Faith Lesson 11 week 2

So how far did we get? Anybody know? I think three years. Three? Yeah, that's what I think too. So we're talking about Lesson 11. We're talking about faith as a principle. What's a principle? Not the head of a high school. What is a principle? It's a set of beliefs. A set of beliefs? Now principles are more exact than that.

How something operates. How something operates. How it functions. And it does it the same way every time. So the principle of gravity or the scientific principles, you rely on them because they're going to react the same way every time. Principle. There are spiritual principles. Faith is a spiritual principle.

It functions and operates the same way every time. And that's what we are attempting to understand. So in question three, we were just now moving towards taking a look at Colossians 2, 6, and 7. So let's turn there. Somebody who's there and who can read English, go ahead and read it.

Therefore, as you have received Christ Jesus as Lord, so walk in Him, having been fully rooted and now being built up in Him and established in your faith, just as you were instructed to overflowing with gratitude. Okay, so the question is, in those verses describe the four aspects of our walk. Do you see the principle being spelled out there? As you have begun in the Lord Jesus, how did you begin? Faith. We're talking about a faith principle here. That it's going to work the same way as you began, it will work the same way as you walk. So what are the four principles as mentioned in this verse, in verse 7? Rooted is first one. growing or built up. What's the third one? Establishment. Establishment. And what's the last one?

Abounding. Abounding or rejoicing. Okay, so I want you to notice that it talks about, in this verse, do your versions say the faith? Yes. The faith. So it's talking about a specific thing about your faith. that the definite article is in front of us, so we've been taught abounding with thanksgiving. So, is personal faith involved in these two verses? Where? I see you can't say yeah, you've got to tell me where. Personal faith is received. How did you receive Christ? by faith, that's personal, your faith. You did the receiving, you believe, and for lack of a...

I'm not a good deacon, I don't want to get off, but this is an indicative move, aorist tense, you've already done this, it's a fact, it is absolute reality, and you did it, active voice. So he says, in the same way, exactly how you did it, When you receive Christ or believed in him, so walk. Indicative error is passive, not now, it's not active, it's passive. How does that change the equation? We're going to get acted upon as we walk in the process. I can't. Oh, no. In the same way, we're to walk. Or put it this way, you be walking. That's what it's telling us.

So it's indicative, which means it's reality. It's aorist tense, which means in the past, but it's passive voice. In other words, we're going to find out as we go through these four principles that three out of four of them are passive. So many, if not all, churches, seminaries, biblical authors, teachers, want to make rooted, built up, established, active voice. They want you to do it.

And we're going to find out that isn't what the Word tells you. So it's not like we choose where we're rooted, or we're not choosing We don't choose how we walk. We witness it. We see it. That's a good question because what do you do? What do you use your will for? We've talked about this before. What did God give you a will for? What do you do with it? That's it. And one of the things we're going to find out as we go through the rest of this class and the next one that he gave you a will to believe.

Either you believe him or you don't. The problem is that we think, well, not only do I believe, but I can implement. No, you can't. No, you can't. So it's like more of a trusting, like when we pray for someone who's sick or whatever, it's not like necessarily we pray that the person, well I mean we could, we can pray however we want, but it's not necessarily we pray how to get our way or for that person like to get better, it's like we pray in trust knowing that God is working his will, whatever it is. Important thing that God is working his will and his will may not line up with what I'm asking or the method in which I'm asking because we do have a tendency to go to God and lay out our situation and then tell him how to fix it. First of all, he brought this situation for his specific purpose. That changes the equation. And so many Christians have walked away from the Lord because he didn't fix it the way they told him to. God isn't real because he didn't do it my way. Really? Okay. jump into individual things.

What do you think rooted means? Deep aren't roots good to plant to get everything they need? It means to be firmly planted. To be established. Would you say that being rooted in this verse is a position or a condition? The verse says, Walkie and him rooted, grounded and established. Maybe both at one time? It is a position. But don't your roots kind of keep going and don't you become more and more established? You hope. But are you already rooted? Yeah. How did you find out you were rooted? How do you know that you're rooted?

Because the Word of God tells you. Let me show you where it is. Go to Romans chapter 6 verse 3. Somebody read that. For do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into this death? So the Holy Spirit grabs you around the neck, spiritual neck, and he placed you into Christ. He baptized you. Baptized means to be placed into, never to be taken out. So he placed you in Christ. Is that a position? Absolutely. Is that a rooting? Absolutely. That's what it is. Oh, do you see number 5? For we have been planted together in the likeness of his death. Right. Pretty nice, huh? Yeah. So you say, well, how did the rooting happen or when did it happen?

