Praise to the Son for our position in Him - part 2
Ephesians 1:10-12 · Roger Henderson · Feb 11, 2018
Ephesians (2018-19), No. 05
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/410261638144281

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Well, today, actually, because of the snow day and I some people know they've been here, we had to kind of flop things around. So if you look at the chart one on your hand out there, we're actually covering. verses 10-12 in chapter 1, but I actually covered 7-9 back two weeks ago. I let Randy teach his because that's what he had prepared for the snow day. So we're kind of jumping around there a little bit. I think it works out okay. So based on that, I want to go back and review. Before we start, can I have someone read verses 3-12 in chapter 1, verses 3-12.

It must be the Godfather of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings and heavenly places in Christ. According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will. To the praise of the glory of His grace for Him He hath made us accepted in the Beloved. in whom we have redemption through his blood, forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace, wherein he hath abounded towards us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in him, in whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him, who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will, that we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ."

Thanks Bob. Okay, so what I did on the second chart, on the handout there, I kind of did a bullet summary of what we covered. So Bob taught the first part and then Randy taught the second part. So basically this is some bullets about the highlights of those verses.

For our spiritual blessing, this is praise to the Father, for our spiritual blessing in Him, for our being chosen in Him that we should be holy and blameless, for being predestinated to adoption of sons, for the kind intention of His will, for the praise of the glory of His grace, for the grace which He freely bestowed on us and our beloved. Actually, Randy taught that last week.

That word beloved is particularly interesting. It's used of the Savior and it's used of the believers. I think it's really cool that he shows so much about our identification. So let's look at the passage. This is going back a little bit. I'm going to read Matthew chapter 3 and verse 17, which uses beloved. A very familiar verse.

Matthew 3.17 And behold, a voice out of the heaven said, This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased. So notice there, what's the father's opinion, if you can call it that, the father's view of his son is that he is well pleased with him. It's been said that the son always says, I do everything that I see the Father doing.

They're one. One God in three persons. As best we can understand that, which is kind of a marvelous thing. But He's called the Beloved One. Now just think about this. We're learning in Ephesians that we're in Him. So what's cool is, later on, we're going to see that we're the Beloved, too. In 1 John, He says it six times that we're Beloved. We're the Beloved. So all the Father's love has been showered on His Son, And we're in Him, so where are we in relation to His love? All His love is showered on us. Beloved has become a cool word. It's very uplifting the fact that because we're in His Son, we have all the blessings of the Father's love. was on his son and we have that as well. So just pretty amazing things.

And the neat thing about that Roger to extend that is he was pleased with him not because he was doing everything right. He was pleased with him because of the identification he had with his son as we are with him. And he's pleased with us and we know that we fall short but when we think that somehow affects that relationship it doesn't. It doesn't affect that. keep our minds on that, that will help us to go through the ups and downs of our lives. There are ups and downs, but the Father continues to love me.

I think of that one illustration that Hal had when he told about his fellow kids in the neighborhood. One of his favorite phrases to talk about how close they got was, me and Benny, we was like this. Well, Hal used to talk about our union with Christ. He'd trade his fingers like that. Actually, I think he actually glued his son's fingers together, one of his sons, just to demonstrate that you couldn't, you know, it's very difficult to break that relationship.

One of the many wonderful things about our brother there. So now, the next section, starting in verse 7, talks about praise to the Son for our position in Him. So if you turn to the next page, which is the third chart, this is what I covered two weeks ago.

Praise to the Son for our position in Him. In Him we have redemption through His blood. the forgiveness of our trespasses according to his riches. He lavished the riches of his grace on us in all wisdom. He made known to us the mystery of his will. He purposed his kind intentions in him. the next bullet, the praise of the Son for our position in Him, verses 10 through 12.

And then Randy's going to finish up this section next week with 13 and 14. And I think Bob comes after that. So the verses we're going to talk about today are the part two of this, they're on chart four, with a view to an administration. One note is that you'll notice that it's administration, which probably is rendered like in the King James dispensation. Administration probably is a better, if you look at the, we'll look at the word, probably a better, better word. The view to administration suitable to the fullness of times.

