Our Former Condition, Present Union and Forgiveness
Colossians 2:13-15 · Roger Henderson · Jun 9, 2019
Colossians (2019), No. 17
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492619158775

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

Well, today we're going to continue on in chapter two, kind of a long title, Our Former Condition, Present Union, and Forgiveness. So I like Macaulay's outline, even though today it's a little bit, I had not looked at it until this lesson. And so he starts off, he starts back, and this is part of his outline. And so he talks about, in this A section here, verses 4 through 8, about the methods of false teachers, the protection against false teachers. We've covered that. But starting in 9 through 15 are really kind of special verses. And so basically 9 and 10 talk about this idea of fullness, the fullness of the sun, and the fullness of the sun's plural, us.

And then the solution to our sin nature. And what's neat, you know, Macaulay, as we know, if you listen to him, he has a pretty good grasp of things that we teach here at Holly Hills. He talks, he has some terms, you know, the solution to our guilt. And then here's the things in blue, what we're going to cover today, starting in verse 13, our former condition, in 13a. 13b is our present union with Christ, our present forgiveness. And then the last part in 215 is the solution for our arch enemy, the devil. Okay, so could I have someone read this? I want to talk about my underlines in 9 through 15. You can read it from here, from your Bible.

For in him all fullness of deity dwells in bodily form, and in him you have been made complete, and he is and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, and the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ. Having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through the faith, in the working of God who raised Him from the dead. When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive and forgiven us of all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of degrees against us, which was hostile to us, and he has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. When he had disarmed the rulers and authorities, he made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through him.

Okay, so we go back to verse 9, which I think Bob taught back then. And if you notice, I've underlined all the in him's or with him. There's actually one at the end, possibly. There's some that could be in him rather than through him. So basically, he's talking about our relationship in our Savior, in this union we have with the Lord Jesus Christ. And so he starts off for in him all the fullness, So he talks about the Lord Jesus himself. Then he talks about our completeness in him.

And then 11, you've been circumcised, and this is circumcision without hands, and talks about the removal of the flesh, and so on. Then at 12, it says, having been buried with him in baptism. And then down to 12b, it says, you're also raised up with him through faith, working, through faith in the working of God who has raised him from the dead.

Then we start with the verses we're going to cover today. So it's not like I can continue on with things that are a result of our union with our Savior, being in Him or with Him. And we have this, and then basically, the first part of 13 is gonna be kind of talking about our former condition. Then starting with the middle part of 13, to the end, he's gonna talk about things that are a result of being in our union with the Lord Jesus. Okay, so let's start off.

In 13, it says, It says, when you were dead, and literally, and you being dead, and so dead is this, not dead, being is this word, this Greek word, ami, the state in which someone or something continuously exists. So you could render this you as an unbeliever. So the first part of this, the A part of this is gonna talk about where you came from. You as an unbeliever were continuously in a state of death or separation from God. stark reality but actually it's talked about in various places and also the Lord Jesus talked about that this separation or death is a is a characteristic of all unbelievers and that's something when you talk with a person seems to get kind of blank stares because you they say well I'm you know They don't really think the way scripture thinks.

In fact, they cannot. It's difficult. Sharing with family members is probably one of the hardest things you do. I found it very difficult with my sister. I've taught the concepts, but just talking to her personally, it was hard. Even though I know she desperately needs it, it's very difficult.

So anyway, but the truth is we're in this state of separation from God. And dead here actually is an adjective that describes the condition. So we're the unbelievers of the walking dead. You know, everybody's into, what's the popular thing now? called The Walking Dead. Right, all these zombie stuff. Well, hey, there's some truth in that. They won't admit to that, but that's what they are. Maybe whoever developed it actually does know. Maybe they do.

So let's read a couple of parallel verses, because someone could turn to Ephesians and read those two verses, Ephesians 2.1 and 2.5. 2.1 says, and you were dead in your trespasses and sins.

And 5 says, even when you were dead in our transgressions, may us lie together with Christ. By grace you have been saved. Great. So Paul declares it in 2.1, you were dead in your trespasses and sins. And 5, it was read, you were dead in your transgressions.

