Who You Are In Christ

This week we're looking at the redeemed portion of who you are in Christ. But I guess I just kind of want to ask you guys, when you think of the word redeemed, or redeem, what comes to mind? Buyback. In our culture, we kind of think of maybe a coupon or something like that, redeeming a coupon. That was the first thing that came to my mind. It always is when I hear redeem is, oh, I've got to redeem a coupon or buy one, get one free or something.

But the Greek word is actually, it means to buy up, to ransom, or to rescue from loss. And it is actually a compound word. And if you look at your sheet there, The first part of it is a primary preposition denoting origin, so like where it came from, out of. And the second word there is the market, or by implication, to purchase. And it's interesting, the root word for the second part of the compound word is actually Agora, which is the town square or where the marketplace was.

So the word kind of has an idea of buying off of the marketplace. So Jesus' work on the cross, he bought us off the marketplace. He bought us from slavery to sin, and now we're slaves to something completely different. And it's also interesting that the tenses of the word indicate that it's a permanent past action. So it's something that took place before time, and it can't be undone. You're never on the market again. We're slaves to Jesus now forever. He's not going to sell us back to sin. We can't sell ourselves back to sin.

Right. And on your sheets, I have some blanks in there. I'm going to do things a little bit differently. I don't have slides. Kind of keep you guys moving along with us. I'll just kind of give you some answers there, and you probably could figure them out.

But that first one, in other words, it is a finished work that can't be undone. So since we know that it's a finished work, it can't be undone, the word is to ransom or to rescue from loss. So the next logical question is, to ransom from what? And what were we rescued from? Now obviously the title of the class is Who You Are in Christ, but before you were in Christ, you were in Adam. So, some of the things to think about is who were you in Adam? What did Jesus save you from?

So, we'll kind of go through some verses here, if you guys don't mind. The first one there is Romans 6.23. I'll fire that one off. We probably all know that one.

We all hear Romans 6.23. have a pretty good idea because that's a big one. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord. So because of our sin, because of Adam's sin, we were dead too and separated from God. I've got a lot of Romans quotes in here. The redeem theme is very thick in the book of Romans.

The next one there, if somebody would get to Romans 7.5, we'll get some participation going on here.

Whoever gets to Romans 7.5 first, if they want to read that off for me.

For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the law, were at work in members of our body to bear fruit for death. So while we were in the flesh. Well, when we were in Adam, we were in the flesh. Or the sin nature. It's interesting, too, that it says that the sinful passions were aroused by the law. It just talks about how that Right. The law was put in place to reveal sin. Yes. I'll grab one. I know how to walk.

And then Romans 8.8, and those who are of the flesh cannot please God. So while you're in Adam, those people that are not saved, no matter what good works, no matter what good deeds they want to carry out, if you're in Adam, if you're not in Christ, you're unable to please God. This is probably a lot of stuff. We've got a lot of mature believers in this room. It's probably a big refresher course. Hopefully it's good.

What is the place for 7-5? 7-5 is in the flesh or sin nature. And I just put there that the list goes on and on. The things that you were in Adam compared to what you are in Christ. And everything on that list where you're in Adam is not good. There's nothing good on it. The blank above the list goes on is law. Correct, you are under law, yes. We didn't read that one. If you want to read all of chapter 2, we could. But we won't. You know, the first 17 verses of chapter 2 kind of go over how the Gentile is under the law.

How they have the law written on their heart. They may not, you know, they may never, they may have never been around the Jewish people. They may not know the 613 or 12 or whatever it is laws. But God's written his laws on their heart. And so those first 17 verses of chapter 2 basically are talking about that, how the Gentile knows the law regardless of having ever heard it. And then the second half of chapter 2 talks about how obviously the, you know, God has revealed the law to the Jewish people and they know it. So since the waging of sin or death, how can we come to know life again?

If someone wouldn't mind reading off 1 Peter verses 18 and 19. Oh, I apologize. It's chapter 1. 1 Peter chapter 1. That makes it harder to figure out when I don't put that in there. For as much as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corrupt things as silver and gold from the vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers. Right. So your blanks there, you've got, you're redeemed not with things that are perishable, rather with the precious blood of the land.

And then if someone wouldn't mind reading off 1 John 2.2. He himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world. Right. So Jesus is the propitiation of our sins.