That is a summing up of all things in Christ. Things in the heavens, things on earth. Also, we have obtained an inheritance having been predestined according to his purpose, who works all things after the counsel of his will to the end that we who were the first to hope. in Christ should be for the praise of his glory. Going on to chart 5, looking back to verse 9 to get the context. He purposed the kind intention in him, Christ, with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of times. That idea with a view to is the idea with respect to It is indicating a direction.

God is focusing on His Son and the summing up of all things in Christ. That is the direction our whole world is heading. God's whole plan for eternity is that things will be summed up in His Son. His Son will return and all will give glory and praise to Him.

Every knee will bow, every tongue will confess. So everything is heading that direction. And notice it says, it comes a little bit later in the charts, but it focuses on in the heavens and on earth. It's just not the earthly scene. It's everything. All of creation is going to be focused on his son. That's going to be the focus of all his creation. God's put all his marvels in one basket, and that's in his son, and rightly so. Okay, so administration, oikonomia, is made up of two words, house, the word house, and the word nomos, which is law. So it means management of a household or household affairs.

So there's a couple of verses. Let's look at Luke, Luke chapter 12, 42. Someone could read that, Luke 12, 42. And the Lord said, who then is that faithful and wise steward, whom his Lord shall make ruler over his household, to give them their portion of meat in due season? OK, thanks, Tom. So basically, 1242, OK. So you notice that here it's rendered. So Tom, read the first part of yours again. I'm sorry, you should be listening better.

And the Lord said, who then is that faithful and just steward, That's fine. So actually here, the word steward is the same word as we have here. It's basically a manager of a household. He's the one that manages the household affairs. Or it's the bigger plan for management, whom his master will put in charge of the servants to give them their rations at the proper time. So that's kind of the core of the word.

We're going to see, actually, turn over back to Ephesians. We're going to see this word come up down the road here. in verse 9 of Ephesians, and 3.9, but come in a little bit different context. It says, to go back to verse 8, it says, To me, the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable virtues of Christ, and to bring to light what is the, mine says the administration, so what, some have dispensation probably, is that what King James has for 9? of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things. So probably a better rendering is administration, this household management of household affairs. So we're going to see that more as they get down the road here.

Okay, so let's go on to the next part. In chart 6, It says, suitable or belonging to the fullness of times. That's kind of an interesting word. It's that of which a thing is full, an end of a pointed period. And I have a quote here. Thus it speaks here of an administration by God of a certain period of human history designated as a fullness of times. And I really didn't search. It seems like I remember there's a I didn't do a real good search on fullness of times.

The other place it's used that's significant is in Galatians 4.4.

When the fullness of time came, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born unto the law. So you can kind of see that fits. God had a time for his Son to come. And when the fullness of time came, according to his plan, his son came. I mean, that was his fullness of time. So this is, in this case, it's a little bit different. The fullness of time seems to be all wrapped up in when Christ returns and when that sets in motion the whole picture of his second coming.

I think one of the easiest things to focus on when you look at his second coming is that joy to the world stands it. He rules the world. glories of his righteousness and wonders of his love. That's going to be wonderful. Things will be put right. All the things will be focused on him and not on man and all his doings. So any thoughts or comments about fullness of time and those sort of things? We'll just keep moving along here.

OK, so now if you go to chart seven, We have the summing up of all things in Christ. It's actually in the middle voice which focuses on the subject. God's purpose to sum up all things in the heavens and on earth in Christ at the consummation extending beyond the limits of the church. In the Church Age, when Christ returns and we start the Millennial Kingdom, God's plan shifts to the Millennial Kingdom and its relation to Israel. So a lot of things change there. So it seems like the summing up is coming up after the Church Age. After that, it's completed.

So that actually ends verse 10. with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth. So now it's going to shift back to kind of, this was focused on Christ's return, in a sense, and his summing up of all things. Now it's going to shift back to some more truths about the believer, which is pretty cool. But actually, the verse, at least in my translation, doesn't read the best, and we'll point that out in just a second here.

It says, also, verse 11, chart 8, also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to his purpose, who works all things after the counsel of his will. So that phrase, also we have obtained an inheritance, actually if you look at the literal, word by word, and I don't read Greek that well, but I can read Greek and English So you can read the word-for-word Greek translation. It reads, in whom also we were made in inheritance. Which is really, that's back to like we saw in earlier parts of Ephesians.

