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An Inside Look at a Burden for the Lost (Romans 9:1-5)
12 Plays8 days ago
Growing in Grace Devotions and Inspirations
Hosted by Pastor Victor Morrison
First Baptist Church
1700 Milam Street
Columbus, TX, USA 78934
http://fbccolumbustx.org/
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Prayer
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Welcome to Growing in Grace with Pastor Victor Morrison. This is a ministry of First Baptist Church located at 1700 Milam Street, Columbus, Texas. We are praying that God will bless you as you listen to this message.
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If you would like additional information on worship times and ministries at FBC Columbus, you can find out more at our website, fbccolumbustx.org.
Beginning the Message with Romans 9
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And now, take your copy of God's timeless Word as Pastor Victor gives today's message.
Burden for Non-Christians: Why Care?
00:00:43
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Welcome to Growing in Grace. So excited to share with you the first five verses of Romans chapter 9. I want us to take an inside look at a burden for the lost.
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You know, if you think about it, those who are not yet Christians, Jesus said He came to seek and to save that which was lost. And i I think about those who don't know the Lord And i I want to face this question myself.
Paul's Missionary Dilemma and Love for His People
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Do I really care about the lost? But then in addition to to caring for the lost, I think that having a genuine compassion and a concern for the lost leads to another place, not only caring for them, but praying for them.
00:01:29
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So prayer for the lost. But then when we pray for the lost, there's like this, I don't know, it's like a burden that says, I've got to speak. I've got to share the good news of the gospel with the lost.
00:01:43
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You know, in this passage that we're about to look at, Paul was stretched between two strong spiritual forces tugging at his heart as he wrote the letter to the church in Rome.
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On the one hand, the call of God. was pulling him to unreached mission fields among the Gentiles in the directions of Rome and then, let's say later, ah Spain.
Paul's Deep Sorrow and Commitment
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Yet he also felt compelled to take a generous love offering from churches across Macedonia back to the hurting people of Jerusalem. His countrymen were suffering.
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and they were tagging him emotionally. And so he feels so torn between these two loves that were deep within his heart. I'm so thankful that Paul chose to write the Romans a letter instead of actually going there in person.
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You see, his brief three months in Corinth was just enough time to write one of the great theological discourses in the New Testament, the book of Romans.
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What if he had gone to Rome and never had written this incredible letter to the Romans? It's unthinkable to remove this great work from the scriptures.
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The sovereignty of God gave us an incredible gift in this book of the Bible called Romans. I'm also grateful for the glimpse of his heart that the missionary gives us in passages like the five verses I'm about to read, but you can see them in the next chapter, in chapter
The Urgency of Sharing the Gospel
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10, verses one through four. Both of them give us an inside look at a burden for the lost.
00:03:32
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Yes, he was a missionary to the Gentiles, but he still had such a burden for unbelieving Jews. When we look inside of this writer's motivation, we see what a burden for the lost really looks like.
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We see especially what a burden for one's own people group looks like. As we examine his burden for the lost, ask yourself if this resembles your compassion for those who have not yet trusted Jesus Christ.
00:04:04
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So let me yeah read through this passage. It says in Romans 9, verse 1, I am speaking the truth in Christ. I'm not lying. My conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.
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For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen, according to the flesh.
00:04:36
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They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, glory, the glory, Isn't that an inspiring... and the promises to them belong the patriarchs and from their race according to the flesh is the christ who is god over all
Perseverance in Evangelism
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blessed ever amen isn't that an inspiring passage of scripture, to look at anyone's heart and to see that it beats that strongly for those who are not yet saved, those who are not yet believers in Christ.
00:05:14
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So I want to break this passage into three different parts and look closely at what a burden for the lost, what does it look like? Well, the first part that I want us to focus on is verses one, two, and three.
00:05:28
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I think we see here expressions of a lingering obligation to the lost. You know, when Paul began this letter to the church in Rome, he began with this inspiring statement of an internal sense of obligation, which seemed to motivate him toward the lost with the message of the gospel.
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Perhaps you recall in Romans 1, verse 14, where he says, i am under obligation, both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish.