It happened at the point in which you believed, and here's what the Spirit did. He baptized you into Christ. He united you to Christ. at the point in which he died. Did we go over that last week? Yeah, it sounds familiar. Why that's so important on the timeline of Christ when you go in? Yeah, we did. You go in when he died because that's when you died and death means separation and that's when you were separated from your sin nature. All that you were in Adam you got separated from positionally.

So it's exactly the same idea here that being rooted and firmly established in Christ is something that the Spirit already did positionally. Now, so, let's talk about the condition. Does that keep going, that rooting? Yeah, it does. And how does he do it? See, positionally, you're already rooted down deep in him, you can't get away. You're stuck. Not like Courtney's garden, but you're stuck. So, from a conditional standpoint, what's going on then in your life? He's beginning to show you what he did when you were saved. What did he do? He rooted you in Christ. And how important is that? It's really important because all of the aspects of the identification truth is being united to Christ specifically at the time he died. Then the verse goes on and says we were buried with him and raised in newness of life. I don't believe that, but just say back to what I believe in Jesus.

And there's tons of things I was doing that I shouldn't. And it seems like Even though that happened back then, I got separated from the old man. When you were saved. When I was saved, at that point, did it instantly put me back there? Or did it already happen? Well, think about it.

Romans 6, 3 and 4, right in there, talk about you were united to Christ in His death, you were buried with Him, you were raised with Him to newness of life. What that means is that when you were baptized into Christ's death, you were separated from all that you were an atom. Now you've left time-space reality and gone into eternal reality. So now everything that's true of Christ is also true of you.

Now you may know it, you may not know it, you may know it and not believe it. Does it change the fact that it's true? No, it's true. So what's spiritual growth? Spiritual growth can be defined as coming into an understanding and a resting by personal faith in what's already true.

See, God didn't leave any of this up to us. He knew better. He did not say, you know, you guys need to work really hard to be rooted. No, He rooted us and then we're going to find out about it in the going. So it's like condition is from our perspective only. Well, it's from the Lord's perspective too, because He wants us to walk in newness. He wants us to live a life that's consistent with what He's already done. But He already knows it.

We don't know it. We may not. But we may know it, and it isn't part of our reality yet. Is it because we don't believe enough? Maybe. It could be part of it. Part of it, it could be that we We look at those verses and think, they can't mean what I think they're meaning. That I died. I didn't remember that. Did I? You guys all remember being on the cross with Christ? How did that work out for you? Lots of times. I wasn't born yet. You weren't born yet. Yeah, you were though. You were there. Yeah. Because the Word of God says, yeah.

What if there's someone who isn't really a believer? And they read this thing about, I was baptized. Well, they're going to think that actually they were baptized. They're good Baptists. They've got water poured on them. Yeah. Okay. So how do you, where does it say in the Bible, you know, like if I tried to say, well, that just means you were baptized in the Spirit. And it doesn't mean that you have to be baptized in water. That's right.

And I think what you do, if you take someone who is already a believer, well let me back up. This kind of information you don't want to talk to a non-believer about. The only thing you want to talk to a non-believer about is their salvation, period. Because this is information that is spiritual and you can't understand it. A natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God. They are nonsense to him. He can't know them. So the whole issue with a non-believer is the gospel.

Now let's say they're saved and they've never been taught like this information. What's the best method to deal with that is? There's no better method than to open a book up and say, what does this say right here? Look at these three or four or five or six verses. What do they say?

And you depend and trust the Spirit of God to show them. And He will. I was six weeks in Christ. And the guy that led me to Christ sat down one day and he opened up Romans 6. He said, read the first six verses. Now, you know how smart you are after you've been a Christian about six weeks?

Not very. He said, what do you think that says? And so I looked at it and I thought, it looks like I died. He said, yeah, you did. I thought, you're crazy. He said, well, we'll work this out going forward, but you've got to understand you really did die. Now I think it's really cool.

But this information of Romans 6 in contemporary Christianity is supposed to be some high-powered spiritual, doctrinal information. It's basic Christianity. It's basic stuff. It's in the sixth chapter of the basic book in Christianity, which is Romans. It's basic.