It's in whom or in him. And just another wonderful statement about possession that the believer has in Christ. In whom also we were made in inheritance. And just another wonderful blessing You know, Vern's going over in his study, he's going over the riches of God's grace, which is kind of the 33 things that were compiled by Chaffer and others.

And this is one of those that we were made in inheritance. And that's actually just one word. We were made in inheritance. It's just one word in the original language. It actually comes from the idea to cast lots or to choose by lot or to assign a portion. And it's something that we didn't earn. It's in the passive voice. God, in his grace, has made us his inheritance. It's pretty cool.

And it actually comes from this passage in Deuteronomy, speaking about Israel. Actually, let's just turn. I was going to look at the other verses. Let's turn back to Deuteronomy for a second. So this is the Song of Moses. It kind of titles this chapter. It starts in verse 7.

It says, Remember the days of old. Consider the years of all generations. Ask your fathers, and he will inform you. You are elderly, and they will tell you. When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, he will separate the sons of man. He will set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the sons of Israel. For the Lord's portion is his people, and Jacob is allotted is the allotment of his inheritance.

So that kind of speaks to the fact that we as believers are made in inheritance. And then the rest of the verse kind of amplifies that. So if we go to the next chart, it says, having predestined according to his purpose. So this is going to tell us how this came about. This was God's plan. Having predestined is the idea to mark out boundaries or limits, to mark out beforehand.

Could someone who has the King James read that verse 428? It reads actually better in the King James than I think. Acts 428. To do whatever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done. Pretty simple. It uses that idea that God determined beforehand. He is God. He makes the rule. He determined beforehand.

It kind of emphasizes the fact that we've obtained an inheritance And that's been planned beforehand to his purpose. And Weiss kind of says, being made an inheritance is explained by the words of being predestinated, such as destiny, according to the purposes of him. And actually, this word is used, having predestined, is used in other verses which have listed there in chart nine. He also predestined us to become conformed to the image of his son, the hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages to our glory. He predestined us to the adoption of sons, which we saw earlier.

So Roger, the inner letter of Greek, it really relates to eternity. I mean, the word ordained is from eternity past. I mean, since eternity is no time place, I mean, it's for all time. I know. It's a decision made a long time ago. I know. God makes all these decisions and doesn't ask us any questions. He doesn't ask us about, do you want to do that? Let us vote. It's not a democracy.

Well, I'm happy. I'm happy to have him do that. You're going to go there, I think, but being predestined according to the purpose of him. Right. I mean, in other words, it's conditional. In other words, he's foreordained. But it's the purpose of him. I know by which it's ordained. I know. I know. There's some there's some interview.

Some things that we have a hard time. It's a man's will and God's choosing, right? Which is always a constant. I mean it was used in talking about Israel in another passage, but it's the same way, why God chose his special people, why he chose Israel. I mean it's the same with us as a church, it's a different group. Yeah. He chose this. And you look at Israel and you think.

And he says that they didn't have anything going for them. They weren't anything special. They weren't the best group on the block. I think he said they were the least of all. Yeah, exactly. What did you say, Bonnie? I thought he said you were the least of all people. Yeah. Well, they were started out as slaves in Egypt. Right. That's true. That's true. That's right. Very true. So then I actually kind of go on here, in the next chart, talking about a couple of quotes from Macaulay which I thought were good.

It says on chart 10, it says in verse 5, Ephesians 1.5, believers are said to be foreordained to the adoption of sons.

There's another blessing that we have. And now they're said to be foreordained to be part of the Lord's lot, his inheritance. So all these wonderful blessings that the Lord has planned for his children. It's part of God's eternal purpose to gather a people for his name who would be his special possession. So we are his special possession.

You know, and you don't feel very special many times. Well, as we look further over, skipping into the future in Revelation, it looks like our special thing will be to praise Him in the heavenlies of the new heavens, while the regenerated Jews, who are also just as much as special people, will be there on the new birth, of course. And so it's not like anybody's being gypped out of anything. No, no, I agree with you. And that's something that is kind of hard when you start looking at the final. arrangement for eternity, he has Israel, which are on the earth, but they still have access to the heavenly city, and they're going back and forth.

