Review & Questions
Ro;mans 8:1-13 · Jim Pool · Dec 17, 2006
Romans (2005-07), No. 62
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926011356193

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

Hopefully your vocal cords are working well this morning. This is a little different situation with lots of what has happened that Roger and I have. We spoke over the week and we came up with some points that we thought would be good to review. But the main thing is that we can answer any questions. that you all have. The intent isn't really to teach new material, it's simply to review and to discuss things that we've already gone over. So, you know, as I thought about it this week, as I always desire for the Lord to bring these things to our remembrance, that they're not just things that we sit in here in this room every Sunday morning and talk about, but that they're things that God brings to our remembrance during the week. So, what did God bring to your mind this week? Anybody want to share that? Yeah, great. Thank you. Carol?

I have a lot of confusion and concern about walking in faith, trusting the Holy Spirit to do that, but not venturing into self-righteousness, not venturing into self. I mean, I just think that's such a difficult thing. You don't you don't want to. I would say it's very racist. It's pretty good. And yet. Scripture seems to indicate that. But I don't I have trouble with it. Yes. OK. I can say that I don't have any fear of walking down the wrong path. I know the Lord is with me. Yes.

Why don't we do this thing? Why don't we just take that thought, let's take that question that is one that we have set for today, and it's towards the end, but why don't we just jump to it? And we'll just get to it, and take as long as we need to talk to it. And if we have time left, then we'll go back to the beginning. We'll do it that way. We're real flexible today, which is really nice. So, let's just go in chapter 8, and let's look at verse 11.

But if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you. So then, brethren, we are under obligation not to the flesh to live according to the flesh. For if you are living according to the flesh, you must die. But if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

So we talked through last week, is the first phrase of verse 9, is it positional or conditional? And we established last week that the first phrase of verse 11 there, not verse 9, no it is verse 9, it is positional. And so a question would be what are some of the positional truths true believers because we are not in the flesh but we are in the spirit. And there's lots of positional truths that are true of us because that's the case.

The ones that are brought out there because of the result of our position is we are not under obligation to the flesh. God is giving life to our moral bodies. Believers are healed by the spirit but the death of these in the body. Question then, which I posed, which I think comes to Carol, her question, how does the believer, by the spirit, put the death, the deeds of the body?

How does that happen? How does that take place? I have another question here. what is God's part in this instruction and what is man's part in this instruction. I think that kind of gets into a lot of what the question is. So what do you think? I mean, I can teach it and I've already done it, but that's not the point. The point is to review and talk and interact and discuss. Well, you know, what's interesting is that our focus is to be on who we are. And I think that that really is a focus is there. And then our condition should come out of that. But what happens is we we are we lose our focus. Right. We lose.

Go back to Southfield. many, many examples during the daytime. I mean, people will say something to us, people will drive irrationally, which we're driving rationally all the time. And we'll revert back to the simple nature that happens with me, happens daily, maybe hourly, maybe more than that. More than I'd like to admit. But the Lord tells us, and what Jim's going to cover, his position, he's going to cover our wonderful position in Christ and how we're to see ourselves.

I think a good part of that is if you were to ask yourself, where am I focused? Moment by moment. Now you can make that into a law. You can say, well I wasn't focused on the Lord in the last five minutes, therefore. But the scripture is teaching us that we're to know our position and we're to focus on that. And it's not to become a burden, it's become a wonderful blessing.

So that's maybe the global answer. He's going to be global. I keep going back to that to the death part of the separation. And that's so important that we're we are no longer we're separated from the D to the Y. We're no longer tied to that. But who are we tied to?

It's easy enough to say, yeah, I believe all that. That's not hard. When you've got a list of 10,000 things you're doing at any given hour, the focus is the difficult thing, I think. I never think, oh, I don't believe that. Of course, but you just don't live minute by minute focusing on that. It's really, really hard during a busy day to remember who you are. You just remember what you've got to do. At least for some of us, that's how we function. And that's what's the really, really hard part, I think, is that focus.