He says, don't you know this? In other words, he's saying in three, you guys ought to know this, or I'm surprised you don't. See, every Christian needs to know that he died. that he was buried and resurrected. Now that doesn't mean he is able to stand up and give a class on it, but he needs to know it and rest in it by faith just because the word says so. No other reason. And if you didn't die, you can't be new. And if you didn't die and you can't be new, then what's the purpose of a Christian life? There isn't any. Because you're going to work on the old guy to try to make him look like a Christian.

Yeah. Did I not answer? No. What it is, is like when Jesus died on that cross, I was with him. Yes, you were. And I was buried and I was resurrected. Yeah. In people time, I was born and then one day I accepted Jesus as my savior. But it doesn't seem until I really believe in him that all of that really kicks in. That's true. That's exactly right. But if I never accept Christ... That's not true of you. None of that would be true of you. You're stuck in Adam. And the cross has already happened and what happened to the Adamic nature on the cross? It got condemned. So if you're stuck with Adam, guess what happens to you?

So you see where I'm a little bit confused is I'm thinking years ago it happened to me. And then I was an atom, but that still had happened to me. And then when I believed, I got the omen. When you believe, let's, if you're, well you probably haven't. There's this little, it's kind of a poem, it's called Interior to All. I wish, maybe I do have it. It helps explain what, nah, I don't. I wish I did. Interior to all is a little thing, and I'm going to paraphrase it, but it says that way back then, before God created anything, before there was anything, God created you in his mind.

You were just as real then as you are today. He brought you forward in time. He identified you with Adam to bring you into the human race. At some point he You were saved and you're going to spend all eternity with him as one of the beloved. But he decided about that before he ever created the first bush. Anything. You were known in Christ.

So you say, well, I don't understand it. Well, Courtney understands it because I explained it to him. So tell us what it is. Here's the verse. Courtney and I had this discussion several years ago. How can the word of God say that God knew you in Christ before the foundations of eternity? How can he say that? If we're in Christ, how long has Christ, how long has he been? What is his history? eternity passed. So if we're relays into him and everything's true about him, it's true about us now. Has he known us since the eternities?

It's kind of like, I think we've said it, it's really hard to get the concept. It's like, you know, going through the door. Once we enter, we look back, and now everything is true. We all see Christ and we go backwards, but we had to step through the door to go, to look backwards at Christ, because now our history is Christ. I was thinking about some of the things, you know, Wanda, just some of the verses that when you see baptized and how, I go to other ones that to correspond that, so it's not just one verse.

One that's come to mind is Galatians 2.20, another one. I have been crucified. How do you explain that?

I mean, that with the Romans verses, the Colossians verses, all those go together, but it keeps saying, we have been crucified with Christ. And it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. The life which I now live, I live in the flesh. I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me." So again, the baptism. Again, baptism into his death. What? Well, we've been crucified with him. Romans 6, Galatians 2. The other one, though, I try to put together. These verses don't make sense unless you, to me, understand the identification truths.

The second Corinthians 5.17.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, baptized in, placed into, He is a new creature. The old things passed away. Behold, new things have come. And again, it's all those put together back up the very all those things that baptized into his death. Well, OK, we've been crucified and now we have a new life in him. And all those things go together. And so I again, Mike's right.

For somebody who doesn't know Christ, It's a very simple thing. It's the Gospels. Death, burial, and resurrection. Christ died for your sins. That's the simple part. And that's how you step into Christ. All these things are the beautiful truths afterwards, I think, that you start to understand that we do have a new life in Him.

And the other thing which we try, and it's very hard, I think, when we get talking about these, is understanding position and condition. You know, what is the death? I mean, I always go, you know, death. My heart's still thumping. What does it mean dying?

But it's how God sees you. He now sees you only in Christ, because we've been placed into him. And so, the best analogy that my simple brain can come up with is, remember I was telling you about being married and a husband? I was not a husband until we got married. But now, only she can see me as a husband, whether present, ex, whatever. Now that we've stepped into Christ, God can only see us in Christ.

That's how He'll only ever see us, is in Christ. And so that placed into, it's just, it's position. He now has separated us positionally, and then placed us into Christ. Okay, now, yes? Is it the same principle that when Christ died, He paid the penalty for all mankind's sin. All their sins, that's right.

Is it the same principle with us being, everybody died with Him, but you don't access it until you believe it? Because you don't access it until you believe it. Having your sins forgiven and stuff, you really don't access it until you believe. That's right. died with him and you just don't access it until you believe? Is that what happens then? Okay, I'm going to use my buddy across the street in the White House here. Has his sins been paid for? Yes. But he's not a believer. When he dies, what's going to happen to him? He's going to be condemned. Why?

