The Substance Belongs to Christ
First B Jackson
2017-02-26

Automatically transcribed. Where this and the recording disagree, the recording is the record.

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Good morning. Good morning. I'm so thankful to be here. Amen? Amen.

Will you please stand up with me and let's worship God. Amen? But before we do that, gotta share this with you. This morning, when I got here, I really felt my brain shut down for two three minutes. And I was looking at the song and I said, okay I'm gonna play this one.

And then in the same minute, no I'm not gonna play this one. And I did 10 copies of one song and three copies of the other song. But but this wonderful people right here, Casey, Ryan, pastors, they are so wonderful. They they help me, Florin, breathe. Oh, man.

Seriously. Anyway, let's worship God. Amen? Amen. That's why I'm here.

I'm here to worship God with you. And honestly, it's a privilege because I know we worship to the Holy Spirit in the name of Jesus Christ. Christ to our father. Amen? Amen.

Amen. Alright. Good morning. Y'all can have a seat. I've got a couple of announcements for you and they are these.

Connect hour happens between services. That's about 10:00 or so. Whenever this service ends, sometimes it's earlier, sometimes it's later but there's all, there are always goodies down the hall. Coffee, and whatnot. So, head on down.

Connect hour between services in the Fellowship Hall. Monday nights at First B, we'll have meal, music, and a message tomorrow night.

Yeah. Pizza tomorrow night and a message about God's faithfulness

Alright. God's faithfulness in our trials from the book of Luke. Fantastic. Wednesdays at 06:45 in the the fellowship hall, we have what we're calling the truth project. Actually, that's what it's called.

It's the truth project. It's a nice it's a big, small group. So, there have been about 30 people or so. We're up through the third one but you're welcome to come on in. They stand alone individually so that works well.

Women's Bible studies are abounding. There's one on Wednesdays at ten in the morning from ten to twelve, unashamed and I sat in on this one this week though I'm not a woman. I sat in the back corner back there and just sponged in. It is fantastic. That's a really, really good study.

Looks like it's going to be great. Seamless, 645 to eight is understand the Bible as one complete story. So, Genesis three Revelation but they are looking at the main themes of the Bible going through and that's happened in six forty five on Thursday evenings. The baby bottle campaign for Turning Point, Carolyn came up last week and told you all a little bit about that. It's a fairly simple concept.

We have lots of baby bottles out in the foyer. Each one of y'all or each family could take one of those. And this is a fundraiser, so bring them back with change or with bills or with checks. Dollar bill is not like your bills. But if you'll bring them in full, that would be be great.

And that actually, each year, we have had a goal of $10,000 each year, and we come come right up to that each year, but we like to see that go above. Last two years ago, I think it was, Judy said, let's just do 20,000 instead, and we hit that. So amazing. Whatever. There are a lot of us here at First Be that are very involved there, and a lot of folks from other things too.

Anne.

And I've just got a quick announcement. Some of you parents of middle school and high schoolers and if you're a middle school or high schooler have probably got a text about this but since we're two weeks out, I wanted to just announce it from the front. The connect retreat, youth retreat for middle school and high school is coming up. We've got some excitement in the back. Yes.

Raising the roof. March tenth to the twelfth, it's at Camp Bethel. It's about a six hour trip. We're gonna load up the van and we're going to go and this came out of when Acquire the Fire sort of fell apart a few years ago. This, couple churches here in Wyoming locally wanted to get together and still see people from around the state.

And so that's what this retreat is about. But, it's going to be a good one and a time to connect and be together. So if you're a middle schooler or high schooler or parents of those or grandparents of those or neighbors of those, you can go ahead and let them know. We've got like 10 or 11 seats. So we'd like to fill each and every one of those.

So that's in two weeks. And I'll be driving and I'll be super safe. So, you don't have to worry about it.

Thank you. Everything else should be your bulletins written down. Welcome. I'm glad you're here this morning. I'm glad that we're here this morning.

There's a baptism going on in the second service. If you all know Sammy Labonta, she's going to be baptized in the second service during the announcement. So, just a heads up there. Usually, we get baptisms in this service but we're doing a second service one today. Would you stand up and greet one another and we'll all bring you back together with a song.