Okay, and then what's interesting is, this is interesting, could someone also look at, read Matthew 8, 21 and 22. And another of his disciples said unto him, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. But Jesus said to him, follow me and let the dead bury their dead.

And you know, I'm not going to talk about necessarily that. It sounds a little harsh, unless the Lord kind of hardened that guy. I can't bury my father, but I guess it's been pointed out that in that culture, it could be months. It could be a long time, maybe even years. I don't know. But the point is, he talks about allow the dead, assuming those not knowing him, to bury their own dead. So it's a pretty stark thing that the Lord So it kind of brings out the point that you were dead, okay?

And then we're going to go on in your transgressions. And transgressions here is this paroptima, I think, a false, a fault, a lapse, an error, a mistake, a wrongdoing. And here's a question that comes up that you'll, that, you know, you ponder a little bit. You know, some verses we see they'll pair they'll have transgressions alone, then they'll have transgressions and sins, which is a different Greek word, which is harmatia, to miss the mark. But in looking, and I couldn't find, I thought I had something that kind of showed the comparing transgressions, paroptima and harmatia.

I couldn't really find it, but basically they're synonyms of one another. transgressions are sins as well so and why in some verses you know I I don't have a good answer I didn't really go down that path why in some cases he only restricts it to transgressions other cases he says transgressions and sins the message is clear you were dead in your sins or transgressions or transgressions and sins but God's gonna do something on your behalf And then the next part is really cool because he's going to talk here about our two problems that the unbeliever has. So you were dead in your transgressions.

So we had a good paragraph here. That is, the death spoken of here was spiritual death. a death involving wrongdoing, they were physically alive while walking, around in a state of spiritual death devoid of the life of God, activate totally by their depraved nature, we would say sin nature. So, you know, weast is, that's why I like weast. So you could look at it this way.

The unbeliever, and we're gonna see here shortly, has, are sinners or transgressors in two ways, by their practice or transgressions and by their sin nature. So as we know, the picture that I was gonna put in here, I have like a big beautiful tree and you can see in the picture shows you see the root system.

So a sinner, I mean an unbeliever, has two problems. The root of his problems are where the sins come from. So it's the root system plus the things that the fruit that it produces, the sins that it produces. So unbeliever has two issues. And the verse is going to address that. Even though it's a little bit the uncircumcision of your flesh. So a believer is one... Okay, so let's go back. Let's kind of backtrack from last week's lesson.

We learned that in Colossians 2.11, and in him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, the removal of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ. So it was necessary for God to spiritually circumcise us. So I think this is an illusion, this passage here, that the uncircumcision of your flesh is speaking about our sin nature. God had to do something about our sin nature. He condemned it, right? He didn't eliminate it. He condemned it. And He gave us the power, as we walk by faith in Him, to not have that sin nature put into action, if you will. So God has dealt, He paid for our sins, and He's dealt with our nature.

And so this refers to that, even though it seems a little bit, you know, the uncircumcision of your flesh. And it's, you know, and some don't exactly agree with this, but I think this is the best, from what I understand, the best interpretation. So you were dead in two ways, by your transgressions and by your sin nature, or the uncircumcision of your flesh. So thoughts or comments? We're gonna keep going. Okay, so let's get to the good news. He made you alive together with Him for giving us all our transgressions. So God's action on our behalf.

So I actually tried a number of these. I found five and starting in 13 down through 14. Five things, he made you alive together with him. literally so he made you alive and the asterisk is uh what's the asterisk okay it's it's aorist it's aorist indicative active so it's it's a fact it's a passpoint fact he made you alive and it's one word and i could try to pronounce it but i'm not going to try And in the Greek, the subject kind of comes along with the verb. So, He made you alive together.

With Him, you. It's a little hard to read there. That's just literally taken a word for word translation. And then what I like here is if you notice that it seems to be a double emphasis in the text. You're alive together, that's one thought, and it's with him. So it's really cool. We're alive together and it's with him. It seems like you're repeating yourself, right? You're saying it twice.

So our life can only be in Him. Our life, you know, and there's many, many verses that talk about that, but our life is in our Savior, and as is our Christian life. So our focus in our life is not, I'm gonna do better, it's I'm gonna trust Him to live His life through me.

