b-23 Christs exalted Position

So today we actually have we're finishing up the last point in chapter one. And I propose basically we'll have a chapter review next week, which I'll be doing. So think about some questions you have. I'm going to kind of do it more in a question format for the review. Just hit some things we've covered along the way. This is a pretty full lesson. So let's just kind of read in Ephesians chapter one versus.

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of His glory, His inheritance, and the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power towards us who believe.

These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might. which he brought about in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places far above all rule and authority and power and dominion in every name that is named not only in this age but also in the one to come and he put all things in subjection under his feet and gave him has head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him, fits all in all. In these verses, let's look at, so what I did here, I kind of took, you know, Bob covered down through into verse 20 a little bit, so I'm going to backtrack just a little bit to kind of get the context here. So kind of breaking in the middle of verse 19, we have these, which I believe is Speaking to back in the early part of 19 and 18 it says the hope of his calling the riches of his glory and Surpassing greatness of power are in accordance with the working of the strength of his might which brought about in Christ when he raised him from the dead and Seated him at the right hand and heavenly places far above all rule and authority and power Dominion and every name that is named not only in this age, but also in the one to come and he put all things in subjection under his feet, and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all."

So this section has been called the exaltation of Christ. And there's actually four parts to this. The first part he raised him from the dead. Second, he seated him at his right hand.

And that seating has a whole bunch of other points in there. It's in heavenly places, far above all rule, authority, power, dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but in the one to come. And then the third point, he put all things in subjection under his feet. And he gave him his head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. So it's pretty cool. And there's actually four actions that happen in these verses here, 20-23. He raised him, he seated him, he put all things in subjection, he gave him his head to the church.

So this is speaking of God the Father acting on behalf of God the Son. And just these marvelous things that are so key to our Savior and our relationship to him. The fact that he was raised from the dead, we're going to remember that here in a couple of weeks on Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday. And his seating has all kinds of wonderful things to remember about that. Putting all things in subjection under his feet.

And then the cool part, at the very end here, we start seeing the relationship of the Lord Jesus to the body of Christ. And if you think about it, what's kind of neat, we have a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus, but collectively we have another relationship. It's sort of like, maybe think about this, you as an individual have, you're part of a family. Your family has relationships maybe with other families, and you're known because you're part of that family. So we're known as believers as part of the body of Christ. And there's scriptures that talk about the relationship of Jesus Christ to the collective body of all believers everywhere. And then there's verses that talk about our relationship individually. So there's two levels we're going to see when we get down to him. He gave him his head over all things to the church. So questions about this or comments? We're going to go through each one of those.

I think though there's probably a particular reason for later on spoken by a different Apostle about every name that is named also in the one to come. For all those who trust in Jesus he gives Only the person who has the stone in their hand can read it and see that it's his special name. Right, that's good. We all have a name. In Revelation it talks about that, you're right, that we have a name.

Like some people try to say, what's my name? They try to figure it out and he says, no one knows it. It's funny how people will, something will be stated in scripture and then people will say, well, let's try to figure that out. But the Lord already said, you don't know that name. And I don't know the verse. You remember the verse, Tom, in Revelation?

It's not exactly. It's just there. But it's there. And it talks about the special name we have. To him who overcomes. That's part of Revelation. Right. Anyway, that's another lesson. But anyway, so we have a special name. But we're collectively the body of Christ. And there's so many neat things about that. OK, so let's move on to the first one.

When he raised him from the dead, The first point is he God the father raised him the word Jesus from the dead and raises this idea to error I'm not sure I can pronounce it exactly So in this couple of verses that little literally it's from the dead or out from among the dead so the couple of verses that kind of speak to that could someone read Galatians 1 1 and Paul an apostle not sent from men nor through the agency of man but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead. So what we're going to see, we're going to see that the concept or the truth that Christ was raised from the dead is foundational to all In fact, actually, I had the privilege of doing the Lord's Table today, and I was trying to think of something that fit. You'll have to wait and see, but it fits in cool. The foundational part about Christ being raised from the dead is key.

Everything about our Savior, everything we have, without Him being raised from the dead, we have no hope. So that's foundational. So, there's the Thessalonian verse. I kind of split this into kind of strangely here. The Thessalonian verse talks about him being raised from the dead. Let's see, 1 Thess 110.