Does anybody have a good definition for propitiation? It's a mouthful, but it's basic. Right, yeah, and to dumb it down, there's a cost from sin, and Jesus paid that cost, so he was the propitiation. I've actually got a definition here from Nelson, I believe.

So propitiation is the death of Jesus on the cross through which he paid the penalty demanded by God because of man's sin. Thus setting mankind free from sin and death. The word comes from an old English word, propitiate, which means to appease. So, not to say that God was angry because there was sin, but there was something that needed to be fixed. And Jesus' death on the cross appeased that. It appeased God. Thus, procreation expresses the idea that Jesus died on the cross to pay the price for sin which a holy God demanded of man the sinner. peace with God, right? Yeah, I like that.

That's the only kind of peace that we can really see. I mean, world peace, good luck. The Bible pretty much says it's not going to happen. I don't want to be a bad, not to get your hopes down, but the Bible says it's pretty much not going to happen. Not until Jesus comes back. But yeah, that's And is that not the peace that was given when Jesus was born?

That's why Christmas provides that peace. Right. Right, I like it. I've never worked for Miss America, but... Yeah, if Miss America went out talking about, you know, providing world peace through the second coming of Jesus, they'd probably lynch her. That may be a strong word.

So the other thing there in John 2.2, or first John 2.2, was it talked about that Jesus paid the price for everyone. He didn't pay it for just you, or just you and not them, or anything like that. He paid it for everyone. And if you flip to the second page there, who did Jesus pay the ransom for?

I'm paraphrasing Schaeffer here, but the theology of redemption is universal and provides sufficient ground of righteousness upon which God may save those who are lost. So it's for everybody. Oh, okay. The theology of redemption is universal and provides a sufficient ground of righteousness upon which God may save those who are lost.

So does our righteousness, does it come from, you know, does it come from following 612 laws? No. Thank goodness, because none of us would be righteous. We'd all fall short. And obviously the Bible says we all do fall short. based upon what Jesus did and who he was.

That second line there, Jesus paid the ransom and bought everyone off the market. We all have the ability to no longer be slaves to sin. Last week we talked about everyone being called. You know, all are called. to receive Jesus and no longer be slaves to sin. We all have, everybody has the possibility to be redeemed.

Am I being boring? You guys are all staring at me like I'm boring. The next one I did here, because the first thing that comes to my mind is coupon when I think of redeemed on your sheet there we have a coupon redeemable for the propitiation of sins so for the payment of sins you don't have to come up with anything to do it it's all provided you've got you've got you've got this coupon Jesus has given everybody one you can turn it in or you can throw it out and so obviously the coupon is from who would you guys think God. It's from God. And it's to? Man. Man. Everyone. Every man.

And what do you guys think about in order to redeem? What do you have to do in order to redeem this coupon? Pay. Use it. Accept it. Yeah. Accept it. Right. What are we accepting though? We're believing in the death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seeding of Jesus Christ. We're taking that as what God says it is. We believe that we had a need to right our wrongs, a need to correct our sins. We believe that Jesus provided that manner through coming to earth, providing peace, you know, his birthday, Christmas, peace, with God through his death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seeding. And when does this expire? Never. Never. No expiration date.

When I put this together, I thought about doing one for Judaism, one for Mormonism, you know, one for Buddhism. And if you think about those, you know, they're all from God. Maybe a different sort of a God, but God. Man-made God in many cases. I don't know if all those religions would say that they're to everyone. Are they to a select few? Are they to everyone?

Certainly the Jews would say, you're not in the right family. Right, you're not in the right family. You're a bad apple. You used that last week and I thought it was interesting. God didn't say, oh these guys are good apples and those are bad apples. The Jews thought of themselves as good apples. But there's no good apples. We're all bad apples.

And then in order to redeem, I'd much rather, I'm glad that I can just have faith. I can just have faith in Christ, believe that what he did is what he said he did. And I don't have to carry out a bunch of laws and come up with something from inside of me because I don't have it. Jesus can fulfill the law through the spirit living in us. And even then he's not fulfilling the law, he's just carrying out grace. But I can't. What about our bodies? Right now, the earth suit that you're in, is it redeemed? No?

