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Summary

We'll go to Matthew chapter 18, Matthew chapter 18, looking at verse 10, and actually this is we're going to back up, we're going to just go, we're going to start at the beginning of 18 where it says, it says, at that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. If you go to Revelation the first chapter, so it's the last book in the Bible, Revelation first chapter where where Jesus is revealing this to John, we'll look at we'll look at first verse 8 where Jesus tells John, I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty, then let's jump down to 17. So, God raises these judges to lead Israel, and Israel, they will moan and they will groan because they are reaping the consequence of turning from the Lord and worshipping false gods, and so God allowed for the consequences to happen just as he said they would, and they cried out to him, and he would provide a judge, provide someone to rescue Israel, to save Israel out of the hand of their enemies, and the Israelites would turn, and then as soon as that judge would die, they would go into a period again of abandoning the Lord. I'll tell you one piece that for myself that has sat with me for years now, years, is Psalm 51, verse 10, creating me a clean spirit, oh God, and renew a right, or creating me a clean heart, oh God, and renew a right spirit within me, and it sits with me, and it works on me, and sometimes it really convicts me, and sometimes it gives me great hope and great joy, because I know that my spirit is not always right, and my heart is not always clean, and I know that I'm also not the one that creates that clean heart within myself, and I'm not the one that gives myself that right spirit, and so that gives me great hope, and when I'm feeling or thinking, not super-Christianly, I go to that verse constantly, and it continues to work on me and in me, and it's so amazing that we have that from the Lord, and it seems just from the nods that everyone, or most of you, have experienced that, where you have a verse or a story from scripture that comes to mind, or it works on you, have you ever had a piece of scripture that works on you that you wish it wasn't? okay yes good morning again so we are wrapping up with our heroes of faith today it's our last time that this does not mean that you cannot look up other heroes of faith and see how they how different people use their faith in action or even everyday people like you and me well they those are the heroes of faith though they're everyday people like you and me who have done something living out their faith lives where then they get known for it so we will probably never be known for our faith but we are known in the kingdom for our faith so there we go any hoozy so today we're finishing with the heroes of forgiveness and I don't know how many of you know the story of Corrie ten Boom yes no maybe okay and she wrote the hiding place I think that she she exemplifies forgiveness amazingly which we'll hear I'm gonna tell you a little bit about her then we're gonna jump into Scripture and then we'll jump back to her after that I think we hope so I will I'm working towards it okay so Corrie ten Boom it's a Dutch bless you Dutch woman grew up in Holland when she was 52 years old she well back it up four years in 1940 when the Nazis invaded Holland she and her family who were very faithful people they realized they needed to do something to help the Jewish people in their community and so they would get extra rations and they had kind of an underground network going they hid Jewish people in there in their house and they all told it's estimated that they helped to save approximately 800 Jewish people in Holland so they were living out their faith as a family it was just incredible I if you have not read the hiding place I highly recommend it amazing amazing story and lots of really good tidbits of wisdom in there which is fascinating it's one of those can't put down sort of books so I highly recommend it so when she was 52 and her dad was 84 and it was her her dad and her sister who all lived in the same house and were helping these Jewish people and they were betrayed by one of their countrymen and the Nazis came in and arrested her and her father and her sister and and they were sent to concentration camps 52 I don't know what the average age in here is some of you may have seen 52 come and go some of you are looking towards it but we've got a thumbs up higher higher but just imagine 52 Europe heading into this kind of unknown into this arrest and her 84 year old father did end up dying at one of the concentration camps but we're gonna just I'm gonna read a little bit from her book to you so we get an idea of what she experienced where's my first bookmark here we go oh so this is this is they had already been to two concentration camps they were in concentration camps for a period of ten months she was released after ten months but but this is the third one ravans Brooke this was a not not good place this is they had heard tales of how bad this concentration camp was and and that's where they were headed for two more incredible days and two more nights we were carried deeper and deeper into the land of our fears now mind you they are on a train they're not in Nice little seats they're kind of shoved in to cattle cars no room to sit or lay down her stur is incredibly ill and weak she was a little stronger so they were just trying to figure out how to best ride and this is in two days and two nights standing in a cattle cattle car just crammed with other women occasionally one of the loaves of bread was passed from hand to hand but not even the most elementary provision had been made for sanitation and the air in the car was such that you could eat and gradually more terrible than the crush of bodies and the filth the single obsession was something to drink two or three times when the train stopped the door was slid open a few inches