Colossians Lesson 1 week 2

Okay, we had gotten down to question six, right? I need to appoint somebody. Bob Lockwood in the Tuesday group is the guy I appoint to tell me where I am. Of course, he never remembers. Somebody needs to tell me where we were. So I think we did five. Distinguished between God and Father, right? Somebody remember that? Had we started on 6 yet? What does it mean? What does in Christ mean? That must be where we are, nobody's answering.

Okay, what does it mean? Yeah? Our union with Him. Okay, that's pretty good. Don't you get this idea in your mind that if I'm in Christ, He somehow stuck me inside of Him? How did that happen? And union is a great word because it does describe my relationship with him.

We human beings are always in union with somebody. Those of you who are not in Christ, this side of the room, you're in union with Adam. You're united to him. Everything that's true about Adam is true of you. Those on this side of the room are in Christ. You're united to him. Everything that's true about him is true about you. And your history goes back to how far back if you're in Christ?

Creation? Forever. Wanda gets a star. Forever. If you're in Adam, how far back does your history go? Adam isn't it forever? Adam. Back to when God created him. So you guys who thought you were really old, boy in Christ you really are old. She wants to know. What? Isn't that forever? Yes, when I was talking about how far back does your history go, forever is just until next Thursday.

In Christ is the most descriptive phrase in the New Testament telling us what a Christian actually is. So as you study the Lord Jesus Christ, especially in Paul's epistles, You're also studying about you, who you are, who you are in relationship to the Father and who you are positionally. The difference, the real difference between whether you're a Christian or not is location.

See, I love location. I'm a realtor. Location is everything. Location with you is everything. Where you are is the most important question you will ever have to answer. Where am I? I'm in Christ. It has to do with relationship. Now, you're going to have to sit in front. I have a sub-question. How did you get to be in Christ? Because you were in Adam, right? Weren't you or not? How many of you say, yeah, I was once in Adam? Now I'm in Christ. How'd I get there?

I died. Was it my death that got me there? His death. And I had a relationship with that death. Romans 6, 2? Don't you realize that when you were baptized, which means placed into, never to be taken out again, you were placed into his death. So the Holy Spirit grabbed you around the neck and stuck you in Christ at the moment that he died. And so then what happened to you? You died. What's death mean?

Separation. Where did you get separated from? Adam. And all that everything has to do with Adam. sin, the world, condemnation, all of that. He was buried, so were you. When he was raised to newness of life, guess what? So were you. So Romans 6 is really the first 10 verses. What they really tell us is the mechanics and how God did it. He took you out of Adam via the Holy Spirit, put you in Christ at the point at which you died. You were buried, resurrected.

That's the core of the identification truths. And so where are you now? Where is he? You guys don't look so heavenly to me. That's known as a positional truth. Do I have to explain position and condition? Everybody know what that means? Who doesn't? Oh wow. They are either too afraid to raise their hand or they are all smarter than I thought they were.

Well where does it say in the Bible about position? Using that exact term? I would say this that any reference that you see in the term in Christ has to be a position that I enjoy. because it may or may not relate to my condition, my everyday walking around experience. So, position and condition is really important and we'll refer to that often as we go forward.

Okay, now looking at the verses, and we're working through just the first few verses, what proved to Paul that the Colossians were believers? And you should have gotten it from the verses. What proved to him? Slow down, slow down, slow down. Faith, oh gee, first thing. He saw and had heard that they were people of faith. And what was the next part? Love. Oh my goodness, that they loved.

Love for the brethren. Now I hate to tell you this, but before all you people were believers, you didn't love the brethren. You were all too self-centered. You're not that way anymore. So, it's important to understand that believers, Christians by nature are termed believers.

Now, how many of you guys read The Hungry Heart? Did you have a problem with the one yesterday? Mrs. Doyle did. What was the question you asked me? Do you remember? Well, it started out that even though the Lord gave us our faith, something to that effect. Did the Lord give you your faith?