One thing, I think, if you look back at verse 13, by the Spirit you put steps into the body. And as we, I mean, we've already learned in 6 and 7 about our position and identification, and we're resting in that, and hopefully our actions will flow out of that, whether it's necessarily a conscious thought or not. But when it comes to, you know, feeling like, in a sense then, does myself kind of creep in and, I don't know, kind of take credit for things I'm doing? I think that at that point, that's where the Holy Spirit comes into play, because by the Spirit we're doing this, and part of his ministry in our lives is to convict us of sin and righteousness and judgment and so I think that when those things creep in and then we're aware of them I think that's the Holy Spirit bringing that to our awareness that you know I'm whatever however it is you know if it's an action that we're taking credit for we're thinking you know I'm doing great today I feel like I'm really walking in the spirit and if we feel like that becomes an item of pride for us then that's just simply another opportunity to believe in our identification again that it's not from us, it's not from our power and it's from our new life in Christ which has nothing to do with us, of course it may be that the difficulty here that we're talking about is that the mundane, many things that we have to do throughout the day, we may consider those not to be spiritual.

But we keep in mind that even though they are mundane and they're irritating, all that we do, we're doing those things as unto the Lord. And even though they're in our lives, they're in our They are in our bodies with our hands and various things. But we may not think that they are spiritual and really they are because whatever they are, we are doing it under the Lord and we are doing it by faith.

That's right. Good point. Along with what Rachel was saying, I think when you have this great teaching like we have here, and you believe these things, you start to have the expectation that it's personal, that the Holy Spirit, I can expect that Regardless of what's going on, how can we expect that he's working there? Whether I'm regardless of what my position might be or how, you know, whether it's a good thing or a bad thing from my judgment, he's at work there.

And that gives you some rest knowing that. Don't be slightly six. So those that just came in, Tim is in the classroom. So I think we'll lose three, one, two, five. So, yeah. So go to the last stage. So it's all good thoughts. I mean, any other thoughts? Well, it's interesting, you know, all things have been mentioned. A lot is about knowledge, knowing we need to know that. And that's why it's important to go over. And even though you say, well, I've been through this before, you go over it again because we forget. Yes.

I don't know, there's a verse. I can't think of it. But, um, what it says in the beginning is that spirit loves to dance with flesh, and flesh dances with spirit. And now, finally, it's like I can't look at the context, which is because I'm, um, a lady spirit. But I feel that in myself a lot. And I think, um, maybe focus is not always the proper word for it. It's not focus. that this is occurring between my old me and the spirit, or looked at me. And I'm struggling with that. And I find that one of the main ways that I see it in my head is anger.

I have a lot of anger. and that it's there in the old man and it comes out so fast that I am amazed and reminded of how much I still need to do that. Not to save me from it, but to keep me from it and to keep me from it. I think one thing encouraging us Paul struggled with something.

And of course, Paul got history. Yeah. And so he says, oh, wretched man that I am. Of course, you know the answer to it. And we know. So once you say the verse that applies, Bothers me. I've got the good works that God planned for me to do. Yeah. So I think I'm going to run down to the mission to help serve some food. That is I do. I mean, I know.

And then it stops me in my tracks and I don't I don't do it. I don't do anything. And I don't want to say when I get there. And I even have a hesitancy to do what I feel I'd like to do. Why is it a hesitancy? I think all of us can relate to that, right? So I'm not picking on you, but you're raising a question that all of us commonly share. So why the hesitancy sometimes?

Well, I said, I know what happens sometimes, okay, so I do a good work. And so then I pat myself on the back and I feel a certain pride about it. I know that sin. So it's like a vicious cycle. Well, I wonder, you know, I can totally relate to that. I wonder if the microscope, you know, I'm an engineer. I love details. You know, let's say that five after I thought that you could just you can drive yourself crazy pretty easily. So you overthink it, you know, rather than I don't like the idea of being loose about it.

But I think I think, you know, as the Lord provides opportunities, And you have the ability and the talents to do that. You have the car to drive down to the mission or you don't have the car or whatever you have. You know, I think when I'm at work, I say, well, there's people there that need Christ. Do I bring the corner of my Bible and say, you need Christ? If I do that, I'd probably get thrown out of work eventually.