and a pail of water passed in but we had become animals incapable of plan or system those near the door got it all at last the morning of the fourth day the train stopped again for days crammed into this cattle car and the door was opened its full width like infants on hands and knees we crawled to the opening and lowered ourselves over the side in front of us was a smiling blue lake on the far side among sycamore trees rose a white church steeple the stronger prisoners hauled buckets of water from the lake we drank through cracked and swollen lips the train was shorter the cars carrying the men had disappeared only a handful of soldiers some of them looking no older than 15 were there to guard a thousand women no more were needed we could scarcely walk let alone resist after a while they got us into straggly columns and marched us off for a mile the road followed the shore of the lake then left it to climb a hill I wondered if Betsy that's her sister Betsy I wondered if Betsy can make it to the top but the sight of trees and sky seemed to have revived her and she supported me as much as I her we passed a number of local people on foot and in horse-drawn wagons the children especially seemed wonderful to me pink cheeked and healthy they returned my stairs with wide-eyed interest I noticed however that the adults did not look at us but turned their heads away as we approached I think that the very telling tale of the blinding I purposefully those adults knew this was wrong they knew these people were being tortured they had spent at least four days on those cattle cars crammed in there no real food most of them had nothing to drink and they were expected to walk a mile uphill part of the way making it into this next concentration camp Friday's the recurrent humiliation of medical inspection the hospital corridor in which we waited was unheated and a full chill had settled into the walls still we were forbidden even to wrap ourselves in our own arms but had to maintain our erect hands at sides position as we filed slowly past of foul necks of green grinning guards how there could have been any pleasure in the sight of these stick-thin legs and hunger bloated stomachs I could not imagine surely there is no more wretched sight than the human body unloved and uncared for nor could I see the necessity for the complete undressing when we finally reached the examining room a doctor looked down each throat another a dentist presumably at our teeth a third in between each finger and that was all we trooped again down the long cold corridor and picked up our X marked dresses at the door all these women every single week had to just file through completely naked completely vulnerable completely bare and these guards would just smile smile I love how Corey says I don't I don't understand how anyone could find pleasure in this and yet she said stood strong and helped her helped her sister the whole time this is another excerpt from here this is their actual bare where they lived barracks 8 was in the quarantine camp compound next to us perhaps as a deliberate warning to newcomer newcomers were located the punishment barracks from there all day long and often into the night came the sounds of Hell itself they were not the sounds of anger or of any human emotion but of a cruelty altogether detached blows landing in regular rhythm screams keeping pace we would stand in our 10 deep ranks with our hands trembling at our sides longing to jam them against our ears to make the sounds stop it grew harder and harder even within these four walls there was too much misery too much seemingly pointless suffering every day something else failed to make sense something else grew too heavy every day the Sun rose a little later the bike took longer to leave the air it will be better everyone assured everyone else when we move into the permanent barracks we'll have a blanket of peace a bed of our own the move to the permanent quarters came the second week in October so it's getting colder and colder as this time progresses we were marched ten abreast along the Y wide cinder Avenue several times the column halted while numbers were read out names were never used at ravans Brook at last Betsy's in mind were called we stepped out of line with a dozen or so others and stared at the long gray front of barracks twenty-eight Betsy and I followed a prisoner guide through our door at the right because of the broken windows the vast room was in semi Twilight our noses told us first that the place was filthy somewhere plumbing had backed up the bedding was soiled and rancid then our eyes adjusted to the gloom we saw that there were no individual beds at all but great square tiers stacked three high and wedged side-by-side and end to end with only an occasional narrow aisle slicing through we followed our guide single-file the aisle was not wide enough for two fighting back the claustrophobia of these platforms rising everywhere above us at last she pointed to a second tier in the center of a large block to reach it we had to stand on the bottom level haul ourselves up and then crawl across three other straw covered plat to reach the one that we would share with how many the deck above us was too close to let us sit up we lay back struggling against the nausea that swept over us from the reeking straw suddenly I sat up striking my head on the cross slats above something had pinched my leg fleas I cried Betsy the place is swarming with them non-stop they were covered with fleas with lice there were roaches in all the other places constantly bugs everywhere we scammed across the intervening platforms heads low to avoid another bump drop down to the aisle and hedged our way to a patch of light they were in what we would consider hell on earth they had no real warmth that I never used this I'm gonna use it now the the beds were just these bunk beds like that and these tight rows and you would fit at least five women at least five women on these little beds