And to wait for his son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, that is Jesus who rescues us from the wrath to come. Great, thank you. And then I actually added a couple other ones in here. Christ was raised from the dead to the glory of the Father. the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead. And it just goes on and on and on, a multitude of verses. So Macaulay has an observation, when the New Testament writers wish to express the greatness of his power, they point to his resurrection and his exaltation to the highest authority. And what's interesting is, the Bible says, and this is interesting, it talks about his power.

We have no problem, in a sense, when it says that God is able to raise Christ from the dead. We don't doubt that. If we're a believer in the Lord Jesus, we believe that. But when it says that we have the same power operating in our lives, we think, well, boy, it just doesn't seem that way. doesn't match with my experience. So let's read a couple of verses here about that. Now I'll give you my observation about that. And you can weigh in on whether you think it's a good observation or not.

So could someone read Philippians 3.10?

Pretty familiar verse. Right. So knowing Him and the power of His resurrection. So as we know the Lord Jesus, we understand We understand him, we understand the power that he has. Let's read Colossians 1, 10 and 11. so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God, strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience. Joyously. So, it talks here about being strengthened with all power.

So, if I were to ask you today, how do you feel about God's power in your life? I'll use myself as an example. I won't try to be on your case or talk about you. I find it difficult to see his power in my life. I'm an elder. You think, well, Roger, what's going on here? How can you say that?

But let me give you an observation. We studied this last year in 2 Corinthians. Let's turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 12. I'm going to read a couple of verses in 2 Corinthians chapter 12. Pretty familiar. This is talking about Paul's thorn in the flesh. Let me back up here a little bit. So I'll back up to 2 Corinthians 12, 7.

And because of the surpassing greatness of the revelation, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, to buffet me, to keep me from exalting myself. Concerning this, I entreated the Lord three times. that it might depart from me. And he said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness. Most gladly, therefore, I would rather boast about my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may dwell in me.

So do you see in there an interesting connection? Does it say that we have power? And some believers, if I go to certain body believers, they want to go storm the gates of hell. And I don't think we have Christ as defeated Satan. That's a done deal. What it says here is that the power in the Christian life is developed in our weakness. And that's totally backwards. That doesn't sound like power to me. That sounds like I'm not making it. I have this weakness.

But he says that his power The power that raised Jesus Christ is developed in our weakness. And I think it's because we then have to depend upon Him. And it may not turn out the way we would like to see it. But that is His power working out in our lives, in our weakness. So that's kind of my take on that. I don't see that connectivity where the Christian is displaying God's power in the way that we see being Christ raised from the dead, it's displayed in our weakness.

So that's my little offshoot there. So let's go on. This is going to finish the first, number one, he God the Father raised him from the dead. Number two, Number two, he seated him at the right hand in heavenly places. And this is this cool thing. We see this, remember, in the heavenlies actually. Literally, places, if you notice, is in italics. So actually that's been added in there. So it's in the heavenlies. It's this term that we'll see a bunch of times in scripture. Having seated him in the heavenlies, it's cause to sit down. And there's several verses that kind of speak to this.

In Mark 16 it says, So then, when the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was received up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. And in Hebrews it says, When he had made purification for our sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. Then again in Hebrews 12, Who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. So we see here that after the Lord Jesus was raised from the dead, this was the next step in his glorification, if you will. He went to the cross on our behalf, he bore our sins, and then he was raised and seated at the right hand of God. At the right hand Macaulay points out, God not only raised his son from the grave, but exalted him to the throne.

It seems like that was the proper thing to do for what Christ had accomplished on the cross, to raise him and seat him at his right hand. But there's some cool information about this right hand that we want to think about, because we have a place here too, which is pretty amazing.

And it's in heavenly places. In heavenly places, looking at vines and those kind of help says, in or above heaven, existing in heaven. In heavenly regions, it's not like I have a GPS location for this. It says, in the heavenlies. And it's there in the place that we know it's God's abode.

And there's actually three verses that talk about at least, and talk about this heavenly place or heavenly places. The first one we covered earlier, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Then we have our verse here, where it talks about he raised him, speaking of Christ, and seated him at the right hand of God in heavenly places.