We get to hang out in the heavenly city. Do we get better real estate than they did? I mean, we're all hanging out with the Lord. I don't think we're going to be too concerned. It may not be specific in scripture, but the intent is that I'm sure that we would have occasional visitors from heaven to just give the praise to the glory of God on a quickie viture, saying, hey, you really did some good things down here.

And it would be the same in reverse for us up there. So we would be able to tell a few things and be able to praise The cool deal is we get rewarded for what we allow the Lord to do through us. We trust in Him. Maybe we'll eternally remember that. Because he did it, and he did it through us. So the stuff that we didn't allow him to do, that's going to be not in the radar scope.

I mean, back to Theology 101. It's the believers that have been foreordained, right? And then it says us. Well, that means the unbeliever has not been foreordained. So what does it take to be included? It means to believe. down all this predestinated, you know, some are predestined. No, everyone's offered. No, everyone's offered. And that's exactly right. If you extend that too far and say, well, he's not predestined anyone to go to hell. Exactly. That's never his view. His view is that he's not willing that any should perish, that all should come to repentance. But this is such an important tripping point for so many people, right, in this predestination foreordained stuff, right? It is. I agree with you. You can get all wrapped up around the axle and just kind of go crazy over that. And then it says according to his purpose. And whenever you see according to, that's, I think it's kata, I'm not sure. I'm not sure what the Greek word is exactly.

But it's the idea of, you'll see mostly it's rendered according to a norm or standard. So in this case, I think the standard, this norm or standard is his purpose. It's according to. We surrenders it according to the purpose of the one, but I was kind of rethinking that a little bit. It's according to the Norman standard and the standard is, it's his purpose. The standard that he's doing it according to is what he purposed to do. You know the Greek, it's down through or down from, throughout. It relates to time or place. Good, okay. And I put the word at the very bottom of chart Canada, the word for purpose, setting forth a purpose involves resolve design.

I had a couple of verses there, one's real familiar, Romans 8.28, you don't have to even turn there. Tom, you want to quote it for us? We know that God works all things for good for those who are His and who are in the cause according to His purpose. His purpose. His purpose.

Okay, now how about Timothy, 2 Timothy 1.9. who have saved us and called us for the holy calling, not according to our works. but according to his own purpose and grace which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began.

All these things, you know, he's got these checklists. Okay, I got inheritance check. That verse says it all. It covers all of Ephesians. And we get to go through and look at this wonderful list of things that he planned before we ever showed up on the scene. He planned this for our to bless us basically, to bless us in him.

And then of course, the verse keeps going, the very last part of the verse is, who works all things after the counsel of his will. God doesn't counsel with anyone else. He doesn't go around and take a poll. I'll take a poll of the angels, I'll take a poll of all the believers, and let's see what I come up with here. No, He counsels with Himself. The counsel of His will. Working all things according to the counsel of His will. Working is this word, this is one of Verdon's favorite words, intergeo. to be active, to operate.

It's used with God in Ephesians, the one we just looked at. And also it's used in Galatians twice, there in verse 8. Galatians, did someone read Galatians 2 and verse 8? It actually occurs there twice. And maybe we could read 7 and 8, I think, to get the context.

But contrary-wise, when they When they saw that the gospel of the uncircumcision was committed unto me, as the gospel of the circumcision was unto Peter. For he that wrought effectually in Peter to the apostleship of the circumcision, the same was mighty in me toward the Gentiles.

Okay. All right. Division of labor, but it's still effective. Yeah. That's a good verse. No question about that. Somehow I think I messed up here. What did I do here? I was looking for. He affectionately work. This is a phrase is a word I'm looking for. Oh yeah. There you go. There you go. OK. Yeah. That's what it is.

For he who affectionately worked in Peter, that's our word, inergeo, in his apostleship to the circumcised, affectionately worked, again, inergeo, for me also to the Gentiles. So Paul's saying here that he worked in Peter, he affectionately worked in Peter, and he affectionately worked in me. So that's this word, purpose. I'm sorry, working, not purpose. is working.

