Jim Styles - God's Wonderful Plan Of Redemption - Class 3 - God Can Redeem Us

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

1. 0:00

   You’re doing a great job of keeping it moving. We don’t want to be late for that. Dinner. Do we? Oh no, no did. You see all that good stuff in there? Yeah, so in our second class we had a look at how God did redeem his Son. And now what we want to do is look at how God redeemed his Son and how that same plan is available for US brothers and sisters today. So then you look back and wonder, well, how did God ever save his Son?

2. 0:31

   What are the hints in the Bible that he did? You know, He had our nature, He had this proneness to sin. What did he do? And we get hints in the Scriptures. Well, in Isaiah 50, it talks about immersing in the word that the Lord God has given me in verse 4, the tongue of the learn that I should know how to speak a word in season to him who is weary.

3. 0:50

   He awakens me morning by morning He awakens me to hear as the learn the Lord God has opened my ear and I was not rebellious, nor did I turn away and and the reason I bring this up is because when you start looking at well, how did God save his son, then the mechanism to save Jesus is the very mechanism that we want to follow. If the Bible made such a difference in his life, the word of God reprogrammed his brain and helped him overcome the devil.

4. 1:18

   This is what’s going to do it for us. This is why for young people, you wonder like, how are you ever going to be different from the, the, the people around you in this world? You watch the lives that young people have today, the choices that they make, the things that they do in this world, all the things that are being offered to you that you can go do and have fun and, and all this kind of, how are you ever going to be different?

5. 1:37

   Well, the way you’re going to be different is by going and, and listening to the scriptures and letting God’s word get into our our heads and reprogram the way the devil makes us think. That’s what saved, that’s part at least of what saved Jesus Christ. And that’s why we put such a stress on the reading of God’s word.

6. 1:55

   You look at how God taught him obedience through sufferings and trials. And then you wonder, well, why does God doing this to us? And you wonder like, why does God bring health issues to our life? Why do we have accidents? Why do we go through family troubles, A collegial problem? Why does God do all this in our lives? And then you go back and look at, well, this is how He saved His Son.

7. 2:16

   This is how He saved Jesus Christ. Why would we expect it to be any different with us in Hebrews 2 at verse 10? It was fitting for him for whom and and for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory. See that this was the goal, to bring the many sons to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. Perfect through sufferings, for indeed in verse 16, He does not give aid to angels, but He does give aid to the seat of Abraham. Therefore, in all things He had to be made like his brethren, that he might be a merciful and a faithful high priest and things pertaining to God to make propitiation for the sins of the people, or in that he himself has suffered being tempted. He had those feelings.

8. 3:02

   He knew what it’s like when we go through those sufferings. He knows too, He felt them, but because he went through that, he’s able to give aid to those who are tempted. He can empathize with our weaknesses because he’s been through it himself. And this is how God taught him. And again in Hebrews, because Paul’s trying to stress why Christ had to have our nature. Why did he have to be like us?

9. 3:26

   Because the Hebrews would have thought, well, their Messiah should have been somebody greater than that. He shouldn’t just be somebody of this race. He should have been like an Angel. He should have been somebody more powerful, but Paul says in verse 7, in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with vehement cries and tears to him who was able to save him from death, and was heard because of his godly fear. Though he was a Son, yet he learned obedience by the things which he suffered, and having been perfected, he became the author or the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him. See, this is the process that Christ went through. This is how God saved his Son.

10. 4:06

    How do you take somebody born with human nature who has a proneness to sin? How do you win the victory? And you, you put them through things, you have them go through suffering, you chasten your son, you discipline them, as Paul would say in Hebrews 12 later on, this is what Christ went through. And then he says to us, He says, why would you expect it to be any different in your lives?

11. 4:28

    You think you’re going to be saved some other way than than the way that Christ went through? He was the first, the first fruits. He went through it. He showed us the way to the Father. And then what God will do is save all the rest of the children through that similar process. The difference is that the rest of us become sinners. Christ never gave in to sin, but he went through this process. And what did it drive him to do?

