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Brenton
This is further a weekly show for the people of Harmony Bible Church, where we seek to revisit and expand on Sunday sermons with the goal of growing deeper in biblical truth that transforms our lives. Welcome back to Further. I'm Brenton Grimm, and today I have Clay Baker here and we also have Chris car back. So welcome, guys.

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Chris
Great to be here.

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Clay
Yeah, thanks for having me again.

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Brenton
Yeah. Clay Two weeks in a row. It's exciting. So as we have kind of gotten to the end of Chapter 11 and Clay, you acknowledged this on Sunday that this is, you know, kind of the end of the doctrine part of Romans where he's going to Paul is going to move on to more application and and how we actually how that stuff plays out.

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Brenton
But I was hoping that one of you or both of you could kind of just give me a recap on what we've learned as far as doctrine in chapters one through 11. I know there's a lot there, but if you could give me, I don't know, we'll say a 30,000 foot view of what we've learned there and kind of just be able to tie it all together.

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Brenton
How would you do that?

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Chris
So you want us to summarize nine months of teaching? You know, a couple of minutes, which you're asking us to do? Yeah, maybe I can do it fairly succinctly in Clay can certainly jump in here, but I think we've got to go back to chapter one and kind of the theme verses and in versus 16 to 17, Paul says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel for the power of God, for salvation to everyone who believes to the Jew first and also to the Greek, and then verse 17 four in it, in that it is the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith, for faith or beginning and ending in faith as it is

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Chris
written, the righteous shall live by faith. And so in the big picture, Romans is about the gospel, and it's about the gospel for everyone who believes it brings salvation to everyone who believes in it. Went to the Jew first and then it also goes to the Gentiles and how the gospel brings salvation is because in it, through it, the righteousness of God is revealed.

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Chris
In other words, the way for human beings to be right with God, to to have his righteousness essentially, so that they can be right with him. And that happens beginning and ending in faith. So only by faith. And so what Romans shows us is that, you know, chapters one through three, that we are all unrighteous. So we're not right with God.

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Chris
We do not have rights standing. And then really in a variety of ways and an incredible depth in chapters four through 11, Paul goes on to show how we become righteous by faith, alone in Jesus Christ alone, and all of the really the implications of that and how that all plays out. And then as we finished here and in Romans nine, ten and 11 in particular, what I love about it especially is that Paul is showing the big picture about how this has been God's plan really since the moment that Adam and Eve Sin and really even before that, before he even created the world, how it's been God's plan to make unrighteous people righteous

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Chris
through faith in Jesus Christ. And that includes not only Jews, but also Gentiles, and how God then, as we talked about on Sunday, is continuing to work out that plan.

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Clay
Yeah, I think that's great. Chris. Very well said. And I was just thinking, as you were as you were talking, that the context here of when Paul is writing is also so significant. He's really writing at a turning point in God's plan of salvation, where, you know, before Christ, God had had primarily revealed himself or specially revealed himself to the Jewish people and going forward from Christ and in even including the present day, God is revealing Himself and entering into relationship with primarily or especially Gentiles.

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Clay
And Paul's at the turning point in history here of this. And so he's really going to great lengths to explain how this is really one faith and it's one people of God and and and there's one way to be righteous before God. And it's not in yourself and it's not in your works. And it never has been. It never has been.

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Clay
It's always been by the grace of God through faith, whether you're a Jew or a Gentile, Old Testament or New Testament, righteousness before God or salvation is by grace, through faith. And now in the New Testament age, we have the full revelation of of Jesus Christ. You know, we know the full picture there. And so we can add to that in Christ alone.

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Chris
You know, I mean, we we've called this series Righteous. So everybody has seen that, whether it's in our journals or the bumpers that we play every Sunday, like probably hundreds of times, we'd probably forgotten about it. Now it's just kind of in the background noise, right? But really, that's what Romans is about, is about we are unrighteous and about how God makes us righteous by his grace through faith in Jesus Christ.

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Chris
And it's by grace alone Through faith, alone in Jesus Christ alone, we are made righteous and not just once, but but forever.

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Brenton
Yeah.

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Chris
Which is the greatest, you know, news in the world and why Paul says, I'm not ashamed of the Gospel, because in the gospel it is. The gospel literally is the power of God for salvation. It's how God saves people is through the gospel. And that's the gospel that makes us righteous as we place our faith in what Jesus Christ did for us in his life.

