER_02: Now he's in a state of glorification and exaltation.
50:09
SPEAKER_02: Now he's being raised up to the right hand of the Father on high.
50:11
SPEAKER_02: What does he say?
50:12
SPEAKER_02: He says, All power is given to me in heaven and in earth.
50:16
SPEAKER_02: Doesn't matter.
50:17
SPEAKER_02: Demonic, spiritual, physical, governmental, doesn't matter.
50:22
SPEAKER_02: All power has given to Jesus above all things.
50:27
SPEAKER_02: Children, this is what happens.
50:29
SPEAKER_02: The Son of God comes all the way down here, humiliated to the cross, descending to the grave, down, down he goes.
50:36
SPEAKER_02: Now what do you think is going to happen next?
50:38
SPEAKER_02: If he is the Son of God, if God loves his son, if God has the power to raise him from the dead, if God has prophesied the exaltation, the resurrection, the kingdom, the church, etc.
50:53
SPEAKER_02: Okay, there you are on the second day.
50:56
SPEAKER_02: There you are on Saturday.
50:58
SPEAKER_02: Hasn't been resurrected yet.
50:59
SPEAKER_02: Jesus is in the grave.
51:00
SPEAKER_02: What do you think is going to happen next?
51:03
SPEAKER_02: What do you think is going to happen next?
51:06
SPEAKER_02: Saturday, what do you think is going to happen next?
51:14
SPEAKER_02: Resurrection.
51:17
SPEAKER_02: Obviously.
51:18
SPEAKER_02: Resurrection.
51:22
SPEAKER_02: Now, this is the good news of God.
51:25
SPEAKER_02: And this all explodes into our consciousness by the explosive power of God.
51:30
SPEAKER_02: And that's the point made here in verse 4.
51:31
SPEAKER_02: He's declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection of the dead.
51:40
SPEAKER_02: The resurrection, on the one hand, is an exhibition of the power of God.
51:44
SPEAKER_02: But the grammar is better said this way: the resurrection of Jesus Christ makes for an extremely powerful, overwhelming, stunning declaration and certification that this was the very Son of God who died and rose again.
51:57
SPEAKER_02: Remember, the Roman centurion said, this must have been the Son of God at his death.
52:03
SPEAKER_02: Well, at the resurrection, every single person on planet Earth has got to say it.
52:08
SPEAKER_02: This was the Son of God.
52:10
SPEAKER_02: And that's the point of this.
52:12
SPEAKER_01: That it is an overwhelming, mind-blowing, stunning declaration of this one being God's son.
52:26
SPEAKER_02: Now I want to point out that to create life takes a lot of power.
52:36
SPEAKER_02: Does everybody agree with that?
52:40
SPEAKER_02: Go make a mouse, kids.
52:41
SPEAKER_02: Make a mouse.
52:44
SPEAKER_02: Here, take a little piece of this paper here.
52:47
SPEAKER_02: Go make a mouse for me.
52:48
SPEAKER_02: You can make a mouse and there's a piece of paper.
52:51
SPEAKER_02: Take a little bit of power to do that.
52:54
SPEAKER_01: You can make a mouse and a piece of paper.
52:58
SPEAKER_01: Takes power to make life.
53:00
SPEAKER_01: We know that.
53:01
SPEAKER_02: We see around us the magnificent wisdom and power of God in all the creation.
53:08
SPEAKER_02: We see this, but here's my question: is how much power would it take to resurrect something that's already died?
53:18
SPEAKER_02: Not to create it all anew.
53:21
SPEAKER_02: I'm talking about resurrecting something that's already died.
53:26
SPEAKER_02: It's a recreation.
53:28
SPEAKER_02: It's a resurrection.
53:30
SPEAKER_02: It's a life, but it's a new kind of life.
53:33
SPEAKER_02: It's an eternal life.
53:34
SPEAKER_02: A life that can never be taken away.
53:36
SPEAKER_02: This is not a Lazarus resuscitation.
53:39
SPEAKER_02: See, a lot of us think back to Lazarus.
