Understanding Grace: A Deep Dive into 2 Corinthians Chapter 6 - Sunday Morning - September 29, 2024
Pastor Josh from Middletown Baptist Church delivers a powerful message on the importance of understanding and living in God's grace. The sermon draws from 2 Corinthians Chapter 6, emphasizing the privilege of serving as ambassadors for Christ and the dangers of receiving God's grace in vain. He reminds listeners that as believers, their lives should be a testament to the transformative power of grace, urging them to focus on the gospel message with urgency and persistence. Pastor Josh stresses that God's grace is a gift that should not be taken lightly or treated as an entitlement but rather acknowledged as the foundation of salvation, sanctification, and service. Reflecting on personal experiences and biblical teachings, he encourages the congregation to be active participants in God's work, reminding them that today is the day of salvation and the time to live out their faith with purpose and passion.
Pastor Josh of Middletown Baptist Church delivers a compelling sermon focusing on the profound concept of grace as detailed in 2 Corinthians, Chapter 6. He explores the role of Christians as ambassadors for Christ, emphasizing the privilege and responsibility of spreading the gospel. By dissecting the biblical text, Pastor Josh illustrates how believers are called to live a life that reflects the grace they have received. He warns against receiving God’s grace in vain, encouraging the congregation to embrace their role with passion and persistence. This sermon challenges listeners to evaluate their own lives, urging them to act with urgency in sharing the message of salvation with others.
Takeaways:
- The podcast emphasizes the role of Christians as ambassadors for Christ, representing His message and grace to the world.
- Pastor Josh highlights the importance of understanding the depth of God's grace in our lives.
- Serving God should be seen as a privilege and not just an obligation or inconvenience.
- The podcast encourages believers to live in light of God's grace daily, not just on Sundays.
- Paul's message in Corinthians urges Christians to not receive God's grace in vain but to act on it.
- Pastor Josh calls for persistent proclamation of the gospel, emphasizing the urgency of salvation.
Links referenced in this episode:
00:00 - None
00:00 - Welcome to the Middletown Baptist Church Podcast
00:06 - Introduction by Pastor Josh
00:23 - Sermon Series on 2 Corinthians 6
00:36 - Ambassadors for Christ
01:20 - Application of Grace in Daily Life
03:34 - Understanding God's Grace
06:14 - The Power and Urgency of the Gospel
18:07 - Prayer and Reflection
23:13 - The Privilege of Serving with Christ
41:13 - Closing Remarks and Invitation
43:37 - Final Blessings and Contact Information
Pastor Josh
Hello and welcome to the Middletown Baptist Church podcast, where we are proclaiming the truth to the world.
Pastor Josh
My name is Pastor Josh and I want to thank you for listening to this podcast.
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I hope that this podcast can be a blessing to you and strengthen you in the word of God.
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Now come along.
Pastor Josh
Let's look into the Bible and see what God has for us here today.
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If you have your bibles, we're going to pick up in our sermon series in two Corinthians, chapter six.
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Second Corinthians, chapter six.
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We're going to look at verses one and two here this morning, and the last time we were in two Corinthians.
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I know it's been a few weeks, we ended chapter five and we looked at how we are called to be ambassadors for Christ, and we looked at what that means to be an ambassador for Jesus Christ, which means I'm his representative.
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He has entrusted me with a ministry.
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We're to go represent Jesus in a world that is dark.
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We're to represent his love.
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We're to represent his forgiveness.
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We're to represent the gospel.
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We're to represent his grace.
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But to represent his grace, we must understand the depths of the grace that he has extended to us.
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And so for a believer, we looked at how, as an ambassador, we have a ministry, we have a purpose, and we have a message in that purpose.
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And that message is the message of the gospel.
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Two Corinthians chapter five called it the message of reconciliation, which means this.
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We have a message that people can accept and believe in and they can be reconciled to God.
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It's not just a message about making your life better.
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It's not just a message about getting out of your struggles.
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It's a message about being an enemy of goddess and then knowing his grace and coming to him in faith and understanding that I can now be a child of the king.
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That is the message of the gospel.
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And as ambassadors for Christ, as messengers of this gospel, we are called to proclaim that truth to a world by the way that we live, by the way that we talk.
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To be an ambassador means that it's not about our message anymore.
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It's about the message of the one who is sending us our king.
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It's not about living for ourselves anymore.
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It's about living for him.
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And so chapter six begins with reminding us who we are working for and what we are working with.
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I want you to see here this morning that there is a perspective when it comes to our life.
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There is a perspective that should be a gospel centric grace focused perspective, because our perspective matters.
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Because often we're tempted to lose sight of what we have in a relationship with Christ.
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Sometimes we're tempted, because of the distractions of this world, to lose focus on what he has done for us in his grace.
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And we lose sight of his grace, and therefore, we're tempted to live for ourselves.
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And so these first few verses here in chapter six challenge us with two main thoughts.
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Number one, the privilege of working for the Lord.
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And then number two, the dangers of losing that perspective.
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And so let's look at these verses here this morning.
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Verse number one says this.
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We then.
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Now he's saying, we then talking about what we've just talked about, being an ambassador, having a ministry, having a message.
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He says, we then, as workers or laborers, together with him.
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Now, who's him?
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He's talking about Christ.
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He's talking about the Lord.