Because he's still united to the condemned sin nature. The great thing about our position in being baptized into Christ's death is that we are no longer attached to or united with the condemned sin nature. So the penalty for the sins have been taken care of for all sins of all time by all creatures. The problem is, did your sin nature die at the cross?

No, it didn't. It's still alive and well and somewhere in your hip pocket, right? Still trying to influence you, but you've died to it. You're the one that died. It didn't. So when you leave the planet, where does it go? It stays here. It goes to Arvada or Commerce City or somewhere. I don't know. But it stays with your body. Where do you go? You go to be with the Lord. No sin nature. When my buddy across the street dies, where does he go?

His sin nature is still attached to him. And wherever he goes in eternity, whatever is going to happen to that sin nature is going to happen to him. Because he's united to it. He's in union with it. That's what dying with Christ really means. You get separated from everything that Adam was, and you get united to everything that Christ is.

Now, is it true? So let's ratchet it back to what we're talking about. It's interesting because this word is in the perfect tense. What does the perfect tense mean? It means it happened in the past with abiding results going on into the future. So it's a position that has an influence in everything going forward. What voice is it? Active or passive? It's passive. The Holy Spirit did it all. It's really important to know that rooting is passive voice.

He did it already. So your faith is not in, oh, I hope God's going to do. Our faith has to be grounded in what He's already done. So much of our thought process is, oh, I've got faith that God is going to do something in the future. No. What is it that He hasn't already done? He's done it all. Are you blessed with all spiritual blessings and the heavenlies in Christ? No, no, there's seven I haven't gotten so I have to do my spiritual push-ups until I get them. No. You're already positioned in Christ. So our faith needs to be anchored in what God has already done.

Now, what kind of an onus, I don't like that word, what kind of responsibility does it put on us? To find out what he's done so that we have an object for our faith. You see that? Rather than fight sin, when you're in the middle of sin coming at you, what should your attitude be?

Wait a minute, that's already done. I'm separated. I was crucified with Christ and nevertheless I'm living. And I'm standing on that. Guess what? Sin can't have control over you because you got the message. And you believe the message. See that? It seems like part of our responsibility too is to find out and in the meantime while we're finding out to be, to have love for all the other people who are finding out too. That's also passive voice. Yeah, okay. How does that work? I'll get to that one. I'm not following your rabbit today.

When you talk about sin not having control over us, it says that we're not under love, we're under grace. I don't quite know how to phrase this, but we still sin. But we're not under an obligation to be perfect because our perfection is in Christ. Well you just changed the equation. You just went from we're going to sin but my obligation is not to be you. How did you put it? We're not just of our own works.

We can't be perfect. Our perfection is in Christ. Christ said you'd be perfect as I am. So that's the part that, those are the things that are, can be really, because it says, because on one hand, you know, our righteousness is in Christ. That's right. On the other hand, we're expected to be, you know, it's so easy to tip over that edge, say that I have to be perfect in order to be good enough. You already are good enough. But you know what I'm saying. I do know what you're saying. Let's go back to Kortn's garden.

If he plants corn, is it going to come up turnips? Probably not. Probably not. It's going to be corn. He's trying to get stuff to come up. It doesn't matter what it is. It depends on who's reading the package. So the seed is Christ and you're in Christ. What's the product? What's going to come up from being united to Christ so that you're buried with him, so that you might grow together with him? As the plant grows, what's it going to look like, act like, and smell like? Christ. Does the plant decide about that? What does the plant, us being a plant, what do we decide about?

We find out the truth and we decide to believe it. It's up to God to work out the perfection part, not you. Your job is to trust Him. Well, and the righteousness is His righteousness. That's His righteousness, not yours. He didn't give it to you. You're in Him, so you got what He is. See that? Yeah. Courtney?

The confusion, I think, there is when it, you know, You know, positional ones that we are, we have the righteousness of Christ, we are in Christ, we have everything in Christ, we have been blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavens, all these things are positional truths. But then there are several conditional, you know, want, do, you know, all these different things which are conditional, which are variable, and it's part of our growth process.

And that's where the confusion comes in. I'm perfect, but I'm not. I listen to the music and I dance. Why is that if I'm perfect? Well, positionally you are, but you're warped because you still have to sit in nature. Sometimes you listen to the music.