Ephesians has the same word. Even when you were dead, Even when we were dead in our transgressions, He made us alive, alive together with Christ. So the same concept, by grace you have been saved. So the first one, you have been made alive together with Him. And the next one, having forgiven us all our transgressions. Having, okay, and then Wiest, he renders that, having in grace forgiven you all your transgressions.

And so, and there's a reason why he did that, because the word having forgiven, which is the action here, is a derivative of this word charis, which as we know is grace, to bestow favor on unconditionally. And here it's used in Ephesians 4, 32 be forgiving each other just as Christ Just as God in Christ has forgiven you and that's there's our word right there. And also let's look at this because I'm gonna read Colossians 313 we'll get to that here at some point And as Christ forgave you, so also do you. Right, so that last part was, as Christ forgave you, just as the Lord forgave you, or Christ forgave you.

And transgression is the same word as we had earlier. So trespasses and transgressions are synonyms. Yes, they are. Yes, they are. Actually, it's just different. It's the same Greek word, paroptima. Sometimes it's translated transgression, sometimes it's translated trespasses. I believe that's right. Because some versions will have Does someone have a different word for 13?

Colossians 2.13. Does someone have a different word than transgressions in their version? King James or something else?

You have trespasses there? Yeah, okay. So some will render that Greek word paroptima as transgressions, some as trespasses. But it's the same Greek word. The synonym that I think is the most important is that transgressions or trespasses is a synonym of sins. That's the important one. But the Lord has chosen to put both in the text. So you think, well, Lord, okay. So actually that's an assignment. Your assignment is to look through your notes, look online, figure out why does the Lord use sins and why does He use transgressions.

Why doesn't he just choose one? But it's a different word, right? It's a different word, yeah. One is paroptima, and one is harmatia. And actually, I have something someplace about that, so I'll try to find it, too. And maybe Roy does, too, as a thought here.

My understanding of that is that trespass means if you're stepping over the line, that here's a line, don't cross this. The other one is you shoot the arrow and you miss the mark. You're not hitting the target. So one, you're trying to be good, and the other one is you're not trying at all to be good.

OK, all right. I think that sounds good. If you're not in Christ, you don't have any option. Right, that's true. That's true. We sin. Actually, this transgression, let's see. I got myself confused here. I better just stop. We sin not even knowing it many times. I mean, we don't even know that we sin, and we do. I like how Hal used to say it.

It's your operating system. So if you're in Christ, Christ is your operating system. Right, exactly. And if you're not in Christ, you don't have any option. Sin nature is always the operating system. Right, exactly. And what you think is good is still sin.

Yeah, exactly. Right, right, right. Okay, that's good. That's good. Okay, so here he addresses transgressions, but I think since it's a synonym, roughly, of sins, I think he's addressing sins as well. Okay, so let's go on. The third point, having canceled out the certificate of debt. And here it gets a little kind of interesting.

Having canceled out is this idea of a sense of removal or to wipe away or to wipe off, to obliterate. Okay, so I thought first, it's always good when I come across a word and I say, well, how's this word used in other verses? So let's look at, so how did God wipe away a couple of the contexts?

Could someone read Acts, oh actually, there's an error there, you need to, it's Acts 3.19, not 13.19. I found that this morning, I was like, what's, 13.19, that's not the right one. It's 3.19. Repent ye therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord. Right, so I think I blotted out. Our mind has wiped away. So that's the same word here. So in terms of sins, he talks about wiping out something.

And then the revelation one is a familiar one, Revelation 21.4, and the beautiful one too. And He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there will no longer be any death. There will no longer be any mourning or crying or pain the first day they pass away. OK, so that's one we look forward to.

So there's a couple of cases, and there's a couple more, but those are the best ones. So having canceled out or wiped away our certificate of debt, okay? So let's go on here. Certificate of debt. It could be, and some translations have handwriting. So now the question comes, what is the handwriting? So four thoughts here. So what's this certificate of debt or handwriting? What is it?

Okay, keep going. Well, you can't talk, Roy. I know you probably know, okay. Actually, if you look carefully at the notes, you'll figure it out, too. Go ahead. Isn't there in judgment a book of listing, says the books will be brought forth and there'll be judgment? I'm thinking there is.