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He says, we get to work together with him.
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Now, I know that sometimes a christian cliche, but we're going to dive deeper into what it means to be on the team of Jesus Christ, what it means to have our victory in Jesus.
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And he says, though we work with him, we also need to, as it says here, beseech or plead you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain.
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We're gonna dive into a topic here this morning about how we, as the church, can receive the grace of God in vain, something that we don't wanna do.
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This is the warning, don't receive the grace of God in vain.
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Verse two.
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For he saith, I have heard thee, in a time accepted.
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And in the day of salvation, I have succoured thee, behold, now is the accepted time.
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Behold, now is the day of salvation.
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We're gonna look here this morning about what it means to be on Jesus team, what it means to be working with him in this ministry, what it means to have that grace filled perspective.
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You know, I don't know if any of you have been a part of a team in your life.
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Maybe it's sports or maybe it's a workplace, but being a part of a team is a unique experience because we can't do all the work ourselves.
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You know, there have been some instances, probably throughout history where one sports team had one player who could carry them.
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But for the long haul, on a very high level, that's not going to happen.
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There needs to be support.
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There needs to be workers.
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They need to work together.
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I had an opportunity to go to a football game here recently, and it was unique to watch the players out on the field.
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They're doing all the work.
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There's guys on the sideline whose clothes are completely clean.
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They're not doing anything.
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They're sitting there.
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These guys didn't even have their helmet with them.
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One guy was walking around.
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He never had his helmet.
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One time with him, I guess he knew he wasn't going in the game.
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Okay, I couldn't find his helmet.
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He was walking around.
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And the truth is, at the end of the game, when they won, guess who celebrated?
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They all got to celebrate.
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They all had a role in that victory, whether they were on the field or not.
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Now, you could say, well, what does that look like?
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Well, maybe they were helping in practice.
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Maybe they were encouraging.
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But the Bible says that we are on a team, and he says we are working together with him.
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Now really the star of our team, the captain of our team, the one who is winning us the victory, is Jesus Christ.
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Without Jesus, we are all vain.
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Without Jesus, we are all empty.
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Without Jesus, we are all lost.
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But sometimes what happens is we are tempted to know the grace of God, but receive it in vain and therefore work in our own stead, work in our own power, work in our own wisdom, and try to work together in our own strengthen.
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What happens with that?
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Well, when we remove Jesus Christ from the equation, it says here in verse number one that we receive the grace of God in vain.
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And so this morning, I want us to look at what it means to go in God's grace.
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We're going to go ahead and pray, and then we're going to jump right into our main thoughts here this morning.
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Lord, I pray that you be with us as we look into your word.
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I pray that we can understand the depths of your grace, that we can understand what it means to experience your grace in our life and therefore rest in that grace and that grace alone for our salvation, our sanctification and our service.
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Lord, I pray that we as believers this morning, can truly believe in what your grace means for us and live in that day of salvation.
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Live in that confidence, live in that perspective that you have blessed us with in our lives.
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Lord, I pray that we can live in light of that, not just on Sunday mornings, but also in our daily walk on Mondays and Fridays and all throughout our week, through the ups and through the downs.
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Help us to keep our eyes fixed on your grace in our lives.
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Lord, we thank you for your love.
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We thank.
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We're thankful for your grace.
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We're thankful for the opportunity to know what it means to be a part of the family of God.
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And I pray this morning.
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If there's someone here that does not know you as savior, that today can be the day of receiving the grace of God in truth and in belief and in faith.
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But if there are believers here today that have drifted from understanding what it means to have the grace of God pervading their life, I pray that today can be the day in which we can all rest in God's grace and be driven forward in God's grace in all that we do for you.
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As ambassadors of the gospel message, Lord, I pray that you bless us here in this time, remove any distractions from our minds and from our hearts, and allow us to see you clearly this morning.
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In Jesus name we pray.
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Amen.
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I want you to see, number one, the perspective of privilege.
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Now, sometimes we can look at that word privilege as a negative thing.
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And really, privilege in and of itself is not negative.
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It's how we deal with that privilege that becomes a negative thing, right?
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Someone can have privilege in this world, but yet utilize that privilege as a steward of those gifts and actually do great things.
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I'm an only child, and I have the opportunity to have people judge me on that.
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They go, I've heard people say one thing or the other.
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I've heard people say depending on how their reactions are with me, you're natural, normal, only child.
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We can tell.
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We can tell by how you're selfish and how you feel like you have privilege, how you expect all these things.
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And I've met other people that maybe saw me in a better light that said, well, you're not like the typical only child, okay?
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You didn't use that privilege to become negative.
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Well, the truth is, is that privilege in and of itself is not a bad thing.
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It's if we abuse that privilege in vain and utilize it for negative things, that's when it becomes a bad thing in our life.
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So as a Christian, I think we can all agree that we are privileged in the grace of God.
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Look back there with me in verse number one, he says, we then talking about christians, we then as workers.
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Now, in this case, it's Paul.
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And in his support here, we then as workers together with him, he says, we get to have the privilege of serving with Jesus Christ.
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We didn't deserve this.
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And when we ponder on the privilege of service to the Lord, we practice passionate persistence.
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Folks, I'm gonna tell you, as a Christian, sometimes we can lose sight of the bigger purpose when we lose sight of the privilege it is to serve with Jesus Christ.
