Journey Through Galatians: Grace Versus Law

Transcript

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You who've received Jesus, you've put your faith in Him.

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God does not find any fault in you.

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What do you mean?

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But what about those issues I'm working on?

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He doesn't see them.

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You have non-imputation of sin.

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The Bible says you have been made perfect in Him.

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The Holy Spirit doesn't indwell sinful buildings.

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Yet the Holy Spirit indwells you.

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He's been given to you because your sin has been stripped away, taken completely out of the way.

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Welcome to the City Light Church podcast.

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Thanks for joining us today as we look into God's Word and discover the hope and truth that he has for us.

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If you want to connect with City Light Church, feel free to visit us at CityLightNYCcom.

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That's CityLightNYCcom.

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Pastor Boyan Jansik and his team believe that the power of the Holy Spirit is already working in our hearts and minds.

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As you listen to today's teaching, remember that you are deeply loved by God, that you are surrounded by His grace and that he has a real hope and a future for you.

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How are you?

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Forgiven ones, justified ones, made righteous, ones, blessed with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places, and Christ ones?

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We're celebrating what Jesus has done through His substitutionary death for us on the cross in this series on Galatians.

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Before we begin, let me just say I was so appreciative.

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As many of you know, I experienced flooding in my Williamsburg condo.

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It's a duplex but it's a ground floor duplex, so my bedroom and our children's bedroom, it was all in the basement and we started flooding last year.

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When I said flooding, I thought I knew what flooding was.

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It was one or two inches.

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It doesn't sound like a lot, but that's enough to ruin your carpets, ruin the baseboards, ruin whatever was on the floor and require immediate repair, and that happened several times.

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The Lord moved us to Long Island, thank God, because this Friday my neighbor who has the keys to my condo we still have it, we're waiting to either rent it or sell it he went in.

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I said just shoot me some video footage of what it looks like.

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It was 18 inches of water and, at the height, two feet of water.

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All of the ground floor units in my whole building were completely wiped out.

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And I'm looking at that and I'm sitting in a very, very dry Long Island home and I'm looking at what my bedroom and my children's bedroom would have looked like.

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I was frustrated with one to two inches, but 18 to 24 inches.

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Now the water is up to the mattress.

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Now everything is ruined.

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The walls are ruined because you know when the water touches that for that many hours you got all sorts of growth happening within the walls.

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And I'm saying, lord, you knew this would happen and in your wisdom you moved me out.

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Because that would have, that would have at least taken a month of my time months most likely to live in a hotel during the series on Galatians to try to prepare this series out of some Icano hotel.

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The insurance company would have put us up in Long Island City, like last time, where it's oh, breakfast is included, yeah, breakfast is Cheerios and that six month old sausage, egg and cheese sandwich you just unfrozed this morning.

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So God is good, isn't he?

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Amen, amen.

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So we're continuing our series of Galatians.

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We're in Galatians, chapter two.

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Before I begin Galatians chapter two, let me just give a quick recap, those of you who are just joining us.

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This series is so important, it's so pivotal, because there are two distinct, two separate covenants that people can live under.

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One is known as the old covenant.

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You can also call it the old covenant of the law.

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Under the old covenant of the law, you were never, ever justified.

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The law cannot justify you.

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The word justify means pronounced not guilty.

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Under the system of the law, you endeavored, you tried real hard to be approved unto God.

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You strived to be justified, and you strived according to your own self effort, according to your own discipline, according to your own religiosity, according to your own works.

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Yet you failed every time.

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That sounds depressing, just saying it, doesn't it?

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And a good question to ask is why have such a system?

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That just sounds cruel, right?

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Do you know that if you look at the scriptures, it doesn't seem that that was God's original intent when giving the law?

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He actually seemed to have offered them a choice and he said hey, this law, is this what you want?

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And they all, in unison with their pride, the children of Israel, responded with yes, this is what we want, for we are well able to keep everything you've commanded us to do.

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Uh, that didn't work out too well.

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So God said oh, okay, pride, so there's going to have to be another system where you come to the end of yourself where you realize that you cannot do it alone.

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You're not all that.

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You need a deliverer, you need a savior.

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So you have the Old Testament, the Old Covenant system of law where you endeavor to be approved unto God through your own self-effort never really were.