12. 4:52

    He cries to his Father with tears, begging his father for the strength to survive another day, you know, pleading with him for help that I, you know, he, he realizes the weight of the world is on his shoulders. And I don’t want to mess up. I don’t want to give in the sin. And he’d go up into those hills in the evenings and talk to his dad and cry for help to him who is able to save him from death. And he learned obedience by those things that he suffered. And that’s exactly what God does with us. And so you then you look at, well, why the cross? Why the cross?

13. 5:25

    Why would he have his son crucified in the end by Romans and put up on a pole? Why would he do that? And, and brothers and sisters, what happened is when you go back and analyze this subject, he needed that Christ never fought with his dad and said, this isn’t fair. I shouldn’t have to go through this.

14. 5:44

    That’s what Job did. Job made that mistake of thinking, wait a minute, God’s wrong on this one. I shouldn’t have to do this. Christ never went down that pathway. He looked at what was in front of him and he understood this is how God would save him. How do you take a man like Jesus Christ who’s never going to give into sin? How do you keep him humble?

15. 6:05

    How would you do that? How would you prevent him from ever giving into sin? Paul got given a thorn in the flesh. He asked three times that God would take it away. And God says, Oh no, you’ve, you’ve seen a lot, Paul, and my grace is sufficient for you and my power is made perfect in weakness.

16. 6:21

    How would you keep Jesus Christ humble? And he puts in front of him the fact that in the end you’re going to hang up there in front of all those people and you are going to publicly declare that I am right and that sin must die. That’s what you’re going to do. And he knew that’s what it was in front of him and it was there all the time.

17. 6:39

    You look at him and he tries to explain to his disciples and they don’t want to hear it at all. They don’t understand it, but this is what’s on his mind. In Luke 9 He said to them, But who do you say that I am? And Peter said the Christ right, the Christ of God.

18. 6:53

    And he strictly warned them and commanded them not to tell this to anyone, saying the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed and be raised the third day. And then he said to them all, if anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow me.

19. 7:16

    This is the pathway back to God. We deny ourselves, we don’t give into our own will. We take up our cross and we follow Jesus Christ and we do the will of God, the will of him who he came to serve. That’s the that’s the goal. That is the game plan that God has always had to save all his children. It’s been that way from Adam all the way to us today. It’s always been the same.

20. 7:41

    That’s, that’s the process for saving his children. So what he did then is he developed a trusting faith in his son. He helped his son through the experiences of life to trust him in all circumstances. And this is what Paul was trying to develop to the Hebrews. That’s as part of why he wrote this letter.

21. 7:58

    He knew they were going to be going through periods of tremendous suffering and persecution at this time, and he tries to encourage them. After going through all his exposition of the atonement, he says, look at you better get ready because the times are coming. You have need of endurance so that after doing the will of God, after you’ve done the will of God, he says you may receive the promise. This was the game plan all along for yet a little while and he was coming, will come and not Terry. Now the just shall live by faith. He goes right back to Habakkuk, goes back to that historical event when Jeremiah had been saying if you believe God, if you trust God, when the Babylonians come, surrender, get out of the city and leave.

22. 8:42

    And that to them, that was treason, that was heresy. You know, that’s what they even charged Jeremiah with, treason. And Habakkuk says this is what will happen. The just will live by faith. You’ll believe what God says even in the midst of a situation. You just can’t believe it’s right. But God says surrender to the Babylonians and walk out of the city and you will live. That’s where this came from.

23. 9:05

    And now Paul uses that and said this was the whole process. God was after all along is that we develop a relationship with God, that we trust Him in everything he brings into our life, and that we live by faith and by faith in God and by faith in the Son of God who gave himself for us.

24. 9:22

    But if anyone draws back, my soul has no pleasure in him. But we’re not of those who draw back to perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul. So faith is what saves. So then you see in Hebrews 11 where Paul goes through an example of all those people who made decisions in their life that weren’t by works of law, but they were decisions based on faith.