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So I'm eager to
Concluding Prayer and Encouragement
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preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. For I'm not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first,
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and also to the Greek. For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith. As it is written, the righteous shall live by faith.
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Wow. You know, i feel like that in these expressions of his inner sense of obligation, there's something he's supposed to communicate. There's something he's supposed to pass on and share.
00:06:41
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to ah to his Jewish brothers. And so it's on his heart. And so let's look more closely at the way he phrases this sense of obligation.
00:06:53
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I think one thing he says about it in verse one is he expresses the honesty. of his burden for the loss. He said, I'm speaking the truth in Christ.
00:07:03
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I'm not lying. My conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit. Did you catch that? It's like ah a triple oath. He's saying, you can ask Jesus.
00:07:14
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You can ask the Holy Spirit. If you were able to get down there in my conscience, you could ask my own conscience. He said, I'm not concealing anything. i'm I'm telling you the truth. The truth there is a word that means nothing concealed.
00:07:29
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It's laid bare. It's out there. It is what it is. And what he's saying is what's down within me is so true. It's so authentic and genuine. I really care.
00:07:40
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I really care. It's an honest burden that I have for the loss. But he goes on to describe his burden in another way. He expresses it as a sense of heaviness.
00:07:52
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He says that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. You know, it's almost like he's saying, if you could only know the depth of the burden.
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I think when he uses the word great in front of the word sorrow, he's describing how he feels beneath the surface, sort of like an iceberg.
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You will recall that an iceberg has 10% of the iceberg above the surface of the water, while 90% of the iceberg is hidden beneath the surface of the water.
00:08:29
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That's the idea. The density there of ice to the density of the seawater is so incredible. But then it he says, not only the depth of the burden, but also duration of the burden.
00:08:43
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it's He uses the words unceasing anguish to express this. You know, when the Titanic struck an iceberg, there's been people like, I don't know, it's like year after year, generation after generation, people keep being interested to check that out and to investigate and so forth. And those men who spent hours and hours trying to study all the conditions that were there that night, they estimate that the iceberg they struck would have gone deep down below the surface of the water, 200 to 400 feet down.
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And so just imagine he's he's saying, oh, the burden that you hear in this one verse, it's much, much deeper than that. It goes way down there.
00:09:31
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It doesn't ever let up. Would you say that describes how you feel about unbelievers? Does it ever bother you that much that they don't know Christ yet?
00:09:43
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The apostle Paul is saying, I feel so heavy about it. I'm trying to tell you that it's genuine. It's not make-believe. I'm not trying to create an image here.
00:09:54
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I'm telling you the truth that I really feel this way. As a matter of fact, he goes one step further that seems to me to be almost like a bridge too far. He says in verse three, for I could wish...
00:10:07
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that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen, according to the flesh. Does it ever, I mean, the hunger for for sharing the gospel with lost people, does it ever get a hold of your heart that intensely, that strongly?
00:10:28
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The intensity of the hunger was for the the salvation of the lost, And he was saying, I'm just telling you, this is so real. This is so heavy. This is more like a hunger for me.
00:10:41
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And I was thinking, didn't somebody else say something very similar to this whole idea of I could wish myself a cursed, cut off so that others would get in?
00:10:53
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Well, that's Moses. In Exodus 32, verses 30 through 34, you'll recall that the Jewish people had made a golden calf. And God was so upset.
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Moses was up on the mountain. He was interceding. He was receiving the the Ten Commandments. And when he gets back down there, God tells him, get out of the way, Moses.
00:11:15
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I'm going to wipe out the whole whole group of them. And Moses is like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Let's slow down here. Lord, would you blot me out of your book rather than taking all of them out like that?
00:11:27
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You know, I think that honored God for for Moses to say that, for Paul to say that, because what what the Lord saw was, this is a hunger that's within this man's breast, his chest.
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Is that what beats in your chest? Do you really have such a heavy burden? to say, I feel like I've got to get the gospel to other people, no matter what kind of means I have to use, whether it's technology or whether it's person to person sharing across the the coffee table in the restaurant, I've got to do this.
00:12:04
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Well, let's move to a second part of this great passage about his prayer, ah about his concern, about how he wants to take the gospel to around the world.
