Now clarification number three is do not fight in order to be

justified before God but fight as a justified sinner.

Or as I like to say,

learn the secret of gutsy guilt.

I hope all of you know the secret of gutsy guilt. I suppose that in this crowd I don't need to say too much about the doctrine of justification, but I want to anyway. I'll say something.

The fight for joy is not the foundation of your acceptance with God.

The foundation of your acceptance with God is Jesus Christ,

His blood and righteousness.

He is living, his dying, he is rising from the dead,

did everything to make you wholly acceptable to God

and you have that purchase by faith alone apart from works of the law and apart from a fight for joy. It is a falling on Jesus, not a fight. Galatians 313,

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law having become a curse for us.

So this we know everything the law demanded of me I have failed to perform as I should

and therefore I'm under the curse of the law which is damnation.

I am therefore lost.

All the people in the world are in this condition apart from Christ.

And Christ then, it says, became a curse for us.

Romans 832, he who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all.

Will he not with him freely give us all things? So you have not only the curse removed, you have a commitment, a covenant blood-bought

commitment that everything good for you for eternity has been bought for you and

will be given to you. The curse is gone, the guilt is gone, the sin is gone, and

every blessing in the heavenly places is purchased it is finished

...