And again, it's according to a normal standard. And the standard is here, in the context, it's a counsel of his will. And counsel here is the idea that from root meaning is will, hence a counsel, a piece of advice. And Macaulay says, this means what he decrees, he brings to pass. God is able to cause all things to work together to accomplish his purpose.

Roger, a good parallel verse here, Hebrews 6.17, it says, Thus God, determining to show more abundantly in the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath.

So that was Hebrews 6.17. his counsel. The immutability of his counsel. The errors of the promise. Moving on to verse 12, to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of his glory. So turn back to Ephesians in your Bibles for a second. I want to show you something that's going to come up. Randy's going to be covering it too. I hadn't noticed this. It's one of the things that many times you don't notice maybe. But we're going to see here Ephesians. So the verse we're in now is verse 12.

It says, to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ should be to the praise of his glory. Then you go on to verse 13 in chapter 1 of Ephesians. In him you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, having also believed, were sealed in him with the Holy Spirit of promise. And it's really hard to see, but it says you also, so if you mark out first to hope, and then secondly, you also. So it's like there's two, he's talking here it seems like about two groups of people.

So actually I have the question, of course I answer it right below it so if you don't read that. Who are the first to hope in Christ? And I wouldn't, if I looked at this without, I studied it a little bit, I probably would not say what And there might be some debate here. So who do you think, if you don't look at the answer, what I think is the answer, who were the first to hope in Christ? Those who looked forward to Him in the time of the Jews. Right. The Jews were. To a Messiah. Right.

All first believers are all Jewish. So they were the first to hope. And then, he goes on in 13, he's going to say, you also, you also have to listen to the message of truth, the gospel. So we came later, the Gentiles came later, the Jews came first and then the Gentiles. And the wise men from the East. So that's kind of cool. So this verse, we're kind of split in the middle here because I've got to chop it up a bit. So this verse talks about about the first to hope. So Macaulay says, words first to hope refer to the truth that it was the Jews who were first to give the messianic hope, given the messianic hope, with the Gentiles entering the picture later.

And it says, this would be to the praise of his glory. It was the view of our being to the praise of his glory. So then I kind of got off on a tangent here. So the rest of my talk here is, what is God's glory? What I find sometimes is that, and we do it right here, we're right on the money here, but I find sometimes we get kind of wrapped up in the fact of He is glorious. His being is glorious, right? I mean, the amount of transfiguration, every account we have of who God is, He is glorious. He comes in physical glory. I mean, it's light and power, you see, glorious. But the word glory, and I'll read what Vine has to say, has a much broader meaning.

And when we talk about it right here, but just kind of remind ourselves, is doxa is use of the nature and acts of God in self-manifestation. What he essentially is and does as exhibited in whatever way he reveals himself. So it's his essential character. His glory is who he is and how he operates. So glory has this expanded meaning beyond just a physical aspect brightness or a blinding light into His holiness and His righteousness, how He acts and what He does. That's who He is.

The last chart has a collection of verses that I found that speak to this point. It says, The whole earth is full of His glory. The redemption of God's possession to the praise of His glory. who will grant to you according to the riches of his glory. He Christ is a radiance of his glory to make you stand in the presence of his glory. So actually what I realized, what I chose here, in retrospect, I chose things that speak somewhat to the riches of his glory could certainly include all the wonderful attributes that we have because of him. And so it's more his character. He says, be ye holy as I am holy. So God's character is one of holiness. And that aspect of God is part of his glory.

You know, it's kind of interesting. One of the nights we were... In fact, one of the pictures I sent was Mount Crook. Yeah, that's a beautiful place. But you get out in the wilderness of the South Island. We went out at 11 o'clock one night to look at the southern sky. Oh, wow.

You know, and so, of course, you know, the explanation from the people who were leading the event was, you know, the Big Bang or whatever. You had God's glory looking out at all the galaxies and things in the universe. I mean, just pondering how how big God is and how inadequate or inputted the explanation from a world perspective is. Again, you are reminded constantly that to the Gentiles Christ is foolishness.

I mean, oh, no, that's great. It's got a pretty good, pretty impressive. So you're able to. So you're able to see. Help me out. You will see some things from that position on the Earth better than you can see, like here in the northern hemisphere. So like the World War Atlas, the southern equivalent of that or. Yes.