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And then you have the new covenant where you are fully approved, fully justified, completely not based on your own doings, not based on your own self-effort, but based completely on what Jesus has already done for you, which is keep the law in its entirety and then become a sacrifice for your sins.

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Your sins fell upon him and his righteousness fell upon you.

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There was a divine exchange there.

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Which system seems better?

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Yeah, amen, yeah.

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What we find is typically people not knowing the differences and mixing the two covenants.

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And the whole book of Galatians is written to warn us against mixture.

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You cannot mix the covenants, you cannot try to balance grace out.

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Grace, by its very definition, is extreme, it's radical, and it doesn't need us in the equation to do stuff to help us save you out in order to balance things out.

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Amen.

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So typically, when I begin like this, the argument, the response, because this is true gospel, but it comes against what we've typically been taught.

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The response is oh so you're telling me the old covenant law is done with.

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Well, I'm not telling you, but that's what the Scripture tells you.

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Well, what they hear then is so we're not even supposed to read the Old Testament?

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No, you're supposed to read the Old Testament.

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It's still the Word of God, just as much as the New Testament is the Word of God.

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In fact, in the New Testament it says these things were written for our example.

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There's so much we can learn, but just know that was a different system.

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We're under a different system.

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God hasn't changed, but the way in which he deals with people has, and the cross of Jesus changed everything, hallelujah.

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So they hear things like oh, you're just saying throw out the Old Testament.

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No, I'm saying throw out living today like you're living in the Old Testament, live in light of the cross of Christ, live in light of this new covenant that we're under.

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Also, what they hear is oh so you're just saying like the Ten Commandments has gone to Throw out any holiness, throw out any type of law.

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And what they hear because they don't stick around long enough what they hear is oh, there's a pastor who's encouraging lawlessness.

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He said don't live under the law, he's encouraging lawlessness.

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And the exact opposite is true when you live under grace, there's more holiness, yeah, except it comes from the inside out, from the power of the Holy Spirit within you, not the way religion brings it from the outside.

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In God is not after behavior modification, he's after heart transformation, and what's happening during this series is our believing, our faith, is getting sorted out, because right believing leads to right doing.

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Wrong believing leads to wrong doing Amen.

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So what better place to begin the second chapter of Galatians than the book of 2 Corinthians?

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Let's look at this first Amen.

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2 Corinthians, chapter 3, verses 7 through 9.

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Just want to show you a couple of things here.

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But if the ministry of death written and engraved on stones was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the face of Moses first, notice what the apostle Paul calls the Old Covenant, the system of law, he calls it the ministry of death.

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Why was it the ministry of death?

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Does that sound like a system you want to be under, by the way?

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The ministry of death?

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Because the law is like a giant magnifying glass.

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It comes over you and exposes your cracks.

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It exposes your sin.

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It places a demand on you but doesn't impart unto you the power to fulfill that demand, so it just brings death.

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Under the new covenant there is a demand, but you're imparted with the Holy Spirit and with the new created spirit, a born again spirit.

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You're imparted with power to fulfill that demand.

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But if the ministry of death are written and engraved on stones, talking about the giving of the Ten Commandments was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the face of Moses, remember, his face was shining like a light bulb, they said.

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It was radiating like the noonday sun when the law was given Because of the glory of his countenance, which glory was passing away.

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Verse 8,.

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How will the ministry of the Spirit that's what we're under now, the new covenant, the New Testament, these are all synonyms the ministry of the Spirit.

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How will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious?

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Can everyone just say that with me, more glorious.

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Make a choice what side of the cross do you want to live on?

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I want to live on the more glorious side, the new covenant side.

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I don't want to live on the wrong side of the cross, the BC side, the pre-crucifixion, pre-resurrection, pre-dev Pentecost, giving of the Holy Spirit and church being birthside.

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No, no, I want to live without balance, radically, extremely on the new covenant side Verse 9,.

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For if the ministry of condemnation, if anyone asks you, what is the law, what is the system of the law, say oh, I know, ministry of death, ministry of condemnation, that's what it is.

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For if the ministry of condemnation had glory, the ministry of righteousness, what's the ministry of righteousness?

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Grace, the new covenant of his grace, the ministry of righteousness exceeds much more in glory.

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So, essentially, the apostle Paul is saying the new covenant is better than the old.