And then, could someone read Ephesians 2.6? There's another occurrence of heavenly places. There's another piece of information. And raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

Okay, so if we take those three verses, we can come to a conclusion here. First of all, we learn from these verses that our position is in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Second, now from this verse we learn that Christ is at the right hand at the Father's right hand in heavenly places. And then, therefore, our position is in Christ at the Father's right hand in heavenly places. And then one more caveat. Back here in the Ephesians 1-3 verse, it says that place at the Father's right hand in heavenly places is the place where we have every spiritual blessing.

So it's pretty cool. You kind of put these together and you see, wow, look at this. This is where I'm at, this is where the Lord is, this is where the Father is. It's all, you know, it's pretty amazing. That's why we look down. That's why we look down. Wouldn't you? That's good, Margaret. That's very good. That's very good. Okay. So thoughts are... Okay. So let's keep going here. Okay, so that was number two.

Okay, and then actually as part of this, as part of this seeding, okay, he says, and seeded Him at the right hand in heavenly places now. It's going to talk about the significance or the Magnitude of his seating and it's pretty amazing He's going to use about four or five different expressions here to describe that it's far above or over and above It's use of rank or dignity and there's some verses there that talk about we have to read them all that talk about He was ascended far above all the heavens. That's the Ephesians verse. The Hebrews verse, exalted above the heavens. And then it talks about all rule.

It's literally every first. He's the first of the first. If you can think of what the first is, you think maybe the president's the first. He's above the first. He's the first of the first. That's literally what it means, the idea. That Corinthians verse talks about He abolished all the rule. There's no other rule above him. Then it talks about authority. Far above all rule and authority.

This is exousia, which is a word for power. Someone's pointed out there's so many power words in this expression. It's like one power word after another power word after another power word. So it's just like, wow, in trying to describe The place where Christ is seated, at the right hand of God, it has all these words that express this concept of power. Authority, right, liberty, power to do something. Let's see that verse.

Can someone read Colossians 2.10 here? You are complete in him which is the head of all principality in power. So I have head over all rule and authorities. Colossians 210. All right. Good. And then continue on. So it's far above all rule, authority and power. This is dynamis or where we get our dynamite power, authority, might spoken of omnipotent power, omnipotent power.

And that's the power that we saw back in Philippians 3.10 that raised Jesus Christ from the dead. And then dominion is the idea of fourth or strength or might. Just look at all these things that have to do with his rule and authority and place. Far above all rule and authority and power and dominion.

And then it goes on. So we talked about all the power involved here. And now it's going to talk about name. This is where Tom was kind of talking. And every name that is named, literally, Every name that is constantly being named and in Philippians two, there it talks about. Yeah, let's read that, too. Some of them would mind doing that. Keep asking guys to read. Philippians two, eight, nine.

And he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore, God also has highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name. So that's great. So we see that that name is in recognition of what he's accomplished. He has all this power. And then he was given a name that is above every name. And I like this quote. I'm not too familiar with Meyer, but I found it in looking at someplace else. He said, let any name be uttered. Whatever it is, Christ is above it. It is more exalted than that which the name uttered, the name affirms.

And it says, this name that he gave Christ, which is above every name, not only in this age, but also in the one to come. So this is going to be an eternal name. will exist for all eternity. It speaks of this present state of things and in words but also in that which is to come of the future state of things. So he was put far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and every name that is named as not only for now but also for the age to come.

Pretty amazing, pretty amazing. I think we don't realize, I think we will maybe in eternity, the significance of Christ's death and resurrection. It's just incredible. And the fact that he spends his time telling us about the power that was involved and the exaltation that was involved is pretty amazing.

But he's actually not finished. This is only the second point he wants to make. So thoughts on this before we move on? Okay. And he put all things to subjection under his feet. So this is the third point. He put all things to subjection under his feet. And that comes from Psalm 8, 6.

And I actually didn't spend much time going there. So we'll just... Subjection is the idea. Hypopotasso, primarily a military term to rank under. and therefore to put in subjection. So there's some interesting verses here. So let's go look at Luke here. I'll read a couple of these. Let's look at Luke chapter 2, 251. And this is a very familiar.