25. 9:46

    And they did this all the way to the end of their life. That’s why you would say that these all died with their faith when it says they all died in faith. The Greek there implies the idea they didn’t just die in faith. They died still having their faith. They kept it to the end. This was the endurance that Paul was after in these people. And so he mentions Bible characters who died in the end and at the end of their life they still had their faith. And then in chapter 12, he goes on to the author and perfector of faith.

26. 10:19

    And where else would you go in Hebrews 12 after mentioning what God did in the lives of all those people by faith? And since we’re surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and run the race with endurance that’s set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, not our faith. He’s the author and perfecter of faith. A lot of the modern versions take out the of our and it’s in italics and you’re King James because it doesn’t belong there. He’s not talking about Jesus being the author and perfector of our faith.

27. 10:57

    He said he was the author and perfector of at all of faith who for the joy that was set before him. He endured the cross. He despised the shame and he sat down on the right hand of the throne of God on high and consider him who endured such hostility by sinners against himself so that you will not grow weary and lose heart so that you won’t grow weary and lose heart.

28. 11:18

    And then the rest of the chapter he goes on to describe how look at this is how God saved his son and this is how God will save us that he will discipline us. He will chasten us through suffering. This is a part of the process of how God saves us. And see, this way you come out within this subject, you start looking at, well, how did God save his Son? And then you find out, well, whatever mechanisms he was using to save Jesus Christ, those were the mechanisms that were effective against the devil.

29. 11:46

    And if they worked on the devil in Christ, they work on the devil in US. It’s not real complicated. It’s actually a pretty simple concept to look at what God is doing to defeat sin and to beat sin. He did it in his Son and now he will do it in us. So you’ll find that when you start looking at how it would apply to us, for example, that in Romans 3 again where Paul gives nice clear exposition as opposed to shadowy language.

30. 12:12

    He says that I declare in verse 26 of chapter 3. I say at this time, yet God was declaring his righteousness that he might be just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. Now if you look up that phrase in the Greek there of him which believeth in Jesus there, if you check your inner linear, those of you that have interlinear laptops, you will find that it actually says there him who believeth in Jesus is actually him who is of the faith of Jesus. How did God save Jesus Christ?

31. 12:51

    He saved him by faith. He, he trusted his dad in everything. That was the motive force that drove him to his perfect obedience. That’s why Paul would say he was the author and the finisher of faith. And then Paul would develop, well, how is he going to save all of us? He saves all of us. When we develop the faith of Jesus Christ. It was never any different.

32. 13:13

    There has only ever been one game plan to save all of us. We are all saved by faith. Jesus Christ was saved by faith. I know some of us in here would probably think, well, he was saved by perfect obedience to the law, and he kept the law perfectly and he earned his salvation and all of that.

33. 13:29

    And then you read through Paul’s letter to the Galatians and the Romans, and he keeps saying that by works of law no flesh will be justified. No flesh will be justified. See, Christ would have never ended at all and get up there on the cross and say I earned my salvation. He’s pleading with his Father, with behemoth cries and tears to him who was able to save him from death.

34. 13:53

    And he was heard for his godly fear. He developed the faith that saves. And this is what God is after. He’s after that kind of faith and he wants us to have the faith of Jesus Christ. Not just faith in Jesus Christ, but the faith of Jesus Christ. And if you think that’s a bit far fetched, look at how Paul then develops this in Romans chapter 4.

35. 14:15

    He brings up Abraham, the father of the faithful. And when he expounds on Abraham, the father of the the circumcision, those who are not only of the circumcision, he says in verse 12, but who also walk in the steps of the faith which our father Abraham had while still uncircumcised, he’s trying to explain to the Jews. All right, you think Abraham was saved and you think Abraham was such an important character.

36. 14:40

    He’s the father of the faithful. All right, think back for a minute. When was Abraham declared righteous in the eyes of God? Was that before he was circumcised or after he was circumcised? And they’d have to say, oh, that was before he was circumcised. So circumcision wasn’t required. It was faith and this is what Paul’s driving at in Romans. This is why Romans is so clear as to how God saves his family by faith, by grace.