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Amen.

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Now let's go into the book of Hebrews, chapter 8, verse 6.

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But now he has, speaking of Jesus, obtained a more excellent ministry in as much as he is also mediator of a what Better covenant.

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We as people are messed up and we have an innate propensity to gravitate towards the system of the law.

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You know where you first see that In the Garden of Eden.

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God gave him a choice the tree of life which is Jesus himself.

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And when I talk about grace, I'm not talking about a doctrine, I'm talking about a person.

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Grace has a lot of definitions.

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It's the means by which we are saved God's riches at Christ's expense, but even deeper than that, it is Jesus himself, because the law was given by Moses.

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It was a thing that was given, but grace and truth came in the person of Jesus Christ.

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That's what it says in the Gospel of John Hallelujah, hallelujah.

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But now he has obtained a more excellent ministry and as much as he's also mediator of a better covenant, which was established on better promises.

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I was saying that man has a natural propensity toward the law.

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In the Garden of Eden, he was given a choice the tree of life, which is Jesus, which is grace, or the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

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What is the knowledge of good and evil?

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It's the law.

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The law brings the knowledge of good and evil.

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And man, since that day up until now, we just gravitate towards what makes sense to our carnal mind, and we've been taught by our parents, by society, by this whole world system do good, get good, do bad, get bad.

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You're saying, yeah, isn't that Christianity?

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No, while you were yet a sinner, christ died for you Under grace.

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You do bad, you get good.

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See, I knew it.

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You say that kind of stuff.

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Everybody's going to lose their minds.

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Start swinging from the light bulbs.

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You'll go to the bathroom, pastor, come back up and they'll be building a golden calf running around here, half naked, just over strength getting cast.

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No, that's not how it works, because when you really see his beauty, when you see the cross, when you understand what he has done for you and inside of you, you are transformed and you are changed.

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Paul called the law the ministry of death, the ministry of condemnation.

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He also said the strength of sin is in the law.

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The more you preach law, law, law, you know what you're going to get Not holiness, more sin.

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The more you preach grace, true grace, biblical grace.

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In Romans we learn that grace not only establishes you firmly in the new covenant, declares you not guilty, but also it's an empowerment against sin.

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You see, true holiness come out of you, but through actually no self-effort of your own.

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So you can't get religious pride, you can't become haughty of how you cleaned your life up.

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No, all you did was yield, all you did was acknowledge that you died with him and then his life sprang up.

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But yeah, man is messed up.

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We always gravitate towards the law, but we need to shun it and not mix it.

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For if the first covenant had been faultless, the first covenant.

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The old covenant had been faultless.

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That means there was a fault with it.

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There was a problem, then no place would have been sought for a second.

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Yet even in the old there's prophetic words that a new one is coming.

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Why?

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What was the problem with the old?

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Because finding fault with them?

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The problem with the old is that God found fault with them.

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Do you know?

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God doesn't have that problem under the new?

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You who've received Jesus, you who've put your faith in him, god does not find any fault in you.

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What do you mean?

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But what about those issues I'm working on?

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He doesn't see them.

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You have non-imputation of sin.

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The Bible says you have been made perfect.

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In him.

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The Holy Spirit doesn't indwell sinful buildings, sinful vessels.

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Yet the Holy Spirit indwells you.

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He's been given to you because your sin has been stripped away, taken completely out of the way.

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So he doesn't find any fault with you.

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The problem with the old is he found fault with them still, because the law can never justify you.

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Why?

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Why did he still find fault with them?

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What was the problem with the old?

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The problem with the old was the problem with everything Us.

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We were in the equation Under the old God.

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The Father had a covenant with the people, guess, who kept breaking their side of the bargain, the people they kept messing up and messing up and messing up.

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So God had a solution Under the new.

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It's Christ in you, the hope of glory, who's keeping your side of the covenant intact.

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So you have God, the Father.

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He made a covenant and, on your behalf, jesus is forever keeping your end of the bargain.

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He's forever upholding the covenant in your place, so that God will not find fault and so that you cannot take any credit.

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And guess what also you can then do Rest, rest.

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It can be a peace that he's got you.

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You won't mess this thing up Because, finding fault with them, he says behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to leave them out of the land of Egypt because they did not continue in my covenant, says the Lord, hallelujah.