How many say, I did? How many say, no, he didn't? Oh, you chickens! Oh, you chickens! Get your hands up! How many say, yeah, he did? How many say, no, he didn't? Still a lot of chickens. When he created you, part of who you are is the capacity to believe, right?

What do you have a will for? To use. To do what? To use it. For what purpose? To choose. To believe. That's what it's for. So built into you is a capacity to believe. So in that sense, when we had this discussion, I said, yeah, God gave us the gift of faith because he gave us a will and when he created us.

What I want to emphasize though is it's not a specific enablement. Why wouldn't it be that? We're not going there. Here's the reason I say this. If God has offered salvation to us on the provision of grace, then he couldn't induce some of you with the ability to have biblical faith and some others no. You see that?

You have to make a decision. Now he woos you and draws you. You have been chosen, right? And those that aren't chosen just reject. They exercise their will not to believe. But I want to get away from the idea, the Calvinistic idea that God regenerates you in order so that you might believe. That's not true.

In that verse, the penalty is to be saved by grace through faith, and that not of yourselves, but a gift of God, not of works within your hands, but should boast. Isn't the gift salvation? Yes it is. Everybody understand that? No, the verse is 2nd Corinthians or Ephesians? Ephesians 2. A lot of times people say in that verse that it there is faith. It's not.

It there is salvation itself. The gift is salvation. Okay? So, when we get more time, Wanda, we'll talk about free will. There's reference to faith, there's reference to love, and then there's reference to their hope, which lies in the future. What's biblical hope? Certainty. One, it's a certainty. be fulfilled in heaven or at some future time. It's stored up for us in heaven. What does that mean, stored up? What's stored up? It means that it's there waiting for you.

Maybe the best example is, is everybody in this room going to have a resurrected glorified body? Yes. Some of us older people are looking more forward to it. Amen. Is that a matter of faith or hope? I just got sidetracked and I totally lost my train of thought. Hope of being with Him. Stored up for us in heaven. Hope of being united with Christ. Am I not already united with Him? In His presence and being with Him. Being free of the sin nature. Free of the sin nature?

That's a hope? Hope of glory. Hope of glory? What's the hope of glory mean? You get to see it. The confidence of. It's an absolute hope. Biblical hope is an absolute certainty. Nobody in this room can hope the Broncos are going to win today from a biblical standpoint. So it's an absolute certainty.

So at a point when the Lord takes you home, Or at the end of this age, a lot of the things that are talked about in Paul's epistles and other places will be your reality. At this point it's a hope. Now, notice, I wanted to ask you something. I should have been better prepared than this. Somebody read verse 4. I think it's 4.

Since we've heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of your love for all the saints, Because of the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, of which you heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel. Notice how much emphasis that Paul puts on hope.

We live by faith, right? Is our faith based on what we hope for? Our faith is in Jesus. How about the faith in certain facts? What I'm after is this. Your faith is focused in, based on and resting upon something that's already true of you. Already true. A child of God. All of that, true. You are a child. My hope is something that will be true of me experientially in the future. Our faith is not based on a promise. Do you understand that? When you read about, especially in Paul's epistles, he makes these statements about who you are. That's not a promise. That's a fact. Faith is based on facts.

Now you may, when the Word of God says that you were crucified with Christ, You may say, well, what do you do with that information? When you first are exposed to it, what do you do with it? If you're like me, you say, gee, I don't remember that. When did that happen? The Word of God said it, right? What do I do with it?

I just believe it. That's it. It's not complicated. I just believe it. How about when you're presented with the hope that's laid up for you in heaven? What do you do with that? Yeah, you believe it. Sure. And why do you believe it? The facts are important, but really what does belief come down to? I better ask that a better way. Actually, it's the next question. What was their faith in?

See, the veracity of the facts are based on the person who gives you the facts. If I hire Laban to do work for me and he says, I'm going to give you a guarantee. And I look him over and I say, well, I don't know. How long are you going to guarantee for? Two weeks. Okay, we're on. Or two years or whatever it is. The guarantee is based on the veracity of the one who gives it. So my faith, as much focused as it is on the facts, it's really in the one who gave me the facts.

