Episode Transcript
[00:00:06] I teach a class here called exegesis, and we're studying through the book of Second Samuel, verse by verse. And if you'd like to join that class, it starts this Thursday.
[00:00:22] And somebody here can tell you how to get signed up, but not me.
[00:00:30] Our dear heavenly Father, because you are brilliant, you have ideas that are far beyond anything we could figure out ourselves.
[00:00:47] And because you're gracious, you have revealed these ideas to us in scripture.
[00:00:55] And so I pray today that your holy spirit would teach us the meaning and the blessing of justification by faith.
[00:01:06] And I ask it in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:01:11] Paul wrote the book of Galatians about 20 years after Jesus died. So that would be about 50 ad.
[00:01:22] And if you have the imagination, perhaps you can see him sitting at a rough wooden table in the city of Antioch, Syria, with a quill and a pot of ink and some papyrus paper.
[00:01:49] And he began to write himself and said, this isn't going to work.
[00:01:59] So he invited a friend of his and said, I'm going to dictate to you what I want you to write.
[00:02:12] And Paul talked to his friend, and he wrote the Book of Galatians.
[00:02:24] It's the first book in the New Testament written.
[00:02:29] It's written because there was a big church council in acts.
[00:02:35] And at that church council, there was a giant disagreement about how jewish greco roman people had to be to be Christians.
[00:02:48] And there was a whole group of people who said they have to be totally jewish. They have to do everything the way it was done in the Old Testament.
[00:02:59] And Paul said, no, you don't understand the gospel.
[00:03:05] The gospel is God saying to us that in Christ Jesus the person, and in the work that Jesus did, God declares us acceptable to him.
[00:03:22] You have to stop thinking, Paul said, this wrong way of thinking that has permeated our culture for years. You have to stop thinking that God accepts you because you do enough good things to make up for the bad things you do.
[00:03:42] And Paul wrote this letter primarily to four churches that he started on his first missionary trip, Antioch, Pisidian Iconium, Lystra, and Derbeye.
[00:04:01] And two weeks ago, we studied chapter one. And the key word in chapter one is the gospel. Remember O Angelion?
[00:04:15] I shared with the church. It's unfortunate that when we translated the Bible into English, we made up this silly word, God spell, and it doesn't represent what it really means.
[00:04:27] U means good.
[00:04:30] Angelion means message. The gospel is the good message that Jesus Christ in his person and by what he did, makes us acceptable to God.
[00:04:46] I have good news for you. Today, I don't care how much you failed last week, if you have put your faith in Christ, Christ makes you acceptable to God.
[00:05:03] This week we have to study a word. It's called justification.
[00:05:09] And I like you to know, I like you to know the history of words.
[00:05:16] The word we translate, justification originally was the greek word, started with the greek word dike.
[00:05:26] And dike was a concept that made the greek city states possible.
[00:05:38] The Greeks said that God gave animals law, instinct. They obey the law of their instinct.
[00:05:47] But God gave man dike, the ability to discern right from wrong.
[00:06:02] And the Greeks said the whole ability to create a stable culture is based on daik citizens who can discern right from wrong.
[00:06:17] He said, we can build great cities like Athens because we learned how to treat, we agree how to treat each other, that this is right and this is wrong. He said, the barbarians can't build anything because they can't agree as a community on what is right and wrong.
[00:06:40] Still kill the power. Whoever's the most powerful dominates. So the Greeks had this idea that God gave mankind the capacity to discern right and wrong. And that capacity helps them to live in a right relationship with other people.
[00:07:05] When Aristotle wrote his book on ethics, he said that dike is the chief of human virtues.
[00:07:14] The highest virtue that a human being can obtain is this developed capacity to distinguish right from wrong.
[00:07:28] Now, some of you are saying right from wrong is really not that hard.
[00:07:35] You've got it in your head that you're pretty clear about right and wrong. Okay, I just want to do a little experiment with you. Would you do an experiment with me?
[00:07:45] All right. You don't have to answer out loud. And there's going to be a series of questions.
[00:07:52] It's. You're sound asleep in your house, it's 03:00 in the morning, and somebody you don't know breaks your front window, your living room window.
[00:08:08] Now, I want you to ask yourself, is that right or wrong?
[00:08:15] Okay, be patient.
[00:08:21] Not only do they break your window, they come into your living room.
[00:08:28] Jody's got his guns drawn, so you're leaning toward, this is pretty bad.