53:41
SPEAKER_02: We say, yeah, but Lazarus, that's a resurrection.
53:44
SPEAKER_02: No, it's not.
53:44
SPEAKER_02: It's a resuscitation.
53:45
SPEAKER_02: Lazarus dies again.
53:52
SPEAKER_02: This is infinitely more than that.
53:54
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I'm impressed with Lazarus.
53:56
SPEAKER_02: I am.
53:57
SPEAKER_02: We all should be impressed with Lazarus, but what you get with Jesus is the first of a new creation, a recreation, a restoration of perfection for all eternity.
54:08
SPEAKER_02: It's really an extraordinary thing.
54:11
SPEAKER_02: And it all happens by the recreation and a resurrection of the body-soul of the humanity of Jesus.
54:18
SPEAKER_02: That's where it begins, the first fruits of those who rose from the dead.
54:22
SPEAKER_02: This is a powerful thing.
54:23
SPEAKER_02: It's a massively powerful thing.
54:25
SPEAKER_02: It's the most powerful thing in the whole universe.
54:27
SPEAKER_02: It's bigger than making galaxies, it's bigger than everything.
54:32
SPEAKER_01: It's power.
54:34
SPEAKER_01: It's God's power.
54:38
SPEAKER_02: And I have to point out Ephesians 1, Paul's prayer, one more time.
54:42
SPEAKER_02: I know we've gone here probably three times in the last number of years, but let's go back there one more time because Paul prays for the Ephesian church.
54:50
SPEAKER_02: This is just basic prayer.
54:51
SPEAKER_02: This is powerful prayer.
54:53
SPEAKER_02: This is the kind of power that we need.
54:56
SPEAKER_02: If our church doesn't represent a supernatural, transformational power of the living God, we're just another cult.
55:04
SPEAKER_02: We're just another cult.
55:06
SPEAKER_02: There's a lot of those out there.
55:09
SPEAKER_02: But what we're looking for is the power of God in you, in me, the life of God, the power of God in us.
55:21
SPEAKER_02: That's the message of the gospel.
55:23
SPEAKER_02: And it's the message here of the apostles' prayer.
55:26
SPEAKER_02: He says that you would see it, that you'd know it, that you would know, not the cultic stuff, but that you would know the exceeding greatness of his power toward us who believe.
55:38
SPEAKER_02: According to the working of his mighty power, which he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his own right hand in heavenly places.
55:47
SPEAKER_02: Now, you probably don't know Greek, but I'm going to read the Greek to you because I think you're going to get a little bit of the Paul pump here.
55:56
SPEAKER_01: Now listen to it.
55:57
SPEAKER_01: That you will know the hyperballon, megathos dunamis.
56:06
SPEAKER_01: You want me to say that one more time?
56:07
SPEAKER_01: That you would know the hyperbolic, megathos dunamis of God in you.
56:19
SPEAKER_02: You don't know Greek, do you?
56:20
SPEAKER_02: Is that good enough for you?
56:22
SPEAKER_02: The hyperbolic, mega, mega dynamite of Almighty God working in you?
56:29
SPEAKER_02: In me?
56:33
SPEAKER_01: And you know it.
56:34
SPEAKER_01: You'd experience it.
56:40
SPEAKER_02: There's nothing in the universe like the power of God working.
56:45
SPEAKER_02: Compare it with the power of man.
56:46
SPEAKER_02: I mean, you know, man tries to do things, you know, try to motivate people, try to, you know, get people in a room, and we we give them a real exciting message, and this powerful message.
56:57
SPEAKER_02: Pastor, that's so powerful, amazing.
56:59
SPEAKER_02: You're amazing.
57:00
SPEAKER_02: Um, governments, trillions of dollars in educational institutions trying to transform life on planet Earth.
57:08
SPEAKER_02: I mean, you guys know powers, militaries.
57:11
SPEAKER_02: You have these large earth movers that kind of move Earth and they're able to.
57:15
SPEAKER_02: You ever seen boys, some of these big things, they can move like a hundred thousand tons of dirt all at once.