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If we start thinking that all we're doing is serving with the people that we're with here at the church.
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And guess what happens?
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Let's say, for example, everything's going well, and all of a sudden someone questions what I'm doing for Jesus Christ.
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They say, hey, you know what?
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Your ministry is a little iffy.
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I don't know.
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Or maybe some people stop showing up to your Bible study or whatever it is.
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It's tempting to say, you know what?
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I'm going to lose my persistence in ministry because I really don't have a purpose anymore because my purpose was not for the grace of God.
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My purpose was for the horizontal relationship, so to speak.
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And so the Bible says here that when we understand the privilege of God giving us grace and working with him, we then practice passionate persistence because we're not losing sight of the bigger purpose.
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We're not losing sight of the privilege that God has given us.
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And so it says we, all of us, if you're a believer in Jesus Christ this morning, you have an opportunity to work together with other christians.
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But ultimately it says, as workers or laborers, together with him, with God.
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Now, I looked into this word here.
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It's actually a phrase together with him, working together with him.
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And in the Greek, it's a word that's very similar to the word we get in the word in English, synergy, meaning we work together.
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We're working together with different aspects, and we're all coming together for a bigger purpose.
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What a privilege it is.
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What a privilege it is to work together with God and him to say, you know what?
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I want you to be a part of this, to work in the same purpose, folks.
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It would be like if you, let's say, for example, you loved baseball, okay?
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Let's say you love the Phillies.
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It's hard for me to say that, okay, because I don't love the Phillies.
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But let's say who's the best Phillies player?
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Is it Bryce Harper?
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We all like Bryce Harper.
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Okay, what if Bryce Harper said, hey, you know what?
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I would love to just come and, like, play baseball with you.
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I'd love for you to come and be a part of the Phillies and have a day where you can do batting practice and you can come into the locker room and you can be a philly for the day.
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That would be like, wow, I get to do that.
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That's a privilege.
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I'm excited.
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And that's such a very basic surface level thing.
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Think about the God of the universe, the one who created all, the one who saves us, the one who redeems us, the one who died on the cross for your sins, says, hey, you get to work with me, and I get to utilize this opportunity as a Christian.
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And then he says, here, all of us as workers together, get to have the synergy.
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We do this together, but ultimately with God.
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And so we get the privilege to work with him in distributing the message of the truth.
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Folks, sometimes we can be tempted to think that serving God is an inconvenience, that serving others is an inconvenience.
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We get so used to the grace of God that I could sit up here and say, hey, think about the grace of God.
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And we go, oh, yeah, that's great.
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Wonderful, amazing grace.
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Think about what Jesus Christ did for you in while you were yet sinners.
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Christ died for you.
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He died on the cross for those that he knew would reject him.
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He died on the cross for those who would sin over and over again.
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But yet he says, I love you enough to sacrifice my life for you.
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We looked at this a few weeks ago when we talked about friends.
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There's no greater love than someone who says, I'm gonna willing.
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I'm willing to lay down my life for those that I love.
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Jesus says, I love you, and he proves his love.
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That's the depth of God's grace.
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But so many times we receive that in vain.
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So many times we hear the grace of God preach, and we go, yep, he loves me.
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He should love me.
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Don't you know who I am?
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I'm a good church member.
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And the truth is that we almost come to the point where this privilege that we get from God becomes a badge of a, you know what?
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I expect this to happen.
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I expect God to just keep pouring out grace to me.
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Folks, every gift that we have is a gift from God.
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We should be thankful, and that thankfulness should drive us to that point of persistence in the distribution of the gospel grace of Jesus Christ.
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Paul sees himself as a co worker with Jesus.
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They're partners.
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The Lord wants us to know that we're not alone in our ambassadorship.
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Sometimes you might feel tempted to be alone.
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This is a reminder here that you're not alone, though.
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You might feel alone in your ministry, you might feel alone in your christian life.
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You might feel alone in this world today.
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You might say, you know what?
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I just feel like no one cares about what I'm doing for Jesus.
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No one cares about what I'm doing when it comes to my sacrifice.
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No one cares what I'm going through when it comes to this trial and this issue.
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You know what?
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The Bible says that God does care for us, and he's with us through that.
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And it's his victory in our life that is our victory.
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Folks, we sing this song called victory in Jesus.
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And the only way that we can sing victory in Jesus is because of what he has done for us.
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It's not our victory.
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And we slap Jesus name on it.
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It's our victory because of what he has done for us and our complete reliance on his grace.
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I want you to go back with me and see what it says there in Ephesians, chapter two.
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Most of you know what it says.
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Ephesians, chapter two, verses eight and nine.
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For by grace are ye saved.
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It doesn't say, for by grace plus works.
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It doesn't say, for by grace.
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And you giving to the church for by grace and then your service to me.
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No, it says, for by grace are you saved through faith.
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You are trusting in God's grace and his grace alone to save you.
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And then he says, and that not of yourselves.
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He reminds us it's not of ourselves, but it is a gift of God, not of works.
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Just in case we missed it on the front side, he's coming back on the backside saying, it's not of works.
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You did nothing for this.
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You did not work your way to heaven.
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You did not work your way to God's grace.
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All you did was trust in the grace that's already presented to you.