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Chris
Death and resurrection.

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Brenton
Yeah, sounds like a good book. Good job, guys.

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Chris
Yeah. Yeah. We still got, you know.

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Brenton
Five chapters left, right? Yeah. Yeah. I think just the clarity that that Paul brings to so many issues that we struggle with even today, I think it's been really helpful to go through these things slowly and so yeah, I appreciate that overview. But Clay, I do want to follow up on, on what you were talking about and you know, specifically the the relationship of Israel and, and the New Testament Church.

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Brenton
So just to kind of intro this section there, there are two different camps that that people mainly lay in. And, you know, there's there's variance from there. But those those camps are dispensation, holism and covenant theology. And so could you kind of just give us another overview of of what what those two camps believe and what that relationship between the church and Israel means.

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Chris
Now, when you talk about variance, are you talking about like Loki and the different variants of the, you know, great show on the on the TV and.

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Brenton
I have no idea what you're describing.

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Chris
But. Clayton also, yeah.

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Clay
I think what he's talking about is Eve is even within dispensation ism and within covenantal ism or covenant theology, there is a spectrum of belief to the point where we may even be reaching something of a merger of the two, maybe not a true merger, but there seem to be more and more people within the evangelical church that are landing pretty close to each other in some kind of middle ground, even if there is still a divide in line, there's a lot there just to be as concise as I can be.

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Clay
I think covenant or covenant Covenant Elysium or Covenant theology primarily stresses the continuity of God's people in his plan from Old Testament to New Testament, whereas dispensation journalism tends to emphasize more the discontinuity in in God's people, in God's plan. And there's, you know, maybe just describing them at the extremes, which I don't think there's as many people that hold these extremes anymore.

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Clay
But, you know, the extreme in dispensation of theology would have been that there's two peoples of God, the Jewish people or Israel and the Gentile people or the church, the new the New Testament church, that those are two different peoples of God. And they have and God has two different plans and two different eternal destinies. For them, that's one extreme and the other extreme sometimes called replacement theology, where there really is no distinction and that the New Testament church has entirely replaced the Old Testament people of God, the Jewish people in God's plan.

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Clay
And so what I think why I was glad to preach through Romans 11 is I think when we focus a little bit more less on our theological systems and more on the biblical text, which I think more and more scholars are doing today on both sides of that line. I think we've seen Romans 11 that while I think there is quite a bit of continuity, that there is one people of God, Old Testament and New Testament by faith, that also God does have a particular plan and purpose for ethnically Jewish people in the future.

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Clay
And so we can't utterly get rid of the distinctions or collapse everything into into a oneness. But we we need to both see and maintain that there's a unity. And yet there is still a distinction between between Gentile and Jew. And while they while I believe they it's the same faith and it's the same Lord and it's the same way to enter into a relationship with Him by grace through faith that God, God does have a future plan for ethnic Jewish people to save them.

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Clay
And and I think that's what Romans 11 teaches.

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Brenton
Good. So, Chris, let me ask you this. Why? You know, this is a fairly hotly debated topic. Why do you think that it is debated so, so heavily and does it does it matter? And why does it matter?

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Chris
Yeah, I don't necessarily know why it's so hotly debated and probably would need some historian to who knows much more about what's happened in the past two to really kind of lay out why it why it's such a such an issue. Although, you know, I think the distance racialism is rather new on the historical scene. We're talking less than 200 years.

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Chris
And yet it's it's got it's received a really you know, there's a lot a pretty large following or at least a passionate following to that. And it's been popularized in, you know, various movies and and books and media that come out conferences. I think partly it's tied to an end Times views that that people get excited about. And so I think that that that's tied into it there I do think this issue matters and matters significantly because we're talking about what is the what is the scripture actually teach.

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Chris
And I think when it gets down to it, we're really talking about the gospel. And what I what I mean by that is and the only one clarifying thing that I would would bring about what Clay just said in his excellent kind of overview there is that it the only way that someone is going to be in heaven one day is through faith in Jesus Christ, that that's the only way that people are safe.