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Well, let's begin in Galatians, chapter two, starting in verse one.

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We're going to go line upon line, precept upon precept.

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I encourage you to pay attention.

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Rewatch the broadcast on YouTube, listen to the podcast.

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This isn't something that you'll get overnight.

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For a lot of you, a lot of questions will be raised.

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This is a journey our church has been on for decades.

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Just this year of 2023, we went through Romans six, seven and eight.

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If you haven't watched those sermons, they're online.

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We had summer life groups, all based on grace, and now we're doing this whole series Because a church that's fully living, with no mixture, still remains to restonged and the new covenant is a blessed church.

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It's a church that knows all the things that have been freely given to them by God.

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It's a victorious church.

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You wanna see a church that has mixture.

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You're gonna find Christians who have a spiritual insecurity.

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They're living under condemnation, they're living under shame, they don't have boldness and they constantly they may not admit it, but secretly just seems like they're trying to appease an unappeasable master.

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But when you understand grace, you can rest and know that he looks at you through the blood of Jesus and you are well pleasing to him.

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And no, this does not produce laziness, it doesn't.

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I know.

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I know who gets most excited about this message of grace.

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If we had evangelism right after service, they'd be the first ones to say I'm going too.

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If we had four days of fasting, they'd be the first ones to fast.

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If we had a building campaign, they'd be the first ones to give.

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From the outside, someone would say I feel like they'd be the last ones Cause you just you keep preaching.

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God will love you whether you do it or not.

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Yeah, grace blows your mind.

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Grace is upside down topsy-turvy.

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Grace is unlike anything the world has ever, ever seen before.

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It's the mystery of grace.

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I tell people that they're not cursed by God if they don't tithe and our giving goes up.

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Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah.

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So here, what's happening with the Galatians?

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A group called the Judaizers has crept in, and the Judaizers are Christians in a sense.

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They believe in Jesus, but they also believe you had to keep the law of Moses.

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So they crept in and they told, as an initial thing, they told all the men you have to get circumcised, cause that's the right of passage to becoming a Jew.

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And Paul loses his mind.

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It's the angriest you ever see him, the most passionate, the most emotional you ever see him, cause he realizes if you mix even a little bit, it's like drinking a glass of water that's 99% pure water but 1% arsenic.

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Would you drink that water?

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No, he says mixture will nullify, it, will frustrate the grace of God.

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You cannot have any mixture.

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Yet way too many Christians are actually living with mixture.

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So he's bringing some order here and some much needed correction here.

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And we left in Galatians, chapter one.

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He's essentially telling you his travel plans, not because he needed filler material to fill up the New Testament with, but he's just.

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He wants everybody to know, he wants his listeners to understand, that he got the gospel of grace supernaturally directly from God, but he didn't get it alone in some bush in the wilderness, but that he actually went to Jerusalem and met with all the top apostles and they confirmed.

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They said, yeah, that thing that you got, that's what we got.

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We're under a different dispensation.

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We're under a different system of order.

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It's no longer us endeavoring to be approved onto God based on our own effort, but it's through Jesus and what he did for us.

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And that's essentially what he's getting into now.

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Then, after 14 years, I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas and also took Titus with me, and I went up by revelation.

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That doesn't mean he teleported out of his body into Jerusalem.

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It just means that nobody invited him.

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He didn't get an Evi, no singing telegram, no card in the mail.

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The Lord told him to go.

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And he says I went up by revelation because the Lord told me to go and communicated to them that gospel, the gospel of grace, and I let him know what I was preaching.

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I was preaching Jesus plus nothing equals everything.

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Mixture comes in and says Jesus plus well, some stuff you gotta do to help us save your out equals everything.

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No, when it comes to your approval and justification before God, there's nothing you can contribute.

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This either relieves people or, to the religiously proud, it upsets them.

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It upsets them because they realized, wow, that scorecard they were keeping, that they thought God was keeping, doesn't actually exist and really exposes your motives.

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That gospel, which I preach among the Gentiles, but privately to those who are of reputation, lest by any means I might run or had run in vain, here's what Paul is saying.

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I'll let you know when the next verse.

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He's saying I met with the head apostles in Jerusalem.

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This is like the original 11, plus a few more, the 18,.

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They were in Jerusalem and I came to check out this gospel of grace.