57:23
SPEAKER_02: Just phenomenal.
57:24
SPEAKER_02: Power.
57:24
SPEAKER_02: I mean, we've seen power, we know power, we we've we're familiar with power.
57:28
SPEAKER_02: It does things, it accomplishes things.
57:31
SPEAKER_02: We might even attempt a restoration or a kind of redemption or improvement of life.
57:34
SPEAKER_02: I mean, governments are trying to do this all the time.
57:37
SPEAKER_02: But compare what with you know five trillion dollars, is that the U.S.
57:42
SPEAKER_02: budget?
57:43
SPEAKER_02: Whatever it is,$13 trillion of world budgets to one person being raised from the dead.
57:55
SPEAKER_02: Think about the$20 trillion put into medical improvements, medical technologies.
58:01
SPEAKER_02: $20 trillion.
58:04
SPEAKER_02: The President of the United States directing$20 trillion to changing life on planet Earth.
58:10
SPEAKER_02: Jesus walks in and raises one man from the dead.
58:13
SPEAKER_02: Compare that, just for a moment, compare that.
58:15
SPEAKER_02: You tell me which is more powerful.
58:18
SPEAKER_02: Which is more powerful.
58:22
SPEAKER_02: Compare all the budgets of every government in the world to what happened here, where Jesus Christ raised from the dead, the mangled, bloody, tortured, crucified body of a dead man, the Son of God raised from the dead such that he will never die again.
58:40
SPEAKER_01: And he enters into a state of exaltation to rule forever and ever.
58:46
SPEAKER_01: Power.
58:47
SPEAKER_01: Power.
58:48
SPEAKER_01: That's power, that's supernatural, God-sized power.
58:54
SPEAKER_02: And brothers and sisters, that's what we need.
58:57
SPEAKER_02: We need to know it, we need to experience it, we need to pray to God for it, and we can settle for nothing less, amen.
59:07
SPEAKER_02: Nothing less than the power of God in you and me.
59:15
SPEAKER_02: It's the power of God unto selfish to those who believe.
59:20
SPEAKER_02: Well, I'm just drawing an application at the end here, just quickly.
59:25
SPEAKER_02: What would the best news in the universe look like?
59:27
SPEAKER_02: It would look just like that.
59:30
SPEAKER_02: You will never die again, ever.
59:33
SPEAKER_02: You will never be so subjected to any evil anywhere in all eternity where you will be hurt, or you will be risking death, or you will die ever again.
59:44
SPEAKER_02: Everlasting life, eternal life, nothing better.
59:47
SPEAKER_02: Now, why do people doubt this?
59:51
SPEAKER_02: I don't know, is there somebody in here doubting right now?
59:57
SPEAKER_02: Is there anybody doubting?
59:58
SPEAKER_02: I wonder.
1:00:01
SPEAKER_02: Why do people doubt it?
1:00:04
SPEAKER_02: Fundamentally, people doubt because they're somewhat atheistic at heart.
1:00:09
SPEAKER_02: Because follow the logic here.
1:00:11
SPEAKER_02: If God exists, God exists.
1:00:15
SPEAKER_02: God the source of all things, God overall, God all-powerful.
1:00:19
SPEAKER_02: If God exists, if God is all-powerful, all good and all-wise, we say all-wise as well, because there is this evil that comes into the world that God overcomes to his ultimate good and glory.
1:00:31
SPEAKER_02: So we say that God is wise in order to bring everything to the ultimate good, despite it taking some detours at times.
1:00:38
SPEAKER_02: God can bring that about.
1:00:40
SPEAKER_02: But if God is all good and all-wise and all-powerful, if God is God, what I'm saying, then this must happen.
1:00:48
SPEAKER_02: If God is God, then there's no two ways about it.
1:00:51
SPEAKER_02: It's got to happen.
1:00:52
SPEAKER_02: So if you're not believing this morning in the resurrection, you need to believe in God.
1:00:59
SPEAKER_02: We have to repent of any kind of atheistic doubts concerning God.
1:01:03
SPEAKER_02: We can't allow for that.