But I think it's the Lord. If somebody comes up, I go, just come and talk to me. Just come and ask me. Your life is a witness. So I think all that, you know. He's not laying the law on you, we know that. We're free from the law, so he's going to do it in grace. I think we can relax. We saw that in Hal, and he talked about that so much of the time. I think it is to relax. Our Christian life is to be relaxed, not to be, why did I do this? Examining every single detail. Yeah, the walk of faith, walking by faith and dependency upon the Lord to live His life and be with us is restful and relaxing.

I don't know if this is right or not, but if we do do something, even if it's with the wrong motives, it's not like sin, you know, right? I mean, it's not wrong that we did it, it just wouldn't be counted towards something that he led us to do. Right. We'll have to be careful. I'll think a little bit about that. A couple of weeks ago we looked at a verse, whoever is not of faith, sin. Did we look at that verse for the last week or two weeks ago? I can't remember.

So even if we're doing something that's a good thing, I think we can use the examples of, you know, I want to raise my kids and live with my wife in a God-honoring way, but if I'm not doing that in faith, I didn't have any good sense or not something that would be true.

But I can add something about Carol's question back to motive again. Your motive for going down to wherever you're doing. We're just going down to do some good things. If your motive is good and you really want to do that, that's one thing. If your motive is bad, then possibly a sin. But then you get right on top of it because you went down and felt good about yourself and yourself on the back. And that's the second. Right. Sure. Well, that doesn't help.

I feel like if you look at it, if you look at it, if you say, okay, we're using this example. If you went through rescue missions and you met hungry people, and you know, you believe, hey, you know what, this is something that I'd like to do right now, and I'm just going to trust God that this is right. I'm going to, you know, walk in my position. Then you come home and you feel pride about it.

Well, that's a separate sin. That's, you know, you deal with that with God at that point. And then, but what if you stayed home and cleaned your house or something and you broke something and you got annoyed? That's still sinning. In both instances, you're still sinning. You're still walking in the flesh.

So the whole point is that, like, I look at walking by faith as free because we're not under the law. It's not like I've set all these things I have to do today and I have to get them done. And if I fail in any one thing, then I've lost the whole deal. that I can walk in my position in fellowship with God and I can go about my day and when something crops up I can deal with it with Him right then I can confess it and believe again in my position and walk on and not feel condemnation for that and just be free to continue to enjoy God and my life with Him which makes my life here more enjoyable And I think you can feel good about having done that without saying that that's frightening. No. Because I feel good about having done that because I feel like that's where the Lord put me. And that's it. That doesn't mean he's got himself on the back of doing that.

Because it says in Ephesians 3.20, the verse I just mentioned, that we're created in him to do good works. or by faith and dependency upon Him, walking in the good works of which He is determined for us, praise the Lord for that. That's not to be a self-righteous or a self-exalting type thing, but hey, praise the Lord that He's set things up that because of the position we have in Him, we can walk by faith and I can trust in Him and look at what He just did through me. I think that's a It's not like self-exalting.

It's a crazy word of what he just did. You were going to say something for a minute or a couple of minutes. I was just, I guess I was imagining him talking with such propensity to look on the actions, you know, rather than... But it seems like that's such a distraction is that the Lord shows you the sin and the first thing you want to do is look at it and state it.

Either feel sorry or feel, you know, go through all that emotional stuff rather than just saying, you know what, this is why you died. Yes. And move on. Get your eyes back on Him. So we tend to just kind of wallow around for a little while. Like that human membrane acknowledging our dedication to something other than that. Yeah. Let's read through a couple of verses. And again, stop me any time.

This is great. I think it's really good interaction and discussion. Specifically in regard to this question, what is God's part in this instruction? God has done his part in identifying believers with Christ. I want to get really straight to the answer of the question. We spend a lot of time in it, but go back to chapter 6. This is what God has done. Praise the Lord for what it is that he has done. Verse 2. Shall we continue in sin? May it never be. God forbid that. KJV reads there. How shall we who died to sin still live in it?

So, what has God done? He has identified us with Christ and that now we are positionally Or do you not know that all of us, verse 3, all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death? Therefore, we have been buried with him through baptism into death, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead to the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, certainly we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin. For he who has died is freed from sin."

So there, that's what God is not. What is God's part? That's it. He has identified, He has placed us into Christ, so whatever has happened to Christ, has also happened to us. We know that Christ died, we also died with him. He was buried, we were also buried with him. He was raised to walk in newness of life, so are we also raised to walk in newness of life. He's ascended and seated, so are we also. We ascended and seated, our citizenship is in heaven.

