Unfathomable Riches of Christ - The Church as having our Access in one Spirit
Vern Peterman · Nov 25, 2018
Unfathomable Riches of Christ, No. 44
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926191324612

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

For this last one, the church is having our access in one spirit. And the theme that we've been talking about the last two months and then plus the last Sunday of September, the theme we've been talking about is our position together in Christ. And the privileges, because along with, we talk about position, There is actually something very closely related to it, sometimes put under the same category, and that's possession.

Possession. What do we possess? And so one of the things you'll see in the New Testament is the phrase, the words, we have. We have this, we have that, so together we have those possessions, and this is one of those. The church is having our access in one spirit. It is a possession.

We sometimes lump it in with positions, but looked at carefully, there are things that are listed like this as possessions. Things that we possess. And it's similar to our position, can we lose something that we possess spiritually? No, the answer is no. We have them, they're not, you know, it isn't a matter of God saying, well, you know, you really kind of blew it, and so I'm going to take that away for a while. We don't have that, right?

And that is true of what we'll be looking at here today. So we go back, we start with the same passage we've been looking at again and again, and what was the reason we looked at We said previously, when we looked at Ephesians 2, 11-22, why do we keep going back to it when we look at the different topics? Why do we keep going back to this passage?

Yes, so that's ultimately it. It has a great number of truths all in one passage, including both individual and altogether position and possessions. And one of the reasons why it expresses these things all together, what's the big issue that this passage deals with in Ephesians 2, 11-22? What's the big issue? You have two groups. What are they? You've got Jews and Gentiles. And so one of the things that the Apostle Paul is trying to get across to the believers in Ephesus is you've got Jews and you've got Gentiles.

In the body of Christ, is that the biggest deal? No. Paul wrote to the churches in Galatia back in 49 A.D. and he said, he wrote to them, there is neither He made several different distinctions, slave and a free Jew, but he said Jew and in that place Gentile, stated as the Greek, which is who was the Greeks were the nominal and majority Gentiles in that part of the world. So that's the reason for this here. He starts off with the issue of the Gentiles and the Jews and how the Gentiles were in one place spiritually and the Jews were in another.

He says, in Christ, all those distinctions turn into rather insignificant things compared to being in Christ. So the together message is really, really big in this passage. Not just our individual position, true as that is, but our position together in Christ. So, let's take a look in this one. I'm going to start reading in verse 13. But now, But now. Previously, but now, it was rather but God did this and this. Here it's but now at the beginning of verse 13. And what does now mean? Is it 2018? What does now mean in this passage? But now.

Okay, so it applies to whenever it was written and he looks back to but now He says, in Christ Jesus. When did in Christ Jesus start? What day? It was accomplished on the cross. What day was that implemented? The day of Pentecost. So the day of Pentecost less than two months later, that day is when in Christ began.

In Christ, in whom, in him, in the beloved, all those equivalent phrases, 164 times in the New Testament, mostly in the Apostle Paul's writings. That's big. But now, in Christ Jesus, you who formerly were far off, who's that? The Gentiles, right? You who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. And by the way, the Greek is the blood of the Christ, the Messiah.

So, how many are Jewish here? Any hands? I'll put mine down too. As far as I know, I have little to no Jewish blood, nothing that shows up as far as I can tell. But, so this addressing the Gentiles, that's addressed to you and me. We have, by the blood of the Messiah, for he himself is our peace who made both groups, Jew and Gentile, into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall, which is the Berlin Wall, which is the wall they're building on the southern border of the United States. the burial of the dividing wall, and how did he do it? By abolishing in his flesh the enmity, which is the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so that in himself he might make the two, Jew and Gentile, into one new man, thus establishing peace.

Did he simply provide the opportunity for peace? No. Did he simply provide the opportunity for the two groups to be made one. No, this is a statement of position. He did it, it isn't just he tried. He actually accomplished it, and that he might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross by it having put death in the teeth. One of the things that Christians can also easily forget, as exceedingly valuable and important as it was, and absolutely essential for Christ to die on the cross for our sins, that was not the only thing accomplished on the day that Christ was crucified, was it? No. No, it was not the only thing accomplished. And so the truth, the reality, is that a number of things were accomplished, including putting to death the enmity, which was what?