1:01:04
SPEAKER_02: God is God.
1:01:05
SPEAKER_02: God is over all, God is the source of all truth.
1:01:08
SPEAKER_02: God is perfectly good, ultimately good, infinitely good.
1:01:13
SPEAKER_01: But we're left with this question.
1:01:16
SPEAKER_01: Is God that good?
1:01:22
SPEAKER_01: I think that's the issue a lot of people grapple with.
1:01:25
SPEAKER_02: But could God be this good?
1:01:27
SPEAKER_02: Could God be this powerful?
1:01:30
SPEAKER_02: Is God's goodness as big as his power?
1:01:32
SPEAKER_02: You know about his power, you've seen the universe.
1:01:34
SPEAKER_02: You step out into an ocean, you see the vastness of an ocean.
1:01:38
SPEAKER_02: You see the power of the galaxies.
1:01:41
SPEAKER_02: You've seen the pictures of this.
1:01:42
SPEAKER_02: You know how much power it takes to create that amount of power and that amount of mass in the earth and the universe.
1:01:50
SPEAKER_02: And you say, is God's love as deep as the ocean?
1:01:53
SPEAKER_02: Is God's goodness as big as the universe itself?
1:01:57
SPEAKER_02: Could it be?
1:01:58
SPEAKER_02: That God is that good?
1:01:59
SPEAKER_02: Yes, he is.
1:02:00
SPEAKER_02: He is that good.
1:02:02
SPEAKER_02: God is that powerful.
1:02:07
SPEAKER_02: So why the fall?
1:02:09
SPEAKER_02: Why did Eve fall at the beginning?
1:02:11
SPEAKER_02: She doubted the goodness of God.
1:02:15
SPEAKER_02: She didn't think God was that good.
1:02:17
SPEAKER_02: And Satan says, I've got something gooder for you.
1:02:24
SPEAKER_02: God knew that.
1:02:25
SPEAKER_02: And he didn't let you.
1:02:28
SPEAKER_02: Eve doubted the goodness of God.
1:02:30
SPEAKER_02: Why don't people believe?
1:02:31
SPEAKER_02: I think fundamentally, there may be lots of reasons, but they don't believe that God is good.
1:02:36
SPEAKER_02: Or that God is this good.
1:02:41
SPEAKER_02: They doubt the gift.
1:02:44
SPEAKER_02: But brothers and sisters, this is our gospel.
1:02:46
SPEAKER_02: This is God's gospel.
1:02:48
SPEAKER_02: This gospel is as big as God.
1:02:50
SPEAKER_02: This good news is as big as God's goodness.
1:02:54
SPEAKER_02: Pinch yourself.
1:02:55
SPEAKER_02: Jesus is alive.
1:02:58
SPEAKER_02: This is real.
1:02:59
SPEAKER_02: This stuff is real.
1:03:00
SPEAKER_02: You're waking up to the realization that Jesus did die on the cross.
1:03:04
SPEAKER_02: For our sins rose again the third day.
1:03:06
SPEAKER_02: God succeeded.
1:03:07
SPEAKER_02: God won.
1:03:07
SPEAKER_02: Pinch yourself.
1:03:08
SPEAKER_02: Wake up to the reality.
1:03:12
SPEAKER_02: Come alive to the truth.
1:03:14
SPEAKER_02: And children, as I say at the end of your notes, why is this good news for us?
1:03:20
SPEAKER_01: Because he brings us life, eternal life.
1:03:25
SPEAKER_02: The results of the good news, verses 5 and 6, through him we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all nations, for his sin name, among whom you also are the called of Jesus Christ.
1:03:36
SPEAKER_02: That is the powerful grace of God, has swept over us, produced the obedience of faith among all the nations of the world.
1:03:42
SPEAKER_02: It's transformational.
1:03:43
SPEAKER_02: Real faith in all of this empowers us by the grace of God and produces obedience to his commands.
1:03:52
SPEAKER_02: And that's the miracle of it.
1:03:54
SPEAKER_02: The most amazing miracle of it that we are experiencing right now is that those of us who are disobedient are now obedient.