So we got two verses here that when we add them together, so if somebody wants to, one of you will look up Ephesians 1-7, the other one will look up Romans 8-23. Ephesians 1 7 says in him we have redemption through his blood the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace We've already talked about this, but we know that through Jesus's blood Right now we have forgiveness of sin Forgiveness of forgiveness is our trespasses Does anybody have a Romans 8 23? I See a different law in the members of my body waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my memories. Now is that 823? Yeah. For 823 I have And hopefully I didn't rearrange the Bible, because I didn't mean to if I did.

But off of, okay, what I have is, and not only this, but we also, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves, grown within ourselves, eagerly awaiting the adoptions of sons, the redemption of our body. So when you add these two together, of sins, which is the first blank there, our bodies remain yet to be redeemed. That's the thought process from adding those two verses together. Therefore, we long and groan for the redemption of our bodies. And I have the next verses listed there is 1 Corinthians 15 through 55.

This kind of points out there's so many aspects of what God has done have a past aspect, a present aspect, and a future aspect. This kind of points out that redemption is that same category. You can look at it in the past aspect. I have been redeemed. I'm being redeemed currently because God is involved in working out through the Holy Spirit my power over sin. and I shall be redeemed, I physically will be redeemed in the future.

So that past, present, and future kind of, you'll see it, in fact we'll see it many times when we go through these different truths that it comes up because God, you know, God just doesn't do something and then He throts into that. He does it, He carries it on, and He completes it to the final completion, if you will. Right. That's good. Yeah.

It also points out in the Ephesians 1-7 again that the last part of the verse is according to the riches of His grace, that none of it has anything to do with something that we've done. It's all grace. And it goes on to say in verse 8, which He lavished on us in all wisdom and insight, He just gave it to us. We didn't do anything. It's not because we deserved any part of it. It's just His decision.

Yeah, it's based on unconditional love. That's a kind of back to the coupon thought process, you know, the other gods, they're usually gods of conditional love. I'll love you, I'll save you if. And, you know, the real God, the true God is I'll love you no matter what. That's because the false gods are based on man.

Right. Something that we put together. Scripture, you know, the God of Scripture is that God starts the action. You know, God's the one who initiated the action. Many other beliefs have man initiating the action. God initiated the action in terms of us. And he took the first step. while we were at the center, as Christ died for us. So he's the one that took the action.

So it's totally flipped around, as you were pointing out. Many, many religious systems have man kind of getting involved and working hard and doing stuff. It's the total reverse of that. And it's wonderful. And since what's cool is since he took the action, he can maintain the action. And after a while gets tired, he says, well, I can't do this anymore. And God doesn't tire. And so God is maintaining that relationship, which is another wonderful thing, too, that we're going to learn as we go along.

He's trying to fill out the blanks before we get there. He's probably got them all. So I'll let you go next. No, no, that's fine. I'm glad to have people. Input is what we want. But those verses in 1st Corinthians talk about what we have to look forward to. We've obviously talked about who we were in Adam, who we are in Christ now, and the future aspect. What do we have to look forward to?

Becky and I were talking about last night how those spiritual bodies will be neither male nor female. I can't wrap my head around that. Everything is male or female. Plants are male or female. And they won't know sin. Those bodies will never experience sin. No regret, no remorse. Just an eternity of serving and being in the presence of God.

That's something to look forward to. And for those of us who have had knee surgery or something, man, that sounds good. No more aching when it gets cold. I'm only 25, but I've had knee surgery, and I know how joints ache when it gets cold. So this last part here, I've blown through everything in about a half an hour.

So we may have to give Roger the mic and have him up here for a while. But we looked at who we were in Adam. What about who you are in Christ? So I imagine, you know, if you guys were to grab the one that talks about the stuff where who you were in Adam, you could probably fill out these blanks by yourselves. So in Adam you were dead and separated from God. In Christ you're just the opposite. The opposite of dead is alive. And the opposite of separated is in fellowship.

We have fellowship with God. We can go to Him in prayer. We can seek His will in our lives through submitting to the Holy Spirit. That's pretty good stuff. I need that. You were of the flesh or sin nature, now you are of the Spirit or in the Spirit. It went from unable to please God to able to please God. Your actions when you submit to the Spirit and allow Him to live out your life are pleasing to God. Is there any other way to be pleasing to God?