Do you see that? That's important because as you grow in the knowledge and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, you'll come upon some stuff in the word, a positional truth that you'll think, wow. How about I'm blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus? And you say to the Lord, yeah, but I don't have a Mercedes in the garage. And not only that, you know. Steve?

Well, this too, this is like a big compound sentence. Things keep stacking and layering all through these few verses. Isn't that cool? And then it's all modified back to thanks to God the Father and Lord Jesus Christ praying always for you and then he just keeps stacking these thoughts because of the hope which is laid up in him of which you heard before the word of the truth of the gospel which has come. He just keeps layering these things to justify or clarify the preceding aspect. Kind of cool, huh? Kind of cool, huh? It's layer upon layer. And every layer...

I've noticed in my own life that I get into one of those layers and about halfway through my faith dies. I can't stay with it. It's too good news. The news is too good. And it's going to get even better through the rest of this chapter. The thing about this book and Ephesians and Philippians is that Sometimes, at least for me personally, it gets over the top of my head. It really does.

Because I never met anybody who was as gracious as God. Russ, you're a nice guy. So my answer was, every believer has faith in God. But this was faith in the man that is now in heaven. As the Lord Jesus said, you have faith in God, believe also in me. Your faith should not rest in anything short of Christ in heaven. Anything short of that. Well, I didn't really hear what Steve said. I mean, all of that. My question is, it says faith in Christ Jesus. and of the love you have for all the saints.

The faith and love that springs from the hope that... So they have been taught, what was it that... What were they taught? The love and the... Wait now. Yeah, what was it they were taught? The faith and love that springs from the hope that is stored up for you in heaven and that you... have already heard about in the word of faith. Wow. So is there something that they learn that... What do we learn?

I mean, that's a dumb question. No, it's not. It's absolutely the... You get two stars today. It's a great question. I don't want any more stars. What was the principle they were learning? What's question 11? What's that? Question 11. Yeah, and also in the questions in three. What's question 11? Take a look. And I want something even more than that. What was the principle they were using, or they were learning? Okay. I'll see if I can swerve you into it. What? They were just learning about privacy, right? Yeah, that's part of it.

The whole world, lived under condemnation up until Christ came. The cross, the death, burial and resurrection of Christ, the seed of him in the heavenlies, the job of atonement is finished. God is now satisfied about the entire sin issue. He no longer has to deal with man in the realm of condemnation or atonement, does he? Why not? Because it's done. Now how does he deal with men?

What's the principle? Grace. That's what we're learning. That's what they were learning. See grace is one of those things that if we're not taught grace we really don't know what it is. Imagine being somebody like a Colossian and here comes the Apostle Paul and he starts to teach you these things and the principle he's teaching you is God's grace. and that that's the operating principle that he functions on from now on. That in and of itself would lead to, you have to have faith to function in that environment and hope and love and all of that works only in the environment of grace. It doesn't work outside that environment. Do you see that? So that's what they were learning and we'll get down a little farther we'll see that it's the grace principle.

The best way I know to explain that, you guys who know a little bit about computers, you know that basically you either run off of an Apple system or a Windows system, right? And now you can interchange some of it, but they're different, aren't they, the way they run? We as human beings either run off of a law condemnation system or a grace system and they don't intermingle. So which one's which? You'll have to tell me, I don't know.

You know, Mike, I think also just putting in perspective where this is, and you see it more in Galatians, but just this contrast between law-based, where the Jews and all these, you know, were based, and even the Gentiles didn't have the law, but now put under this grace system.

This is totally new. This is something that, you know, and he's commending them for this, for their faith and for what they have learned and what they their understanding of grace. And they just, this is all brand new to them. And I think we don't get a perspective of how radical this is to them. And I think he'd like to see more in Galatians, but Colossians you get a little bit of it here where he's commending him for it. And understanding the grace that we live under now. And that's an important thing. It's really important, yeah.