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Chris
So. So God, is I going to save? I think we've seen this in Romans chapter 11. God has a plan to save a significant number of ethnic Jews at some point in the future. But the way that he is going to save them is is by bringing them to faith in Jesus Christ. And so there are views out there that that that at least seemingly say that God's going to save ethnic Jews differently than he saves Gentiles.

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Chris
And that's just that's just not the case. And so kind of my position here is is I'm not going to, you know, really talk about this sensationalism coming on Amazon because I'm not a big fan of talking about theological systems, because I think it gets problematic really, really quickly when we focus too much on what our theological system says instead of what the Bible actually says.

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Chris
But I will say this is I think the Bible clearly teaches that there's only ever been one people of God, and there will only ever be one people of God. And so if we go back to earlier and Romans Romans 413 for the promise to Abraham and to his offspring that he would be the heir, the world did not come through the law, but through the righteousness of faith, for it is the four if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null.

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Chris
And the promises void. That's really, really important for the law brings wrath. But where there is no law, there is no transgression. This is why it depends on faith. In order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to off all of his offspring, not only to the inherit in the law, but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is a father of us all.

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Chris
So that's all believers in Jesus. And so when God made that promise to Abraham in Genesis 12, and then in Genesis 15, he had in view not ethnic Jewish people, but all people who would place their faith in Jesus Christ, whether they were an ethnic Jew or a Gentile. And so we so you go from Genesis 12 all the way through the end of the Bible and, you know, the focal point being here in Romans, where the clearest is that there's, there's only been one people who got so know the church doesn't replace Israel, but the church includes believing Jews and believing Gentiles of all time.

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Chris
ABRAHAM You know, starting with Abraham. And then and really, if you go back, it doesn't even technically start with Abraham. He goes all the way back to Adam and Eve. We can have that discussion too. But for the sake of our discussion today. And and so when God made that promise again to Abraham in Genesis 12 and 15, he had in view all people who would believe in the promised Messiah.

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Chris
And so and I just want to reaffirm again, as Clay brought out really, really well, God does have a plan for ethnic Israel in the future. And may we pray even that the events that are happening right now in Israel would be what God uses to to bring his plan, the fulfillment to bring many of them to saving faith in his son.

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Brenton
Okay. Yeah. Thanks for all that One distinction that I'm glad that you guys are both making is the idea of replacement. So the church has not replaced Israel. And I don't know how widespread that belief is. Now, I think some people have held it that, you know, the the Israel is is no longer God's people. It's now it's now the church.

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Brenton
And so, yeah, I think that's a good distinction to make.

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Chris
And sometimes it's simply an accusation that some people make against others. They don't actually believe that. But they say if you so if you believe in the covenantal view, that means you believe in replacement theology. And that.

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Brenton
Fair point.

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Chris
That may or may not be true. In many cases it's actually not true.

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Brenton
Yeah. Yeah, that's good.

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Clay
Yeah. I think one thing that's made us a little bit ago, why has this been so heavily debated? I think we can't get away too from the historical factor of anti-Semitism. I mean, just so early in the church's history, there was, you know, the the church became that Christianity became more and more accepted and even, you know, approved of, and then eventually became the official religion and various countries, you know, throughout Europe.

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Clay
And as that happened, for various reasons, you know, more and more the Jewish people were looked at unfavorably to say, to put it mildly. And and again, there's lots of reasons why that's been over the over the centuries and why they've been attacked or maligned. One common thread in all of that, though, is a is really an unfair blame, I think, on them for the crucifixion of Christ.

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Clay
You know and so there's there's just that thread throughout anti-Semitism in Western history, which is really Christian history, where Jewish people have been blamed, wrongly blamed for crucifying the Messiah. And that's been held against them. And they've been used then as they've been the targets of a lot of animosity. So I think something that dispensation wisdom has brought to the church, even even though it's relatively recent, as Chris pointed out, is a reexamination of of of ethnic Jewish people in Israel and God's heart for them.

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Clay
And so that I think there has been a more of an honoring of them and a recognition that God has a special plan and purpose for that. Now, I you know, largely disagree with a lot of of what that belief system holds. But I do really appreciate that they've they've sort of caused, I think, the church to look to take a fresh look at Israel and ethnic Jewish people.

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Clay
And and I hope we're I hope are getting to a place where we're seeing everybody, Jew and gentile, like more through through God's eyes rather than our own.