Roger? You think there's any other way? Scripture doesn't talk about that. Scripture doesn't talk about one. Yeah. You're under the law before. You're under a system of laws where you have to do this and do that. in order to have this you gotta do that. Now it's under grace. It's all what God has given to us. It's all Him living through us. Yes, that's where resting comes in. It's not our effort. Right.

And that last one, will someone actually read Ephesians 2.13?

But now in Christ Jesus you who normally were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. So now we're near to Christ. Kind of a A term of endearment to be near to God. The list goes on and on and is full of the wonderful riches of God's grace. Randy, I'm sure everyone knows Randy. Randy gave me a sheet last week. 215 riches. It's like three pages. It goes on and on. I've really buzzed through this quicker than I expected to.

So what I have there last is it means you have received God's gracious universal redemption through faith in the death, burial, and resurrection, ascension, and seating of Jesus Christ. It means you have been bought out of bondage to sin and are now slaves to righteousness. Lastly, it means You will someday have a new redeemed body that will not know sin and serve God forever. Kind of a burn statement there at the end.

It seems like something he'd say. Doesn't that sound wonderful? I can't. Maybe we all should. We probably all should. Well I really ripped through that. I'm trying to think what else I should do here. Any suggestions, Roger? I'll give you a question. All right.

You say we're slaves to righteousness. What do you mean slaves? Well, slaves have a different connotation, I think, than what you're using here. Right. And it's kind of the thought process of being bought off the market and you were a slave to sin. And it's a I mean, you can have the verse noted here and we just didn't read it. Right, being a bond servant to Christ. Not in a, you know, be righteous, you know. But that's just the transformation that you've gone through.

You've gone from being bonded to one thing, a bond servant to one thing. You know, sin was your master. You couldn't, you know, the only thing that had control over you really was sin, your flesh, the sin nature. And now that You've taken, you know, now that you're redeemed through the blood of Christ, he is now your master and you are bonded to him and the spirit. So you go from being a bond servant to sin, bond servant to righteousness through the redemption process.

Yeah. Does the same concept hold when Christ said that you cannot be, you can only serve one master? Right. Either mammon or God, right? Right. In that particular instance. But a bondservant is saying the same thing. You can either serve Satan or you can serve God. Right. And that's why when John the Baptist or Christ told the Pharisees that their father was Satan, not because, you know, they were born of him or anything else, but they were serving, serving the flesh. Consequently, they were submitting to him or being a server.

Right. Does that make sense? Yeah. Anybody else? Questions? Sure. I think the thing that jumps out at me and also when you're talking with other people is that because it's kind of a jumping off place into race. A lot of people will take off in another thought and say, OK, I know who I am.

I know I've sinned, this, that, and the other. But then they start establishing what they're going to do to shine themselves up as a Christian rather than really understanding how completely separated you are from God and Adam. And that as a result of that it is totally God's grace through Christ that does the work. It's a really subtle and yet dramatic turn. Right, and at my old church that was actually one of the things that It's actually in a Roman study the pastor had us do. He, you know, in Adam and there was a column and we, everything we could think of that we were in Adam, fill it out. And then on the other side, everything that you were in Christ. He had, the list was huge.

I couldn't find it. It would have been fun to bring in because there's just so many things that what you were and now you're just the complete opposite. Like, like these things that we have here being, you know, unable to please God to able to please God. It's always 180 degrees the other direction. You go from being one thing to 180 degrees the other because of the redemption process.

I guess a lot of people stop at just the guilt process of that too, rather than stopping and really realizing functionally how you're separated. It's not just a matter of feeling guilty or whatever, or feeling condemned, but functionally it just doesn't work. Right. And we can still, you know, through sin be separated momentarily. The Spirit still resides with us. But, you know, you have to admit that sin and turn from there and just go back to the Spirit. You can be, Roger, right, you can be...

Well, what we're talking about, you know, the transitional, the positional truths, what you're going through. But then when you go into the day-by-day actions, You know, the point is that we're to know who we are so that will influence our daily walk. That will make a difference. We will know the truths of who we are and rather than trying to make up laws and a code of action, we will allow Christ to live through us by faith. So we, you know, we take the positional aspect and make it real in the condition that we live. Right.