I mean how many of you, let's see how, Courageous they are, right? How many of you in your Christian life didn't respond back to God when you sinned because you thought He needed to have time to be mad at you? Or you needed to have time to sort of suffer the consequences of what you did?

There's a truthful man right here. We all do. But under grace, none of that's necessary. None of it. But don't you still have to ask for forgiveness? Okay, now I'm going to take a star away from you. Where in Paul's epistles does it say you ask for forgiveness? In the Catholic Church. In the Baptist Church. You're to confess your sins, right? For what purpose? So that God won't be mad at you anymore? Thank you for all your majesties. Why do you confess? For fellowship. What's that? Return to fellowship. Return to fellowship. Because when you sin, the fellowship is broken. How about your position? Is it tarnished at all? No. No. So confession really means to say the same thing. So if that's what it means, then you have to spend time thinking, what does God say about me? What does he say about you?

Who are you? You are forgiven. Where are you? In Christ. Oh, is he ever mad at Christ? No. And you're there? So what do you say to him? You say, hey, I've been doing this sinning thing, which is inconsistent with who you say I am, and I believe you when you say I'm in Christ, and I confess to you, I agree with you.

I've been functioning inconsistent with who I really am. Does that make sense? Yeah, that's what confession really is. So this world me stuff, I remember teaching the ladies in Parker and I asked them a trick question. Every once in a while you have a tendency to do that, right? Here's what I asked them.

Does it matter with the quickness with which God forgives you if you're more sorry for your sins than the lady sitting next to you? Half of them said yes. It doesn't matter. Why does God forgive you? Because you confessed? Why does he forgive you? Because Christ took care of it. He does it solely based on what Christ did.

All right. Well, Mary and I have a question. Tell her to pick on somebody else. They were talking about this yesterday. Are the Jews at the end of time and you say the Jewish people, their hearts will be changed. Like the millennial kingdom. Yeah. Okay. Is that under grace? Yeah. It would have to be under grace.

Why would God give the Jews a fleshly heart with the law written in them if it wasn't a gracious act? Did you say the law is written in them? The law? Their law? The Mosaic law, yes. And they're going to have to live by that law? Well, see, it isn't going to be a they're going to have to kind of a thing. It's going to be built into them. Okay. See me after.

And we probably already answered this question, what does Paul mean by the hope that's laid up for you in heaven? And I would say this, the number one thing that's laid up for you in heaven is glory. What's glory? What is it? It's the radiant essence. Well, that's a great answer. It's the radiant essence of who God is displayed. So I say this a lot in my class, especially on a Wednesday night.

We're all going to be here in the Millennial Kingdom, right? You hope you're going to be here? Yeah, we're all going to rule and reign with Christ, right? So when Wanda and Mary are here, and they're hanging around in Denver, and they're involved in the ruling and reigning with the Lord, how is the populace going to tell that they are the sons of God. How are they going to know? Are they going to wear a badge that says, I'm a son of God? Go see the glory. That's right. The glory of Christ will radiate out of them. And everybody will see it. And that's how they'll know. Isn't that so? Isn't that so? So, put that in your brain and think about it for a minute. I'm going to rule and reign with Christ for a thousand years.

I don't know exactly what I'm going to be doing, but I do know this, I'm going to be just like him. Part of just like him is the manifestation of his glory through you. You are his son, after all. You have his very life, after all. Just a couple of thoughts on that. Yes, sir. The hope laid up in having part of it. That laid up, I think I found a couple of words that really helped me. Okay, nail that down in my mind, but the idea of depositing, it's been deposited or reserved for you.

So what is in heaven is there. And if you look at the parallel book of Ephesians, in some of these same verses we talk about, you know, where are all of our blessings now? So the answer to that from Paul's perspective in Ephesians is heavenly, right? That's where our blessings are and that's where it's stored up. So everything that we have that is of value is deposited and reserved for us in the person of Christ in heaven.