Let's praise God together. All creatures of our God and king lift up your voice and with us sing. That's exactly what we have to do. Amen. Amen.

What a blessing to be here. Amen?

Amen. The

splendor of the king clothed and matches. Clothed and majesty. I messed up that one elbow. When you sing when you sing in another language, only God knows what I'm singing. So but let's worship God.

Amen? Amen. Amen. What a beautiful song. Amen.

And as I said, and I like to repeat that. It's a privilege to be here. And when we come to the to this beautiful place that we call God's house, we have to come with that mentality when we say, God, I wanna be blessed this morning. You know who I am. You know me when I'm down.

You know when I'm up. You know my craziness. You know everything. But this morning, I wanna let everything down. And honestly, that's what I do on the way to church every morning.

God, please forgive me of my sins. Help me to have a great time in your name, and I wanna be blessed this morning. Maybe not all the sermon or all all all the songs would make sense to me, but there has to be something for me this morning. So would you please bless my heart? Bless my mind.

Help me to leave this place in a in a in a different way, in a different manner. And this is my prayer this morning that we all shall feel that beautiful presence of God. Amen? Amen. Amen.

You have to be happy that I don't speak English very well because otherwise, I will speak way too much, honestly. If you know the song, can sing it. If you don't know the song, just close your eyes and just worship God. Have a nice conversation with him. Amen?

And when I Let's see let's see verse three again. It's so good. Let's see that Let's sing verse three again. It's too good. I'm sorry.

I I can't. It's too good. When Christ shall come, Amen. A blessing. Seriously, I love it.

When you guys shall come with shouts of acclamation. Oh, I'm I'm waiting for that time, honestly.

Amen. Y'all can have a seat. Would you pray with me? Lord, thank you for this blessed morning. I thank you for Florine and for his willingness to use his talents, lord, for you, for your kingdom, not just here on this stage on Sunday mornings, but all week long in the grocery store.

I thank you for the blessing he is to this community. And God, I thank you for the blessing that we all can be to this community. Would you use us, Lord, to do your will and your way, including right now as we, gather, the tithes and offerings, Lord, to be used for your kingdom's work. Would you, Lord, build your church the way that you said you would do it through your obedient servants. In Jesus' name, would you bless these tithes and offerings, multiply them, and extend them to the ends of the earth.

Lord, in Jesus' name, we ask for that. Amen. All right, children are dismissed right now. Downstairs to Children's Church. There they go.

And if y'all looking around, you're thinking, I was going to talk to such and such, this guy, the men's snowmobile retreat is this weekend. So, we're missing about 30 guys up there who are having church right now. At the Old Faithful Christian Ranch up in Island Park, Idaho. So, last week, I went through quite a bit of quite a bit of prolegomena. Before I got started, I started with a kind of a a this actually.

It was an illustration and a lot of y'all contacted me this week and said, I've used it before but a lot of you said, that made so much sense with this particular sermon and with this particular chapter, I think, in scripture. And so, we went through that. I'm going go through it again. We're shooting for the center of the target. When you see this, you know, your crosshairs is like your scope and you're looking through for the target, you're looking for the center.

I said there are four different ways, at least four different ways you can go wrong. One of those is naturalistic by just not putting any emphasis on the supernatural power of God. So you can go wrong in the naturalistic sense where everything, everything, everything is finite and you don't put anything in the supernatural realm. And you can go wrong in the supernaturalistic sense that nothing really depends on us or what we do or how we act or how we hold on to the truth. Everything is about angels or spirits or demons.

And there's a devil behind every bush and there's an angel waiting for you. Supernaturalistic. There are angels. There are demons. The Bible certainly says that there are.

But we can focus too much energies on them and Colossians says that. So you can be too dogmatic. I actually said last week, most people's tendency when they're shooting is to pull down into the right and dogmatic is probably the tendency over the years for people because we seek out. God says or Solomon wrote what God says that he has set eternity on our hearts in Ecclesiastes and grasping for that supernatural, grasping for that, a lot of times we come up with a dogmatic interpretation. It must be this way, gotta be this way, this is the way it is.

Doggone it. Dogmatic. That's the way it is. And then existential or experience based. You could also say experiential and where it's all about the experience.