This is the occasion where the Lord Jesus was 12, and he's with his parents. And they were separated. And in the previous verses to verse 51 there, it talks about basically his mother asking, why did you do this to us? And he says in 49, he says, he said to them, why is it that you were looking for me? Did you not know that I had to be in my father's house? And they did not understand the statement which he made to them.

Here's the verse I was looking at. And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and he continued in subjection to them, and his mother treasured all these things in her heart. So the Lord Jesus, as a 12-year-old boy, says he remained in subjection to them.

Same word here. It's from Hank Under. The second verse is in 10.17, and this is where This is ascending out of the 70. And this is a remark from the 70 came back. And the 70 return with joy saying, Lord, even the demons are subject to your name. So here we see some other aspects of what we've been talking about. But this is the idea to rank under. So this is going to be kind of interesting. So parallel verses, a couple of them here.

In Corinthians, he has put all things in subjection under his feet. But when he says all things are put in subjection, it is evident that he has accepted to put all things in subjection to him. It's a little bit hard to kind of wade through there. And then kind of a comment, Adam lost his lordship over creation when he sinned, but Jesus gained the lordship over creation by his obedience, by his death on the cross.

So let's go on. He put all things in subjection under his feet and gave him his head as head over all things to the church. He gave him his head. So literally, if you kind of order this as in the original there, it has God has given him, given the Lord Jesus, who is head over all things, and we saw it already, to the church. It reads a little bit better than the other ones say, gave him as head over all things to the church. It seems you've got the subject and the verb and it tells the rest of what's going on there. So he is head over all things. We already saw that in the previous point. Everything is subject to him.

But now it's in terms of the church. And we're going to start talking about the church, the body of Christ here. Gave is decided to place or to put. emphasizes beneficial bestowal. He gave Christ as head of the church for our benefit. Here's what I was talking about before he came out. I was kind of pointing out that we have a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus but then we have a collective relationship with him as the body of Christ and that's what we're going to see now.

Head is the idea of And there's at least four things, and this comes out of Vines, four things that you can say about headship, or verses about headships in scripture. It's head of God in relation to Christ. So what's interesting here, you say of God in relation to Christ, it's talking about head and, you know, God in a sense is the head of Christ, which is, you know, They're equal, right? They're fully God.

But there's an order of relationship. So based upon that, we go into Christ in relation to the believing man, of husbands in relation to wives. So we see equality, but we see rank and headship. And then the last one is the one we're talking about here, of Christ in relation to the church. Headship involves the idea of authority and unity. So I have a couple of verses here, let's see. So can someone read Ephesians?

We'll go to chapter 4 and read Ephesians 4.15. Speaking about this headship. But speaking the truth in love may grow up into him in all things which is the head, even Christ. And then in Colossians, let's look at the Colossians verse for a second.

And Colossians 1.18 says, he is also head of the body, the church, and he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he himself might come to first place in everything. So this has a lot of the ideas we've been talking about. Talking about he's the first of the first. He's the head.

And we're going to see here, and we have a couple of pictures that we kind of taught back in the major Bible themes. many years ago, but the analogy that we see here is that Christ is the head, and the head is the one that, if you think of your body, that's the one that kind of directs the ship, right?

I mean, you know, hopefully it directs the ship in the right place, keeps you going. It asks the hand to do something, or whatever, the leg to do something. Hopefully it follows. That's what we expect. And then it talks about the body, the rest of it.

That's speaking of the church, the body of Christ. So there's this analogy between the head, the physical head, and the physical body with Christ being the head in the church. Gave him his head over all things to the church. There's nothing, there's not his head over every aspect of the church. The church is this word, literally the called out ones, echos from out, and the other Greek word is calling, the whole company of redeemed throughout the present age. And Christ called it, it's interesting, he called it my church here.

Let's look at that, Matthew. So this is where we see the great benefit to us as believers. We're connected with Christ directly as a believer on a personal basis, but we're also connected with him through the church. This is actually for our benefit. Without both of these in play, it could be a much different situation. We have two aspects which relate to Christ, individually and as a body. This is interesting.

Of course, this verse is used by some to make Peter the head of the church, but not rightly so. 618 says, I say, if you go back, starting in 17, it says, And Jesus answered and said to him, speaking to Peter, Blessed are you, Simon, Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. I also say to you that you are Peter and upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of Hades shall not overpower it. So he's speaking of my church and that's a collective body of believers.