The law. And he even gets down to using the terms in several different ways. The individual commandments, and just so you know, it's this, right? Take the law out of the way. Can you imagine, here are these Jews who thought, man, we really did it this time. We got Jesus finally nailed to that cross, and boy, he is out of our hair, all three of them, and he's out of the picture. They have no idea that he is abolishing in his flesh the law. And not all, but just a few? Every single one. Every single one.

Verse 17, And he came and preached peace to those who were far away, and peace to those who were near. The far away, the Gentiles, the near, the Jews. And so, you guys don't have to fight so much? You guys, you know, you can still divide up if you want a little bit, kind of, sort of, and we even have special congregations called Messianic Jews, so that we can kind of keep somewhat of a division, right?

Is that the way we do it? Hmm, no. For through Him, who's Him? Christ. Through Him, we both, who's we both? Jews and Gentiles. And notice he says we, so that's just we Jews, but both means we Jews and we Gentiles. And then what's the word after that? We both have possession. We possess. We both have, now look at, this is big.

Our access The word in the Greek is singular. How many accesses? Does Wayne have an access? Does Winnie have an access? Yeah. Individually we do, but guess what? The access that we have is what? One. We all together, Jews, Gentiles, people from Colorado, people from somewhere else, all everywhere have our singular access. Our access is not just for each individual person, although certainly that's there, but we all together have one singular access, and that access supersedes ethnic origins.

Do the Jews have a special place in prayer because they're Jews? Do the Gentiles have a special place in prayer because they're Gentiles? No. We all, Jews, Gentiles. Because in Christ, the Jew-Gentile distinction goes down to, that's down the list. In Christ is the top category.

Our access, singular, as prosagogae, in one spirit, why is the emphasis in one spirit? Why does that matter? Because it's monotheism and not polytheism. Yeah, so the access is singular. So look at the singular things. Through him, is that a singular? Through Him, Christ, we both, Jew and Gentile, and that's plural, isn't it? We both, plural, have our access singular in one spirit to the, definite article singular, Father. Singular, singular, singular, singular.

Notice one other thing. Verse 18, do you see the Trinity as we say it, all in one verse? So the first one is Him, is Christ, right? Our access in one Spirit, and then to the Father. And Him, and access, and Spirit, and Father all singular. Is there any person of the Trinity that is not involved in our access? Isn't that something? Our access has every single person of the Trinity involved. And we have it as a possession, and it's not going away.

God doesn't say, you know, Vern, you really, really, really messed up, and this is going to be about at least three months before you're going to be able to come back again. Is that the way it works? No. See, later on he's going to write these people and say, now that we've established firmly that you're blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places and you all have your access and one spirit to the Father by means of Christ, now let's talk about your sins. So my sins don't diminish or postpone anything in this.

It doesn't detract from it. What would it mean if I could postpone or diminish or erase anything in this passage? Christ died on the cross to accomplish a number of things, and one of those, very importantly, is he died to put the law out of commission. Why is that important?

Because the Gentiles, first of all, the Gentiles would never have been able to acclimate into something as complex a system as the law. Oh, yeah, first of all, it's just like, woo! That's why Acts 15, you know, the thought was, you know, we can't put this on people. And they called it a yoke. We can't put this yoke on people, we can't saddle them with it, not even a little bit of it.

So here we see the law is completely put out of the way. By the way, so your access that you have, in which the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are all involved, All three persons of the Trinity are involved in our access. So when we opened with prayer, before we started here, all three persons of the Trinity were involved in that, and it wasn't just Vern praying. All of us, together, joined in that. We have this access, and if we think we still have law to live by, We deny the means for access.

You think you've got laws you can live by? Then you just kissed off access to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. You see that? That's what the passage says. But most of Christendom wants to keep what? Some laws. And it's toxic. It's toxic. It's not holy. It's toxic. It is thumbing our nose at what Christ accomplished on the cross. It's horrid. Instead, it has entirely been put out of the way so that we all would have access to the Father by means of the Son through the Holy Spirit. all three persons of the Trinity involved in our together having access to the Father. The word that's used here, prosagogiae, that one access, the singular term, in ancient times there would be the royal throne room. And so could you run into that throne room and go up and say, hey, old king, old buddy, old boy?