It's hard to come to church here and not hear that at least somewhere each Sunday. Whether Vern's going to mention it in the sermon or it's going to come across in one of the Sunday school class signings. It's so important and it's so critical that it's a continual theme. And I think on the top right-hand corner of the website, there it is too, that word, we died, buried, risen, ascended, seated with Christ. So there it is. It's such a crucial and critical foundational truth for our Christian lives, what it is that God has done for us.

And then verse 14, it says, verse 10, shall not be master over you, for you are not under the law, but under grace. So there it brings in the idea of God's grace, and God's grace in a sense is this huge umbrella of God's grace, and there's these different truths coming off of this gigantic, uncomprehendable umbrella of God's grace. So the identification truths are one, one arm coming off of the huge umbrella of God's grace. Okay, so we kind of see this brought out force in the end of this section which is in verse 14.

Okay, so with that being said, boy, God's part there, and so our part is to reckon on these things to be true. Verse 11 here. Even so, consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God and Christ Jesus. And the KJV uses the word reckon there, or to count on it to be so, or to consider it to be so, or to rely on it to be so. So when we get to this idea here of considering or reckoning, this comes to be my part.

This is all that is that God has done. I mean, it's tremendous. We can't even articulate words to all that is that God has done. And what does God want me to do? He wants me to count on it, to rely on it, to walk by faith in it. He's not asking me to in and of myself to do anything, to crank out any kind of good words, to crank out any kind of good deeds, crank out the power to suppress the flesh with my own strength.

No, none of that at all. He's just saying, count on, rely on, consider, walk by faith in what it is that God has given you. And now, we went through this in pretty good detail. That is the idea there. Reckon gives us the option. You might reckon, you might not reckon.

So it's bringing out there that that there's a choice involved there. Okay, so God's done this, what are we going to do? Are we going to walk by faith in it? Or are we going to not walk by faith in it? That's the option. We have a decision here to be made. There's a choice to be made.

What are we going to do with what it is that God's done for us? It's like somebody gave me millions and millions and millions of dollars and they put it into a bank, in an account with my name on it. What am I going to do? walk down to the bank and trust that it's there and begin to access that account or am I going to say, I don't think you really did it or I don't really need to go down there and do that and continue to not take advantage of that billions of dollars in account for me there. So that's kind of an example. So we need to, by faith, walk in what it is that the Lord has come for us.

And then if we were to get to verse 13. And do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. So here comes the idea of presenting or the idea of yielding as I think the KJV brings out.

So again, it's just kind of a natural flow here. This is what it is that God's done. He wants us to believe in it and he's given us the option to believe or to not believe in it and he wants us to present ourselves as those that are dead unto sin and alive unto God. I think that's just kind of it. And again, it's no power of ourselves, it's no strength of ourselves, it's not to be any self-exaltation of ourselves or self-righteousness of ourselves, but this is just simply what God's Word says and how it is that He's laid it out. So, maybe to specifically answer I think that God has put for us to believe and to walk by faith and it's there and it's available for us to do that and he wants us to do it. And he's asking us to trust me in what it is that I've done for you.

I think when we can get and sense a little bit spiritually handcuffed a little bit or spiritually paralyzed by saying, boy, is this going to be of the flesh or is this going to be of the spirit? Is the flesh, am I believing in the flesh or am I believing in the spirit?

And so we kind of, you know, like Roger said, you know, we get up a little magnifying glass and say, boy, what's going on here? And I think that's bondage. I think Rachel was speaking of that. But I think that's really brings us into a bit of spiritual bondage, or handicaps, or paralysis, or legalism, or however you want to describe it. So, this is what God's done. Boy, you know, indescribable things. He's asking us to reckon on it, to count on it to be so, to believe on it to be so, and to walk in it. Let's do that. Let's believe the Lord. Let's let that happen.