Okay, okay. And that list has been wiped away. Okay, okay. All right, that's an interesting one. I think of on a cross when Jesus said to Telestai or whatever it means, it is paid, the debt is paid. Okay, okay. That's good. That's good. All right. Go ahead, Roy.

One of the things that Paul is very familiar with is the And when you committed a crime and were sent to prison, you hand-wrote out, this is what I did and this is what I owe against society. And you signed it. And it was a certificate of debt. And when you went into prison, Like it might be five years or whatever. They wrote every year, it is finished for one year. It is finished for year two. If they escaped or something happened, the jailer had to pay that debt. And so it was, that's why he was going to kill himself.

Okay, wow. And the prisoners, you know, the doors were open and he saw that. Assumed nobody was there. The Philippian jail, you know. Philippian jail, yeah. Yeah. I use that with my sister. But anyway, it was, it's this kind of a thing that Jesus on the cross was saying. gets paid in full. Right. Right. Right. That's good. Okay. Well, in my study here, I'm going to tell you how I took it and I was heavily influenced by people that I trust, so we'll see. You can storm out of here and tell Mike that Roger doesn't know what he's talking about. Okay. But let's go ahead. Here's my logic.

We're going to start in Exodus. Can someone turn to Exodus? Read 31.18 in Exodus.

When he had finished speaking with him upon Mount Sinai, he gave Moses the two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone, written by the finger of God. Okay. Okay, let's read one more and then I'll make a comment. Vani, why don't you just turn over to next chapter, 32, and read 15 to 16. Then Moses turned and went down from the mountain with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand. Tablets which were written on both sides, they were written on one side and the other. The tablets were God's work, and the writing was God's writing engraved on the tablets." Okay, so here's where I'm going, and actually Galatians fits in well with this.

You know, God has given his, the Ten Commandments, he's given his law, right? Well, what does Galatians tell us about that law? Does that law help us? Is it our helper? Or is it something else? It tells you where you're going to mess up. Right, so I believe that this handwriting is God's law. It's holy, righteous, and just, but it condemns us. So what we're gonna see here, that by His death on the cross, He has freed us. We don't have to keep the law. Even though it's beautiful and it's His handwriting.

So let's look at Galatians 3.13. And we'll get to that in the main service here in a while. Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, for it is written, Cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree. Okay, so boy that brings it out. The curse of the law. So this verse is telling it in a different way. Having cancelled out the debt, this handwriting, this certificate of debt, Christ did that in 313.

And also in Ephesians 2.15. By abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace. So it's called the enmity. Isn't that amazing? 2.15. Abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the law of commandments.

So even though God's law is holy, righteous, and just, For us, it just shows us over and over and over again that we're sinners and we can't please God. We need a Savior. So this is His work for us. He canceled out that debt by His death on the cross. It's also like the law doesn't deal with you personally. No, it just says, you do this, it says, you cross that line, you...

You're still having your sin nature. Am I making sense? With the law? Well, the law still, yeah, we still sin, right? Right. We still, you know. I know. I know. I do the same thing. I say, oh, how fast can I go? This is terrible. Is it recorded? Yes, it is. I have gone over the speed limit. I'll say that much. I know. I actually asked a policeman that one time. Yes. And how fast you go. He will tell you in Texas, how fast can I go? And he said, Well, almost 10 miles over. I said, That's all I need to know. growing up in an officer said one mile over is enough to give you a ticket.

All right, okay, so all right, so let's carry on here Okay, the handwritings, and now he's gonna kind of get into more detail. The handwritings are the debtors consisting of decrees against us. And so I use, Weiss kind of said, the law is conceived here as a bond, a bill of debt, standing against those who have not received Christ. And then, which was hostile to us, Here's a couple of verses.

For the law brings about wrath. Like I said, the law is not our friend. But where there is no law, there is no violation. There's no law, you can go as fast as you want. The law came in so that transgressions would increase. The law is not our friend, but it represents God's character.