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I wanted to make sure I wasn't off.

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I wanted to make sure we were on the same page.

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But to those who are of the highest reputation, I did it privately.

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He's not saying I did it privately because if they rebuked me I didn't want to get corrected in public.

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He's saying in case there was some debate, in case there was some arguing, we won't cause a ruckus amongst all the Christians in Jerusalem, but it was done privately.

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Are you catching that church?

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Okay, verse three.

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Yet not even Titus, who was with me, being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised.

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And verse four and this occurred because of false brethren.

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He doesn't say confused brethren, he doesn't say well intentioned, well meaning brethren, he calls them false brethren, not even Christians, false brethren secretly brought in, who came in by stealth to spy out our liberty, which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage.

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By the way, that very word, religion, the root of it, is back to bondage.

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Religion is bondage.

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Why?

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Because religion takes your eyes off of Jesus and puts them on you.

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Religion says you have a part in a role to play in your own salvation.

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You have to help us save.

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You're out.

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You have to contribute to the already finished work of the cross and nothing can be further from the truth.

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Oh Lord, listen, here I am in 2023, talking about Judaizers, and you can almost feel well, okay, how does this apply to me today?

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Because we're not in the first century dealing with a group who's gonna come in and ask men to be circumcised, but we are dealing with modern day Judaizers all of the time.

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Anyone who would get you to do stuff to earn God's favor, to be more loved by God, to be more approved unto God, is a Judaizer.

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Any teaching that puts a burden on you to do things to win God's affection more, to do things that will contribute to your own right standing with God, is a false teacher, judaizer.

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Because Jesus plus nothing equals everything, and it comes in all different shapes and sizes.

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Here's a very, very subtle one, a teaching I heard all in my Christian life when the praises go up, the blessings come down.

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How many of you heard that?

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And you may even believe it, but it's not true.

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It's a very initial Judaizing move, because what that does is it makes you really important and it sets up God, the Father, in this strange, bizarre transactional way.

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Like God, the Father is really, really insecure.

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He needs to be reminded how awesome he is and he's got these blessings, though he's insecure but almighty and he's keeping them from you.

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But if you tell him you're awesome enough, if you worship him loud enough, if you praise him enough, he'll come around to you and so as your praises go up, he'll be like you know, this guy's not so bad, he's gonna change my mind, all right, he just kicks down.

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All right, have some crumbs.

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Here you go and we're like eh, it's this weird old covenanti appeasing a God that can never be appeased type system that's being communicated through that.

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What's the reality?

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The reality is is that you have already according to Ephesians 1, 3, you have already been blessed with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places, in Christ, when you praise.

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Praise is the language of heaven.

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Praise causes you to come on the same frequency, the same vibration, the same divine stream as heaven.

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And as you praise him, you're not paying God for blessings.

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With your praises, you're not putting in self effort to now.

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He loves you more and he's gonna throw down something to you that he wouldn't normally do.

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You're just becoming more aware when you praise.

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You're becoming more aware of what you already have.

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In fact, paul says the Holy Spirit has been given to you that you may know the things that have already past tense been freely given to you by God.

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Like fasting.

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People think fasting changes God.

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No, that's a hunger strike and nothing you could ever do to can cause God.

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Fasting doesn't change God.

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That's a law way of looking at it.

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Fasting changes you and now you can receive what he's already given you better.

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Praise doesn't change God.

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It doesn't change his mind about you.

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It changes you.

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It seems so subtle, but beware the Judaizers.

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Don't give them space even for a little bit.

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And there's Judaizers out there in the form of compromised, teaching, legalistic pastors, because they don't really trust the Holy Spirit in you, so they feel that they gotta put you under the law to extract the right kind of behavior from you.

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No, there's a better way, the Jesus way, the new covenant way.

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And this occurred because of false brethren, secretly brought in, who came in by stealth to spy out our liberty.

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Religious people hate freedom.

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They hate liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us back into bondage, to whom we did not yield submission even for an hour.

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And that's how you need to be in your life.

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Do not yield submission to anyone who would try to get you to mix systems, mix covenants.

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Let me stop right there.

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You know there are red flags to know when you're accidentally or inadvertently mixing covenants.

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If you're under guilt, shame, condemnation, you're mixing covenants.