Could you do that? Once? No. What's that? You might do it once. You'll do it once. And that's the last time you'll ever do that. Because as soon as you walk in that room and start behaving that way and talking that way, you're going to end up finding yourself full of holes or sliced to pieces. Or both. You couldn't do that.

But there was one singular way that you could go into that room. And that is there was a royal introducer. And so you would approach the royal introducer who would hear your case and see does this person have a basis for accessing the king or emperor or whoever it was. And you'd better make your case before that royal introducer.

That's the prosegoge. And who is that? Jesus. It's Christ. He is the one who does the royal introduction to us for the Father. And it is simultaneously a work of the Holy Spirit to bring this about, so that all three persons of the Trinity are involved in this royal introduction. We'll pause for a minute to pray before we start our study. And it is a work of Jesus Christ by means of the Spirit that we can approach the Father and run into his lap and say, Papa. And we all have that royal introduction by means of Christ. So this is what we say, the Church is having our access, singular, in one Spirit, and the focus is on the oneness of the Spirit. Is there a Baptist Holy Spirit? Is there a Methodist Holy Spirit? How about it, is there a Calvinist Holy Spirit? Or a Catholic, or an Arminian? There isn't any such thing, right? How many Spirits are there? One. one spirit. We have our singular access, all of us together. So then he goes on and talks about we're no longer strangers and aliens.

Let's look at Ephesians 4, 1-6 at the bottom of the page there. Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, and why does he say that? Because he's a bondservant. Well, where is Paul when he writes this? He is in Rome. He's gotten to Rome. He has relative freedom compared to being in the heavy duty Roman prison.

But he's still under what we would call house arrest and continuously chained to a Praetorian guard. Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. There is one body and one spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling. one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all. What's the repeated word that he keeps saying there? One. And that's the thing that he keeps emphasizing here and earlier on in chapter 2 talked about we have a singular access through one spirit.

The dividing up according to different denominations and all sorts of other means of division, is whose idea? It's man's idea, it's not God's design and intent. It's not God's design and intent. All the different denominations, just imagine when the rapture takes place, You'll have some who say, wait a minute, I don't believe in a rapture, too late.

So you've got that. You'll have other people who say, wait a minute, wait a minute, I was looking for the Baptist call. Where's the altar call? I'm not going to have one. And somebody else says, well, wait a minute, you weren't wearing the right clothing. You probably aren't going to have the same clothing.

So when that takes place, all these different artificial divisions people come up with, whether they make it official, or whether they say, well we're not really a denomination, I don't care. When you look at scripture, scripture doesn't provide any biblical justification for all those divisions. Not in our position.

So the focus there in the Ephesians 4 passage, Ephesians 4, 1-6, is the oneness, singularity, and that goes right along with our access. We, plural, have a singular access. Ephesians 3, 7-19, which is actually between those two passages, but I put it in here for this sequence on purpose. So Ephesians 1, 7-19, it says, To me the very least of all saints, why would Paul say that? The least of all saints. He's humble. Day one, he's humble.

And he was a bad guy. Yeah, he was the one that went on, he writes to Timothy, 1 Timothy chapter 1, and he says, I was a blasphemer, I did the worst offense the Jews could conceive of. I pursued death for the church. That was the worst offense against the church that I could conceive of. And then I committed hubris, which is, we have a hard time in our culture understanding that directly.

But that's the next thing he says. And hubris is shaking your fist at God while you take pleasure in the suffering of your fellow man. That, in the Greek mind, was just the worst possible thing you could do. Paul says I'd get all three of them. I'm the least of all the saints. I deserve nothing and less. What I deserve is not what I'm getting.

This grace was given, and by that word given we see grace given but entrusted. grace given, but entrusted, to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ. That's our theme for this elective we're wrapping up here today. And to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things, so that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the Church. How is it done? through the church, to whom?

To rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. Folks, you are angel college. I mean it. This verse says you are angel college. When God wants to teach the angels, and by the way, do the angels know everything? No, they don't. They are learning just like you and me. They don't know everything. Who knows everything? God knows everything. The angels don't. They're not just more little gods or something.

They don't understand everything, and when God wants to teach them, He says, look at my saints, and as you watch them, you will learn about my wisdom. That's what this verse is telling us. You and I are walking angel college. The angels are learning about God's character by looking at how God deals with us. As we walk, the angels are learning about God's character. Here they are standing in God's presence. They are learning about God's character by looking at us. Add to that 1 Corinthians 6, you one day are going to judge angels. Are you ready? Anybody ready for that? So this is really a rather astounding and amazing thing.