Anyway, so actually, we're gonna get into that whole thing in Galatians even more. We're gonna talk about the whole area. So that kinda makes sense. Having canceled out the debt of certificate consisting of decrees against us which were hostile to us. So that's point number four, I think. Or three. Okay. He, Christ, has taken it out of the way. Took it out, literally took it out of the midst of.

And actually, I was struggling with how they take it out of the way, and first Peter kind of came to mind, and he himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness, for by his wounds we are sealed. So we're gonna see a picture of our sins, and we're gonna kind of even get more specific here in a second, which is really cool. Having nailed it to the cross, and this is really beautiful.

And Gospel says God crucified the bill of debt, or handwritings, with Christ on the cross. And I found a couple of other things I thought was even better. Christ's accusation. What was Christ's... Let's look up Christ's accusation that was nailed to the cross. What did it say on the cross? Let me look first. What did it say on the cross? The accusation against Christ. What was nailed to the cross there? King of the Jews. Okay. Well, let's verify it to make sure. Let's look at Matthew. I know it's right. That was the accusation against Christ. And it was in three languages. It was in three languages. And actually Christ, actually asked Christ, Pilate asked Him, and He says, it's as you say.

But the Jews, they weren't going to abide by that. They were not going to say He's the King of the Jews. It might be interesting to know that in Hebrew, the first letters of that Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, wait, yeah, wait, yeah, why each? Yeah Right Because remember, they wanted him to say, he said that he was. Yeah, they said, well, change the description. He said he was, not that he is.

He said no. The total irony is that when Christ died on the cross, that was when the Roman observer, who was in command of the whole cohort of making this all possible, truly is the Son of God. Yes, yes, that's great. Yeah, so 37 says, and they put above his head the charge against him. So here's the charge against him, which reads, this is Jesus, King of the Jews. So that was his charge. Well, what's cool is, from this verse here, our accusations were also nailed to the cross.

Isn't that amazing? That's what it says, having nailed it to the cross. You're taking it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. I mean, it doesn't get much better than that. And then the other cool part is, there's another verse, help me here, that talks about us personally being taken to the cross. And I've forgotten that verse, but anyway. So this is our accusations against us. We're not able to come out, who personally, so.

Well, You know, you, well, any sin that, you know, anything that you transfer, since we're talking about the handwritten ordinances, anything that you, you know, you lied, you lied, you, you know, take the Ten Commandments, you know. Here we look at this as Christ himself bore the entire certificate of debt. He paid the price in that place.

Isn't that amazing? Is that the way to look at this? Right, I think so. Well, Verne has that. It's a crowded cross. It's almost... And it's an impossible thing for us to imagine how he could bear the sins of the world. And then to be able to not just think it is finished, but to say it out loud to all who are there. Right. Paid in full, right. But doesn't this personalize it?

That He had accusations, false accusations. He was the King of the Jews, but we have true accusations that are nailed to the cross. So that's just pretty amazing. So actually this was the easy verse. Now we're going to get into the angelic realm. Oh boy.

I don't know why. when he had disarmed the rulers and authorities. Disarmed is having put off of himself. So before I start, there's different directions. I studied this in that some go off in one direction, another direction, and the more I looked up, I kind of went back and thought, well, I think, and actually, rulers and authorities, it's translated principalities and powers. If you look in Ephesians, it talks about the principalities and powers that are put on the full armor of God. So there certainly are principalities and powers and unseated forces. Okay, so this is actually a quote from, let me just go down here, a quote from Constable quoting a guy named Johnson.

And his observation was, Christ divested himself at the cross of the evil powers. Now this is at the cross. Some want to make this a separate event. And I had a problem with that. I just didn't, I didn't, where do we know about this separate event? And some will, He led captivity captive, which is another tough one. So I kind of shied away from that one. I felt the cross had to be the focus of this.

Christ divested himself at the cross of evil powers which had struggled with him so strongly through his entire ministry, through his ministry, attempts to force him to abandon the pathway of the cross. So one of the obvious ones that comes to mind is the temptation of the devil.

And let's just look at that briefly in Luke 4. Because the devil, I guess he was sincere thinking that he could actually convince Christ to do the contrary. He entered into a conversation with him. Okay, so Luke 4. Okay, so it starts out in verse one.