they would be sleeping nearly on top the only the only saving grace in this sleeping arrangement was that they would have some body heat a little bit of body heat to keep each other warm truly truly a how on earth I say that when you read this book you will also see the hand of God everywhere throughout their experience and and the fleas are one of those her sister Betsy says oh we need to thank the Lord for the fleas and she says no mm-hmm nope this is where I'm drawing the line I'm not thanking the Lord for the fleas but it comes to air it turns out that they would hold a Bible study every single night with a Bible that they miraculously smuggled in and and the only reason the guards would not go in that barracks to break up the Bible study was because of the fleas so God's hand Trulli was in every moment of this he was with them in their suffering and would provide for them in that suffering at every turn it I highly recommend as you study the world war 2 study the Holocaust have your kids or grandkids study it bring them back to a book like this because a lot of people use the Holocaust as a reason to prove God's non-existence if God existed there wouldn't be such times as the Holocaust but this this book shows how God's hand was still there still with them still providing for them and still loving them so I highly recommend looking at this book or or some of her other books just incredible yes so he's saying that most cattle cars have some opening some some slats see my drawing is good so they have little slats in here so they're exposed to the weather as well so anyone who can't hear him he's just reminding us that most cattle cars are open have some sort of flats some exposure to the weather which these women also would have had to endure so right there they're malnourished they have no drink and they're exposed to weather for and not sitting there standing that whole time the biggest problem was Betsy's strength one morning after a hard night's rain we arrived to find the ground sodden and heavy Betsy had never been able to lift much today her shovels full were microscopic and she stumbled frequently as she walked to the low ground where we dumped the load the guard screamed at her can't you go faster why must they scream I wondered a voice coming from the bell-shaped speaker a scream lingering in the air even after Betsy had left to shut it off loafer lazy swine the guard snatched Betsy's shovel from her hands and ran from group to group of the digging crew exhibiting the handful of dirt that was all Betsy could had been able to lift look at what Madame Baroness is carrying surely she will overexert herself so he is mocking her for the little bit that she can do the other guards and even some of the prisoners laughed encourage the guard threw herself into a parody of Betsy's faltering walk a male guard was with our detail today and in the presence of a man the women guards were always animated as the laughter grew I felt a murderous anger inside the guard was young and well-fed was at Betsy's fault that she was old and starving but to my astonishment Betsy too was laughing that's me alright she admitted but you'd better let me taught her along with my little spoonful or I'll have to stop altogether vegard's plump cheeks went crimson I'll decide who's to stop and snatching the leather crop from her belts she slashed Betsy across the chest and neck without knowing what I was doing I seized my shovel and rushed at her Betsy stepped in front of me before anyone had seen quarry she pleaded dragging my arm to my side quarry keep working she tugged the shovel from my hand and dug it into the mud contemptuously the guard tossed Betsy's shovel toward us I picked it up still in a daze a red stain appeared on Betsy's collar a welt to begin to swell on her neck Betsy saw where I was looking and laid a bird thin hand over the whitmark don't look at it quarry look at Jesus only she drew her hand away it was sticky with blood malnourished no real hydration constantly exposed to the elements expected to do hard labor beaten when ever forced to do these humiliating medical check-ups every single week get worse death seemed a release it seemed a kindness to be able to leave that so now we're gonna jump to scripture we'll come back to this momentarily I just wanted to kind of lay the groundwork of what they were experiencing in this concentration camp so let's go to second samuel in the old testament it's after first samuel after after judges after ruth it's it's after the Pentateuch so you've got Deuteronomy at the end of the first five books and then go a couple more and you'll get to second Samuel chapter 11 if anyone has the page number of the Pew Edition you can holler it out 263 excellent thank you okay so the Bible the Bible character or person that we're gonna study today is David and I bring him up with good reason we're going to read about David's sin here so picking up in verse or in in chapter 11 in the spring of the year the time when the Kings go out to battle David sent Joab with his officers and all Israel with him they ravaged the eminent and menthe ammonites and besieged Rabbah but David remained at Jerusalem it happened late one afternoon when David rose from his couch and was walking about on the tin roof on the roof of the king's house excuse me that he saw from the roof a woman bathing the woman was very beautiful David sent someone to inquire about the woman it was reported this is Beth Sheba daughter of Eliam the wife of Uriah the Hittite so David sent messengers to get her and she came to him and he lay with her now she was purifying herself after her period then she returned to her house the woman conceived and she sent and told David I am pregnant so David sent word to Joab send me Uriah the Hittite and Joab sent Uriah and to David when Uriah came to him David asked how Joab and the people fared and how the war was going then David said to Uriah go down to your house and wash your feet Uriah