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Chris
Yeah. And again, another great point I think we got to go back to Romans three again is like there is no one religious. No not one. You know, it it, it it is completely an unjust wrong for us to look at the Jewish people and to think that they're any more guilty of the crucifixion of Jesus than any of the rest of our.

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Chris
Yeah. And so it it's so interesting. You know, Martin Luther he you brought up on on Sunday, you know, he's a guy who we all we all carry around in our pockets is very nails. And yet he somehow succumbed to this anti-Semitism at the end of his life. Well, he's at the same time, you know, perhaps the greatest theologian in the history of the church.

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Chris
I mean, it's so.

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Clay
Yeah, it's just really interesting. It's just such a complex there's such a complex variety of factors that that tie in to anti-Semitism. And, you know, often they're for political reasons or economic reasons or whatever, and it's not really theological reasons, but the people they can and have gone back to to what they purport to be the theological reasons of of their rejection of Christ.

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Clay
But, you know, you think about the history of the Jewish people since A.D. 70, since since 8070, when the Roman Empire came in and really wiped out Jerusalem there until 1948. You know, they were a scattered people among and they they lived in various different countries that were not their homeland. And so that that made them ripe for targeting and for scapegoating.

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Clay
And that's certainly that's certainly happened. And and to a large extent, it's still happening today, sadly.

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Brenton
So Paul ends this section with essentially dark psychology. He's wrapping up these 11 chapters of of doctrine. And now he's seemingly almost spontaneously bursting out in worship to God. And, you know, there's a there's a quote that I had read yesterday says, Theology must always end in dark psychology, the joyful praise of our creator. Otherwise, we have not truly studied the things of God.

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Brenton
And I think that this is just a really good explanation or an example by Paul of of what our response should be. And so verse 36, though, he says, For from him and through him and to him are all things. And I was wondering if you guys could kind of give us an, an explanation of what what he's referring to with those three different phrases there.

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Brenton
You guys have any thoughts on that?

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Chris
Clay You're the one that preached the passage, so I'll defer to you to start.

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Clay
Yeah, I just think he's underscoring the glory of God, you know? So he ends it with to him the glory forever. Amen. You know, everything in existence has come from God. He created everything out of nothing. And so, you know, for from him are all things. It's literally true. Everything that's ever existed has been created by God. And through him are all things.

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Clay
So he, you know, says and acts. And in him we live and move and have our being. He in his sovereignty and in his providence. He's holding everything together and working in everything to accomplish his good purposes. Everything is sustained presently, moment by moment, by and through him. And then to him are all things ultimately everything that's been in existence that he's created and that is being sustained by him is to his glory.

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Clay
And for his glory, He wouldn't have had to do any of this. He's completely independent. He would not. He did not need to create us or anything for himself in any way. But he chose to and and and everything that we have, You know, Scripture also says every good and perfect gift is from above. If there's anything right now that you're you know, you as a listener are thankful for, and if you can think of anything that comes to mind that's good in your life, you owe it to God and he's given that to you.

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Clay
And in addition to all good things and in return and reply in response or to worship him, it's to give him glory. It's to give him praise, is to recognize who he is. So, Paul, I think, you know, for 11 chapters, his has laid out the glories of God that were sinners were unrighteous as we've fallen, but God so gracious and good.

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Clay
He sent us son to die for us. And now through faith in him, by by believing, just like our father Abraham did, by believing God's promises in Christ, we can be righteous before God. And so he's it's just it's just amazing. And even and even in the specific context of the of the Gentile and the Jew and Paul's wrestling with that.

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Clay
And, you know, as God rejected his people, he's even laying out here how No. And God's God's gracious for them, too. And he's still got a plan for them. And so he just for everybody, Gentile or Jew, everybody God's gracious to them and merciful to them. And he's just summing it all up that, hey, this is all for God, it's all from him, it's all through him and it's all to him.

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Clay
And he deserves all the glory. We deserve none of it. So let's church, let's believer give all of ourselves, all of our lives to him. And then he's going to go on for a few more chapters and kind of explain how we can do that.

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Chris
Yeah, no, it's good. I mean, a couple of other comments. First of all, I think Paul really is summing up here the whole first 11 chapters when he when he talks is starting back in verse 33, and he kind of spontaneously burst out in worship beginning there. I think he's he's worshiping regarding everything he's just written in in the first 11 chapters.