And for these Colossians, that word hope is mentioned three different times throughout this first chapter. And so it's possible that maybe they were kind of struggling with the hope factor and why would that be that way for them. But it led them, as Paul tried to encourage them in the hope, it led them to actually change the way that they loved one another. So that hope had a driving factor. It was a motivational factor that led to love for one another. It also led to an aspect of their faith being stronger. Now not necessarily a stronger faith saving, but a more confident faith. So looking heavenly, like we're talking about, affects our motivation today and how we love one another and how strong our faith is based on our daily walk. So it's that forward, that abiding above, that looking to where everything is deposited and reserved for us that motivated them in their day-to-day condition.

Yeah, that's cool. While you were talking, what hit me was even our boy Peter knew about this. He said, The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiable that does not fade away reserved in heaven for you. What is that? That's 1 Peter 1. I would add maybe one thing. Everybody hear what Jim said? Even you people back in the corner over there? You didn't hear? Francis didn't hear. I heard her say she didn't hear. I know why she didn't hear and I'm not going to say it. Wonder Wanda rings all her friends, right?

So why, to tackle off of what Jim said, why in heaven? Because it's the consummation of our salvation is in heaven and our final glorification for all these things that he promised that there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord's righteous church will give me and like you said in 2 Timothy this inheritance is incorruptible and undefiled. Thank you so much. Okay, good. More? We're heavenly people. Citizenship. Citizenship. That's where you're from. You're not from Arvada. You're from heaven. We're from heaven.

So it might be good if we sort of know what's going on at home. I think it's also security in heaven. How can it be removed in heaven, where we are from, in Christ? I think this is giving them comfort, too. It's in heaven. How do you access or get rid of or remove it? It's always going to be there. It's a security thing, too. You know, as they say, gold and rust will all rust and whatever. But in heaven, there's no deterioration in anything in heaven. See, and that's one of the key points of the book of Colossians. Paul is warning them about taking their focus off of heaven and back on the earth. And he wants that focus in heaven.

A few weeks ago, anybody remember when we baptized Matthew Ellis? Anybody there for that? Matthew Ellis lives in Kabul, Afghanistan. And he lives in a trailer, this reinforced bunker thing that inside looks like an apartment. He is an American. And he is Skyping and on the web all the time doing what? Checking out what's going on at home. Because that's where he's from. He is not from Kabul, Afghanistan. You are not from the earth. You're not from here.

Your home and your focus is in the heavens. And that's one of the reasons the word of God has been given to us. So we can find out What goes on at home? A military example, you're behind enemy lines and you're in an encampment, you kind of know what's going on around you, but you're most interested in what they're doing at home. Any of you who've ever been in the military and been deployed someplace, your mind isn't there, other than when you're on maneuvers, the rest of the time you're thinking about home.

We as believers are from heaven, our minds are to be set on heaven. JB Stoney made a comment, I read this years and years ago, he said, along with salvation and the new life in Christ comes a taste for the things of God. It's built into you. You're not comfortable here anymore. Well, if you are, we ought to have a talk. See, your old man was made for the earth. Adam was made for the earth. The new man in Christ is a heavenly man. He's made for heaven. We're not all that comfortable here. Steve.

In 5 it says, because of the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, of which you heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel. So it's like the gospel presented all this stuff in advance. So in a capsule, what would be some of those teachings of the gospel that laid that... Oh, you swerved into the next question. The next question is, what is the word of the truth of the gospel? Okay, what is it? To hear and understand God's grace in all its truth. Okay. Alright, let's simplify it. What's the gospel? Good news. Good news. What is the good news?

Christ died for our sins. And? He died, buried, and was resurrected. He was buried and was resurrected. Why is that such good news? Because we're with him. Why is it such good news? Who's the good news to? Anybody who believes that, what happens? It's in Christ. That's right. All of this stuff we're talking about becomes true of them. That's kind of cool. So it would be good. The source of their hope lies in the word of truth. What does that mean? The Word of Truth is what? Is this the Word of Truth? So the source of your hope is in there someplace, huh?