Verse 11, this was in accordance with the eternal purpose which He carried out in Christ Jesus. So who's He? who carried it out in Christ Jesus, who is He? God the Father, right? God the Father carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom, here's the, remember in Christ Jesus our Lord and in whom, so how many in Christ essentially do we have? In Christ Jesus and in whom are both Two of the 164 times we see in Christ were some equivalent in the New Testament. We just saw two of them right there. In whom we have boldness and confident access. Here it again is singular, same word. Boldness and confident access through faith in Him.

Do you walk in the throne room of heaven going, am I okay here? You guys aren't going to slice me up and punch me full of holes, are you? You're not going to perforate me, are you? Do we walk into heaven's throne room like that? Tenuously? If you're there, you're okay.

We have what kind of access? Confident. singular access. Confident, singular access. We have boldness and confident access. Singular, exact same word as in Chapter 2. Because we're really, really good folks. We obey the law. I mean, I really work hard to try to keep to ten. Does that give me confident access? Wrong answer, right? What gives me confident access is faith in Him. That's it. Faith in Him plus something else? Faith in Him and I go to church most Sundays? Faith in Him and I've got a one-year Sunday School button? No. Faith in Him, period.

We have bold and confident access to the heavenly throne room. We run into the lap of the Father, Papa. Papa, Father, as Romans and Galatians put it. Papa. We run into his lap and tell him everything. Confidently, not tenuously, not, you know, well, if this works out okay, you know, hope I'm not all perforated and sliced up. Confident, bold access. Running into the throne room, papa. And then we tell him everything. And it's through faith in him and nothing else. Did we merit access? No. Is our access kind of iffy? No. Is our access grayscale? We kind of get into heaven a little bit, and Stan does better than I do, but Evie is especially the one that has access. Is that the way it works?

He says, therefore, I ask you not to lose heart at my tribulations on your behalf, for they are for your glory. And then, guess what? Here we see the Apostle Paul expressing what that access looks like. For this reason, the reasons he's just given, I bow my knees before the Father from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, by the way, that's more than three. and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.

Yes? It's interesting, both of those no's are a no scope. Not a way to... So one of the things we see here, he has given them truth in the first passage. verses 7-13, and then he says, OK, now I'm going to apply it myself. Express how I carry that out, that's verses 14-19. And what does he pray? He prays that they may have an understanding of, an insight into the together position and possessions that they have. Here is 1 Peter 3, 18-19.

Wait a minute, I think I may actually have given one verse too many there. For Christ also died for sins once for all, that just for the unjust, so that he might bring us, this is prosago, which is a form of the same word prosagogi, that he might bring us to God.

That who might bring us to God? Christ. Just the exact same message as you saw in the earlier passages. Who brings us to God the Father? Christ. He is the royal introducer. And what did He do to be our royal introducer? Christ died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that you and I, among many awesome things, might be brought there to the throne room to God the Father. Yes. So that could, when it says in the flesh, you could actually relate that to the bread on the communion, couldn't you? To a certain extent, because that's his body.

So let's look at this. When we are serving the Lord's Table, which isn't happening this Sunday, but will happen in a couple Sundays, when we are serving the Lord's Table here and observing that together, one of the things, do this in remembrance of me and what I have done, right? One of the things we are remembering is what He did so that you and I have this one, singular, bold, confident access. remember, was that bold, singular, together access even possible without Christ's death on the cross? No. So this is a part of what we remember. Very good point that you bring up there. Because when we are sitting down here to remember Christ and what he did, this is a part of what he accomplished and a part of what we enjoy. We have bold and confident access together.

We can run into the throne room of heaven and say Papa. This is a wonderful, phenomenal thing. It was accomplished entirely by Christ's death on the cross. There was nothing absolutely nothing that we did to pull it off. There's absolutely nothing that we can do to negate it. How about that? You can not blow it in terms of what Christ has accomplished.

The privilege that we have with one singular access together And if I mess up, I don't have to say, well, man, I've got to do penance for three months and feel sorry and whip myself and feel terrible for three months and then I can finally have access to the Father.