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Folks, if we are not based in grace in every element of our christian life, we're going to lose sight of the purpose of what we are doing.
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Well, you know what?
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I can't forgive that person.
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I can't forgive that person, even though they're coming back to me in repentance, I will never forgive that person for what they did.
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You know what?
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If you understand the grace of God, you will be willing to forgive.
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You know what?
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If you say, I'll never give someone this, I'll never give God this out of my life.
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If you understand what it means to have God's grace given to you, it won't be a struggle for you to give that over to God.
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This area God cannot take from me.
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You say, I've never said that.
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Folks, I have heard, literally people say, I'll give everything to God, except this.
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Can't have this in my life.
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If you understand God's grace, it's his anyway.
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And so the truth is, in our life, when we understand God's grace, all these other elements of our life will play out in the biblical manner.
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And so what we see here this morning is this he says, for by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves.
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It is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.
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The Bible says, really, as Christians, we have no reason to boast.
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No reason boast means that to have this opportunity to say, look at me.
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Look what I did.
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Look at my ministry, look at my Sunday school, look at my bank account, look at my house.
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You know what the Bible tells us?
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That there is no reason to boast because of the grace of God.
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So when we stand in light of the grace of God, all we can do is say, this is only by God's grace.
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Only by God's grace.
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I look here this morning and Silas.
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Alicia carries up Silas this morning, and I'm like, he is only by God's grace.
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I didn't do anything in that process.
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I can tell you the moment.
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I'll get real.
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I'm gonna get off the script a little bit here.
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This morning, the moment they brought Silas, you know, he's born.
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And normally they bring the baby to the parent.
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The parent gets to hold the baby.
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Mom's always first.
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And then I come second, and we're sitting there and they're like, yeah.
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They start telling us all the problems.
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Like, well, you know, he's got this, and he's got this, and he's going into respiratory failure.
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We got to take him.
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We didn't even get a chance to hold him.
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And I remember he's in this little incubator looking thing, and they've got this mask on him, and the air is breathing.
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And that was, I think, the first moment in my life I started to realize I am not in control.
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I can't talk my way out of this.
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I can't negotiate.
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I can't manipulate.
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I can't do anything.
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In that moment, he leaves the room, and I remember Alicia looking to me, and she said, what is God doing?
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And as a husband, as a dad, and as a pastor, right?
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Because, mind you, I'm a pastor, too.
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I wanted to have this big theological answer and say, well, this is all part of the plan for us to trust in God more.
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And no, at that very moment, I said, I don't know.
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I don't know.
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And outside of the fact that I know that God is good, outside of the fact that I know that God is powerful, that he's extended grace to me in salvation, I did not have a theological answer of why that had to happen in that moment.
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I don't know.
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It's okay to say I don't know.
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But what we have to go back to is understand that God is defined by his holiness, and God is defined by his grace, and God is defined by his love for us.
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And therefore, no matter what happens in our life, we go back to that depth of grace and say, even if God takes away, he is still good, he is still gracious.
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And that is the point in our lives that sometimes we are challenged with in our life.
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We're challenged with this idea of, well, everything's not the way that I want it to be.
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And so I'm receiving God's grace in vain.
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And so God wants us to see the depths of his grace.
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But then I want you to see verse number ten in Ephesians chapter two, because a lot of people think, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know.
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I can't boast in my salvation.
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I can't boast in my salvation.
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I know that I wasn't saved by my works, but I grow in my own works.
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I'm blessed in my own works.
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No, because the very next verse, he's talking, he's continuing the thought, and then he says, the next verse, he says, for we are his workmanship.
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When we are saved, we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works.
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Where do the good works come from?
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Well, just me cleaning up my life and figuring it out and becoming more knowledgeable in the Bible.
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No, he's talking about grace here.
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He says the good works come from his grace, too.
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And so the sanctification process, the growth process of us understanding him more and more comes from a depth of understanding his grace in our life.
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And he says here, he says that we are created in Christ Jesus.
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That's our identity unto good works which God has before ordained that we should walk in them.
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This is all a work of goddess.
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Your spiritual growth is not just you cleaning your life up, it's God literally changing you and gracing you in every moment that you face.
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And God gives us grace in the moments that we need that grace.
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If I look into people's lives that are going through struggles and I go, I don't know how they're doing that.
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I don't know how they can sustain this.
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I don't know how they can look to Jesus Christ in this.
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Well, the truth is that I'm not looking at it through their lens of grace.
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I don't understand God's grace that is poured out upon them like someone that loses a child.
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I can't understand how someone could go through that.
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But if they're walking in Jesus Christ, God is giving them the grace for that moment.
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And that might not be the grace that I'm understanding in that moment, but ultimately, God is giving us the power to overcome all these elements in our life, and so his victory is our victory.
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It isn't that God needed Paul.
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It isn't that God needs us instead.
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It's that God wants us to be workers together with him for our good.
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Do you understand that?
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Do you understand this morning that God does not need me?
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If I kicked over right here, right now?
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Okay.
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And sometimes I get so fired up up here that I feel like I might.
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I got my wristwatch, and I have my heart rate on it.
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And I always love to go back and see what my heart rate is when I'm preaching.
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Cause it's like spiking through the roof.
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But the truth is, is that if I was gone, guess what?
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Someone can come and fill this pulpit, and the work of God is gonna move forward.