And I think like what you were saying, you know, We have this tendency to, you know, we cannot please God, but we want to take ourselves and go, all right, well, I'm going to shine myself up, and maybe then that'll look good. There's absolutely nothing in our power we can do. And yet, in our humanity, we keep wanting to go back to that law, because we want to do something, and we don't have to, and we have that freedom in Christ. Yeah, you know, when you look around the world, all of the systems, everybody's, you know, they put together laws. Man wants to be under a system of law for whatever reason. It's not what God has in mind for us. For whatever reason, it's what we want. Anybody else? Questions? Comments? Thoughts? I think you have to, like what she was saying is, we're here, you know, for fellowship with Him. He wants us to be in fellowship with Him.

That's our main purpose, not to try to please him. There's nothing we can do that's going to, you know, that's the word, impress God. So it's more of a, he just wants us here to talk to him and fellowship with him. The cool thing is we're depending totally upon what Christ has done because we bring nothing of ourselves. As soon as we get some of ourselves involved in that and some of the old Adamic nature involved in that, then it's no longer of him, it's of ourselves. So we're trusting totally upon his work and totally upon his provision and totally upon every one of these wonderful truths.

It's not, there's a little bit of me and, you know, 10% me and 90% God. The world thinks that way, a lot like Christianity thinks that way. It's a fair deal God, I'll do half and you do half and we'll get this done. Well, it's nothing like that at all.

Right, I think of that, we've probably all seen it, that poster, most of the times it's framed, I guess you'd call it a picture, where it's got a set of footprints, and then another set of footprints, and then for a while there they're gone. And the caption is something like, you know, you carried me when I needed you or something like that.

Well, we need them always. Those should always just be one set of footprints. And they're not ours. They should always be Jesus' footprints, carriers. That poster always kind of hurts me a little bit. It's not what's going on. That's not how it's supposed to be. It's not, oh, I fell back on Jesus. I needed him. So I fell back and looked for him. It's like you were saying, you always look for him. You know who you are. You always look to him. You know, I'm going to get all this done.

Then, oh gosh, I trips. Hopefully, Jesus, God will help me out there. There's a song that was written back in the 70s, I think it was called us a lot of thinking. But I think this might be a little out of the realm of what we're talking about, but this Adamic nature is still alive and well. And I think that trips a lot of us up sometimes. You try to follow Christ and then you trip over something in your life. You say, where did that come from? It's not that the Adam nature died, it's I died to it. Right, now you said the Adamic nature? The nature of Adam. Oh, okay, gotcha, gotcha.

For some reason that wasn't calculating in my head, but now I get it. Something I heard last week, I think it was from Dr. Eckel, but he said, he kind of put it in a way that I was like, oh, the play ball. But he said, you know, as soon as we start Putting faith in ourselves, or faith in the laws, that's when we go straight. That's when we get in trouble, I guess you would say.

Just like Adam, you know. When he was resting in God, when God created the Earth, he was having faith and resting. And when he had faith in himself, or faith in his ideas, all of a sudden, that's when things started to go a little not as planned. Along with that, we looked at creation and on the seventh day, well, Adam rested too. He rested in God and what he had done. It wasn't, all right, what can I go do now? Now it's my turn. Guys, you made all these wonderful things happen. Now let me have a chance at it here.

Yeah, and that Sabbath process, is it in Hebrews where they talk about the Sabbath? It's an everyday thing for the believer now. It's not a, on Saturday you don't push the button in the elevator. If you guys heard that, there are some Jews that are so strict to the law that they won't, on Saturdays they just program the elevators to stop at every floor. Because pushing the button would be work. So, you know, it's not on Saturdays you don't do that. There is another one. I think Becky's Uncle Eric told me this one. And this is silly. They will tear the toilet paper ahead of time. Because tearing the toilet paper is work. Just silly instances. But, you know, those aren't the things we have to do to please God. You know, that's not redeemed for us. It's trusting in Him and following Him. Or being carried by Him.

Yes. I was also going to say that the Greek language is so descriptive when it comes to the verbs. And it talks about, when it says justification, that's one point in time and it's aorist tense. And that's justification. But and it's present tense, and that's sanctification. So when they talk about salvation, it's a imperfect tense because it refers back to the point of justification, because that happened, and it happened at one time. But the process we're going through, the sanctification, is an ongoing present tense that we go through as we live our life.