37. 15:07

    So he goes on to say in verse 16 about Abraham. Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace. So you could never earn this, never deserve it, never ever think that the flesh somehow deserves to get this. It was always by faith that it might be according to grace.

38. 15:27

    So that the promise might be to be sure to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all. Now see how and they they rendered that who those who are of the faith of Abraham. If you check your Greek, as they’ll see in your Greek text, that’s exactly the same phrase he used back in chapter 3. God has always been saving those who are of the faith of Abraham and in chapter 3 it becomes the faith of Jesus because now he becomes the ultimate example of salvation by faith. Up until then they had been able to look back at Abraham, but now you can look at Jesus Christ.

39. 16:09

    Abraham had the faith of Jesus Christ and that’s why God will save him. And then when you start looking at again, you don’t want to lose track as you’re going through this and turn it into an academic subject in the end and then think that it’s all about, you know, dotting your, your eyes and a + B = C It’s all driven by love.

40. 16:25

    The whole thing was driven by the love of God, that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him, that has faith in him, whoever believes in Him, should not perish but have everlasting life. For God didn’t send His Son into the world to condemn the world.

41. 16:44

    That’s not why He sent him. He sent him to let the world through him might be saved. And he who believes in him is not condemned. Those who have the faith of Jesus are not condemned. But he who does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed. He doesn’t have the faith in the name of the only Son of God.

42. 17:04

    See, it’s always been about faith. Do we have the faith that saves and God will save us by His grace? That’s what it was always about and always will be about. And what God is hoping, brothers and sisters, is that when we appreciate this, when you really come to feel this and believe it and understand it, and we really see how much we don’t deserve it, we can’t ever earn it.

43. 17:27

    It’s a gift by grace that God and His kindness gives us, and we plead for Him every day for help to defeat sin in ourselves, and He graciously helps us and forgives us some of our mistakes. Then how can that not change the way we treat other people? How can we look at somebody else who’s made a mistake? They want to point the finger at them and hold them accountable when they come to us and say they’re sorry. How can we do that?

44. 17:52

    How can we do that if we really feel this and you get what God has done for us? For me, I can’t do that to somebody else because God doesn’t do that to me. And this is the power of this subject. This is how you learn to forgive the way God Forgives. This is how you learn to extend His grace and his mercy is by appreciating what He’s done for me.

45. 18:16

    And when you see what He’s done for us and you realize, wow, I have to do it for somebody else. So in Philippians 2, you can see how the apostle Paul would show how this motive force of the atonement will redeem us from sin. It’s going to change the way we live. And he talks about that at every tongue should confess with Christ having been raised from the dead and what he has that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

46. 18:39

    Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. So do all things without complaining or disputing. See how he links those ideas together. You work out your own salvation when you realize what God has done for you, and you realize what He’s accomplished for you. That we don’t deserve.

47. 19:10

    We go forward in family life and ecclesial life and we don’t complain. You don’t complain. You might look at yourself right now and think, well, my parents, they’re different than other people’s parents and really it’s OK if I complain about my parents. But God says, or Paul says, in this case, you do all things without complaining or grumbling.

48. 19:28

    You do because you look at what God has done for you. So if you might think, well my kids are different than somebody else’s kids and I can grumble and complain about them because they’re not like other people’s kids, they have trouble and so on. But you see, this is an all-encompassing concept when we see what God has done for us sinners and ungodly, and how He treats us, that we don’t grumble, we don’t complain, we cooperate, we give thanks, we have joy, we have the peace of God that passes all understanding. Whereas Paul puts it in Ephesians one when he talks about how he’s hoping that the eyes of our understanding will be unlightened.

49. 20:04

    And you may know what is the hope of His calling? What are the riches of the glory of the inheritance in the Saints? And what is the exceeding greatness of His power towards us, who believe according to the working of His mighty power, with which He worked in Christ, when He raised him from the dead, and seated him at His right hand in the heavenly places?