[00:08:44] But then the person starts yelling, your house is on fire. Your house is on fire. And they start banging on doors and helping people get out of.
[00:08:56] Do you see what human nature does?
[00:09:00] Do you see what human nature does?
[00:09:03] Often, listen. Often we call right and wrong too quickly.
[00:09:18] Often we judge a book by its cover.
[00:09:23] Often we make emotional decisions and call them moral and rational.
[00:09:32] Do you see?
[00:09:34] So the Greeks were absolutely right.
[00:09:37] This whole business of the real capacity to distinguish what is right and what is wrong.
[00:09:45] It requires something divine. I it's often above our pay grade.
[00:09:55] Every one of us have done something wrong and tried to justify it. Oh, it's not so bad, church.
[00:10:04] Every one of us other people have done something and we judged them before we knew anything about it at all.
[00:10:14] Every commercial for the politicians is based on making you have a biased, quick judgment.
[00:10:22] They want you to make an emotional judgment and make it like this. All right, so, in greek culture, a righteous man was a man who fulfilled his obligations to the community.
[00:10:37] He conformed to the social order.
[00:10:40] All right? We don't think of that as righteous at all. I don't think fitting into my culture makes me a righteous man. Okay? But that's where this word came from.
[00:10:52] That's the origin of this word.
[00:11:00] And when this word became a verb, when you turned the ability to determine right from wrong into a verb, then it becomes the verb that is based on the latin word justice.
[00:11:19] Justify.
[00:11:23] If this is right, it's justifiable. If it's wrong, it's not justifiable.
[00:11:30] If the guy breaks your window, comes into your house and steals your tv, that's not justifiable.
[00:11:38] If they break the window, come into your house and help you escape a fire, that's very justifiable. So the noun idea of the ability to judge between right and wrong gets turned into a verb, and that verb is justify. Right is justifiable. Wrong is not justifiable.
[00:12:02] So the verb meant to make right, but because it got used in different ways, it meant from making something right to regarding something as right.
[00:12:21] You're not changing anything except the way you think.
[00:12:27] Then, about 250 years before Christ, the Old Testament was translated from Hebrew into Greek. And that translation is called a septuagint. I've shared this with you before.
[00:12:44] I didn't hear very many right answers on that. I'm going to have to send a note home to your mom.
[00:12:52] All right. The septuagint is a very, very, very important document, because most of the quotations in the New Testament don't come from the Hebrew Bible. They come from the Septuagint translation.
[00:13:06] So when you read Paul, you're reading somebody who, when he read the Old Testament, he read the Septuagint. It was almost impossible to get your hands on a hebrew text. There were so many rules about copying it. They were so expensive, almost no one could do it. There were no rules for copying the Septuagint. They were much more inexpensive. All right, so when the Septuagint gets translated, they have to come up with a. They have to come up with a greek word for this Old Testament word, tzadik. And Sadiq means right or righteous in a moral sense, like we hold.
[00:13:50] So they take a greek word that really had a more political and sociological meaning, and they re. And they use it, but they redefine it with a religious meaning.
[00:14:05] So now, to justify doesn't mean to make yourself right for the culture around you.
[00:14:16] Now, to justify means that something about God's moral code has become part of who you are. And because you're living by his Moral Code, you're justifiable.
[00:14:34] And that's why the pharisees were so driven to live out the law, because they believed that that's what made them right with God.
[00:14:52] If I do everything in the law, that makes me right with God, okay?
[00:15:03] Jesus lived a life that challenged that idea.
[00:15:12] Jesus went out of his way to heal people on Sunday.
[00:15:17] He wanted to make an issue with the Pharisees.
[00:15:21] He wanted to challenge them and say, you guys, you put your self righteousness above helping somebody on the Sabbath.
[00:15:32] You would rather. You would rather the people around you absolutely miserable so you can pride yourself in how religious you are.
[00:15:47] All right?
[00:15:49] And Paul himself started out as a religious fanatic.
[00:15:55] You remember that he made an early career. The chief priests would pay him to go and arrest Christians and drag them to the Sanhedrin court.
[00:16:11] And he believed that he was the most righteous of anyone else because he was doing that.
[00:16:19] So the Old Testament developed this wrong. The culture of the old testament developed this wrong. Thinking about justified.
[00:16:28] They said, I am justified because I do all the right stuff.
[00:16:35] Paul comes along in the book of Galatians and says, you've totally misunderstood God.