And if y'all were to think about different denominations, we have about 30 different denominations represented in this church most of the time. But If you were to think about denominations, you could probably say, oh, they usually pull here or here or here or here, you know, or out here. You would probably say, they might miss the mark but Jesus hits the center of the mark, and that was the point last week. It's the point Paul's making in Colossians, and he'll make it again today. But this is how we are.

We're all over the place. Alright? This is how our pattern is, and we want to tighten that pattern up. Bring it back in to the center. And if I've mentioned this the last time I mentioned it, about a year ago.

I said that if you're dogmatic and you know it, you probably need to be around a conscientious Christian that is very experiential. And you all get together and bring each other in. If you are supernaturalistic and you know somebody that just kind of sits there and folds his arms when you're raising your hands, you might need to talk to each other. Get together and try to pull each other towards the center. I feel like Paul is pulling us back towards the center and saying Christ hit the absolute center in his life and in his walk.

His death made available the righteousness of God. Now, it's a still small voice, the Holy Spirit that speaks, and we have to pay attention to it. Sin can get in the way, but Christ hit the absolute center and we should focus our energies on knowing Him and making Him known. So be walking in Him. Y'all be walking in Him.

If I had to pick one point from last week, this is from Colossians two six. Just as you receive Christ, which is by faith, just as you receive Christ by faith, by the grace of God, in that very same way, by faith, y'all be walking in him. So now that I preached last week's sermon again, we'll go forward into Colossians two sixteen through 23, finish out chapter two, and then we're gonna cover three one through four just for good measure. It's a nice kinda upbeat and a good benediction heading out the door. So we're gonna go through those.

Colossians two sixteen through 17, coming off of that sermon I just preached, it says, now therefore, because Christ is a sinner, because you are a Christian and you did believe and you can be walking in him, therefore, let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink. Let no one pass judgment on you as a direct imperative. And Paul is saying it to the Colossians because they have been they are being worked. Does that make sense? Somebody is whispering in their ear, oh, you gotta still follow the law though.

You've still gotta follow the Old Testament. You know that, right? You've still gotta eat and drink by the dietary laws. You've still gotta be circumcised. You still gotta do everything that we had to do before.

Yeah, it's great that you believe in Jesus and all, but we still gotta do this stuff. So they've had that kind of teaching going on, plus probably some pagan teachings that were about new moons and festivals and things, we'll see that in a minute. Or with regard to festivals or a new moon or a Sabbath where there's these special days that you have to do special things. Paul is saying if you're a conscientious believer in Jesus and you're walking it out, don't let anyone pass judgment on you. Actually, the word for that, the passing judgment, is don't let anybody act as an umpire.

And he'll say in a minute, don't let them disqualify you or sideline you, get you out of the work. Don't let them pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink. Now if you're looking at this and going, so I can drink whatever I want to or I can eat as much as I want to or whatever, well, he's specifically talking about the dietary code, I think. But there is something towards the end of this chapter we'll come back to about drink. With regard to a festival or new moon or a Sabbath, these are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.

You remember when Jesus would occasionally get in trouble with the Pharisees? Occasionally, like in an increasing fashion up to the point where they crucified him? Yes. He would occasionally get into trouble with them. And did he ever break their rules?

He did. That's a tough one to hear, right? He broke their rules, but he never sinned. So their rules had been interpreted in a way that had narrowed them down. And the one particular one I'm thinking about is the Sabbath.

So did Jesus break the Sabbath? Well, the Pharisees say He did. But Jesus said to them, listen, the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. They had confused the shadow and the substance of what was going on. God mercifully gave us a day of rest.

God rested. He understood us. These are a shadow of the things to come. And there are tons and tons and tons of things in the Old Testament that pointed towards Christ. And Paul is saying, in Colossians specifically, he's saying that Christ has fulfilled all this.

He's hit the center of this bull's eye and He's offered that to you. So these things are a shadow of the things to come. When he was asking for the people not to wear mixed, you know, cotton and wool, like whatever, he was asked certain fibers not be worn at the same time in the Old Testament. That seems crazy to us. Does this seem crazy to you?

Well, we're post cross though. We're after the cross and we see that Jesus was completely holy. He fulfilled everything that needed to be fulfilled. And so this substance found itself in Christ. And now if we're trying to track all six thirteen different rules, there are probably more than that.