went out of the king's house and there followed him a present from the king but Uriah slept at the entrance of the King's house with all the servants of his Lord and did not go down to his house when they told David Uriah did not go down to his house David said to Uriah you have just come from a journey why did you not go down to your house he's trying to get Uriah to be with Bathsheba so that that pregnancy is covered up and there's no sin known Uriah said to David the Ark in Israel and Judah remain in booths and my lord Joab and the servants of my Lord are camping in the open field shall I then go to my house to eat and to drink and to lie with my wife as you live and as your soul lives I will not do such a thing then David said to Uriah remain here today also and tomorrow I will say you back so Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day on the next day David invited him to eat and drink in his presence and make him drunk and in the evening he went out to lie on his couch with the servants of his Lord but he did not go down to his house still he won't comply he's being a good servant of David's he's being a soldier and remaining faithful to the king in the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and Senate by the hand of Uriah in the letter he wrote set Uriah in the forefront of the hardest fighting and then draw back from him so that he may be struck down and die now we're plotting murder as Joab was besieging the city he assigned Uriah to the place where he knew there was a valiant warrior there were valiant warriors the men of the city came out and fought with Joab and some of the servants of David among the people fell Uriah the Hittite was killed as well then Joab sent and told David all the news about the fighting and he instructed the messenger when you have finished telling the King all the news about the fighting then if the Kings anger rises and if he says to you why did you go so near the city to fight did you not know that they would shoot from the wall who killed Abba Malik son of these names jerubbaal did not a woman throw an upper millstone on him from the wall so that he died at the bez why did you go so near the wall then you shall say your servant to Uriah the Hittite is dead - so he delivers that message he knows that Uriah is dead and when the wife of Uriah heard that her husband was dead jumping down to verse 26 she made lamentation for him when the morning was over David sent and brought her to his house and she became his wife and bore him a son these are Biggie's these are what we consider big sins right adultery murder cover-up this is big if this happened in today's age this would be all over the news and we would hear a lot of people condemning David condemning Bathsheba they'd be in a lot of trouble and and we consider those big thins and it's pointed out to David the Prophet Nathan points out his sin to him and he realizes and something that I think that you may know you may not know when you've sinned which we all do when you sin doesn't it hurt it hurts physically you can't eat you can't sleep if you've murdered someone I don't know how you couldn't not run and confess to someone tell someone it physically hurts to bear the burden of sin flip over to Psalm 51 if you open up your Bible to the middle you'll almost be there and so it's Psalm 51 so these sins are what are the driving force behind Psalm 51 David writes his confession out in this Psalm and okay and I say this all the time but this really is my favorite pretty sure I love this I love this because it is so bold so honest and he lays it all out there let's read it have mercy on me O God according to your steadfast love according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions who else has the mercy who else is able to forgive as David needs that forgiveness but the law wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin for I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me against you you alone have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment again do you hear that we talk about this all the time that we sin when we sin we are sinning against God and we are absolutely worthy of his wrath and yet with David we cry for that same mercy we cry for that forgiveness from the only one who can offer us mercy indeed verse 5 indeed I was born guilty a sinner when my mother conceived me you desire truth in the inward being therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean wash me and I shall be whiter than snow let me hear joy and gladness let the bones that you have crushed rejoice here's that physical physical response the bones crushing hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities this is my favorite verse CLE a create in me a clean heart O God and put a new and right spirit within me who can do that we cannot do that for ourselves we cannot create a new and right spirit for ourselves at all we're born in sin we're born guilty the only one who can create in us a clean and right spirit is the Lord do not cast me away from your presence and do not take your Holy Spirit from me restore to me the joy of your salvation and sustain in me a willing spirit then I will teach transgressors your ways and sinners will return to you deliver me from bloodshed O God O God of my salvation and my tongue will sing aloud of your deliverance Oh Lord opened my lips and mouth will declare your praise for you have no delight in sacrifice if I were to give a burnt offering you would not be pleased the sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit a broken and contrite heart O God you will not despise the Lord wants us to come to him begging for that mercy the Lord wants to lavish us with redemption with forgiveness oh my gosh these are the big sins what we consider the big sins that David is confessing and asking for forgiveness and do we know what happens with David he absolutely has to deal with the earthly consequences of this but out of his branch he