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This work is not in me.
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This work is not in you.
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It's where the work is in Jesus Christ.
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We get to be a part of it.
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It's for our good that we get to serve God.
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That's the exciting element of this.
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Sometimes we see working and serving God and serving others and pleading with others as this inconvenience or this burden that we place in our life.
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Folks, it should be the total opposite.
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There was a moment here this week.
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I got to go to the Bible museum and watch it play.
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It was Pilgrim's progress.
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If you ever know about Pilgrim's progress, it's an awesome, awesome story.
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One of my favorite books to read.
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And when Christian, I won't spoil it for you, but Christian is carrying this burden with him, this huge burden on his back.
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And when he comes to Mount Calvary and he trusts in Jesus, he puts his faith in Jesus.
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I can't work my way.
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He tried to go up Mount legality.
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He tried to go down all these different paths of his own works.
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And he finally gets to the.
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He gets to Mount Calvary, and he trusts in Jesus.
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And in the play, his burden rolls off, and the light comes behind the cross.
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Man, I was like a baby in tears.
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Cause I remember that day when that burden fell off at Calvary.
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And for some of you, you remember that sin burden that was weighing on you and taking you down.
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And the moment that you trust in Jesus Christ, that burden was lifted.
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And that's the point that we have here this morning, that Jesus did this for me.
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I can't help but to serve him and to sacrifice for him, it's no longer a burden of sin.
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It's the burden of service to him in thankfulness.
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And so I want you to see here as a Christian this morning.
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If you are a believer this morning, you have the opportunity to receive his grace and serve in his grace and have the focus solely on him.
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First Corinthians, chapter three, verse nine.
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For we are laborers together with God.
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God wants us to be reminded here this morning that we are working with him.
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He's on our side.
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Ye are God's husbandry.
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Ye are God's building according to the grace of God, which is given unto me as the wise master builder.
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God is the wise master builder.
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He's the one giving me grace.
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Then he says, I have laid the foundation and another buildeth thereon.
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But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon.
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What foundation for other foundation can no man lay that is laid, which is Jesus Christ?
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The grace of Jesus Christ, and what he has done for us has to be the foundation.
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Your spiritual growth is based in Jesus Christ and trusting in him alone.
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Your salvation was something that God gifted you with.
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Your sanctification is something that God blesses you with.
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Your service is something that God blesses you with.
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And so if we don't see something through this perspective, it's very tempting to see service as not a gift.
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We see service as a struggle.
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I'm going to tell you here this morning, if you see service as something other than a gift, it's time to reevaluate.
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It's time to pull back and reevaluate.
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Why am I doing what I'm doing?
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Who am I serving?
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What am I serving?
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And so the concept of that privilege is that perspective of privilege that we have to have.
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But then I want you to see, as the power of God comes through us, we have the power to plead.
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Look there in verse number one, he says, okay, because of the fact that I'm working with God.
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I beseech you, I plead with you.
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And so the perspective of privilege brings us to the power to plead.
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Now, it's okay to plead.
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It's okay to beg.
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When it comes to the idea of begging for Jesus Christ, Paul, all the time in the New Testament says, I beseech you.
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I plead with you folks.
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There is an urgency to this message.
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There is an urgency to what God has called us to do as an ambassador.
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We don't just lay back.
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We have an urgency to the gospel message.
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And so what is Paul saying here?
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As he's preaching?
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He says, I beseech you, I plead with you.
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What also?
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That ye receive not the grace of God in vain.
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Paul told us that God was pleading through his ministry.
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He was pleading through the apostles.
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And now Paul is also pleading with the corinthian Christians not to receive God's grace in vain, but to receive it in substance.
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We know that in two corinthians chapter five, just a few verses back, verse number 20, he says this same concept now that we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you.
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God is beseeching you.
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He's pleading you.
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So he says, God's pleading with you.
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I'm pleading with you.
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You are probably familiar with Romans, chapter twelve.
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Romans, chapter twelve, verses one and two.
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This is this idea that Paul is pleading with us that live a transformed life, not a conformed life to this world.
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He says, I beseech you, therefore, brethren.
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I plead with you, brethren, by the mercies of God, by the grace of God, that ye present your bodies, your everything, a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service, and be not conformed to this world.
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But be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
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I to follow the will of God, we have to understand that our service is based in that understanding, that God has transformed us.
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If we're not understanding that grace and we're not living in that transformed life, what we do is we live in that conformity to this world.
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He basically says here that these are the two contrasting things.
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Am I gonna be living in that transformed life, or am I gonna be living conformed to this world?
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Folks, the default setting.
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Let me tell you what's the default setting in our humanity, in our flesh, conformed to this world?
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The world pulls us deeper and deeper into its clutches, and it looks more and more attractive when we're living outside of the grace of God.
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But the more we live in the grace of God, the more we lived in that transformed lifestyle.
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And that thing of that world does not pull my heart.
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It does not pull my attention.
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You know, there's that classic song that we sing when we focus on the grace of God.
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The things of earth grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.
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You wanna stop being attracted to the things of this world?
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Well, just.
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Let's put more rules in the church, right?
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Let's just put more rules.
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Hey, guys, no tvs in your house.
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Kick em out.
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No more Internet.
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Did you know that if.