There are at least six thirteen. If we're trying to track all of those things, the ceremonial stuff that was pointing towards Christ after Christ, we've missed the point altogether. That's what Paul is saying. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance is of Christ. So now he says, let no one disqualify you or don't let that umpire sideline you and put you out of the game.

First of all, you're a man. He's a man. You're both responsible before God for your actions, for your beliefs. But don't let them disqualify you or sideline you or make you feel like you don't know what's going on, like you don't have a direct relationship with God or that you can't. So there are two imperatives so far in this text.

One of them is let no one pass judgment on you, like an umpire, and let no one disqualify you. Food, drink, new moons, festivals, Sabbaths. And specifically he says, Don't let anybody disqualify you, insisting on asceticism, insisting that you live out your life in a way that is punishing to yourself, whether that be through extensive fasting or literal like flagellation where they take a whip and whip themselves or sleep without a blanket. Are you with me? Treating yourself badly or poorly, insisting on asceticism.

This is a must do. You have to do this. Now it does say in the Bible, there are several places that says, Jesus says this demon can only come out by fasting and by prayer. His disciples couldn't do it. He could.

He's Jesus. But there are people that pick up on that and go, oh, fasting is the secret. It's the absolute secret. It teaches you all the divine concepts. If you'll just fast, you'll get it.

Now I think that fasting's okay, but it's not Jesus. It's not Christ. It's not the center of our theology. If somebody insists that you must do this, they're laying a burden on you. And the worship of angels.

I like angels. It's not just the next guy, but they're not Jesus. Okay? Have you ever run into somebody who was just enamored and fascinated by angels and all they talk about was angels all the time? Y'all haven't?

Yes, I have. So I have one quick story. I was in seminary and we got to the place in systematic theology where we talked about angelology, where the study of angels. The Bible mentions them a lot. The word for angel is messenger.

That's what it means. Angolas, which looks like angel, means messenger. That's what it means. And so in many contexts like this one, it is definitely a heavenly being, created order, higher than humans. Okay?

They still long to look into human affairs and how we have this choice of redemption, how we get to praise God. Angels, it's good. They are not to be worshipped though. Paul says, don't let anybody disqualify. You are on cyst.

I found the secret. Do you know how heresy just comes back around and around and around and around and around? So we're in this class and my professor said, you might have a story about angels? And all of us. We're from a lot of different denominational backgrounds.

We're from a lot of different places and everybody kind of clammed up. We know this verse, you know. Don't want to look crazy in front of people. And so he says, Anybody have a story about an angel? And I said, after a long pause, I said, I do.

About 50 people in the class. And I said, I bought this car there was a from a friend and I thought of this friend when I saw this angel. It was a guardian angel that she had. Was made out of pewter and it stuck to my visor and it was stuck right up there. And it had these two wings right there and it says, Guardian Angel, protect me, blah, blah, blah, when we're riding down the road, whatever.

And I thought, okay, well I think of Alti was the girl's name I bought the car from. Said, I think of her when I see that, so I'm going to leave that up there. And I loaned the car to somebody and she's about five'one and I'm six'six. So when I got back in the car, I sat in the car and I could barely fit behind the wheel and I leaned up to let the seat back and those two wings poked me right in the head. My guardian angel stabbed me in the head right there.

I took the wings and I bent them over and they're hanging on the cup of my pencils in there in my office. I still think of her every time and I think that's fine, but there's these trinkets and these things that build up that are on top of your faith can just drown out your faith. And anyway, the poke, I still had the scars on my, It looked like a snake bit me on the forehead right there. Nobody else told any stories about angels. There are some things that we can't explain.

There are some ways that God provides and he does send his angels to protect believers. He does send his angels with messengers. They are messengers. That's what it means. So, yes, angels exist but we're not to worship them.

And I say that with precedence because let me see where it is here. How about this? Revelation, John. Now, John's a worthwhile believer, right? John?

Only one of his disciples that stayed at the cross. Jesus from the cross says, take care of my mama, right? Behold your son. This is somebody that's close to Jesus and understands, wrote the book of John. You know what I'm saying?