[00:16:41] You have absolutely misunderstood God.
[00:16:47] And he takes the word justify, and he makes it the core of his theology.
[00:16:53] He says, well, let's just read it.
[00:16:58] I'm going to start in chapter two, verse 16.
[00:17:03] Yet we know that a person is not justified by the works of the law.
[00:17:09] Would you let me translate that? Justify as declared right. A person is not declared right by the works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ.
[00:17:24] So we also have believed in Christ Jesus in order that we may be declared right by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law.
[00:17:38] Because by the works of the law, no one can be justified.
[00:17:45] Now, let's. Let's do our best to understand what exactly Paul means when he says this.
[00:17:54] He builds an argument on a contrast.
[00:17:58] First, he says, we know that a person is not declared right by the works of the law.
[00:18:07] So would you join me in saying, well, how do we know that?
[00:18:12] How do we know that a person. How do we know that the Pharisees didn't get it right and we're getting it wrong? How do we know that a person is not declared right by the works of the law? Okay, first of all, no one ever completely obeyed the law.
[00:18:31] There's no one in this room who's never broken the law.
[00:18:36] In fact, we can't even get the first one right.
[00:18:42] Ah, hero Israel, thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind and all thy strength. That's the first one. And there isn't a person in this room or watching online who is sane who would say, I have loved God the way he deserves to be loved. You see, you can't be justified. You can't be declared right by the works of the law because nobody ever fulfills the law.
[00:19:14] It's not just the law.
[00:19:17] I would guess the majority in this people in this room would have to admit. What I have to admit is I haven't even been as good as my soul tells me I should be. I mean, let's just put the law over here for a minute. My own soul says to me, dude, you have messed up church.
[00:19:43] I must be golfing today. I'm getting golf class.
[00:19:49] All right, listen. We love to think deeply about God, don't we? That's why we come to this church. If you want a cartoon, you can watch it on tv. All right, now, here we go.
[00:20:03] Paul says, we know no one is declared right by the law because nobody ever lives up to the law.
[00:20:12] Not only we do not live up to the law of God, we don't live up to the own requirements we have in our own soul. You will never be declared right with God by what you do.
[00:20:24] Second, he says, we know that through faith in Jesus Christ, we are declared right.
[00:20:34] And we have believed in Christ Jesus in order that we may be declared right by faith. Now, this is the paradigm shift.
[00:20:45] The paradigm shift is I'm not right with Goddesse because I can bring a list of good things I've done.
[00:20:57] I'm right with God because I believe the gospel.
[00:21:03] I believe the person and work of Jesus Christ.
[00:21:08] Listen. And when I believe that Paul is going to say, christ becomes my representative, I am declared right because God looks at Christ and says, perfect.
[00:21:31] And I am in Christ. And because of Christ, God looks at me and says, I declare you right with me.
[00:21:41] Are you following me, church?
[00:21:49] The law never affirmed anyone. It only condemns us, church, you'll never get, you'll never get pulled over by a police officer and say, you know, you were driving so wonderfully, I just thought I would pull you over and say what a wonderful driver you are.
[00:22:14] Anybody ever had that?
[00:22:18] The law does not affirm.
[00:22:23] The law basically leaves you alone until you do something wrong, and then they're coming for you, right? That's the nature of the law. And we're going to talk about that more as we read this book. All right, now, verse 19, Paul pushes his argument one step farther. Listen to what he says, for through the law I died. To the law, I am crucified. With Christ, I live, to God.
[00:22:57] This is what Paul is saying. Paul is saying, if you start judging your life by the law, it's going to kill you, church.
[00:23:11] Why is that? Well, it's very simple. It just points out everything that's wrong with you.
[00:23:18] The law says this is wrong, that's wrong. Didn't do that right. Had an ugly thought there, didn't you? Didn't treat that person right.
[00:23:27] You weren't quite honest when you said that. The law, the biggest fault finder there is, it will find every fault in you.
[00:23:39] And then Paul is going to argue later in the book of Romans that the wages of sin are death.
[00:23:48] The law keeps saying, bad, you're wrong, you're bad, you're wrong.
[00:23:55] And the end of that is death.
[00:23:59] So Paul is arguing to the early church, stop falling back on an idea that was never true and never worked. The law does not make you right with God. It makes you miserable.