So when you're talking about choice, you're really talking about on the one hand believing and trusting and knowing and reckoning on what the Lord has done and the choices to sin, isn't it? Isn't that the other side of it? When you know for a fact that it's a sin and you choose to do it? If I choose to not believe God, that's where the choice is. The choice is to believe. The choice isn't an action. That gets into legalism. As soon as we allow the choice to come into, what am I going to do? The action aspect. That gets into work, gets into legalism, gets into self-righteousness. The choice is faith. What's my faith going to be? Me or in God? That's where the choice, that's where the reckoning comes into a person. Obviously, if I'm going to choose there to believe in myself, What's the end result going to be? Sin.

Now, I think the Holy Spirit brings other scriptures to our mind. And so, as the Holy Spirit is bringing these other scriptures to our mind, what are we going to do? Are we going to believe in these scriptures? Are we going to believe in the facts? Do we have faith in the facts? Or are we going to believe in something else?

That's where the We have to be careful that we keep it all, we know there's man's part and responsibility, but we keep it in its proper space and don't let it get too broad. But yeah, that's a choice to believe. And so, you know, when we talk about, you know, created to do good works, I think that can be an exciting thing. And I think that sometimes, because we're so cautious to bring any attention upon ourselves, that we almost are afraid to walk in the good works of which God has prepared beforehand. Does that make sense? And I think that can tend to be a little bit of spiritual...

I use the word paralysis. Because I know all these things are true, and I know what it is that God sent for me in my position, and I know He's prepared all these good things, and I know that He wants to live His life in and through me, and He wants... I know all those things, but I'm so afraid to walk in them. because it might be legalistic or I might be drawing attention to myself and so therefore I'm like, what do I do? And so I feel kind of stuck in a sense.

But I think as we truly learn what God has intended for us in my faith, if you walk in Him, there I think comes a real freedom to walk in the good works that the Lord has prepared before you. And because we're dependent on the Lord, because we're walking by faith, there's not going to be that self-righteousness, and there's not going to be that glorifying of me, and look at what I did. It's going to be all to the Lord, and it's going to be glorifying, and honoring, and to Him. You mean very well, you get that desire to go into the mission.

Yeah. I hope he does. Where are these other good desires going to come from? They're not going to come from me. I mean, they can. And it's all part of this way. But in a God honoring way, where else are they going to come from? So yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Give us the desires to do certain things. Like, oh, let's walk in faith and let's do them. I think that's OK. Many times I think that the Lord's placed me in a certain place. I'm here. Well, I'm here. Why am I here? Why am I in this job? Why am I in this particular place? Why shouldn't I do it?

I mean, you know, on the flip side, I can do it. I mean, if the door quote is open, open, closed door thing, you can get the, I can be legalistic, closed doors are open doors. You can go through them. But if you're sitting here in a place, you're driving a car, wherever you're at, you know, it says, do all the glory of God. We have freedom. We receive the freedom aspect of it. I have the ability, I have the money, I have the talents. There I do it.

Thank you Lord that I was here to do it. I think that, I understand where you're coming from, but I think that we need to understand that we're not perfect. We're not going to be complete until we're with the Lord. And we're going to struggle with these thoughts often. Is this prideful? Is this not prideful? Am I doing the right thing? Or am I doing the wrong? We're going to struggle with this constantly. As long as we're on this earth, that's not going to change.

Because I remember when we worked with young people for twenty some years, and I can remember sometimes going and saying, I don't want to do this anymore. I really don't want to do this. But then we would continue on doing this. But we struggled with that from time to time. I think even sometimes when you guys teach, you're thinking, I don't want to do it this Sunday. You know, I would rather do something else. Honestly, that happens. We're going to struggle with constantly.

We just have to, I would say, yield to God and trust that he's going to lead us in the right direction and then follow through. That's right. Anything else? OK. You guys want to move on? You know, we're obviously we're flexible with the page six of the slide right away. I want to make sure there's no more lingering thoughts or questions or ideas before we move on to something else.

OK, we'll go back to page one. I want to ask you this question, an interesting question. The idea of condemnation and verse. Verse one, I thought was an interesting idea and. Let's get through this. Why is verse 1 true? Because we are in Christ, Christ cannot be condemned and nor can we because we are in Him. It brings out the idea that there is no room for condemnation because of what God did mention in verse 3 of condemning sin in the flesh. Let's ask this question. Why are we not condemned but God has condemned sin in the flesh?