This guy knows the gospel very well and in Revelation 22, this is what it says. I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things and when I heard and saw them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed them to me. Worshiping angels. But he said to me, you must not do that. I'm a fellow servant with you and your brothers and the prophets and with those who keep the words of this book.

Worship God. Amen. Worship God. So here we go. Now I have to find where I was.

So here we are. Let no one disqualify you insistent on asceticism, mistreatment of your body, angel worship, visions. I'm not decrying if you have a spiritual habit yourself of fasting occasionally. Have at it. That's great.

Don't insist anybody else do that. Alright? And don't let anybody disqualify you by insisting that you do that. Going on and on in detail about visions, it says, going on in detail about visions. They're specific visions and puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind.

That's an experiential failure, right? That's outside of the circle towards the side of experience. Puffed up without reason. Puffed up also, you remember the love is patient, love is kind, love does not seek its own. It's not puffed up, same word.

It's not puffed up. Knowledge puffs up, Paul says. Be careful with getting puffed up. Focus back on Christ. It was not Christ's knowledge and it was not Christ's it was Christ's humility, Philippians says.

His humility and his humble service toward everyone who would believe that led him to death and death on a cross. So we're not to be puffed up. So this says, puffed up without reason by a sensuous mind and not holding fast to the head, capital h. That's Jesus. Not holding fast to the head but getting sidelined into other little doctrines here and there.

See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy or empty deceit, this was last week, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of this world, and not according to Christ. For in Christ, in him, the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily. So it's supernatural, but it's also natural. Perfectly balanced, dead center. You have been filled in him who is the head of all rule and authority.

The head from whom the whole body nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments. Remember, I was saying, pull the people together, knit this thing together, bring one another back in. The whole body grows with a growth that is from God. God grows people, but he does it through Jesus. He does it through Jesus.

That work on the cross is saving, but it's also sanctifying. Knit together through its joints and ligaments, pull one another back to the center. Not argumentatively, just focus on Christ. He hit the absolute center in his life and in his walk. If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of this world, we're gonna do a baptism in a little while and the symbol of baptism is buried with Christ.

Remember Romans? If then you have been buried with Christ? Yeah. If you died to the elemental spirits of the world, then why as if you were still alive in the world do you submit to its regulations? The world's thoughts, the world's regulations.

Romans twelve one and two, don't conform to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, focusing on Christ. So the regulations are do not handle, do not taste, do not touch. Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch. I think it's odd we're going into Lent this week. We're just going into that.

And again, if you have a practice of Lent, giving something up for Lent and that's your own spiritual deal between you and God, you're not trying to twist his arm by doing that. Right? Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch. That's kind of one of those elemental spirits of this world, in my opinion. I wouldn't over focus on that.

I certainly wouldn't over focus on it thinking that God was going to do something you want him to do. You know what I'm saying? You're not twisting God's arm. But the do not handle, do not taste, and do not touch the regulations. Again, the ceremonial law.

They were not supposed to handle certain things. They're not supposed to touch certain things. Ladies had to remove themselves from the whole situation for several days each month. Guys couldn't be around them at all. There were lots of those six thirteen rules that had to do with this do not handle, do not taste, do not touch.

I think Paul is saying, it's by grace, people, that you're saved. It's by grace that you're saved and it's not by law and you're not building up merit. Jesus has already hit the center of that and he's offered that to you. So focus your efforts on understanding him. Get to know him.

Get to know how he is, how he thinks. Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch refers to all those things that perish as they're used according to human precepts and teachings. These things, these rules, these do not handle, do not taste, do not touch, these do have an appearance of wisdom in promoting self made religion. I thought of do you all remember Este from the seventies? E S T?

Este? It was like this empowerment movement where everybody was going in and they were being empowered by doing certain things and they were denying themselves. It's an old heresy, it happens. You know, that's just the one that I thought of. They have an appearance of wisdom and there are a lot of people who said, oh, without that I don't even know what I would be.

They have an appearance of wisdom, but it's a self made religion. It's made up and it's like, oh, if I do this, don't step on a crack, you'll break your mama's back. It's superstition. And primitive religion is really, really, really, really sticky. And Christ's sacrifice is too easy.

For some folks. It's too easy just to say, all I have to do is believe the gospel that God loves me and then he gave his son to die for in my place. That's too simple. I gotta do something for it. I want I wanna work for it.