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If you get a religious pride from your good works, you're mixing covenants.

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You're mixing covenants.

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If you ever feel far from God, you're mixing covenants.

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Because you've been brought near Pastor, what if I fall away?

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What do you think?

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You abandoned you.

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You're a fair weather friend.

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In fact, I forgot how I stumbled upon this.

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There was something from some witches' coven and they were partnering with the enemy and I remembered all the phrasing was this is getting a little odd, but all the phrasing was he's, they were enlisting different spirits and they were saying how they will borrow your power, how you will borrow their power, borrow their power.

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And I just thought you know that's interesting.

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The Lord never lends, he only gives.

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A demon will come and loan you its power, but it's on loan.

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Do you know?

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God never even loans you anything, he just gives.

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That's why some people say, hey, that was a preacher and he had a crazy sinful life and meanwhile he built a giant church mega ministry.

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God flowed through him.

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How did that happen.

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He had a secret, dark side, because that's how God is.

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The Bible says that the gifts and the callings of God are irrevocable.

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No backsies with God.

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He doesn't even loan, he just gives you.

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You want to be a knucklehead?

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You want to mess that whole thing up?

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That's on you, but God just gives.

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Oh, hallelujah, man, you can feel the wheels grinding right now.

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This is why we're doing eight weeks for six chapters.

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I'm going to try to hit and if you have any questions for a lot of connection card, email us.

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We'll review the questions.

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I want to answer some of your questions.

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This should rattle you.

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This should unnerve you.

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This should even anger you.

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Should anger you that you weren't told this sooner.

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Verse six, please.

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But those who seem to be something, and Paul's just talking about what went down in Jerusalem.

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But those who seem to be something.

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Whatever they were, makes no difference to me.

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God shows personal favoritism to no man.

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I just chuckle at that verse.

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You just picture Paul in Jerusalem in the green room, bunch of celebrity apostles walking around.

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There's Paul still has missionary dust on his face and he's like.

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You know, these guys don't add anything to me.

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They seem to be something.

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Whatever they were.

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It makes no difference to me.

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God shows personal favoritism to no man.

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For those who seem to be, something added nothing to me.

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He's saying they didn't add anything to this gospel of grace that I received by revelation.

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But on the contrary, when they saw that the gospel for the uncircumcised that's us Gentiles had been committed to me as the gospel for the circumcised was to Peter, for he who worked effectively in Peter for the apostleship to the circumcised, also worked effectively in me toward the Gentiles.

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And when James, cephas and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that had been given to me, they gave me in Barnabas the right hand of fellowship that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised.

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What is all this about Paul?

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He realizes he has a battle here.

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The Galatians have been compromised.

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He even says later Fulish Galatians, who has bewitched you, who has hypnotized you, that you do not obey the truth.

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You actually allowed covenant mixture into your community.

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He realizes he's going to have to set a posture where they understand who he is and why he's preaching this gospel.

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So he reminds them hey, I didn't get this revelation again out in the wilderness sleeping in some cave, but I got it from the Lord, and then I went to Jerusalem and submitted it to the other chief apostles and they all agreed with me.

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They said that what you got, we got, and they laid hands on me and Barnabas and blessed us.

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We'll go out to the Gentiles, peter will go out to the Jews, but it's a big confirmation of this message.

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Are you catching that?

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He's essentially name dropping a little bit and saying, hey, I'm not just in a bad mood writing to you out of nowhere.

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This is confirmed.

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Verse 10,.

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They desired only that we should remember the poor, the very thing which I also was eager to do.

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Can you just go back to verse five?

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Please Just go back to verse five, because I wanted you to see that phrase that the truth of the gospel might continue with you.

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This is what has Paul sew up in arms.

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This is the entire theme of the book of Galatians.

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What is the truth of the gospel?

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The truth of the gospel is Jesus.

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Plus nothing equals everything.

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Get that.

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What a relief will come to you when you get that.

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What a peace and arrest will come to you when you get that.

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What a sweet intimacy that'll develop between you and the Lord when you get that, as when you're weak, when you fall short, satan who comes with a hiss.

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His name in the Hebrew is Hasatan the accuser.

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Who does he accuse you to?

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Well, he accuses you to God.

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But you know who else he accuses you to.

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Journey Through Galatians: Grace Versus Law

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