gets the ultimate forgiveness we get Jesus out of the branch of David if God can forgive David surely surely he can forgive us so now we're gonna go back to Corey and what does this mean in her life what what did this mean in her life and what does this mean in our life so does anyone remember Oh again small catechism pop quiz you know I do this you should all just keep going with your small catechisms right okay who remembers in the Lord's Prayer the fifth petition and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and what does this mean oh I thought I thought you were raising your hand okay we pray in this petition that our Father in heaven would not look at our sins or deny our prayer because of them we are neither worthy of the things for which we pray nor have we deserved them but we ask that he would give them all to us by grace for we daily sin much and surely deserve nothing but punishment so we too will sincerely forgive and gladly do good to those who sin against us so we read about the horrors or some of the horrors that Corey experienced her dad died her sister died her her sister was beaten in front of her she was malnourished she was mocked and laughed at she was humiliated she was exposed to the elements what happened it was at a church service in Munich that I saw him this is post-war the former SS man who had stood guard at the shower room door in the processing center at Robbins Brook he was the first of our actual jailers that I had seen since that time and suddenly it was all there the room full of mocking men the heaps of clothing Betsy's pane blanched face he came up to me as the church was emptying beaming and bowing how grateful I am for your message Fraulein he said to think that as you say he has washed my sins away his hand was thrust out to shake mine and I who had preached so often to the people in bloom and all the need to forgive kept my hand at my side even as the angry vengeful thoughts boiled through me I saw the sin of them Jesus Christ had died for this man was I going to ask for more Lord Jesus I prayed forgive me and help me to forgive him I tried to smile I struggled to raise my hand I could not I felt nothing not the slightest spark of warmth or chair and so again I breathed a silent prayer Jesus I cannot forgive him give me your forgiveness as I took his hand the most incredible thing happened from my shoulder along my arm and through my hand a current seemed to pass from me to him while into my heart spring a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me and so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than our goodness that the world's healing hinges but on his when he tells us to love our enemies he gives along with the command the love itself she had gone to hell an earthly hell and this man who created that how part of that hell for her he stood before her saying oh it was a great message I heard that Jesus forgives my sins through your lips how was she supposed to forgive this man but notice it's not out of her power that she forgives is it it's out of Jesus it's out of the love of Christ the forgiveness that we have in Christ that she was able to extend forgiveness to that man and she was overcome with love for this man who had put her through hell and she could forgive him truly forgive him because she had that strength from Jesus so what that means for us in our own lives when we pray that prayer we pray it every single week probably a lot of us pray it at home daily forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against it's not out of our own power but we are called to forgive and I love how she brings it back to Jesus if Jesus already died for the person who has sinned against you if Jesus has forgiven those sins certainly we can call on him to help us to forgive because often when we hold on to that sin against us we too are burdened and we hold on to it and we bear the weight of that sin and we have no release of that so as we go forth as we think about the heroes of faith whether it's strength or peace or mercy or forgiveness we can turn every single time to realize that our strength that our peace that any mercy we may have and forgiveness that we may give truly is sourced at the cross truly is sourced in Jesus Christ because the hell that they endured the sin that we endure whether we commit it or we are sinned against it was already dealt with on the cross it was already overcome through Jesus Christ and we can take that into our daily lives to live out our faith we don't have to be amazing heroes we don't have to become famous to live our faith because when we are living out our faith it is known in the kingdom it's known to those around us and that should be good enough so go forth forgive be forgiven confessed read read David love that confession 51 so on 51 Psalm 51 and I think that's it two minutes over not to that please forgive me you So we are going to get started. Adam and Eve had everything down to the fact that they bore the image of God the idea of not having enough not being enough it wasn't even a question in their mind because they had never experienced lack they had never experienced anything outside of perfection they had never experienced anything outside of the completeness of God and then the devil comes that tricky serpent and whispers into Eve's ear and raises the question of enough in her life the temptation stirs in Eve's heart and she thinks maybe what she has isn't enough maybe there's more look with me please at chapter three beginning in verse six so when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise she took of its fruit and ate and she also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate then the eyes of both were opened and they knew that they were naked and they so did leave together and made loincloths for themselves eating fruit seems pretty innocent it's not a huge deal right to eat a fruit why is that really a big deal after all it looked good it seemed like it would