50. 20:25

    See, that power that was working in his Son to develop the faith that that in his son that would save, that is the exceeding greatness of his power towards us. That same power is operating in US, brothers and sisters, if we let it. And we understand that that’s what God is after. He’s after developing a faith that trusts him that believes in him the faith that saves for which he can forgive us all our mistakes or he goes on to say in Ephesians 3 that and when you give that prayer that now to him who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us to him be glory in the ecclesia by Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever see what God can do in your life right now might seem impossible. You we think I can’t overcome that. I can’t treat somebody like this. I can’t forgive them of that.

51. 21:17

    I can’t. I can’t. But God says you can. You can because there is a power at work within you when you understand the Atonement. By the grace at which He saves us, what He’s done for us will inevitably cause us to live differently towards other people. And it’s a power that will end up allowing us to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think. Or as the Paul puts it in in Romans chapter 1 when he says, I’m not ashamed of the gospel of Christ in verse 16. For it is the power of God to salvation to everyone who has faith, to everyone who believes, to the Jew 1st, and also for the Greek.

52. 21:57

    For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith as it is written. The just shall live by faith. This is the power of faith in our lives and the gospel of Christ is that power of God because it reveals the righteousness that comes by faith. Not righteousness according to works of law, but righteousness that comes by faith. Which is why the apostle Paul would say when he wrote to those Corinthians that he would preach Jesus Christ and him crucified because he said in verse 22 of chapter 1, the Jews request a sign and the Greeks seek after wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified.

53. 22:35

    To the Jews, it’s a stumbling block. You know, they don’t think their Messiah is crucified. How can God save us from the Romans when we have a weak crucified Messiah? And to the Greeks, it’s foolishness. The Greeks with all their wisdom over there in Athens and their Stoic and Epicurean philosophies, they think that the Christ crucified, that’s what’s going to save people. They think it’s ridiculous.

54. 22:56

    But to those who are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because when you understand what God did in his Son, saving him through developing obedience by faith, through the things that he suffered, and you realize that’s what God’s willing to do to us, it becomes a power in your life.

55. 23:17

    It’s a motive force that will change the way you live. Because the full interest of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. So Christ’s death on the cross then when he destroyed sin and killed the devil and put it to death and trusted his father and went up there by faith and believed that his father was right, that is the motive force God uses.

56. 23:40

    It is the most powerful thing God could ever give to change your life. It’s it can do for you what animal sacrifices could never do. A serpent on the pole could never do it. You know, circumcision could never do it. Even baptism can’t do it, but when you understand what Christ did on the pole, when you understand Jesus Christ and Him crucified, and you identify with that and take up your cross and follow Him, you get a different life.

57. 24:07

    Your life changes. So Christ would say in Luke 9, then at verse 22 that the Son of Man is going to suffer and many, many things, and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed and raised the third day. And then He said to them all, if anyone desires to come after me, let Him deny Himself and take up His cross daily and follow me.

58. 24:27

    For whoever desires to save his life, lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. If we join Christ in His mechanism of salvation, His plan of redemption, and how God saved His Son, that is what will save us too. Brothers and sisters, there only really ever was one way. So now you can see that when Paul develops this in Romans 8, what he’s driving it that he says there that that God did what the law could not do and in verse three that for what the law could not do and that it was weak through the flesh. That was the problem.

59. 25:00

    The problem was always the flesh. It wasn’t God’s law. God finally did it by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and on account of sin, He condemned sin in the flesh that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in US. What was that? See, it was that aim of the law to love God and love your brothers and sisters, love your neighbor as yourself, and it’s finally fulfilled in us when we don’t walk according to the flesh, but we walk according to the Spirit. That’s what Paul has.

60. 25:33

    That’s what he saw is the power of the cross, or when he deals with it in Romans 5 when he said that, look at when we were still without strength. In due time Christ died for the ungodly, and scarcely A righteous man will die, but scarcely for a righteous man will one not.

61. 25:48

    Would one die, but perhaps for a good man someone might, might even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love towards us, and that while we were sinners, Christ died for us much more than now. Having been justified by His blood. Shall we be saved from wrath through Him? For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son?