Just to kind of review this in case you don't remember, there's two words for The name Peter is actually a word for a rock or a stone. And that's Petros, a small pebble. And then the other one there, rock, is for a massive thing, an unmovable rock. We call it a boulder, maybe. So what's being said here, he says, you are Peter, you're a small rock. Upon this massive rock, I'll build my church. But some have taken that and tried to make them the same. So they say, well, Peter's the rock. They're building a church on Peter. You go to Rome and you go in the big basilica there and it's all about Peter. Peter and Mary. It's all about Peter and Mary.

That's a good observation. It really is. Okay, cool. That's good. So, what I'm trying to point out here is that the body of Christ, this is a special and we should we should be comforted by the fact that we collectively, like we're comforted by the fact that we're part of a family. We're thankful for our families. We're thankful that we have a family. We're part of that family. And in the same way, we're thankful that as a body of Christ, we have a family that God relates to on the family level, as well as on a personal level.

So 23, we're going to look at 23 next, will tell us more about the church. This means the church has, has overcoming abilities because its head, is head over all things. I didn't really trace out. We could start looking at specific verses. In fact, at the end, we're going to talk about a lot more specific verses. We're going to do a review here. But there's a lot of verses that talk about the church and its relationship to the Savior.

So basically, the definition of the church is Christ's body. That's the definition of the church. I should have asked this as a question rather than stating it. Many people think of a church as an organization. They think, well, I'm part of this organization. They think of it as an organization. But scripture looks at it totally differently. It looks at this bodily analogy. It's a body, a head and a body. So it's not an organization, but an organism. And we're going to see some pictures of that in a second here.

On Ephesians 23b it says, As Christ also is head of the church, he himself being the Savior of the body, or better, look at the personal nature, you could render it himself the Savior of his body, the body of Christ, the church. And a couple of more verses, Now you are Christ's body, and individually members of it. So once again, focusing on that relationship with the body of Christ. But you're an individual in that body. He also is head of the body of the church.

Okay, so now the last two. I apologize for the handout. You probably can hardly read some of these things. So these are some how charts. And for those of you didn't know our brother, how he he was. He just loved it. He would just fill his charts. He'd jam pack him. You couldn't get more on a page. He just I actually deleted some stuff off these two charts. Believe it or not, there was actually more on here. I found it. It was confused. You have more bullets and arrows pointing this way. I took them off. This is kind of sick with. OK. And we haven't quite got there yet.

The last little phrase, the fullness of him who fills all in all. The fullness of one who is constantly filling all things with all things. Fullness is decided to make full, to fill up issues of grace and truth manifested in the Lord Jesus. The church is the fullness of Christ probably in the sense that he fills for himself the church with all its blessings.

And so there's some verses we can look at there. All right, so let's just jump in here. OK, so let's see if we can walk through this. The church and her organization. Basically, the biblical model views the church as an organism. The church, the called out ones, is a body of Christ. Every believer is a member of Christ's body. Jesus Christ is the head of the body. The local church is a microcosm of the body of Christ. So what he has here, this entire green ellipse, this entire circle or ellipse has all these little local churches.

Each one is the same if they are following scripture. There is a local leadership there, what are called under shepherds. But the chief shepherd is the Lord Jesus. He's the chief shepherd. So we have all these local churches that collectively make up the body of Christ. And that's collectively called the church. Or some people call it church universal.

You hear that term? So it means that you may go here and there, and there'll be pockets of... And actually, it may even be... I was talking about this. You could have These are for churches that are following scripture. But what about the ones that you're in a church, you're a believer, and they're not? Maybe you're off there in Rome somewhere, and they're talking about Peter and Mary, but you really know the Lord Jesus. So you're not in a body, but you're still a member of this body. So actually, maybe if you wanted to add more to this, you could have individual believers, but they're still part of the body of Christ. This shows the best case scenario in my mind where you have local churches and they're following what scripture says and looking collectively to the chief shepherd.

But you know, Roger, to be honest, to be a believer, it's pretty simple. It's true. It is pretty simple. It's pretty simple. And I think in all of these outlying churches that don't follow all of scripture and don't believe the identification truths. They don't even teach what we get.