be good to Eve was it a big deal yes it was a big deal because God had expressly forbidden it he had expressly forbidden eating of that fruit we like to judge sin and rank it some sins are worse than others some sins not so bad we can joke about it a little bit but sin is sin sin is sin all sin and sin is not determined by how you or I feel about it sin is not determined by whether we want to say something is right or wrong the whole series of acceptable sins with the big question mark it begs the question what sin is acceptable and the answer is a resounding none no sin is acceptable absolutely zero sin is acceptable even if everyone else does it sin is sin sin is wrong and sin earns the full wrath of God the Father Eve sinned when she questioned the word of God and determined for herself what would be right and good she tried to blame the serpent but the guilt lies directly on her shoulders for her own sin and just like Eve just like Eve we sin out of envy Eve envied God his wisdom Eve envied God his authority and his sovereignty and so she determined for herself that what she had the word of God was not enough and she ate of the fruit just like Eve our envy says that we what we have been given by God is not enough whether it is a matter of a material thing that God has blessed us with we see others who have more and we look at our blessing and say it's not enough out of envy we see the spouse of another person and look at our own spouse and say what God has given me in this spouse is not enough we see others who are wiser than us more talented than us more skilled than us funnyer than us and we envy because we are not enough in our envy we delight in the downfall of others when another struggles we take delight when another when another has a mishap we find little glimpses of joy or humor our envy our envy ultimately comes down to the envy we have over our own lives, over our own morality, over our own decisions that we do not hold the authority that we do not hold the ultimate wisdom that we do not hold ultimate sovereignty and we envy God we envy God and we determine for ourselves what is right and what is wrong in our gospel reading today we have that period where pilot is bringing Jesus before the Jewish people and he has a custom to turn over one of the prisoners to the Jewish people to release him and let him go free and surely he's expecting that he'll let Jesus go because as it said he knew that Jesus had been handed over by the chief priests out of envy the chief priests envy Jesus they envied the power that he had they envied the fluence that he had and they sought his downfall they sought his demise we envy God Jesus stood before the crowd in a crown of thorns and they mocked him and called for his crucifixion do you envy God in that moment they beat him and flogged him stripping away pieces of skin do you envy God they marched him through the streets holding across that he could barely carry do you still envy God they nailed him to two pieces of wood do you envy God Jesus hung there on the cross struggling for breath while those around him crucified with him taunted and tormented him the soldiers at the foot of his cross teased him mocked him while his mother and his friends stood by weeping unable to do a thing do you envy God on that cross the entire wrath of the father was poured out so heavily the burden of the sin of this world of all time all places all people thoughts words and deeds the punishment poured out upon the sun so devastating that he called out my God my God why have you forsaken me and he gave up his spirit to death do you still envy God they removed the body and buried it in a tomb Jesus had died if that had been you or I or any person to ever walk this earth the story would end there it would be done and it would be deserved and just but God God is God he is not you or I God in the second person of the Trinity Jesus Christ walked this earth to live the life that you and I cannot live he walked this earth out of his love for you and I so that when he died experiencing the full punishment unjust punishment of the father he could do what neither you nor I could do and he rose victorious he conquered death he conquered the grave he conquered your sin he conquered my sin even the sin of our envy Jesus did for you and for I what we could never do for ourselves or for anyone else from the beginning of your life of faith when you were born through waters of baptism you were born free you were born into salvation you were born into eternal forgiveness and you were born once again in the image of God and as Paul writes in Galatians it is no longer I who live but it is Christ who lives in me and in Christ you come before the father not enough in yourself but you are in Christ and in Christ you are enough because you stand redeemed in Christ and this was planned from before the beginning in Ephesians chapter one Paul under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit writes he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love he destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ according to the good pleasure of his will to the to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the beloved in him we have redemption through his blood the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace that he lavished on us what you have my brothers and sisters is Christ there is no need to be in Christ you have forgiveness in Christ you have salvation in Christ you have life in Christ and what you have in Christ is enough and so the joy that you have in Christ is enough the peace that you have in Christ is enough the love that you have in Christ is enough and so I encourage you I encourage you to live live in Christ because not only is Christ enough Christ is everything And you open your Bibles, please, with me to the Book of Exodus, the 3rd chapter for our study today for using a Pue edition of Holy Scripture.

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