00:12:16
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But verses four and five is like an exasperation. Why is Paul exasperated? Well, think he's exasperated but because the the Jewish people had been given so many unique things and wonderful God-given opportunities to know the truth about the Messiah, the truth about Jesus.
00:12:40
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And yet they were missed opportunities. Has it ever touched your heart when you've been reading through, let's say the Gospel of Matthew and you come to chapter 23, or let's say you're reading through the Gospel of Luke and you come to chapter 19? Twice in the New Testament, in the Gospels, in Matthew 23, 37 to 41 44, twice,
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and in luke nineteen verse forty one to forty four twice Jesus weeps over the city of Jerusalem. And he says to them, oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often I wanted to gather you together as a hen gathers her brood, as she gathers her baby chicks.
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I wanted to gather you. But you know what he says? But you were not willing. You didn't want to come. And so I'm thinking to myself, wow, they had so many opportunities that were extended to them.
00:13:40
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He lists some of them off. he lived He lists some of the great gifts that the Israelites were given. For example, they were given the adoption of God.
00:13:51
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That was a gift. They were given the glory of God. Like in God's glory, what it means is the revelation of his attributes. And so they were given the gift of seeing so many attributes that other people groups had not had the privilege of seeing.
00:14:09
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They were given also the covenants, these agreements from God, some of them being unconditional, but also the gift of the authority of God. When God says, this is how I want you to live.
00:14:21
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These are not only the 10 commandments. these are This is the law that I want you to live by as you go through. So speaking about God's authority to tell us the best way to live.
00:14:33
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They were given the adoration of God. God taught them how to worship him. He's a holy God. And so there's certain ways that we should come to him and certain ways we should not come to him.
00:14:45
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And so they were given insights into that. They were given the promises. So it's like these special announcements from God. that ah he would share with them.
00:14:56
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They were given these incredible biblical heroes or characters in the past, in the Old Testament. These ancestors were also gifts from God. Think about Abraham and Isaac, Jacob, Moses,
00:15:10
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David and so forth. I mean, these were all like wonderful gifts, but were they responding? Were they saying yes to Christ? At this point, when Paul was writing, many of them were still saying no to Christ.
00:15:26
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Not only the these gifts, but also think about the grace. I thought about God's grace whenever I read these words. To them belong the patriot patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ.
00:15:42
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Why did God choose for the Messiah to come through the Jewish race, through the through the lineage you know ah of Abraham and the lineage of David and so forth?
00:15:54
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Was it that they were so special? Was it that they were so huge and large and God said, if I'm going to bank on anybody, I'm going to bank on those Israelites. They're the biggest group down there.
00:16:06
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No, that's not really it, to be quite honest. As a matter of fact, God cut straight with them in Deuteronomy 7, verses 6 through 8. And God says, I didn't pick you because you were the best, because you were the biggest.
00:16:22
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No, I chose you out of grace. I placed my love upon you. Can you imagine that? I mean, that's so incredible.
00:16:32
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And yet you read the rest of this chapter and he actually gets into that. He actually gets into how God sovereignly chose ah Israel and so forth and has such a place for the Jewish people. And yet you get to the end of the chapter and you see, uh-oh,
00:16:49
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He still requires them to respond to him by faith, even though there's incredible grace. And I'm thinking, wow, just because he had chosen them, they still have to repent and turn with faith.
00:17:04
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in the finished perfect work of Christ. I thought, wow, you know, that's what he says in verse 32, for example, of this same chapter. He says, because they did not pursue it by faith, but as it were based on works, they stumbled over the stumbling stone.
00:17:21
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And so I'm thinking, wow, what missed opportunities. But is it just The nation of Israel that misses opportunities of light, of grace, of gifts of God?
00:17:36
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No. No, friend, for a long time. There I was growing up in ah in a church in Tennessee where I heard the gospel, where i heard the gospel put to music. I could hear it in wonderful songs.
00:17:50
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I saw people living the gospel all around me, including my own mother. And yet, you know what? It wasn't enough. I missed so many opportunities earlier in my life.
00:18:03
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I did not, the light bulb didn't turn on for me until I was in college. During my first year of college is when finally I realized the truth.