I thought that was, you know, Raj and I were chatting this week, I thought that was an interesting idea that the word condemnation and condemn is used twice. One it says there's not, and one it says that there has been. What do you think about that? What are your thoughts about that? How do these two ideas of condemnation relate to each other? What was the other?

Yes, okay, so if we look at verse 1 in chapter 8 it says, There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. Okay, so there's no condemnation. And then if we go to the end of verse 3, God did, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and as an offering for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh. So we see that there's no condemnation because we're in Christ Jesus, yet God has condemned sin in the flesh. No condemnation.

Yet there has been some condemnation. So how do those relate? Condemnation came in Genesis. So we were born into that condemnation. But the no condemnation comes in Christ. We all know John 3 16. It seems to leave 17 out, where God said not his son in the world condemn the world, but the world for him hath to save. So there was no condemnation from there. And of course when you read on, this is condemnation. He that believeth on him is not condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already. So they put that. You're already condemned from heaven. So because of asphalt, the whole world came under condemnation. Sure. OK. Of course, that was that was separation. Separate. Right. Right. Yeah. Yes. OK. Let's take it one step further.

The end of verse 3 there says that he condemned sin and flesh. So the condemnation of sin came upon all mankind because of Adam's sin. So now we've got God condemning sin. How does that relate to that there is no condemnation? I think that is both a positional statement that relates to the cross. Because we are not condemned. Why? Because we are identified with Christ. We are placed in Him. And when was sin condemned in the flesh? When was our flesh identified with Christ's death and sin was on the cross?

But I missed the thought, so I don't know if that's right. I didn't really study it out. Any other thoughts? Yeah. There's one talking about us, just our soul and self. And then the other one's talking about the sin nature itself. Which is in us. Possibility. Anything else? We're thinking about this idea.

Because God condemned sin in the flesh, therefore we're not condemned. What do you guys think about that? maybe how the two relate there. So he condemned sin in the flesh and boy praise the Lord that he did that and because he did that therefore we're not condemned. Does that make sense? How these two might relate together? Roger Guyon Fox?

This was your question. You have to always be able to defer to the other. So does that cover what you were thinking? The first one, the most free, wonderful version of the entire Bible. Yes. Well, the two, obviously, one is to be the focus. I mean, would you know that I agree with you on that? And so, the opening question that I had, you know, to go, just look at that, you know, why is verse one true, that there's no condemnation for those who make treachery? Let's just bring this out. I think we did in the past week. Look at verse three.

What the law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did, sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and as an offering for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh. So, look at the middle verse 3 there, those two words, that God did. What the law could not do, what we could not do, God did what could not be done any other way. It was absolutely impossible for this to be done and God did it. That's incredible that there's no condemnation because of what God did. Now and then we've got this great big umbrella again of all that it is that God did. Specifically, how did God condemn sin in the flesh? How is God satisfied?

The condemnation of judgment. Exactly. You got it. Verse 3 says that exactly right. He sent his own son. In the likeness of sinful flesh as an offering for sin. So he took the condemnation of sin off of lust onto Christ. Christ died. God was satisfied. Yeah, exactly right. I have to add to this.

Believing this was on my heart, why did I ask the first question? Oh, you asked the best question over that. You know, your question is how does all these traditional truths affect my moment by moment daily walk with the Lord? That's a great question.

Hopefully our time is profitable and you guys found it to be profitable. And I really do. I really, you know, I want the Holy Spirit to be teaching us and to be bringing things to our remembrance and there is such depth and wealth of positional truths that we are looking at in such detail and God wants them to impact our lives on a daily basis. You know, and if these, the wealth and depth of these positional truths that we're looking at in such detail, if they're not impacting our lives on a daily basis, then I think, quite honestly, I think something's not right. So let's just talk it through, let's ask the questions, let's look to the Lord to answer the questions that, how is it that our position becomes real and our condition?

Okay, Bob will pick it up next week in verse 14, talking about adoption, getting into the adoptions. That's great. Howard, thanks for this morning. Thanks for the discussion and interaction of the folks and it's just good to be a body and to learn together and to study together and to grow together. And so that's exciting and encouraging to hear how you're working in all of our lives. As always, we do trust you to bring these things to our remembrance and to be working these things in our lives as we're walking by faith and beholding you. So we pray for her and the rest of the service this morning. Amen.