[00:24:17] And then Paul says, he says, I'm getting anxious. I want to make sure you understand why this is true. God isn't just a very liberal judge who lets anybody do anything they want and doesn't hold anybody accountable. Paul said, I do not want you to think that. He said, in fact, the reason you can be declared right is because Christ was crucified.
[00:24:47] God doesn't, God doesn't just lightly overlook my wrong.
[00:24:55] God said, in Jesus Christ, I punished you wrong.
[00:25:00] Now listen to what Paul says. Paul says, I see myself on the cross with Jesus Christ.
[00:25:10] I am crucified with Christ. What did he mean by that? He said when Christ was up on that cross, he was taking my place.
[00:25:21] He wasn't crucified because of his mistakes. He wasn't crucified because of his sins. He wasn't crucified because of his ugliness. He accepted all of that from me. And he hung on the cross to satisfy divine justice.
[00:25:39] I am justified. I am declared right. Because when Christ hung on the cross in the mind of God, I hung there with him everything ugly, stupid and wicked about who I am. God laid on Jesus Christ, and Christ accepted the full punishment for that guilt.
[00:26:04] Amen.
[00:26:06] And Paul says, my hope of being acceptable to God is no longer based on the law. My whole hope is in who Jesus is and what he did. The gospel.
[00:26:24] Jesus was the incarnate God who took my place and bore my sins on the cross.
[00:26:34] And when I trust that, God says, I declare you right, church.
[00:26:47] The gospel is God's good purpose for us, worked out in the person and the work of Christ.
[00:26:56] My sins did not ruin God's good creative purpose because Christ is greater than all my sin.
[00:27:06] Paul says, in another place where sin did abound, grace did much more abound. Do you hear that? You can't out sin God's grace because Christ, in his atoning death, said, I will take the responsibility for it all.
[00:27:31] The law has nothing to charge me with because Christ fulfilled the law for me. And now I live in a healthy relationship to God.
[00:27:43] Please, let me tell, let me help to make this personal.
[00:27:54] You have a bad day next week.
[00:27:58] You let yourself get ugly.
[00:28:00] You say things you said you wouldn't let yourself say. You do things you said you shouldn't do, you don't do things you should do. And your heart is saying to you, you're a loser.
[00:28:15] Anybody ever been there? Am I the last sinner in this church?
[00:28:20] Thank you.
[00:28:22] My heart says to me, I can't believe you.
[00:28:30] All right?
[00:28:32] There was a time in my life when I had those moments that I would start groveling, groveling and sniveling.
[00:28:41] Oh, God, I'm so sorry you got stuck with me. I'm a loser.
[00:28:48] I told you I'd do better, but here I am again, all right?
[00:28:59] That is the direct opposite of what God wants.
[00:29:03] Where is the faith in that?
[00:29:08] Where is the faith in that? You know what I'm doing? I'm hoping that if I grovel properly, I will be acceptable to God.
[00:29:21] Huh? If I can just grovel properly, if I can say I'm sorry enough, if I can feel bad enough, you know what I'm doing? I'm trying to justify myself. Hey, God, I'm really not so bad. Look how sorry I feel.
[00:29:36] Hey, God, I'm really not so bad. Look at me grovel.
[00:29:40] All right? I may not be saying it consciously, but that's what I'm saying to myself. If I grovel sufficiently, God will feel sorry for me. All right, that's the opposite.
[00:29:54] When my heart condemns me, that is the time when faith in Christ and justification mean everything.
[00:30:04] That is the moment that I say Christ doesn't love me any less because I've made this mistake. In fact, he wants to use this mistake to make me better. That is the moment I say I've messed up. But I have this promise from Christ. If I confess my sin, he's faithful and just to forgive me my sin and to cleanse me from all unrighteousness.
[00:30:30] It doesn't say if I feel bad enough, if I gravel long enough, if I humiliate myself, if I drag myself through enough misery that he'll forgive me. Do you see? Living by a sense of justification empowers me to have a different relationship with Jesus Christ.
[00:30:55] I start trusting what is best about him and asking him in all my life experiences, successes or failures, that his existence in me could be more profound and more controlling. Church, instead of me telling God what a loser I am, I say to him, you know that I have consistently lost in this issue.
[00:31:23] You know my track record. So I'm telling you, it's obvious I can't do this by myself. And I'm not trusting my own ability anymore. I'm asking that your nature would be in me in a new and powerful way, that the next time this issue comes up, I can look to you and say, ah, I have been crucified with Christ. I don't live anymore. Christ lives in me. Would you live in me in the moments that I most need you? Can you hear this church that's living the justified life, that's making a healthy soul, that's living in a healthy relationship to God.