1:04:04
SPEAKER_01: Is it that simple?
1:04:05
SPEAKER_01: Is it that powerful?
1:04:07
SPEAKER_01: Whereas before we were rebels, now we are servants of Jesus Christ.
1:04:11
SPEAKER_01: And we have turned the other direction with Paul and we said, Lord, what would you have me to do?
1:04:18
SPEAKER_01: That's power.
1:04:20
SPEAKER_01: He was heading out to kill Jesus.
1:04:23
SPEAKER_01: He was out to arrest Jesus.
1:04:25
SPEAKER_02: Jesus arrested him.
1:04:27
SPEAKER_01: And he became the bondslave of Jesus Christ, the Lord of Lords and the King of kings.
1:04:34
SPEAKER_01: That's power.
1:04:36
SPEAKER_01: That's infinite power.
1:04:38
SPEAKER_01: Working life in the Apostle Paul and us too as well.
1:04:43
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
1:04:44
SPEAKER_01: Father God, we thank you for these great words, the great gospel of our God and our Savior.
1:04:50
SPEAKER_01: Oh, it's a great gospel.
1:04:52
SPEAKER_01: It's good news.
1:04:54
SPEAKER_01: Father, we pray you'd meld it into our hearts.
1:04:58
SPEAKER_01: Oh, that we'd respond now as we sing Jesus saves with that strong sense that Jesus has come, Jesus is risen, Jesus is our Savior, and we live too in Him.
1:05:12
SPEAKER_01: And we've experienced that transformational power of God in ourselves.
1:05:17
SPEAKER_01: Father, I pray, oh God, I pray for more power, God-sized power, working in us, in me.
1:05:28
SPEAKER_02: That I know it, that I experience it, that we see it on our church, and we see it with others coming into this building, transformed by the powerful life and the gospel of Jesus.
1:05:41
SPEAKER_02: In his name we pray, amen.
1:05:44
SPEAKER_02: It's time to come to fellowship with Jesus to remember his death and endless life.
1:05:54
SPEAKER_02: Now the gospel is most definitely that Jesus died on the cross for our sins and rose again from the dead.
1:06:00
SPEAKER_02: Both.
1:06:01
SPEAKER_02: We've seen the gloriousness of his resurrection in the gospel, but now we're coming back to his death.
1:06:06
SPEAKER_02: It was appropriate for us to come back to his death and remember or focus in upon that dark day.
1:06:12
SPEAKER_02: It was a dark day.
1:06:14
SPEAKER_02: Is it appropriate for us to think not just on his resurrection, but also on his death?
1:06:19
SPEAKER_02: And brothers and sisters, I say it is, because we have been instructed to remember his death till he comes.
1:06:26
SPEAKER_02: That's what he told us to do.
1:06:28
SPEAKER_02: So his death is predicated, his resurrection is predicated upon his death.
1:06:33
SPEAKER_02: It's appropriate for us to go down as we come up with him.
1:06:37
SPEAKER_02: We identify with him, we believe in him, and we associate with him in his death and resurrection.
1:06:44
SPEAKER_02: So it's just identifying with his death and resurrection, both and.
1:06:50
SPEAKER_02: So I believe that God wants us to feel or to identify with the weight of his suffering somewhat, to look at it, to watch it, to understand something about it, as well as the weight of his glory and his wonderful resurrection and his rule.
1:07:07
SPEAKER_02: And so we have two hymns.
1:07:08
SPEAKER_02: We sing stricken, smitten, and afflicted, see him dying on the cross, as well as Christ my Lord is risen today.
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SPEAKER_02: So you see, we have both and.
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SPEAKER_02: And we we focus in on, we meditate in upon his death as well as his resurrection, both and.
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SPEAKER_02: So today we linger upon Calvary, remember the darkness and the cries, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
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SPEAKER_02: We watch him move into Jerusalem, then to his trial, and then on into the beatings, and then on to his crucifixion at Calvary, and then down into the grave.
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SPEAKER_02: And for you and for me, each of these, for us.