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Did you know that before they had tvs and Internet, there were still people that were lusting after the things of this world.
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Wow.
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It's hard to believe.
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So a lot of times what we think about is this.
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We think that, oh, we just need more rules or we need to pull more things back.
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Folks, the remedy to not looking at the things of this world and desiring it is to look to Jesus Christ and desire his grace in your life.
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I'm a product of grace.
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I'm a product of his change.
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I'm transformed by him.
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It's not about removing things as much as it is going to him and clinging to him.
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And the things of earth grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.
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Keep your eyes fixed on him and what he has done for us.
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And so Paul says, don't receive this.
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Don't receive this in faith.
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When he's pleading with them, the word means to essentially comfort, to exhort, to challenge.
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And so we're pleading with a purpose.
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I want you to know here this morning, as christians, we're not living hopeless lives.
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We're not living meaningless lives.
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We're leading lives that are filled with a purpose.
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And that is the purpose of preaching the grace of Jesus Christ, to know and to receive the grace of God.
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If we're preaching anything outside the grace of Goddesse on the initial side of things, we're preaching something wrong.
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And so the warning is this, don't receive the grace of God in vain.
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God extends grace to us in various ways in salvation and sanctification and service.
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And so I believe Paul is addressing both of those areas.
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Don't receive the message of God saving grace with a focus on yourself, because you know what?
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It actually can be that some people aren't saved because they're not receiving God's grace and salvation.
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Let's say you're sitting out there this morning and you're not a believer, and I preach to you God's grace, and you say, you know what?
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I don't need God's grace.
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I can handle it myself.
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That would be receiving God's grace in vain in salvation, folks, someone who rejects or stiff arms the grace of God is someone that is not a Christian, okay?
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You cannot get saved without understanding God's grace.
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That's not narrow minded, that's biblical, okay?
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If someone says, I don't need God's grace, I don't need his forgiveness, I don't need anything like that.
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I want to be religious, but I don't want God's grace.
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The Bible says, for by grace are ye saved so someone can stiff arm God's grace in pride and receive it in vain and not be saved.
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But the Bible does say that we can receive God's grace in truth, but yet through our lives live that lifestyle that says, you know what?
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I don't need God now.
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I don't need God now.
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And so it means here in the concept of receiving in vain, it means to receive the goodness and favor of goddess, yet to hinder the work of grace in one's life.
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It means to receive the favor of God and salvation.
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But then to fall into what Paul speaks of in one Corinthians chapter 15, if you go to one corinthians chapter 15 in verse number ten, Paul is speaking of the resurrection.
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He's talking about all the importance of knowing the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
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And then he says here in verse number ten of one Corinthians chapter 15, something very interesting.
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He says, okay, you've trusted in God's grace for salvation, but now there's a big issue going on in your life.
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He says, but by the grace of God, I am what I am.
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He says, I'm only able to be what I am because of the grace of God.
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And his grace which was bestowed or given or given displayed unto me was not in vain, but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.
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So Paul says, even my hard working after I was saved was because of the grace of Goddesse.
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He says, I worked harder than everyone else, but it wasn't my work.
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It was the grace of God.
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And so this morning, it's a very simple message.
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It's, do I first of all understand what the grace of God is?
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The grace of God is a gift that we don't deserve unmerited favor, God's riches at Christ's expense.
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And so we have this understanding as a Christian.
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We understand that as a Christian, I now have grace.
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How is that grace going to drive me forward in what I do and what I say and how I live?
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We can see over and over again in the New Testament.
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For the sake of time, we won't go to all these passages, but I would encourage you to read the book of Galatians, specifically Galatians, chapter five.
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Galatians, chapter five, verse one.
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Paul says, stand fast, therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.
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He says, God has given you the grace to live in freedom.
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Now don't go back to those ways of your flesh and those works.
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He goes on to talk more and more about that in that passage, but essentially says that if you live that way, verse four, Christ has become of no effect unto you.
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So what that means is this, if we are living as christians and not resting in God's grace and not looking to God's grace, we're all just doing this in vain.
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We're all just a social club here today that meets and dresses up nice and talks about religious things and goes home and we miss the point.
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Don't allow the grace of God to be removed and man's works and traditions to be placed upon us so that we miss the point of the goodness of God's grace.
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He says, don't receive the grace of God in vain.
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Empty faith is a result of a problematic perspective of who we are in Christ.
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You know what?
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You know, when I'm tempted to doubt, when I'm tempted to keep my eyes off of what Jesus Christ has really done for me and who he really is, I know that God loves me, but look, I don't know if he loves me.
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In this situation, faith is tied to trust, okay?
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I can't just believe something intellectually and not trust it by the way that I live.
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Oh, I believe that God will provide for my family.
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I believe God heals.
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I believe that God takes care of me.
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And then when something happens with my family, I go, well, my situation's different, folks.
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That's a lack of trust.
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It's a lack of faith because it's a lack of understanding God's presence and his grace in our life.
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And so there's this contrast, and I would love to talk about this more, but this contrast between cheap grace and costly grace, folks, when we live a life of cheap grace, what God did for us means nothing.
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And we live that way.
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Our churches live that way.
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When we look at God's grace as just something freely given, cheaply given, yes, God's grace is freely given to you.
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But there was a price that was paid, a costly price.
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Jesus paid that with his blood.