I mean, OK, let's talk about the constellations. Look, the constellations all based on astrology, by the way, are outdated by two months, apparently. So if you're a cancer or a Capricorn or whatever you are, it's wrong based on the way the sky is possible. So people looking at the, you know, the wrong way around that thing, you know, we're mistaken by two months.

So you're really somebody else's person out. Anyway, it's all garbage. But you know what it was that the truth of the Earthly existence is that it is that people clearly fulfilled by the Lord and his creation and mankind finding one place to get from another. Anyway, it was kind of amazing. God's going, forgive me, but I mean. No, no, I think it's great. Thank you. No, that's great. That's really cool. That's neat.

We talk about the glory here. All the references you put are the glory, you know, manifest to us as Right, exactly. His glory extends as far as that. When it says the whole earth is full of his glory, and there's exactly what you saw in the very first verse. I didn't put references in all these either, I'm sorry. We'll trust your reference.

I don't know why you said try to do that. I don't know why I didn't. I think you know what it was. It's a you know, it wraps around. It's not a neat chart. So I have to pretend this is a TV production. More words that fill in the exact amount of time. Well, you'd be amazed, you know, putting words on a chart. Bob knows it. Putting words on a chart that wraps around it, moves that one over and this one that way. And it just it makes it messy. You know, I mean, you like to be, you know, organized.

We're down through verse 12 and so next week we're going to go and do 13 and 14 and then we're going to kind of shift the last part, the last two or three lessons will be on Paul's prayer and then the very last one in chapter 1 is on Christ's exalted position which is pretty amazing. And we're including chapter reviews this time around just because I wanted to make it last a whole year. But I think it would be good to kind of go back over to so many neat points in here. And so. So we're going to have chapter reviews, a chance to kind of look back to what we have taught over the course. So it takes about three months to get almost three months to get through a chapter, at least this one. They weren't out of time. Any last questions or thoughts? We'll get to the end.

I've got a selfish prayer request. It's amazing how much you assume your spouse in terms of what she does. And I've returned, you know this new job description I have. Oh I know Bob, my goodness. It's an incredible amount of work to do. Two weeks off right after you take a new job and then coming back. So lift me up in terms of all kind of data.

Margaret's maybe not going to be able to drive for six weeks. So that really precludes a lot of normal stuff that you take for granted. Praise the Lord that these are small, small trials for us truly. But it does impact my day-to-day existence. So for instance, tomorrow I've got to be there early, first day back after two weeks gone, and her appointment is not until 1245, so effectively we've got to get her there, we've got to get her up to my office which is going to Anyway, small stuff like that. Is she going to wait until I come home late in the day?

Life is impacted right now. Me personally in a major way. more travel. We're going next weekend to be with our oldest daughter, Kim, who's putting on an opera. You remember, she's a director of performance at Jacksonville University. She's giving her own recital Friday night. Now, we'll travel. I mean, we just traveled, you know, throughout New Zealand and back to San Francisco to here. I mean, we'll make it. It's going to be hard.

A lot of day-to-day simple things. I have to go to the grocery, which is something I can easily do, but it's just, you know, I told Margaret before entry, when we get back, other than Saturday just getting unwound, getting organized, I'll be at church on Sunday, but the rest of the day is impacted by things that I've got to get done even before tomorrow. Anyway, so forgive me, but it's just the reality of how much I depend on her in so many ways. And you know, Margaret's pretty independent, but this clearly has hampered her independence. So in your closing prayer, if you think about the situation this week, again, small stuff.

No, no, it's small stuff, but it's big stuff too. It's important. All right. Dear Father, Lord, we thank you for our time today. Lord, thank you for the marvelous truths in your word. Thank you for the marvelous things that we can learn about you. We pray for our brother Rob and Margaret.

Or that they could work out the situation with all the additional things that need to be done to get Margaret around and get to her appointments and just the traveling back and forth. You give them wisdom about using Uber or whatever it might be. to help them Lord just that would make it easier and you pray that you would have them look to you and trust you and pray for Just your will to be accomplished through all this in Christ's name man