So I'm going to recommend that you discontinue your subscription to the Denver Post and start reading your Bible. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. He brought grace and truth and we beheld the glory of the only begotten Son of God. In regard to why is it good news, wouldn't it be because before that came into play, everything was do this, do this, try harder, try harder and it never was good enough. No, and if you didn't do it, you got condemned. Yeah, and now, the total opposite has occurred. Yeah, it's amazing when you study the Book of Romans, you go through the first three chapters, you know, it concludes all under sin. All. Even the Catholics. All under sin. Now, all under sin means that everybody's in jail. Nobody's outside. everybody is condemned.

So when you start with that premise, and now comes the gospel, the good news. And the gospel of the good news is way more than just, well, believe in the death, prayer and resurrection of Christ and you'll obtain fire insurance, you won't have to go to hell. It's way, way more than that. So when Paul talks about the gospel, he talks about the entire writings that he put in the New Testament, including Peter, James, and John, all of that is the gospel. All of that is good news.

Because if God just saved you for the sake of giving you security, what good would that be? What he's done in terms of recreating us in Christ is actually make us, boy how do you describe it, greater than he ever started out with. You're a son of the Most High God. We're going to see a verse, not next week but the week after, where, and it gets, Steve was talking about it builds and it builds and it builds. I'm hoping that by the time we get to the end of February, your minds go tilt on the grace that's just in this first few verses.

Good night. Yes sir. Does this all fit with the word church? Church? Ecclesia. Oh boy. Do you hear the question? No. Okay. Got to speak up. He wants to know how all of this fits with the word church, ecclesia. And that's not in your notes, you've got to kind of wing it. How does it fit? Well, church, directly see, means called out ones. We're called out from Adam, from the world. We're called out from the bondage that Ruth, or Gail was talking about, into the glory of Christ. And the church is what? Does the church exist only on the earth? Where else does it exist? Actually, where does it exist? In Christ. Yeah, it's a heavenly organism.

So it fits in terms of a description of who the members are that are united to Christ. Along with our citizenship with Christ. Yeah, citizenship, you know, I kind of like that phrase. I like family better. I'm a member of the family of God. Granted, my citizenship is where he is in heaven, but believe it or not, I don't care about half the people who live in Denver. I care about you because we're all brothers. We're all the same family. I'm just going back to question 11.

So the word of truth of the gospel is pretty much the Bible and the New Testament because most of it, I mean, the New Testament is good news. I would say this, that it probably from most of the book of Acts, Romans, until chapter 5 of Revelation, all of that, Because that's the part of the word that's written specifically to us. I just had a thought there.

All scripture is useful, but not all scripture is appropriated through the Lord doing the living through us today. But without Genesis 1, obviously we don't understand the aspect of the creator-creature distinction, which is great news. So, everything in the scripture is useful for teaching, correcting, training in righteousness. But it's not all appropriated to us in the stewardship of the church today. First or second? First. Just a point of clarification. No, that's really good. What's that?

Okay, yeah, that is good because it's important that you know what goes on and what's written in the Old Testament, but that's, like somebody said, that's really somebody else's mail. What's written specifically to you by God to tell you who you are and what you have and where you are, are the epistles. And it's interesting that Paul the Apostle, we talked about this last week, who's the ultimate authority? What's the ultimate authority?

That's kind of a tricky question. It should be who. Paul said that if anybody teaches you anything else other than what I've taught you, let him be a curse. Oh my goodness. He's the ultimate authority. So I guess I've been thinking about that after having listened to the class. You know, Paul, I can't remember the verse, maybe someone can help me, but Paul was given inside, into the heavenlies. It was told not to speak of it. And then John was the apostle given the responsibility of speaking of that.

So I think when Paul's talking about if anyone's teaching you anything different than what I'm telling you, he's saying if we as apostles in the stewardship of grace, the church, are not in agreement with one another, then that's really where he's differentiating from The lack of truth that's in the Greek system, the Gnostic way of thinking, and so that's the context there.