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We are bought with a price.
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Jesus redeemed us.
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And so, therefore, when we see God's grace as this wonderful gift that God gave everything for us in, we would say, yes, you know what?
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I need to get busy for serving God.
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But instead we receive it in vain.
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And we live our lives in vain, and we live our lives focused.
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And so the question here this morning is this, what are we focused on?
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We're going to be focused on something.
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What does God's grace mean to you?
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You say, well, it means everything to me.
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Do we live our lives that way?
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Do we live our lives in light of God's grace?
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And say, you know what?
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Because of what you did for me, I'm gonna do what Paul did.
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I'm gonna beseech other people to receive it in grace.
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Folks, the whole ministry that I have as a pastor is just to point you to the goodness of Jesus Christ and to show you in the word of God how we can see that.
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My job is not to be perfect.
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My job is not to save you.
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My job is not to forgive you.
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My job is not to sit here and give you all the answers to all the problems in your life.
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My job is to point you to Jesus Christ and his grace.
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Paul says, I want you to see his grace.
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I want you to see his goodness.
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I want you to see his forgiveness.
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And so here this morning, what we do in church is this.
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We point people to the grace of God, and so we have the perspective of privilege.
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We have the power to plead.
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And lastly, here, we have the point of persistence with all these things in mind, we are to plead with persistence as we partner with God in the message of the gospel we see in verse number two.
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He quotes an Old Testament passage, Isaiah 49 eight.
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For he saith, I have heard thee in the time of accepted, and in the day of salvation I have succored thee.
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Behold, now is the accepted time.
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Behold, now is the day of salvation.
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By quoting and applying Isaiah 49, Paul wants to give the corinthian Christians a sense of urgency.
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God has an acceptable time for us to work with his grace.
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God has a day of salvation that will not last forever.
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Folks, I believe we live in a time of grace in the church age, the age of grace.
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But this age of grace is not going to last forever.
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We have an appointed time now.
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We don't know when that time is, but eventually God is going to punch that ticket.
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He's going to say, it's over.
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My grace is sufficient.
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And now comes the judgment.
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This is no time for us to wait.
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No time for us to put the foot on the brake instead of the gas.
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We should not let up.
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It's time for us to get busy for the Lord and to be workers together with him.
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Ephesians, chapter five, verse 16, says for us to redeem the time because the days are evil.
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Paul says, today is the day of salvation, not tomorrow.
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Because, you know, all of us want to put off this to another day.
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Our natural inclination is to say, just wait tomorrow I'll give in tomorrow.
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I'll tell my neighbor tomorrow I'll live this way.
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Tomorrow I'll forgive.
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Paul says, no, if you take the grace of God in vain, you will hold back from what God has for you today.
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John, chapter nine, verse four.
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John, chapter nine, verse four.
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Jesus is teaching here and his disciples, and he's speaking of this understanding of working.
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And he says, I must work the works of him that sent me.
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While it is day, the night cometh when no man can work.
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As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.
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Jesus says, there's going to be a period of time where God's grace is just being poured out upon people.
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And God's grace reigns on the just and the unjust.
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But there are many people that rejecting God's grace when it comes to salvation, because of their pride, because of their works, because of their boasting.
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And the Bible says, no, we have to receive God's grace in the time that he has given us.
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And so that is the point of our persistence, folks.
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We live in a dark world that's pulling us all different directions, but we have to remove the distractions so that we can get done what we need to get done in the time that we have.
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Folks, tomorrow was not guaranteed to you.
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Tomorrow was not guaranteed.
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Christ could come back tomorrow and we would all hopefully say amen to that.
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But think about all those that don't know Jesus Christ, all those who don't have the grace of God in their life and dictating their life.
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We got to get busy about our work.
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Middletown Baptist Church has a purpose and a beacon.
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We are a beacon of truth.
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And what are we going to do for the cause of the gospel?
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Paul says plead, beg, encourage, comfort.
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He says preach that today is the day of salvation.
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And so here this morning, I want you to think about this as we close.
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What does God's grace mean to you?
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Do you understand God's grace?
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Do you understand the gift that God has offered to all in the concept of your salvation?
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He died for you so that you can receive and so that you can know everlasting life.
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But that's not where it ends.
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He's come to give us life and life more abundantly.
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He's come to give us gifts.
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He's come to give us peace.
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He's come to give us comfort.
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He's come to give us all these elements and the privilege to be part of his team.
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We have a privilege to cheer when he wins the victory.
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Folks, when people come to Christ in our church.
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We should all rejoice in that.
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Some of you might know.
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Some of you follow the eagles.
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You guys know who the Eagles play today?
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Anyone to take a guess?
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Tampa Bay Buccaneers, my team.
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Guess what?
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One of us tonight will be cheering and one of us will be sad.
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Okay?
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Some of you are like, I'm neither one of those fans, so I don't care.
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I don't like sports.
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You guys get the point.
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There will be a day, there will be a day when we understand why we were cheering.
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Right now we see someone come to Christ and we go, oh, that's nice.
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They prayed a prayer and now they're a part of us.
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Folks, the Bible says that heaven rejoices when that happens.
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And we just go, oh, yeah, another kid came to a Sunday school class.
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Oh, a kid got saved.
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That's great.