Exactly. But you don't have to have that to be a member of the body. Absolutely. And so in all of those churches, there are thousands, hundreds, millions of people who may never totally understand the fullness of what they have. I agree. But they are the body. Exactly. And so they're everywhere. And I think All of those churches, they're still part of the body. They're still this. They just don't follow. And to be honest, how sad it is because they're not understanding what they really have. Who they are in Christ. They don't get it. But they still are the body. Right. That's good. That's good. That's why I have to look at this picture and think about it. That's great. That shows that this is the best case scenario where you have a local and they realize that they're under shepherds.

Some local bodies have a totally different vision. They're off doing all kinds of crazy stuff. But we can put individual believers in that thing and they are the body of Christ. They're collectively his body. That's cool. OK, so now let's move on to the next chart. So here's the analogy of the human body. Analogy of the human body and Christ's body, the church.

First of all, many members, and maybe we'll address some of these points, many members function as only one body, physically born with a body and its members. I apologize, I read through this carefully, but I may We think some things here. Spiritually born by the Holy Spirit into Christ's body as a member. The first point here is obviously members of the body differ. So we have different functions and gifts are different. God designed it that way.

Just as each member of the human body is content with its function, so should we be. We talk about that It's not a lot here at Holly Hills, but each person in the body of Christ has a function to perform. Sometimes it's hard to know, what's my function? If you're fortunate, I feel I'm very fortunate, I get to teach. So it's somewhat obvious, well okay Roger, I guess your gift must be something to do with teaching. It's a little bit harder to see maybe for other people, well I'm not sure.

I don't think you should really worry about that. If there's a need in the body, you should, hey, I can do it. I can help out with that. Don't be bashful about that. Just do it and don't worry about it. What particular gift is that? You try to define it. You just wrap yourself around the axle, it seems like, when you should just be, hey, there's something to be done. Let me just do it. It may not be something that's in this body.

You may be fulfilling a function in your workplace, in your neighborhood. that's still being part of the body. That's a good point. Total dependence between the members. No exaltation of one member over another because of their gift. Otherwise the vision occurs. If you exalt certain people, they're the super believers and we're the others, then that's not going to be good. God in his grace has gifted every member. God's wonderful goal for the members to function in the body as they are gifted. The result of this edification of the body is love. The local church needs to encourage and exercise spiritual gifts. The dynamics is not the elders, but the Holy Spirit.

I thought that was actually pretty cool. Because I don't feel very dynamic a lot of times. All right. So that's a lot of a lot of points here today. So any final thoughts or questions? Just on that Peter and the rock. OK. It says upon this rock, I will build my church. Did you mention what that rock is? Is that is that our faith or is that you? I didn't. I didn't.

We know what Peter means. Well, what's the. On the translations, it capitalizes the word rock. That's capitalized. Yeah, I would. I wouldn't say it's our thing. I would say it has to be the word Jesus off top. I mean, just without I haven't. Especially the reading, the rest of it says I will build my my church and the gates of hate shall not overpower it.

So. So he's building the church is built upon Jesus Christ, right? So I would think that would be... And I guess it refers back to when Simon Peter said, you are the Christ, the son of the living God. Right. Good. He said the Father revealed that to him. Okay.

Okay, so next week we're going to do a review. I haven't done one of these in a while. I've tried to, when I've done the past, I try to go back and look at each of the verses and kind of form some questions and try to do it more question and answer kind of thing, just because we kind of, especially myself, I kind of go through and look at all the little nitty gritty parts. And whereas the review, maybe we should make it a little bit more open. One thought that comes to me when it mentions the difference between this and that Peter. OK.

When you said something about Peter, but he also said something about a separate rock. You, you over there, are Peter. Baby Rock. Baby Rock, right. And of course, upon this rock, which is close in hand, he's just got maybe just touching part of his chest or whatever, just saying this is the rock that God built the church upon.

He's not trying to be proud about it. It's just the way things are. Or it could be that I've heard people use the idea of, you know, you sort of have a Like you said, a tiny pebble means you have a massive boulder. And if you're trying to give a picture, you say, well, I'm not going to build on this little pebble. I'm going to build on this massive superstructure, which is basically the Lord itself. All right, well, let's close in. We thank you, Father. We thank you for this day, Lord. We thank you for the blessings we have. In Christ's name, amen.