00;26;05;03 - 00;26;31;07
Chris
But then as he ends there in verse 36, I think that this is really the key to to life and it's the key to the Christian life is recognizing that everything that we have is from him. Everything we have comes through him, and then therefore, everything we have and we are is is, is for him and goes back to him.

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Chris
And it's about his it's about his glory. And it's I mean, there's really two approaches to life. You can either live as if it's about you or if it's going to be about him. Does it really the only two options you have And and as believers, it's not that isn't it like a one time decision? It's like a daily decision.

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Chris
And Paul's going to go on and say, you know, in chapter 12, he's going to and we need to remember there's no chapter divisions in the original text. He's going to go on and say, Now by the mercies of God. Right. And mercy is a big word there in your message on Sunday. Clay Rightfully so. Mercies of God present yourself as a living sacrifice.

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Chris
Holy, acceptable God, which is your reasonable service. And what is he saying is like, the only reasonable response to the gospel is to you to live for his glory.

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Chris
And when when we really get the gospel and continue to get it. So I just want to say this and I'll be done. You never it's it's never like you just get the gospel once and then you kind of go on. You got to get the gospel over and over and over again and work it into your heart.

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Chris
And, you know, I've heard it said, you know, the problem of living sacrifices, they like to take themselves off the altar, drag themselves off the altar. And that's what we do. You know, I'm giving my giving you my life, Lord, and then I'm going to take it back and there's this kind of back and forth tug of war, so to speak.

00;27;58;16 - 00;28;24;20
Chris
And and yet when we when we get the gospel, the only natural response is we view as like we were unrighteous on our way to to be damned, separated from God and hell. That's what we justly deserved. And simply because God in his mercy decided to show us grace and bring us to faith. Now we have a rights standing with God, which we will have forever.

00;28;24;22 - 00;28;47;24
Chris
And and when we fully get that, the only real legitimate response is is worship. And not just, you know, we we say worship. We think of singing, right, man? Yeah, Yeah. That's included. But it's it's a it's a lifestyle. That's what you talk about in 12. It's like this is this is our life. This is what we do day in and day out.

00;28;47;26 - 00;29;18;19
Brenton
Yeah. Good. Yeah. I'm reminded when, when looking at this, this verse 36, I'm reminded of John one and just the the amazing Christological passage that the John's laying out start in 16. He says for from his fullness we have all received grace upon grace for the law was given through Moses. Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God.

00;29;18;19 - 00;29;35;09
Brenton
The only God who is at the Father's side. He has made him known. So we see there just the the preeminence of God of Christ, the, you know, the the essential nature of him to us. And so, yeah, that's good.

00;29;35;11 - 00;29;56;05
Chris
That's a good segue way into the Christmas season, into Advent, that we're going to get started here. Hopefully everybody's already in there. Devotionals were from one day to be a little promo for that as we closed, just to encourage everybody. I think this is gonna be a great series, but you will. Well, as you get out of it will largely depend upon what you put into it.

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Chris
So users devotionals come ready on Sunday. It's going to be be a great, great, great time.

00;30;02;16 - 00;30;08;02
Brenton
Yeah. And if you want to hear Chris singing all those carols, just visit our YouTube channel.

00;30;08;04 - 00;30;13;19
Chris
Sure. Yeah. That will not encourage anybody to participate.

00;30;13;21 - 00;30;28;13
Clay
I will say, though, that the goal operative so our our worship team has put together some great versions of the carols we'll be looking at. So do go on Spotify or wherever you get for sure and look at the Geode collaborative album for Carols.

00;30;28;13 - 00;30;30;22
Chris
Yeah, we almost sound like an infomercial.

00;30;30;22 - 00;30;34;10
Brenton
Here's where anything else you want to put, you know.

00;30;34;13 - 00;30;52;02
Chris
I'll joking aside, it certainly has been a lot of investment put into it by many people on our staff and in our body and so let's pray and really dive in. It could be a very special Christmas here. December for our church.

00;30;52;04 - 00;31;13;06
Brenton
Yep. Yep. I'm excited that, you know, we're we're kind of venturing out into some new things and great music is is part of it. So it's yeah, it's really cool to see us doing that stuff. So. All right. I appreciate the conversation today and feel free to send more questions in and we will talk to you next week.