00:18:14
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Finally, all those years, all that truth, all those opportunities, God was knocking, God was pleading, God was inviting, God was drawing and calling, but I didn't want to respond in faith. you Just like even today, you know what?
00:18:30
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Today, there are others just like me who go to churches, who've had so much truth, who've heard about Jesus, and yet they've not responded with faith, with repentance, putting their faith and trust in Christ.
00:18:46
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It's that way in Israel. Do you know that despite all those years in the Old Testament, all those years in the New Testament where so many things happened in Israel,
00:18:57
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Do you know that only 1.8% of the people of Israel are believers in Jesus Christ? 180,300. And you know what? Most of those are not Israelis, they're Arab.
00:19:11
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They're Arabs that live Israel. but they've heard the gospel and they said, you know what? That makes perfect sense to me. I'm headed in the wrong direction. I wanna turn from my sin and I wanna put my faith and my trust in Christ.
00:19:25
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And so it's a beautiful thing when you see Israeli and Arabs come together in Christ. That's what the book of Ephesians says. It's like in Christ, the Lord tore down a wall that had separated these two incredible divisions of humanity.
00:19:43
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And so all of that, but just think, Paul would go into so many areas and some, sometimes more than others, but some would receive the gospel while others would re reject it.
00:19:56
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So how did he keep going? How did he not let it all just finally bring him down to the point to where he said, I'm so discouraged. I'm so tired of people saying no to Christ when I want them to say yes to Christ.
00:20:11
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Maybe you're listening to this message, this broadcast over the radio station, or maybe you're hearing it on a podcast, and maybe you're saying, that's me. I'm so discouraged. I've tried so hard to tell other people about Christ, and they don't want to hear.
00:20:28
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What is it that could keep me going over and over again? I'll tell you what it is. Those biblical revelations of Christ, those incredible, inspiring, inspirational revelations that were given to the Apostle Paul, that's what kept him going.
00:20:47
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I believe that he said, you know what? I can share because I'm exalting Christ every single day. My whole life is like a song of worship and praise.
00:20:59
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And so when I observe who the Lord is, it's not related to the response of people. It's related to the worthiness of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
00:21:12
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That's why in the Gospel of John, he's saying, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He goes on to say the Word was made flesh. But right in the middle of all of that exaltation, the Apostle John in that case, in John 1, verses 10 and 11, he does break out and say,
00:21:33
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He was in the world and the world was made through him. And yet the world did not know him. And he came to his own and his own people did not receive him.
00:21:45
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Isn't that sad? He was born in the Jewish race. And yet so many still say, I don't want Christ. And they reject him. But also think about you and me, even though perhaps you're like me and I'm a Gentile.
00:21:57
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Well, this is the thing. Even for Gentiles, Jesus came. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
00:22:10
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Man, it's it's an incredible thing that the God who made us We don't even know who he is. We don't know him. And so that keeps every person like me who does know him, every Christian like you, you know him.
00:22:26
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So we should say, Lord, knowing who you are, makes me want to tell those who don't know who you are because they have some kind of misunderstanding about the kind of God that you are.
00:22:41
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So I want to tell them. I want to set the record straight. And that's how he ends this wonderful prayer, this wonderful passage that gives us an insight into his heart.
00:22:52
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He lets us see who is it that Christ is. Well, let's look at what he says. He says, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ who is God, over all, blessed forever.
00:23:08
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Amen. I think there were four things there that the apostles said, you know what, they may reject me to my face and they may say no to God, but I know it's because they don't know who he is.
00:23:22
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And so I've got to do my part in helping them to know who he is. And so here's the first thing he says. He said, he's the Christ. Do you know that word is the same word for Messiah?
00:23:34
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It's the anointed one. it's It means for all those Old Testament prophecies, going all the way back to when Adam and Eve disobeyed God.
00:23:45
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In Genesis chapter three, verses 14 and 15, the Lord promised that one day, through Adam and Eve's descendants, through Eve's descendants who were going to come was going to come the Messiah.