Well, here's the John 15, the vine and the branches. Here's the vine over here. All the life is in the vine, and everything that comes from the vine is going to be just like the life that's in the vine. I'm the branch, and out over here on the end of the branch is where the fruit is. Which way am I to be looking? This way or this way? This way. But the problem with us is we're always doing this. We're sneaking a peek, and as soon as you sneak the peek, the fruit rots. You see that?

We as believers are to be focused on the vine. The vine is the Lord Jesus Christ. The Spirit of God's whole job is to keep us focused on Christ. We're to grow in the knowledge and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. As long as He's the object of our faith, the fruit's going to be fine. You're not going to have to worry about what it looks like. It's up to Him. And He's already put it in place. That's the coolest thing. So you go to him and scream and yell and his response is, I think I already took care of that. See that?

This is another rabbit trail. Sometimes when I think of all this stuff, I think, there's just no way human beings could come up with this. You know, like if I thought like, Oh, what if Christianity was this thing that people invented and it's like people could not come up with this. If Laban and I decided we're going to sit down and we're going to write a thesis of what we call, and we're going to call it Christianity, it wouldn't be like this at all. It would be full of laws and reforms.

No, this has to be of God. God's the only one that can do this this way because He's the only one that can pull it off. Okay, second part of established or rooted, is built up. What does that mean? What does built up mean? Growth. What? Growth. Growth, okay, not bad. Give me another word for built up. Would it be maturity? How about the word edified? It's too big. No, it's not.

We're built up in him, in other words, we're edified, we're encouraged, we're shown the truth, we're shown what the purpose of God is, what the position is, and that edifies us, strengthens us. You see that? Again, we're talking about present tense, this is going on all the time. The Spirit of God knows that if in the process of conforming us to the image of Christ, and He can show us what's true of us, but more importantly, what's true of the Lord Jesus Christ, which means it's true of you. What kind of an effect does it have on you? It edifies you. It builds you up. I mean, you think about it.

Just take the Romans 6 verse that we just talked about. If you rested in that verse, just those verses alone, what a change in your life. When Courtney and I were teaching the grace class, we taught as part of that class, Lewis Barry Chafer, in his systematic theology, laid out 33 things that happened to you on the cross. Happened past tense. And as we were studying them and getting ready for them, we'd read them, we'd go through one and think about it, and we'd teach.

And it dawned on us that if the believers would just rest in one or two of these things, it would totally change their life. That's what built up means. That the cares and woes of the world, the wheats and tares that grow up around you, you can just, wait a minute, whatever is not of Christ, I'm not interested in. That's what being built up is. And being built up is not that you get these strong spiritual muscles, it's that you begin to rest and grow in Christ. in the knowledge and grace. So we've talked a lot about the knowledge. If it says grow in the knowledge and grace of the Lord Jesus, what does he mean to grow in grace? What does that mean? What's the definition of grace? From God. Based on what? Based on the totally adequate work of Christ.

So think about this. We're to grow in an environment in which there's unlimited blessing and totally unmerited blessing. Wow. That's what we're growing. So if you're growing in that, how much tendency going forward is there of you to keep doing spiritual push-ups? Less and less. Because you know the Spirit of God is doing His job. Passive voice built up as passive voice. It's all being done to you. And the push-ups are just us trying to build ourselves up, right?

Yeah, because we, well, like Claire was talking about, you know, what if I'm just not the perfection I need to be? I've got to find some system to get more perfected. How do you get more perfected than you already are? If you don't know the positional truths, you don't know who you are in Christ, what you already have, you're going to work at it, rather than rest in it. Because what is personal faith?

It's resting in the things of God. So you lay out some of the things and what do we do? We believe and we rest. And we think because we're Americans, we can't rest. I just got back from New York City. Everybody's in a big hurry there. To do what? to rest, to get home, to get to work, to do what? I don't know why anybody would live there. It's like we have to fight the battle. Not in Christianity we don't. We fight the good fight of faith though. There we go. So whose responsibility is it to build us up?

Go to Ephesians 4.11. I'll read 4.11 because I'm getting low on time. This is in the passive voice.

This is something God, and he gave some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors, and some teachers. He gave these gifted people to the church. Why did he do it? For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. for the equipping of the saints for the work of service to the building up of the body of Christ. Look what God did. He gave to a local body of believers, like right here, certain folks that are prophets, teachers, evangelists, pastors. What for? Why did he do it? So that we all could grow. Who gave who to who? God gave it to us. He gave it to us. So God is doing all of the equipping of the saints for the work of service. He's doing the building up of the body of Christ. He's doing it. He's doing it.