I wanna I wanna do something for it. They have an appearance of wisdom in promoting self made religion and asceticism. If I I do this remember Martin Luther's story? Martin Luther always felt damned though he was a monk. He always felt like he was damned, and so he decided that he would sleep.

He said, if monkery could get you there, I was twice the monkey any other monk was. I I slept without a blanket. I beat myself up. I was incredibly affected. Anfectungen was his word.

The dark night of the soul. He went through it over and over and over again. And then when he was reading through Romans and teaching Romans, actually, he was teaching Romans to get rid of him. The priest that had to listen to his confession for hours and hours and hours a day and then we'd walk away. He'd turn around and come back and say, no, just send on the way out.

Can we send this guy somewhere else? So he sends him to a college to teach and he's teaching Romans. And while he's teaching Romans, he hits that justification by faith. Oh my goodness. And it changes everything.

He was able for the first time to relax. Relax in Jesus and not practicing this asceticism or the severity to the body. These things are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. So, I I when I was praying about this and thinking about this message and coming up on it, I was thinking, I'm preaching to a lot of folks in a Baptist church. I'm from Georgia.

Baptist means no alcohol. Do you all know that? Southern Baptist means no alcohol. Baptist faith and message, 1952. No alcohol.

Absolutely none. No sale. No consumption. I've told you about the church split from when I was a little kid. Split over that.

These do not, do not, do not, has no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. In fact, it actually hurts the unity of the church because the people who do don't talk to the folks who don't. And the folks who don't feel better than the ones who do. Now being drunk is a sin, flat out. It says it multiple times in the Bible.

Don't do that. Don't be drunk. But you gotta access the power of God in some other way than besides do not. Okay? Does that make sense to you?

Christ Jesus. He is the way. AA has shied away from saying it quite as boldly now as they used to, but they say, evangelical conversion to Christ is the only, only cure for alcoholism. They don't say it as much anymore. The higher power comes in.

They don't want to cut off anybody, and I'm all for that. I don't want to cut anybody off from it either. Christ is the answer. He is the answer. The do not, do not, do not leads to shame cycles, and it leads to incredibly hurt feelings.

It leads to church splits. It leads to bad relationships. Now I don't normally drink. Very rarely, occasionally, at a wedding, maybe, if I feel like I'm gonna insult the host. Maybe.

Seriously, I don't drink. I don't ever go more than one. That would be complete anathema to the way that I was brought up. Absolutely not. Now if you're an alcoholic, if you struggle, don't drink that first one.

Don't ever drink that first one. You won't get to the second, third, fourth, or fifth one. Okay? Individual relationship with God is individual. I told you that last week, I said I was preaching through Colossians and the guy just looked at me and said, what are gonna do?

Just read it to him? It's simple as it can be. Three gets even simpler than two. Do you know what you struggle with? Do you do you, each one of you individually I'm closing my eyes not even to look at you right now.

Do you know what it is that you struggle with? Do you think that there's a higher power? Do you think that Christ Jesus can help you with that struggle? He hit the dead center of the target every single time from cradle to cross, then resurrected and eternally sent. He's dead center of the target.

He has the power available to help you through whatever it is. So three, one to four. May sound like I'm coming back into the natural here, but this is the way you walk it out. So be walking in him, two six says. Just the same way you received Christ by faith.

Be walking in him, all of y'all. Be walking in him. And this is it. If then you have been raised with Christ, have you? Because that matters.

Salvation precedes sanctification. If then you have been raised with Christ, then seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. He knows. Set your minds on the things that are above, not on the things that are of this earth. The indulgences of the flesh.

If you set your mind on the more I preach against something, the more y'all want to go do it. Have you noticed that? Have you noticed that when you buckle down and you say, I'm not going to do this anymore. All you can think about is that. Set your minds on things above, on the grace, on the love.

Set your minds on things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died. You've died, buried with Christ, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. And when Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. It is possible to walk out a good life, a righteous life with the aid of Jesus Christ.

It is possible. So that's the end of the sermon. We're ten minutes early. If you all stand up, Florina will sing something pretty. Anybody that comes down to the front, I'll turn off my microphone and we'll talk.

I love y'all, and I appreciate you.