62. 26:12

    Oh yeah, if that’s the case, if while we were enemies, ungodly and sinners, God has reconciled to us, to him through the death of his Son. Much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved by his life because we come out of the waters of baptism committed to walk in a new way of life where we agree with him that the devil must be destroyed, sin must die. We can’t treat people the way we used to treat people. We can’t do the things we thought we used to be able to do.

63. 26:40

    We can’t do all those wicked things that Paul would write to them and say that these people won’t be in the Kingdom. And such were some of you. But now you’ve been changed and he saw the power of the the cross of Christ to change people’s life, or as Paul would say in Romans 6 when he deals with this, that if we have been united together in the likeness of his death, well, how do you get united in the likeness of his death? We’re not being put up on a pole. You’re not being crucified by the world. People aren’t doing that to you.

64. 27:11

    You’re not being tortured. So how do you become united in the likeness of his death? You join him and his death to sin. You become identified with Him like in the animal sacrifice and say this is really what I want to do. I want to put sin to death. If we do that, like baptism is a symbol of certainly we shall also be in the likeness of his resurrection.

65. 27:33

    Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him. The old man was crucified. This is something we do, not something that is done to us. We put the old man to death, the old man’s crucified with him. This is what we’ve been asked to do, is to join Christ in his death to sin, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he was died, has been freed from sin. And now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more death, no longer has dominion over him. For the death that he died, He died to sin once for all. That’s the death he died.

66. 28:16

    That’s the death we come to remember on every Sunday morning. We don’t come to remember what they did to him. We come to remember what he did to sin. He killed the devil, and that’s the death that he died. He died to sin once for all. And the life that he lives, he lives to God.

67. 28:35

    So likewise you also reckon yourselves to be dead, indeed to sin, but alive to God in Jesus Christ our Lord. So Paul would say that the Colossians in chapter 2 at verse 11 in him also you were circumcised with the circumcision made without hands by the putting off the body of the flesh in the circumcision of Christ.

68. 28:58

    See this is what circumcision was really all about was cutting off the old man of the flesh. It’s like baptism. So then he connects it right away and you were buried with him in baptism. So if you didn’t get it by circumcision, hopefully you will get it by baptism in which you were were also raised with him through faith in the working of God. We went down into the waters of baptism. We.

69. 29:19

    Committed and begged God to help. US put the. Old man to death, and we walk out committed to a new way of life. As he says, you were raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead, and you who were dead in your trespasses, in the uncircumcision of your flesh.

70. 29:36

    God made a lie together with him, having forgiven us of all our trespasses and canceled the bond which stood against us with its legal demands. This law and this law of sin and this he set aside, nailing it to the cross. See, that’s what God was doing. He was nailing that to the cross. That was His intent all along, that the old man would be put up there and all of the bondage that it brought. To those who are all their.

71. 30:02

    Lifetime subject to bondage would be nailed up there on the. Cross don’t. Ever build your religion and your understanding of the atonement from the perspective of the people who are killing Jesus Christ? It’s a terrible error. And yet there’s a tendency to want to do that because then we’re free and I can do what I want and he’s my substitute. And but it’s it’s a terrible mistake because you lose the power of the cross.

72. 30:26

    So when we were circumcised, so we were baptized with Christ, that’s what we did. We asked God to help us put sin to death. He goes on to the Colossians in chapter 3. And he says, if you were raised with Christ, if you came out of the water and you came up the new way of life, if we’ve been raised with Christ, now shall we sin that grace may abound? Oh no, that isn’t what it was about. Seek the things which are above where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God.

73. 30:51

    That’s where we want to be. We come out of those waters pleading with Him to help us live a new life patterned after the resurrected Christ. You know, we set our minds on things that are above, not on things that are on the earth. For you died, you died. This is what it was all about.

74. 31:06

    We joined Christ in his death to sin. We died and our life is now hidden with Christ and God. And when Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory. Therefore, what to death your members which are on the earth? This is this is something we do not which is done to us. See, God is trying to get us on his side. He doesn’t want to always, you know, keep hitting us on the head that sinners deserve to die. Sinners deserve to die.