So really, if God would call you to be a teacher, you know what the focus is? The focus is really on what God has done and is doing. It's not getting your mind right so that you can get a list on your refrigerator of stuff to do that would make you a better father, a better husband, a better this and a better that. It's not that. The teachers that God gives to a body of believers are someone who understands what God has already given. He's already done.

And he encourages those just to believe him. For what purpose? So he can replace himself So the next guy up does the same thing. The whole body gets edified that way. Who's doing all the work? The Spirit of God is doing it all. Passive voice. God has a purpose and his purpose is to build up the body of Christ. If his purpose is to build us up and edify us, then whose responsibility is it? It's his purpose, so it's his responsibility. It's his responsibility to carry it out.

And the minute you think it's yours, you somehow jumped off the train. Okay? Pass the voice, pass the voice, pass the voice. You think God's going to be able to pull this off? We'll wait and see until next week. You're going to get it that fast. So the last one is established, right? Yeah, I'm not going to get it.

What's established mean? My book says, my book has established actually and it says a legal term meaning confirmed. That sounds like a good Presbyterian Bible. Or Catholic. What does establish mean? Settled. Settled in what? In the faith. It means to be established or to be fixed in the faith. We're talking about your walk and we're talking about being fixed or established means to be immovable. Immovable in what? In your faith. I guess I think as far as our faith, I don't remember where this is, but we're basically The disciples said, where else can we go? There's no place else to go.

To me that's, you're fixed, you're established, that's what you've decided, that's the only thing that there is. Yeah. You decide because the Spirit has brought you to the point where that's the only decision you can make. Because you know you've been established. You understand. How about persuaded? Persuaded is good.

Have you ever reached a part or a time in your Christian life when it dawned on you, you know, God did the right thing by crucifying me. Ever had that thought? He did the right thing by crucifying me. I have found out that in my flesh dwells no good thing. I always thought there was a part of it that was pretty cool, that God would accept.

You know, I'm a Rudy Gazzuti guy. I got chevrons, you know, or whatever, you know. But you come to a point through the work of the Spirit where in me, that is in my flesh, all that I am in Adam, there's nothing that's good. What's the remedy? I was crucified. Boy, I can't tell you, Lord, how happy I am about that. Because I'm done. I'm done with it. And now I'm free to do what? To get on with Christ. To get on to know Him.

So, this being established is to be established in the faith. It means you can't be moved It's established in the faith or established in the position? Well, established in the object of your faith. Established in the position. But it's your faith. Your faith is so...

Well, let me ask you this. Are you saved? Yeah. How do you know? Because I do. How do you know? What persuaded you? The Holy Spirit? He persuaded you. Are you sure that I'm saved? No. No. Why not? Because I don't... He didn't persuade you about me. He persuaded you about you. Are you immovable on that subject, about you?

Yes. Absolutely. That's what established means. Well, imagine being established in the identification truths. I've been crucified with Christ. Yeah, I have. And I can't be moved off of that. I've been persuaded about that. I've been buried with Him and I'm now risen to newness of life right now. I'm persuaded about that and I can't be moved off of it.

You can't persuade yourself by doing spiritual push-ups. That's the work of God, the work of His Spirit, and that's what established means. He is moving to the point where your faith is so solid, no matter what happens, you can't move off of it. Or you can't be moved off of it.

Courtney's example is good too about being the husband. He doesn't see anything like I'm the husband. And no one's saying like, Courtney, you are a husband, you are a husband. And nothing can persuade him otherwise. It doesn't have to be. Yeah, I mean, do you have to persuade him? He's a husband, if you do. No, he knows and he's persuaded.

And the truths and the things in the Word of God, the Spirit of God is working to root you, because you've already been rooted, but conditioning roots you, to build you up so that you're established. You're not moving around. So the Christians say we have already been established. Positionally. Yeah. Conditionally we haven't been. That's the work of the Spirit.

Pass the voice. Pass the voice. So next week we're going to find out what you do after all this has happened. That was the second bell, right? Yeah. That's close. Dear Father, how we thank you for your grace and how we thank you that you are about the business, from a conditional standpoint, of establishing us in your Son, the Lord Jesus, so we won't be moved. We can rest, and that's what we all look for, is to rest in your provision for us on a moment-by-moment basis. We thank you. We pray in the precious name of your Son, the Lord Jesus. Amen.