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SPEAKER_02: Was he whipped?
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SPEAKER_02: Was he beaten for us?
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SPEAKER_02: Yes.
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SPEAKER_02: That through his stripes we might be healed.
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SPEAKER_02: Was he condemned, though innocent, that we might be acquitted at the judgment bar of God?
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SPEAKER_02: That God would find us not guilty.
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SPEAKER_02: Did he wear a crown of thorns?
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SPEAKER_02: Children?
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SPEAKER_02: Yes, it was that we might one day wear a crown of glory.
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SPEAKER_02: Was he stripped of his clothing?
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SPEAKER_02: Yes.
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SPEAKER_02: That we might be clothed in the everlasting righteousness of Christ.
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SPEAKER_02: Was he mocked and reviled?
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SPEAKER_02: It was that we might be honored and blessed.
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SPEAKER_02: Was he declared unable to save himself?
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SPEAKER_02: Yes.
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SPEAKER_02: But why?
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SPEAKER_02: He saved others.
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SPEAKER_02: He saved us.
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SPEAKER_02: He was saving us.
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SPEAKER_02: That's why he didn't save himself.
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SPEAKER_02: He was he was saving us to the uttermost that come to him by faith.
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SPEAKER_02: Did he die at last?
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SPEAKER_02: The most painful and agonizing and disgraceful death was that we might live forevermore and be exalted to the highest glory.
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SPEAKER_01: I borrowed these from JC Ryle, but I thought they were so good.
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SPEAKER_01: For us.
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SPEAKER_01: For us.
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SPEAKER_01: He went through the bad stuff that we would get the good stuff.
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SPEAKER_01: That's it.
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SPEAKER_02: Children?
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SPEAKER_02: Jesus suffered so much that it would go well with us.
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SPEAKER_02: So today, just a little word about approaching the table.
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SPEAKER_02: Do so with love for one another, love for Jesus.
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SPEAKER_02: Unity, of course, with the saints.
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SPEAKER_02: If you've been baptized and you're in accountability with the church, you're welcome to take take the tape.
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SPEAKER_02: But the sentiments that we come to the table with, I think, is this deep wonder.
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SPEAKER_02: Deep wonder.
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SPEAKER_02: Just to meditate on these things.
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SPEAKER_02: Don't don't pass over them so quickly.
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SPEAKER_02: Meditate on these things.
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SPEAKER_02: Deep wonder.
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SPEAKER_02: Humility, certainly.
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SPEAKER_02: Humility in the face of humiliation.
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SPEAKER_02: Remember, we're identifying.
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SPEAKER_02: We're there.
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SPEAKER_02: We're remembering each aspect of Christ's death on the cross for us.
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SPEAKER_02: So humility is certainly in the presence of such humiliation.
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SPEAKER_02: Love for Jesus in the presence of such love.
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SPEAKER_02: He's looking down upon us and saying, I'm doing this for love.
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SPEAKER_02: Because I love you.
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SPEAKER_02: And then we hear those words and we say, I love you too.
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SPEAKER_02: You see, it's it's love in response to love.
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SPEAKER_02: It's humility in response to humiliation.
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SPEAKER_02: It's gratitude in the presence of grace.
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SPEAKER_02: That's what it is.
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SPEAKER_02: So let's let's come to the table in that mindset.
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SPEAKER_02: Father in heaven.
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SPEAKER_02: Oh God, it's grace.
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SPEAKER_02: We come with gratitude.
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SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Jesus.
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SPEAKER_02: You took it all for us.
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SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Jesus.
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SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Jesus.
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SPEAKER_02: We come with humility.
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SPEAKER_02: Oh God, that's it would have been us, it should have been us.
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SPEAKER_02: But it was Him instead.
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SPEAKER_01: Gratitude, wonder, awe.
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SPEAKER_01: Such love, such grace, such power, such intentionality to get us our salvation for us.
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SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Jesus, for this.
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SPEAKER_02: This has been a production of the Generations Media Network.
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SPEAKER_02: For more information, go to generations.org slash media.