75. 31:32

    Sinners deserve to die. And hopefully we don’t come here every Sunday morning thinking that’s what he’s trying to teach us. It’s true that sinners deserve to die, But now what do we do? What do we do about it? Well, what we do is we join Christ in his death to sin. So we put the death on the members which are on earth.

76. 31:50

    Fornication. We can’t. Live like that. Uncleanness, passion, evil desire, covetousness, which is idolatry. Because of these things, the wrath of God’s coming on the sons of, of disobedience in which you yourselves once walked, you were like this before your baptism. You used to be like this, but now you don’t do that anymore.

77. 32:10

    But now you yourselves had to put off these things, anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. Do not lie to one another, since you put off the old man with his deeds and have put on the new man, which is renewed in the knowledge, according to the image of him who created him.

78. 32:29

    This doctrine is supposed to change how we live. Paul would talk to the Galatians, as was mentioned in in the prayer about the fruit of the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit is love and joy and peace and long-suffering and kindness and goodness and faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such there is no law.

79. 32:47

    You can’t command those things by law. And those who are Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. So if we live in the Spirit, let us walk in the Spirit. This is supposed to change the way we live because we have been crucified with Christ. That’s what God has been after all along in this whole subject.

80. 33:07

    So Peter reminds us in second Peter 21. For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that you should follow. In His steps He committed no sin, nor was deceit found in His mouth, who when He was reviled did not revile in return. And when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed himself to Him who judges righteously, who bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness. By whose stripes you were healed. See, this is the way Peter uses it. We have been asked to follow in Christ’s steps. He went first, and we must follow him to the Father. Jude also reminds us in verse 24 when he ends up his little letter there with a prayer that now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling.

81. 34:10

    That’s the aspect of the animal and the animal sacrifice that the animal had to be without blemish. It couldn’t have unequal legs, couldn’t be in such a way that it would stumble. So He’s able to keep us from stumbling. He’s able to prevent us from sinning and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy. See, those are the two aspects of God’s redemptive plan. He’s able to turn US away from sin and keep us from stumbling. Not perfectly, but He’s able to motivate us to work on it. And then because of that, He can present us blameless before the presence of His glory with great joy. That’s what God’s redemptive plan does. It motivates us to live for God and then provides us with the forgiveness of our sins.

82. 35:00

    And then Titus uses this in the same way in Titus chapter 2 at verse 11. For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed, and purify for himself His own special people, zealous for good works.

83. 35:43

    See Titus has both aspects in his letter as well. When Paul wrote to Titus, he said he gave himself for us that he might redeem us from every lawless deed. That’s the goal, to turn US away from those lawless deeds and purify for himself his own special people who are zealous for good works. So God’s redemptive plan will do both things. It will provide us with the forgiveness of our sins and motivate us to live for God.

84. 36:15

    It’s interesting when Peter uses the the promises to Abraham or the blessing of Abraham in Acts chapter 3 at verse 25. He does it in a way that we don’t normally cover. We talk about the promises to Abraham. We’re a lot more interested in the land and you know, the fact that he’s going to get the the Kingdom and talking about his son, that the the son that would come the Lord Jesus Christ, the Messiah. But look what?

85. 36:39

    Peter does with this in Acts chapter 3 when he talks to the Jews and says in verse 25, you are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant which God made with our fathers saying to Abraham and in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed. So watch how Peter uses that that blessing of Abraham. He says in verse 26 to you first that’s the Jews. God, having raised up his servant, Jesus, sent him to bless you in in turning away everyone of you from your iniquities.

86. 37:18

    See, that’s a part of the promise to Abraham. It isn’t just that we would be forgiven of our sins and be given immortality. Part of the promise to Abraham is that God will change our life. He’ll change the lives of Abraham’s descendants. Those who really are Abraham’s children have learned to not do their own will, but to do the will of our God, the will of our Father, the father who’s creating a family of his of his members who will live forever and God will change our lives.