Right, moment by moment. Right. you basically could not say that in English, because the verbs won't say that. So when Christ came at the appropriate time, one of the things I think that was important was the language, quaintly agreed, that was in existence during that time. Right. Yeah, Christ coming at the right time, the language was one of those things.

We're totally rabbit training right now, but that's all right. Because we have 15 minutes to kill. But I always think that he came at the right time in his crucifixion. How brutal it was. You know, the wages of sin or death. And what he had to go through. You know, if he came now, they'd inject him with a needle. That's not, you know, that doesn't signify how much how much needed to be paid to take care of our sins. I always think that when he came at the right time, I think of that crucifixion, if you guys have seen the fashion, just how brutal that was.

We deserved to be there, but he took our place to redeem us. Yeah? You alluded to Romans 2 a little bit. Could you elaborate on some of the things you were picking up from there? Well, we steal your Bible. To be honest with you, I don't have the Book of Romans memorized. Or even the second chapter. But for instance, let's see.

So for the Gentiles, for when the Gentiles, this is Romans 2.14. For when the Gentiles who do not have the law do instinctively the things of the law, these not having the law are the law to themselves.

So they don't know it, but somehow they do it. For whatever reason, it's in there. It's still there. Although they've never heard it. In that they show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness to their thoughts, altering or alternatively cursing or else defending them. So the Gentile has that law in their hearts. You go back to Greek times or wherever you want to go where these people have not heard the law.

God hasn't revealed it yet. to them. And there are obviously places in history where he just hasn't revealed it all together. They still have that law in their hearts. God has still penciled it in on their hearts that they know. And so that's in Adam, all were under the law. Obviously the Gentile is because God's written it on their heart.

And then in that second part of chapter two, it goes through, you know, the combination of the Jew judged strictly by the law. And that's a... I'm trying to find the verse I'm looking for. I don't know if I will find it right off the bat. But it talks about those who have the law are judged strictly by the law. And so the Gentile may be judged under slightly different terms. The one that's never heard the law or before Christ came that never heard of the gospel story. They're judged under slightly different terms because they don't have the law. They have it on their hearts, but they don't have all the details.

And the Jew, I mean, God gave the Jewish people the law so that he could reveal his own character to the world. The Jewish people, he chose them to reveal himself to the world. He wanted them to be holy as I am holy. So that they could show everyone else around them.

So that the Philistines come in and go, look at these weird Jewish people, what are they doing? While they're doing what this God, what this Yahweh wants them to do. Now obviously they stumbled and screwed up over and over again. But it's now the same idea for us. God has chosen the church, those who believe in Jesus Christ, to reveal his nature, his character to the world through us.

So there's a transition there, a dispensation from the Jew doing it to the Christian. I don't know if that answered what you were asking. I was just asking what you were picking up. Oh, wouldn't that be a follow along in the realm somewhere in there?

Before a person was saved, all of us, from the very worst to the best, had a conscience. The conscience was their guide. And in that conscience that they had at that time, they had a knowing what was right and they knew what was wrong. and all this sort of thing. Isn't that where that kind of breaks off and it's committed completely to Christ leading in our lives? Say that again for me, one more time, sorry. We used to have a saying before we were any of us saved that your conscience is your guide.

Okay. Okay, these are good things that you should do and they're the right things you should do. But when you're converted That's all committed to Christ. Correct. He's the one that's committed to us. That's what I'm trying to say. Our effort to do things is all our, but we use it the wrong way. Right. We abide or rest in the Spirit. Doing otherwise is sin. That's right.

To me that's kind of like the metric system and the American system, you know, you know, as an individual, if you're an engineer, if you're in Europe, you're going to use metric system. If you're in the United States, you're going to use the lineal or whatever they call it system. So there's two different roles.

And so before God and before the law, before Moses, man did have a conscience exactly right. But another man also had a conscience and he had a feeling of what this was supposed to be. And so God then came down and said, okay, this is the standard. So I am going to make a world standard for this.