00:23:58
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And he was going to step on the head of the serpent and he was going to win. He was going to have victory. So because of the prophecies, do you know for for the last 4,000 years, between that time and the time that Paul was writing these words, for 4,000 years,
00:24:15
Speaker
the Lord gave over 300 Old Testament prophecies that were fulfilled in Jesus Christ. So it's like Paul was saying, if you Jewish brothers and sisters only knew, if you only knew how Jesus has already fulfilled over 300 of those Old Testament prophecies, you would say, he's the right one, I'm gonna follow him.
00:24:39
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But he also uses another word, not just the Christ, he uses who is God. do you know that Jesus is the Son of God? Maybe you would say, how can you know that?
00:24:50
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Because the New Testament record proves the deity of Christ. He would say he's worthy of sharing with others because of the power. You see, jesus called ah John called Jesus' miracles ah signs in the Gospel of John.
00:25:06
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He highlighted seven of his miracles, but really there were 37 miracles that were written in the New Testament that Jesus performed. All of that is trying to tell us something.
00:25:19
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It's trying to tell us, hey, Jesus is not like Pastor Morrison. Jesus is not like deacon so-and-so. Jesus is so perfect. He is so powerful.
00:25:31
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He can do these great things in a life. And so while he was here on this earth, he did great things that no one else could do. Also, I think the Apostle Paul goes on to say, it's not just that he's God, he's God over all.
00:25:46
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You see, if we could only understand Christ's position, I think that Christ's position of authority would would tell us, wait, Someday we'll all stand before him.
00:25:58
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We will one day, every knee will bow. Every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. That's what the Father wants, is for us to recognize the position of his son, Jesus.
00:26:13
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Oh, if there were just time, I would go through so many passages that speak about how Jesus is Lord and he has authority over all flesh. All the authority in heaven and earth.
00:26:25
Speaker
He has authority to execute judgment. He has authority over life and authority over every power, every ah realm of authority there is. Jesus has authority over all of it.
00:26:37
Speaker
But there's one more thing I think he would say. He would say, yeah, I'm gonna keep sharing Jesus because of Christ's position, because of his power, because of all those prophecies that have been fulfilled in his life.
00:26:50
Speaker
But the last thing is he would say, I'm gonna keep on sharing because of the permanence, the permanence. You see, he says, blessed forever, amen.
00:27:01
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You know, the eternality of Christ should be a huge reason, an incentive for us to share. You know, whenever 1 Thessalonians 4, verses 13 through 18, comes to this climactic point where Jesus comes back, he raises the dead.
00:27:18
Speaker
Those of us that are alive when he returns this earth, we will join him in the air and and we'll all be there together. But it says these words, and so we will always be with the Lord.
00:27:31
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Can you imagine always being blessed, always blessed for forever and ever and ever? That would be so wonderful. There's only one way to get there to heaven, and that's through Christ.
00:27:45
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Jesus said, I'm the the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. And so it's a wonderful way to be blessed forever.
00:27:56
Speaker
But if you read many different places throughout the New Testament, for example, even in Jude, Jude only has one chapter. So in Jude verse 13, it says that false teachers and false prophets and those who don't trust Christ, it says, for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever.
00:28:19
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Can you imagine being cursed? forever and ever and ever and and never ending, I'm just so glad that Jesus came. And just like Paul, I want other people to know.
00:28:32
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I want them to know the truth. I want them to know the good news. There's a way. There's a way beyond all of the brokenness that we see around us that's in our lives and in this world.
00:28:44
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So why don't we pray that we can get that good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ out to other people. Let's pray together. Lord, I thank you so much for passages like this.
00:28:56
Speaker
They give us a glimpse. It's just brief. It's only five verses. But oh, those five verses, that's there's so much in between the lines. so There's so much beneath all of those lines.
00:29:09
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As the Apostle Paul says, this is what really moves my heart. Lord, I pray that in our community, the hearts of people would be for Jesus. The hearts of people would beat that others would hear the gospel of Jesus Christ.
00:29:25
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Oh Lord, please rescuing rescue them from spiritual darkness and transfer them in Christ into spiritual light. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
00:29:37
Speaker
Friend, thank you so much for listening today. i pray that God will bless you as you go through the rest of your day and the rest of your week.
00:29:52
Speaker
This is a ministry of First Baptist Church located at 1700 Milam Street, Columbus, Texas.