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{\b\fs48 Episode 1552: Now That Faith Has Come\b0}

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{\b\cf1 Scott Maderer:\b0}

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{ Thanks for joining me on episode 1,552 of the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.}

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{\b\cf3 Andrea Blindt:\b0}

{ I'm Andrea Blindt and I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent, and your treasures to live out your calling. Having the ability to focus on your path to healing is key, and one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this amazing podcast with my friend Scott Maderer, the inspired stewardship podcast.}

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{\b\cf1 Scott Maderer:\b0}

{ Our vision will come that of Christ. Then we'll be able to see each other the way that Christ asks us to. And it is a constant work of }

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{ linting and letting go of ourselves so that we can put on. The eyes and the heart and the mind of Christ instead. Welcome and thank you for joining us on the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.}

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{If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent, and your treasures for your true calling. In the Inspired Stewardship Podcast, you'll learn to invest in yourself. Invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.}

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{In today's spiritual foundation episode, I talk about Galatians chapter three, verses 23 through 29. I share how the big picture is vital, but can also be overwhelming, and I also talk about how our journey to being Christlike. }

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{ Often starts with the small things. Galatians chapter three, verses 23 through 29 says, now, before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed.}

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{Therefore, the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came so that we might be reckoned as righteous by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian for in Christ Jesus. You are all children of God through faith. As many of you as we're baptized into Christ, have clothed yourself with Christ.}

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{There is no longer Jew or Greek. There is no longer slave or free. There is no longer male and female. For all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs, according to the promise.}

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{Sometimes focusing on the big picture or the small thing becomes a big debate or a big conversation }

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{ within things about God. When we're talking as Christians, as church going people, do we focus on the small things or do we skip over those and pay attention on the big picture? After all, we fought over some of those small details oftentimes, and there's been conflict in the body over it.}

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{So maybe if we just stepped back and looked at only the big picture, we would see ourselves much more in agreement. This passage from Galatians is a big picture kind of thing. It starts now. That faith has come some sort of grand change or some new reality. Faith has come now that faith has come, something big has happened, something transforming, something world art altering, and maybe we should just focus on that.}

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{Maybe that grand design glimpsing the kingdom of God in these verses, standing on the mountaintop, gazing in wonder, }

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{ looking at the wide angled picture, the vista that opens up before us, and it takes our breath away. Our jaws drop at the glory. Our hearts pound with the vision, but sometimes it seems almost too beautiful, almost too powerful, almost too unattainable.}

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{Because that big picture, yes, it captures us. It captures our imagination and our vision, but we often fail to act on it because it seems so far out of reach. It seems like something that is beyond our capacity to do. We want to live there. We want to reach that vision. Yet our hearts betray us. Our wills fail us, our strength falls short.}

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{Focusing on the big picture can sometimes lead to despair. How long is this gonna take? That big picture seems to stay constantly out of }

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{ reach. So sometimes focusing down, looking closer down to the detail, looking at the small things that seem like maybe they don't matter. But they're actually within our reach.}

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{There's something we can do, something we can understand, and something that in turn can move us closer to that big picture. This passage from Galatians has that too. If you look at it, the big picture in it is right there in verse 28, the image of the church and the world without barriers. It's about acceptance, equality.}

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{Community relationship. Everyone values everyone. Everyone is respected. Everyone is honored. There's no such thing as a second class citizen. That sounds like a wonderful world, doesn't it? But it gets even better. Earlier the beginning of the passage, it talks about we no longer need the law because the function of }

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{ the law was to keep us in line, to give us the rules to follow.}

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{To show us where we fall short to show us where we fail. It was about disciplining us, and that's not needed now because now our hearts have changed through faith. Now we can follow the law, not because we're afraid of not following up, but because we understand it so deeply that it lives within us. That it becomes our choice.}

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{We want to act in those ways. We want to choose to love everyone. We want to treat others as children of God. At least that's a picture That could be true. It's often who we want to be at our best. We do want to be that, and that's the problem because we're also aware of the fact that we don't reach that ideal.}

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{You really want to love your neighbors. You want to see the face }

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{ of Jesus and all of those people around you. You want to love everyone. And then that one person shows up, that one person that just gets under your skin, and we try to see the face of Jesus and them as well. We work at it. We grit our teeth, we put our backs into it, but we fall short.}

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{We live in a culture that values the effort of the individual self-Help do it yourself. Try hard enough, you can do it. But that's not within us. It's not there for us to love as Jesus loved As much as we want to think we can, we can't. And then despair can kick in again. That's why that big picture vision can be so draining, can wear on us.}

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{And make us want to give up if we're honest. It seems like it's a dream so far away that maybe it will }

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{ never, ever become true. So maybe it's better to turn back to the rules, follow the law, legislate our morality. Except even there, we fail. Paul told us we would, the law doesn't work any better than willing yourself to do it.}

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{So if the law doesn't work and will doesn't work, where do we go? We've as much admitted that we fall short. We can't do it. And that's where a small little thing comes in. A preposition. The difference between despair and hope. In Greek, it's three letters. EIS. In English we use four letters, INTO. Into and that into makes a difference.}

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{Verse 27 the verse that sets up the vision and the connection between these two big picture verses the }

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{ vision of the community that comes in verse 28 won't happen without verse 27, and what verse 27 calls out is baptism. Now, I don't know about you, but thinking, wait a little water on our heads, or a little immersion or this or that, and that symbol will somehow make it different.}

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{But if that's true and we've been baptizing people for centuries, why aren't we doing a better job of it? Why can't we, as the church be a better example of what vision and community really should look like? And it's because of that into that little preposition into it. It implies a direction, it implies a process, not an event.}

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{A, a baptism is not simply an outward sign. It's an inward grace. Inward grace is a }

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{ process of transformation. As many of you as were baptized into Christ, have clothed yourself with Christ. I. We're getting dressed, we're getting clothed with Christ. We're not dressed yet. We haven't fully become like Christ, but we're working at it.}

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{We're moving that direction. In fact, we're moving that direction as Christ is dressing us. It's like having a helper because quite frankly, it's too hard for us to dress ourselves. In the feelings and the function of Christ. And so we need the hands of Christ with us. By being baptized into Christ, we're working to not take over our own will, but rather to let the will of Christ take us over.}

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{We're letting Christ step in and rule our hearts and our minds, and it's really hard to do, but that's the }

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{ work. That's the work of putting on the eyes of Christ, the hands of Christ, the feet of Christ, of becoming Christ with skin on. If we ever become properly dressed in that uniform, then our vision, we'll come that of Christ.}

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{Then we'll be able to see each other the way that Christ ask us to. And it is a constant work of linting and letting go of ourselves so that. We can put on the eyes and the heart and the mind of Christ instead. Thanks for listening.}

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{Thanks so much for listening to the Inspired Stewardship Podcast. As a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen. But act on what you've heard and find a way to }

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{ live your calling. If you enjoyed this episode, do me a favor. Go over to facebook.com/inspired stewardship and like our Facebook page and market.}

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{That you'd like to get notifications from us so that we can connect with you on Facebook and make sure that we're serving you to the best of our abilities with time and tips there. Until next time, invest your time, your talent, and your treasures. Develop your influence and impact the world.}

}