I do have a hard time personally saying that Paul is the final authority, where there are instances that he's not given the right to speak on a certain topic, and John is, and so it's really the collection of New Testament truth that applies to the stewardship of grace that we find is appropriate for us, but I find the Word of God made flesh as the final authority. That's how I would still answer that. And I don't say that when he spoke to those Jews in the Gospels, obviously that's not appropriate to us, but the authority still lies with him as the gospel of the kingdom and not substitution. So we differentiate from that, but we don't say that it's less authoritative because it didn't apply to us at that point in time. So it's still, the final authority is God and his word.

See, I shy away from that for this reason. If I were to only study Deuteronomy, or like my rabbi neighbor, the first five books of the Bible, from my perspective, I'm functioning based on God's Word, as far as he understands. I would say not all of it. He wouldn't say that.

I say, I refer to Galatians chapter 1, where Paul makes that statement and he says, but if we, including himself and the guys that were with him, or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel to you than what we have already preached, to you, let him be accursed." Well, John didn't vary from that, even though he was, you know, in Revelation was talking about some things that Paul couldn't talk about. As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preach any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed. Well, there are plenty of Christians who preach a gospel other than this.

Lordship, salvation, those kinds of things. That's why I say that Paul really is the authority because the apostles were the last in line in terms of revelation. John being the last one. And they're totally consistent with one another. They don't preach something different. John didn't preach something different than Paul.

So those guys had greater authority, I think, than the writers of the Gospels, because their revelation was expanded. You won't find church truth, positional truth, union with Christ and that in the Gospels. So from that perspective, that's why I say he's But I do agree with you though, I mean, there's a harmony and it fits together and you can't discount one without having the whole house of cards come down. But it is, I would in no sense ever think about living under a law system. But I wouldn't know it, I wouldn't know about Grace if Paul hadn't come on the scene.

It's kind of like jumping in the middle of a movie. The Bible is the entire revelation of God. Written, that is. So, special. Just reading the book of Deuteronomy, and someone says, well, I'm supposed to do this. I was like, well, you jumped right in the middle of a movie. You don't know what happens next. You need to finish the movie.

It's all authoritative, but it's not necessarily all appropriate to where you are in your time, in the stewardship of how God's I asked last week about at what point Paul went into Arabia but he really had so much authority didn't he? because you know the disciples had the authority and were apostles because they had been taught directly by Christ but Paul was taught directly by Christ at that time and we don't know much about that but We know that he knew so much about the Old Testament and so forth and was adding to it with what he learned from the apostles and from Christ himself. Yeah, he did. And those things that he learned, he was the unique one that revealed that to us.

I know we're done here, but when Syncretians 5.20 talks about Paul being an ambassador, maybe we can talk about that next time and where he gets his authority to speak as an ambassador. Ambassador is a great word because that would help.

When you were talking about the church, I don't know if it fits, but there's a scripture that says, you know you pass from death to life when you love your brethren. Somehow that seems to fit this discussion. Because there is a love that we have for our brothers and sisters that is kind of a supernatural thing. I guess if someone doesn't love the body of Christ, Maybe a dangerous thing. Does that make sense? Well, I think it goes back to the idea of being in Christ. When you're in Christ, you have his very life. The kind of love he's talking about is consistent with who he is. It's different. And it's part of the life. And as we go on, we'll get more and more into it.

I want to get away from this idea that we want to study the life of Christ and then imitate him. That's not what being in Christ is about. Well Mike, we have the mind of Christ and he looks at us after the cross and we look at each other as being in him with that same vision that he loved each of us and has manifested himself, he's manifesting himself through each of us and so our eyes are open to see Christ. in each other.

Most of the time. So we think. It isn't, you know, there's a signature there is. But God's at work in each one of us. And we love each other because of that. Because we're related not to sin. We love God because he first loved us. It's real simple. We got to close. Tune in next week. Come early. Get a seat.

Father, how we thank you for your word and how we thank you that you are so careful to teach us who the Lord Jesus is. And so we look forward to growing in the knowledge and grace of him on a weekly basis, a daily basis, so that we might be more and more not only conformed, but informed. And we thank you, Father, we pray in your Son's precious name. Amen.