[00:32:06] God is not happy because his kids are miserable. God is most delighted when his kids are living healthy, strong, beautiful, honorable, dignified christian lives.
[00:32:27] Verse 20.
[00:32:30] I don't live any longer. That's what Paul says.
[00:32:34] What is he saying? The person I was before Christ declared me right is not the person I am right now.
[00:32:44] God changed me. God changed you.
[00:32:50] You aren't the person you were before Christ declared you right.
[00:32:56] What has changed?
[00:32:59] Christ lives in me.
[00:33:01] Before I had to do it all myself. And I failed and failed and failed. Before it was all up to me, before it was all. How much self control can you muster?
[00:33:12] How hard can you grit your teeth? All right, since then, it's not just me.
[00:33:21] Since you're declared right by faith, Christ lives in you. And how does he do that? He does it through the Holy Spirit. When Christ went back to heaven, he said, I'm not gonna leave you alone. I'm gonna send the Holy Spirit, and he's going to be with you every day. The spirit of Jesus Christ goes with you. You don't have to do any of it alone. All right, now, you might choose to. You might drift back into the performance side. Oh, I gotta do this. I gotta go do that. I can't do this. You might choose to live there, but you don't have to. There is a different and better way. It is the life of the Holy Spirit in us, making us capable in ways that we're not capable without him, prompting thoughts that we wouldn't think without him. Strengthening our choices. We make better choices than we would without him.
[00:34:18] How does it work? The life I live in the flesh. I live by the faith of the son of God. Now we're right back to what I was saying.
[00:34:27] Am I living a life of faith in Jesus Christ, or am I living a life of performance and telling myself it's a life of faith?
[00:34:44] Do you see the difference?
[00:34:46] The life of faith says I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me.
[00:34:54] The life of performance says, I've failed at this every single thing, every single time I tried.
[00:35:02] The life of faith says God wants what's best for me. The life of performance says God has to be angry with me this time.
[00:35:13] I'm hearing the law. God is angry with you this time, church, because I am declared right by faith. I have to live by faith. I can't revert back to living by the law.
[00:35:32] Do you see? If God declared me right because of my faith in Jesus Christ, then I have to have a daily faith relationship to Christ. It's not me getting out my rule book every morning and going over the rules. It's me getting up every morning and saying, oh, Lord Jesus Christ, you're my partner today.
[00:35:54] I'd love to. I'd love to live my life in relationship with you today.
[00:35:59] I'm going to have some testy times today, and I want to trust you in the most challenging of them all.
[00:36:07] I want to get up in the morning and say, you were so good to me yesterday. It was so nice to walk in your light. I'd like to do that again. Do you see what we're saying? The life of faith is not a life where I keep judging myself by the rules. The life of faith is a life that says, christ in me the hope of glory. Christ in you the hope of glory. God is at work in me.
[00:36:35] If I failed yesterday, I will be a better person today because Christ is at work in me.
[00:36:43] All right.
[00:36:44] The life that I live by the faith of the son of God. All right, listen to this.
[00:36:52] The law is impersonal, but Christ is a living being.
[00:37:00] Do you get this? The law is impersonal.
[00:37:04] You can turn to the book of deuteronomy. You can turn to the book of Leviticus. You can read law after law after law after law. Listen, listen.
[00:37:14] But there's no person there.
[00:37:17] It's rules on a piece of paper.
[00:37:20] On the other hand, Jesus Christ is a living being.
[00:37:26] Jesus Christ is a living soul.
[00:37:31] He's conscious.
[00:37:34] He's committed. I will never leave you or forsake you. Living by faith is not living by a set of rules. It's living in relationship to a Christ who is infinitely alive today.
[00:37:48] He is as alive today as he was when Peter said to him, call me out of the boat.
[00:37:59] The law offers no assistance.
[00:38:03] The law doesn't say, I'll help you out. It just tells you do and don't and doesn't offer you any assistance.
[00:38:11] Okay. The law says, do not steal, but it doesn't give you any advice on how not to steal.
[00:38:19] You get no assistance. On the other hand, Christ offers us daily, momentary assistance. And by his daily assistance, he promises that he will make us better and better until, as Paul says multiple times in his letters, he will stand us up without spot and without blemish. The law can't make that promise. It doesn't help you do anything.
