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In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

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Here at this seminary, for those who live here, who labor, who love and encourage one

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another, there is a constant temptation to try and take just a smidgen of credit before

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God, even to think if but for a fleeting moment that somehow your well-meant strivings might

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be bringing you a little closer to his positive opinion, a few inches nearer to the radiance

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of his glory.

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It's no different where I work over at the International Center in the daily grind over

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there, ensnared in our corrupted flesh, no matter how much we loathe the sin state that

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we're all caught up in, we just can't help it.

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Old habits die hard.

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We're constantly cooking up a dangerous experiment in which we blithely blend together two key

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ingredients that should always and insistently be distinguished from one another.

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We ought to be vigilant on this point, lest in a risky commingling boom, the result is

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a destructive explosion of doubt and despair.

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Now you have on the one hand our standing before God with the absolutely perfect righteousness

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that he requires.

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On the other hand, our works according to his divine will and the demands set forth

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in his word which according to Saint Paul are not only given us explicitly in the scriptures,

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but are also written on every human heart.

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You can't have one without the other, but they are to be properly ordered in our understanding

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and confession, the justification grasped by the sinner who trusts in the promise of

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God in Christ.

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Such righteousness precedes the fruit, the good and God pleasing works that he rightly

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expects of anyone who would be set so free in faith toward him, in fervent love toward

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our neighbor.

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If you think that by working harder here you will somehow earn more of God's favor, you're

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already too late to the party.

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No, says Saint Paul by the Holy Spirit, not by any of the things you do, not your commandment

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keeping, not by love of your family, not by your pious religiosity, not a life of higher

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purpose, not your parsing of Greek verbs into the wee hours of the morning.

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Let all of your babbling about such things be silenced.

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The law grinds your mouth and your mind to a sudden halt.

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Your sins are evident.

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You're guilty as charged.

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But then listen to this in the midst of your distress.

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God has already done it.

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Everything that was necessary to lay the full rendering of his righteousness, his love,

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his forgiveness and favor without exception, his glory upon you.

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And this is the sure takeaway from that reading from Romans this morning.

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God is uniquely, unfailingly, entirely righteous without exception.

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And because God is all of that, He makes righteous those whom He declares righteous as he did

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for you personally, beginning at the font.

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With respect to you, the final ruling, the one to be announced on that day, the return

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of Christ in glory when He shall judge the living and the dead, that verdict is just

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as plainly evident.

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It is His righteousness already received by you now without merit, undeservedly received

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by the one who trusts by faith in the crucified and resurrected Jesus, the supremely faithful

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son of God.

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It is now your righteousness gifted to you because of God's intrinsic grace toward those

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whom He has created, everyone whom He loves.

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That is meant for all, without distinction or difference as to intended receiver.

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It is righteousness freely delivered for the sake of the one man, God come in human flesh,

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who alone offers up the atoning sacrifice in blood, His blood that carries that flawless

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life of infinite worth, life showered down from the cross without limit, genuine and

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lasting life for every descendant of Adam and Eve who have ever lived or breathed upon

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the earth.

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The just wrath and well-deserved condemnation that was rightly owed you and everyone else,

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all of us stained by our transgressions, Jesus takes these into Himself, makes them His own.

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That is the mystery of such a cross-born righteousness.

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If God were to have ignored or dismissed our sins without such perfect justice, well then

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that would have been an irreconcilable contradiction, a divine unrighteousness.

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The chaos would have been unbearable for us.

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We would have been lost, bereft of hope, literally walking dead in our transgressions.

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That's not what happened.

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Thanks be to God that his perfect righteousness is now conveyed to you in the now time by

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that word that is endured onward from Adam's fall through the company of God's prophets

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and evangelists and yes, even angels.

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He waited for centuries that all might see His perfect justice completed in the crucifixion

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of His son.

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Exercising divine patience beyond all human understanding, God let sins pass by while

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withholding his punishment for a time.

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Had Christ never arrived on our human scene, that would have created a real conundrum,

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the impression that God was somehow unjust, inconsistently unrighteous.

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All of that was settled forever when the appointed time arrived.

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Justice was consummated when that life flowed forth through sacred veins, darkness covered

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a shaken earth and the tombs were opened.

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He did indeed punish every sin.

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Once hidden, now it is His righteousness revealed.

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A righteousness that is reality now, in no way artificial surface label or wishful hope

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to get better or to carry out a program of moral improvement or to work harder and score

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more.

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It is, dear friends in Christ, God's righteousness now, completed, delivered in full to you.

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It's yours.

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He said so.

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This then you hold to be full gospel truth.

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That one is justified by faith in Jesus apart from works of the law.

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In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

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Amen.