87. 37:50

    Or as Paul mentions it in Galatians chapter 5 when he talks about the the the change it should take take place in our lives. He says in verse 13 For you, brethren, have been called the liberty only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another for all. The law is fulfilled in one word. Even this you shall love your neighbor as yourself, but if you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another.

88. 38:22

    I say, then, walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. See, we’ve been freed. Brethren and sisters from all those restrictions of the law, where the law put limits on how far we would actually go in serving one another in love. And people were just following the law. And just by the letter of the law, we’ve been set free to serve one another in love.

89. 38:48

    And this will change the way we act and our families and our collegians. The apostle Paul actually gives his own example of how this applied in his own life. And there’s a few places where he actually goes through what it’s done to himself. In First Corinthians 9 at verse 26, when Paul’s talking about the discipline that this is going to generate in his life, he says, therefore I run thus not with uncertainty, thus I fight not as one who beats the air, but I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest when I have preached the others, I myself should become disqualified. See, Paul had joined Christ, even crucified with Christ, and he joined Christ in the battle against sin, and he worked on disciplining his body and bringing it into subjection. He also mentions in Second Corinthians chapter 4 at verse 10 his own personal experience.

90. 39:44

    He says we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. We are hard pressed on every side, yet not crushed. We are perplexed but not in despair, persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed, always caring about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus.

91. 40:09

    That the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus sake. That the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So then, death is working in us, but life in you. And so you can see how Paul mentions what he was doing in a day by day process of what he was going through.

92. 40:34

    For their sakes. He was always carrying in his body the dying of the Lord Jesus. That was his goal so that the life of Jesus could be manifest in our body. This is where you you die to sin and live to righteousness like Jesus Christ did every day of his life. Paul also mentions his example to the Galatians in chapter 2 when he said, For if I build again at verse 18, those things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor. For I through the law died to the law, that I might live to God.

93. 41:09

    I’ve been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me and the life which I now live in the flesh. I live by faith and the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain.

94. 41:32

    You can see that this is how Paul had applied this in his own personal life. He saw himself up there on a cross, crucified with Jesus Christ, because that was his goal, to no longer do his own will, but to do the will of him who died for him. And that’s what that was his approach to every day of his life.

95. 41:52

    That’s what living by faith is all about and appreciating the grace of God. In chapter 6 then of Galatians, Paul mentions in verse 13. For not even those who are circumcised keep the law, but they desire to have you circumcised, that they may boast in your flesh. But God forbid that I should boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me and I to the world, or in Christ Jesus.

96. 42:20

    Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything but a new creation. It’s all about the new creature that God is creating in us. The new man that he’s making patterned after the Lord Jesus Christ. And Paul says in verse 16, And as many as walk according to this rule, peace and mercy be upon them and upon the Israel of God. So the apostle Paul himself, he was God’s proof that the victory can be won not just in Jesus Christ, but in those who walk after the steps of Jesus Christ, who walk in his faith. And that was the goal that the Apostle Paul had all through his life, ever since he was converted. So hopefully, brothers and sisters, then as you you go through this procedure and you look at this whole subject, hopefully it’s one that is going to change how we live. Hope we didn’t come here this weekend and just get more Bible notes that we put into our margins and, and we walk away the same people.

97. 43:19

    It’s supposed to change how we live our lives. So tomorrow in Sunday school, then we will hopefully get a chance to look at the power of faith in our lives. That’s what we’ll do in the Sunday school class of looking at how this whole process that we’ve been looking at is to generate faith in US. And then that faith has the power to change the way we will live.

98. 43:40

    And then in the exhortation, we’re going to have a look at how God tried to explain his redemptive plan over the years through rituals. He tried to do it. He tried to to explain the plan and then make improvements on it and, and deal with aspects that people misunderstood. And he did this over a number of years.

99. 43:57

    But inevitably the Jews just turned it into some ritualistic procedure whereby they could look at God and say, look at how good we are. And we’ve we’ve gone through this ritual and they totally misunderstood the plan. So that’s the plan for tomorrow then. Thanks.