[00:38:46] The law is incapable of love. Christ loves us passionately, the one loving me and giving himself before me.
[00:38:57] Listen to this. The law only requires a listen to what Christ does.
[00:39:03] Christ gives.
[00:39:05] The law requires it takes things from you. It wants, it wants. It wants. On the other hand, Christ says, I not only love you, I give myself for you.
[00:39:20] Verse 21.
[00:39:23] I'll do it quickly, I promise.
[00:39:25] Or relatively, I do not nullify the grace of God.
[00:39:35] For if the law.
[00:39:38] For if through the law I am declared right.
[00:39:42] Consequently, Christ died for no purpose.
[00:39:49] Listen to what Paul is saying.
[00:39:52] Paul is saying, if you keep thinking your relationship to God is based on you doing all the right stuff, you are nullifying the grace of God.
[00:40:08] Why is that true?
[00:40:10] If anyone could make themself right with God by their own efforts, the person and work of Christ would not be necessary and the gospel would be meaningless.
[00:40:23] Do you hear this?
[00:40:25] If you think you can do this by yourself, if you think one day you're going to figure it all out, and you're going to be a much better person, and God is going to be happy with you, then what you're saying is the grace of Jesus Christ is not as beautiful or valuable as what I think I can do.
[00:40:49] Hear this, church.
[00:40:52] Who would insult Christ in such a way?
[00:40:56] All right, now let me apply this, okay?
[00:41:01] When you're struggling with something or when you've made a mistake or you've done something wrong, it matters what you do after.
[00:41:10] It matters what you do after. And the first thing that has to happen is I have to, in that moment, have deep faith in the grace of God, that God treats me better than what I deserve. If I am afraid of him as the harsh one, I'm not going to turn to him.
[00:41:34] But if in that moment I have real faith in Christ, I really believe he's gracious. The very first thing I do is I turn to the one who can help me.
[00:41:46] I don't turn to the law that says, you're bad, you're dumb, you're never going to get this right. I turn to Christ, and Christ convicts my heart. And he says, son, I want better than that from you.
[00:42:02] I've got a big investment in you.
[00:42:05] I've got high hopes for you. I want better from that from you. And listen. Listen.
[00:42:10] And his spirit says, and I'll help you get better.
[00:42:15] You see, that's relying on the grace of God. Now, my future is not based upon, can I get this right the next time? My future is based upon, can I trust God to be at work in me by his spirit? So the next time his spirit works in me in a more profound way, and I am more of the person he wants me to be.
[00:42:46] The vain hope of being declared right by our own efforts devalues the person and the work of Christ.
[00:43:03] Thinking that I'm going to get this right by myself. Listen, it insults the grace of Jesus Christ.
[00:43:13] All right, now I want to bring this all down to just this one. I want to ask you one question.
[00:43:22] Is today the day that you'll stop trying to justify yourself and begin to live a life that trusts the person and the work of Christ to make you right with God?
[00:43:40] Could today be a day that you say in your heart, I'm taking a different approach to life.
[00:43:48] I'm taking a different approach to life.
[00:43:52] God is better to me. God is better for me than I've ever dreamed.
[00:43:58] And in the future, I'm putting my trust in what he's capable of doing to make me a better person. Instead of putting my trust in my own ability to make myself a better person.
[00:44:14] All right, today is the day I'm going to begin to do more and more of what he asked me to do because I believe that is my best course in life.
[00:44:27] He loves me, he cares for me, he knows what's best. And he's only asking me to do these things because he wants what's best for me.
[00:44:36] Today I lay down my own self confidence and I pick up a deep trust in Jesus Christ and I say, I believe everything about you is awesome.
[00:44:52] I believe you want what's best for me. I believe you've already shown me you want what's best for me. I believe you've already done.
[00:45:01] You've gone way over the line to make me right with God. And if you've already gone this far to make me right with God, I'm going to trust you to keep doing that work in me and finish it. And day by day I'm going to seek you. I'm going to try to live in a personal relationship with you because I believe that's how you do your best work in my life.
[00:45:26] Our dear heavenly Father, I pray that your holy spirit would do the work in us that only he can do.
[00:45:35] I pray that there would be a seed planted in every heart in this room and a seed planted in everybody who's watching online.
[00:45:43] And that seed would blossom and the eyes of our understanding would be enlightened and we could start seeing this justification by faith with greater clarity. And it would actually change our personal relationship with you and would change our approach to life. And I ask this in Jesus name. Amen.