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led about by the Spirit into the wilderness. So, he's in the wilderness and Satan comes to him and asks him a series of questions, right? And with all those, Christ, he refers to scripture like he comes down The first question the devil says, if you are the son of God, tell these stones to become bread. And Jesus answers and said, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone. And then he takes them up, ask them all these questions.

And at the end of all that, let's see, come down to 13 there. And he says, and when the devil had finished every temptation, So it's almost like we didn't, maybe we didn't get the full list. This is only a partial list. So he departed from him until an opportune time. So it sounds like this is the end of it. It's going to continue on. So that's kind of the gist of this.

This one here, the Matthew one is about Peter. He calls Peter Satan. He says, get behind me, Satan, which is kind of a tough one. And the other, Luke is the power of darkness. So it seems like that in Christ's ministry, Evil forces, including the devil, were, just like in the encounter with the devil, they were wanting him to act contrary to who he is.

But he didn't succumb to any of that. So the verse says, when he had disarmed rulers and authorities and made a public display of them, So he made a public display, a show, literally, of them, having triumphed over them through or in him. So I found, I like this quote, this is the best quote I could find. Jesus triumphed over Satan and his spiritual hosts by entering Satan's domain, death.

That confused me at first, but then I thought, well, wait a minute, let's look at Hebrews here. that through death we might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is the devil. So if you think about it, the devil holds over all mankind outside of Christ.

Death is his big stick, right? That's his big stick. Everyone fears death. But for believers that has been overcome, we don't have to fear death. And so isn't that cool? So I thought Mero was right on target there. Rising out of his glorious resurrection, the resurrection Messiah is God's object lesson to all fallen angels. The resurrection life and righteousness will triumph over death and righteousness that they represent.

So that's it, I'm sorry. Anyway, so that's my best take on that. So any other thoughts on that verse? Go ahead, Roy. The one that came to mind is Genesis 3.15. Okay. In the prophecy regarding Satan, the seed of Satan and the seed of the promised one to come. that one would be bruising the heel of the seed of the Lord, but he, the seed of the Lord, Right, exactly. So death had no hold over him, and it has no hold over us. That's a wonderful part.

Here, let me just go back here. There's another verse in Revelation where John was given a vision of the Lord Jesus Christ of himself. He says, Who is worthy to open the seal? John cried that nobody was found. And then they, in research, found, oh, there's one. The lamb had one slain. I think of also 1 Corinthians 15 where it talks about, I like just that phrase, death is swallowed up in victory. Death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Right, right. That's cool.

So this verse basically says that when He had disarmed all rule and authority, He made a public display of them. It's a little bit hard to see that, I don't quite see that part, but having triumphed over them through or in Him. So the triumph was a cross, that death no longer has hold over Christ and no longer has hold over us. So some try to make this some other event in Christ's ministry, and I just didn't think that really fit. So. And this is a real cool verse. If you ever worry about Satan's influence in your life, the last part of this is one you ought to have triple checked in your Bible. And through death, he might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil. So he's rendered him powerless in relationship to the believer. had a victory, they had a parade.

And when they went back in that parade, the captives were displayed publicly from all of the nations that they had conquered. And in that sense, in front of all of the angelic hosts, we are now His captives set free. In contrast to the Roman way of doing it, they were set free in Christ.

So we're a public display of his work. From that triumphant proclamation that his work is good, he won. Right, exactly. We also could argue his resurrection was a public event, too. So we have his resurrection as a public event, and we are a public event.

That's why angels long to understand. Look at those Christians. I don't quite get it. That's right. And that death doesn't have that power over us. Yeah, and talking with people, especially family members, that's something that just, you know. Anyway, thank you, Lord. Thank you. Okay. All right, well, we're gonna continue on next week.

And actually, Bob, I was going to teach next week, but Bob was gracious enough to say he would do it. And the reason, I apologize for not teaching too much in here, but I have other places to teach, too. And pray for Mike. Mike's teaching Sunday school today. He's going to teach the main service, which I think is, to me, that's a toughie. He's happy. But Mike loves that. But actually, I personally, once is good. So anyway. All right, okay, so let's close. We thank you, Father. Thank you so much, Lord. Thank you for the blessings we have. We ask this in Christ's name, amen.