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It's so in that case, that's receiving the grace of God in vain, to not be excited when a person comes into our church broken and struggling with sin and God gives them the victory, folks, we should rejoice in that.
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We should wrap our arms around them and say, God brought you back.
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This is amazing.
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This is exciting, folks, the grace of God is a miraculous thing, and it should be in pervading every element of our church.
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By God's grace.
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By God's grace.
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And you know what?
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God is graceful to us when we aren't so graceful.
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And that allows us to extend that grace to other people.
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Folks, it's hard.
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It's not easy.
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But Paul says, don't receive the grace of God in vain.
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Why?
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Because today is the day of salvation.
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Let's get busy.
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Let's have the persistence to plead the persistence to plead the truth.
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And so there's a point to our persistence.
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There's a point to why we are pushing foreign, and that point is the kingdom of God, the message of the gospel.
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Let's not lose sight of what matters.
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Let's not lose sight of what matters.
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Here we have a fall festival coming up.
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Okay, let me just give you guys something.
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The fall festival is not about candy.
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The fall festival is not about fun.
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We want to have fun.
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The fall festival is so that we can get people the gospel and that we can show them the grace of God.
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Okay?
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We have a softball team.
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We have a soccer program.
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We have a ladies ministry.
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We have a men's ministry.
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Do you want to know what the reason why we have all these ministries for?
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To show people the grace of God, to display the grace of God, to rest in the grace of God, if any ministry we have has lost the focus of the grace of God, well, we better just rip that out of the paper.
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That's okay, because we have to get, and it doesn't matter what the title is of the ministry.
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The ministry must be a gospel grace ministry.
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We are in the gospel ministry.
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That's the business that we're in and that's the business that we're going to push forward.
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So I encourage you to think about what does grace mean to me?
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Have I rested in his grace recently?
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And what does that grace and that belief in that grace mean for me when it comes to my everyday life?
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Am I receiving the grace of God in vain, or am I receiving it with purpose?
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Am I receiving it personally?
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Am I applying it to my life?
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These are all things that I think we can see from this passage.
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Well, I'm going to ask for you to stand with me, every head bowed, every head closed as the music plays.
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We thank the Lord for his grace this morning.
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Maybe you just want to thank God for his grace.
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Maybe there's not an egregious sin in your life that you need to get right with God, but maybe you've just drifted.
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Maybe it's the sin of apathy.
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Maybe it's the sin of indifference.
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Maybe you say, you know what?
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I'm not living in rebellion to him, but I'm not pushing forward in that persistence.
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I'm not pleading, I'm not resting in his power.
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I'm not living with that perspective of privilege in my life.
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I'm not living as a child of the king.
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I'm not living as an ambassador that's been gifted by the king, this wonderful opportunity.
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I've just been drifting.
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I've been content with the mediocre.
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I've been okay with being in a spiritual rut.
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I've been okay with spinning my wheels.
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Maybe today you say, you know what?
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I'm done hearing about the grace of God and receiving it in vain.
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I want to put feet to my belief.
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I want to put trust in my life.
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I want to live my life as Paul lived, pleading in the power of God, in persistence with privilege, to know that, that we get to be a part of the work of God.
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We get to be on his team.
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And so here this morning, maybe you just want to thank God for his grace.
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Maybe you want to rededicate your life to service to him.
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That service is a gift.
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Maybe you've lost sight of service being a gift for him.
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Maybe you've looked at service as an inconvenience as another thing just to punch out on your daily ticket of life.
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But let me tell you this morning, renew your purpose in your service.
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See it as a gift of grace.
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And when you see your ministry as a gift of grace and you see those people that you're ministering to as a gift of grace, all the more reason for you to be persistent and confident in what God has done for you.
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Hey, maybe you haven't trusted in Jesus as your savior.
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Maybe you're that person who has received the grace of God in vain when it comes to trusting in him.
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This morning we have some folks up here that can show you from the word of God what it means to know Jesus not of works, lest any man should boast, folks, let me tell you a little secret.
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None of us can meet his standard.
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None of us are gonna sit on a scale and say, my good is outweighing my bad, so I'm going to heaven.
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The Bible says, no, our bad always outweighs our good.
Speaker B
And we'll never be perfect.
Speaker B
We'll never be holy in the sight of God when it comes to sinlessness.
Speaker B
But it's his sinlessness and his sacrifice that gives us salvation and gives us sanctification and gives us service.
Speaker B
So I pray that that can be something that you can deal with this morning.
Speaker B
Lord, I pray that you be in this time of invitation, working hearts and lives.
Speaker B
We thank you for your goodness.
Speaker B
We thank for your grace.
Speaker B
In Jesus name, amen.
Speaker B
As the music plays if you need to come follow him this morning, you need to give him thanks for his grace this morning.
Speaker B
Follow him today.
Pastor Josh
Thank you again for listening to the Middletown Baptist church podcast.
Pastor Josh
I hope that this sermon has been a blessing for you.
Pastor Josh
If you would like to find out more information about our church or this sermon, you can find us@middletownbaptistchurch.org or find us on Facebook or YouTube.
Pastor Josh
You can also email me directly@joshmissaroiddletownbaptistchurch.com if you've enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and follow along for future podcasts and updates.
Pastor Josh
Thank you so much.
Pastor Josh
God bless.
Pastor Josh
Have a wonderful day.
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