And instead of following the metric system or the linear system, you follow my system, which later became known as the law. And it showed, well, it was a teacher, it showed what sin was. And so my question is, doesn't that still exist? I mean, it's still God's standard, right? Oh, I'm not talking about the 630 affairs of the world. Right. Whatever. I'm talking about what God came down with and said, this is what my character is and what holiness is. Right. And Romans, Paul talks about, you know, since the law came in to show us sin and these things, is it bad?

And he says, may it never be, you know. It's actually, isn't it, it's a triple negative in the Greek or something? No, not never. So, yeah, yeah, definitely. But the point is, we don't have to become justified through the law like the Jewish people did. Right. Because if you try to follow the law, you know, you have to follow the entire law, which means it most likely, you know, nobody's going to do that. Right. But if you do it by faith, And then it's a point in time justification.

And then you go into the process of sanctification. And that Jewish law system, in the end, it's still boiled down to grace. It's still boiled down to Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. It still boils down to that. It still boils down to we have to, there's still some sacrifice here. There's still something that has to be done. And there's God's grace involved in it Kurt, I have a question.

Sure. When you were talking about how the Gentiles have the law written on their hearts, which it talks about in verse 15, but over in chapter 1, verse 20, it says, for since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen. being understood from what has been made so that men are without excuse. Is that pretty much talking about the same thing that people are without excuse just because of creation and what God has made and where we live that people look around and go, there's got to be a supreme being somewhere. Oh definitely.

And my law, what I think is the way to get there might not work. Somebody else has to be in power. Creation certainly reveals God. Reveals, maybe not all of his character, but he has the power. It reveals that there certainly is a supreme being. Would you add to that Roger? that they exchanged the wisdom of the real God toward the images of animals and birds etc etc so in other words man did his thing again he can't just accept again you know God for who he is and as the creator but he's got to have something tangible he can't you know can't just do it by faith he's going to have something tangible And so something that he can look at, something he can hold, and then that becomes his focus. Right. Faith and obviously something else. Yeah. You know, back in verse 18, it talks about how man suppresses the truth. The truth is there. He has this inward knowledge of God, but he rather than responding to that, what does he do?

His Adamic nature says, no, just as I don't want Christ over me, I don't want that man over me. I don't want him. And I've actually, had that experience when I shared the gospel sometimes with people. They basically say in essence, I don't want, I don't want Jesus. I don't want God. And it's a pretty, and for Christians, for somebody to say that kind of shakes you a little bit. At least it has made when they say, I do not want that. And you think, Why wouldn't you want that?

But they don't. Scripture, many times, is proven out as we interact with people. You see the truth is being worked out. It's kind of frightening sometimes. I say, no, I do not want that. There's really only two choices. Either you want it, or you don't. Some people are a little more beaten about it. And in today's culture, the relative nobody's right, nobody's wrong.

I think a lot of, also going back to what Roger was saying, where people are like, I don't want that over me, it comes from incorrect concepts of Christianity that people are seeing in the world. I have a friend who, just to give a sort of random example, I have a friend who's Catholic and I had mentioned that one time when going into a Catholic church they always have huge Jesus up on the cross and for me it's almost scary you know that and partly because he has a really intense look in his eyes but you know he got off of the cross and that is what's amazing and that is what's great and her statement was well yeah why do you think Catholics have Catholic guilt and it's just going back to that concept that the world has of this is some something that's being lorded over me not this is an amazing freedom that we have which is really what it is. You know, not that we shouldn't have a fear of Christ or fear of God or anything, but you know, we as Christians can understand that love and that grace and that's what it's really about.

Well, the original sin was Adam thinking that, you know, I'll do what I want. You know, God has told me this is what's right and wrong, but I'm going to do what I want. And that's kind of what you're talking about. The person who's, I don't want that. I want what I want. And that's obviously what we need to be redeemed from. But the woman made me do it. Yeah. She said that apple would make a good pie. And I believed her. All right guys.

I appreciate the input that helped me out there that last half hour. But let's close up in prayer and get ready to go out and praise the Lord in song and listen to God's message. Heavenly Father, we thank you that we could get together this morning, fellowship, learn about who you've made us, recognize who we were and what you've changed us into. There's so many wonderful things that we are in Christ. so many not-wonderful things that we weren't at and that you've relieved us of. We praise you, we thank you, and pray that we would just seek you moment by moment as we were talking about. Praise you, Lord. Thank you for redeeming us. In Jesus' name, amen.