No. Yes? And I understand that we're not under the law. Right. I understand that. But I didn't always understand that. Sure. And during that process of growing and maturity, we need some guidelines. I mean, some structure. I do. Structure of what, you know, what's right and wrong. I mean, most people know you don't go out and kill people.

But there are some other guidelines. What do you use for instructing young Christians, young kids, young... if you don't have the commandments. I mean, you have your house rules, you know, take your shoes off, all those other house rules. What do you use for church Christianity learning rules? So here's the... you asked an excellent question. So let's get some perspective on it.

How many laws were there in the Law of Moses? There's 365 don'ts. So there's 10 commandments as we say them, but 365 of all the laws of Moses were things not to do. A total of 613 laws in the law, singular, of Moses. All 613. 365 don'ts. Don't do this, don't do that. Thou shalt not.

When you look at the New Testament, there are more than that of things that are imperatives, of things that we are urged to do this and not to do that. So, what's to be our perspective? Is this just a new set of laws? One of the things we see is the primary question. Does God want you to not walk in the Spirit, but do the right thing? Does God want you to not abide in Christ, but make all the right choices? No. No, that's not His intent. Keep your questions. I'm sure it's a good one. So, it is not God's intent that we go around and just start replacing the Law of Moses with a bunch of other laws that we see in the New Testament. Instead, what is the primary issue, the primary spiritual issue, once I have put my faith in Christ for salvation, is am I abiding in Christ? Am I walking in the Spirit? Am I fellowshipping with Christ? Am I beholding Christ?

These are all different ways of saying the same thing. That's the primary spiritual issue in any other commandment, as it appears, any other imperative, any other urging. Even the Apostle Paul says, you're not under law, you're under grace, and he would give an imperative and an urging is within abiding in Christ and walking in the Spirit and being filled with the Spirit and all those equivalent expressions.

So it is not because we have explicitly in Romans 7 and Galatians 5, two places explicitly, you cannot choose to do the right thing and choose not to do the wrong thing. It can't be done. The Bible says so. Romans chapter 7? starting with about verse 12 in Galatians 5, verses 16 through 18, especially verse 17. You can not simply will to do the right thing and will not to do the wrong thing. That won't work. And you find most of the pastors across this country exhorting people to do exactly that. It's unbiblical. Yes.

Okay, so this whole thing, you could answer that up by saying Romans 8.1. The difference is, there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Under the law, you were condemned, and should be condemned, over and over. Right.

Okay, but Paul's specific, that's why Romans 8.1 is such a spectacular verse, because he's summing up everything right there and saying, under the new order, There is no condemnation in Christ Jesus, but fellowship and relationship like you said before. Once you have relationship, then you're dealing with fellowship, not condemnation. It's one other thing, and that is that while the law of Moses said, do this, don't do that. We said 613 laws all total, 365 of them were things not to do.

What empowerment, energizing and enablement was there to pull that off? Self-will. Nothing. In Christ, there is a little bit of condemnation. The grace scale is getting there. Less condemnation. In Christ there is therefore now 43.69% no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

If you and I blow it and fail to put our dependence upon the Lord, Is the Lord standing there saying, boy, I just can't wait to take you to task over that one and beat you up. And your punishments will be unimaginable. Is that the way it works? No. You wouldn't do that to your kids? No, we wouldn't.

If it says we confess our sins, it isn't sitting around and just listing our sins. The word means to agree with. Do you agree with God about the sins? Yep. That's all it takes. You don't have to sit there and list them and meditate on them and cogitate and take several weeks to get over it. No. Is this sin? Yep. You agree with God about it? Good. Let's move on. Yeah, it's that simple. If we agree with God about our sins, He is faithful and just. Is He going to forgive you? Yeah. The forgiveness in terms of our position is already a done deal. In our condition, all we have to do is agree with God. Yeah, this is sin and I agree with God about it. He says, great, let's move on.

Here's one of the things, if we simply look at all the do this, don't do that, we're not getting the point. What we see in those things, it then tells us this is what abiding in Christ looks like. This is what walking in the Spirit looks like. This is what beholding Christ looks like. Not simply a replacement list of laws that you do on your own.

The words in the Greek are there that the Holy Spirit enables, empowers, and energizes the believer. Those three words are all used in the Greek. Enables, empowers, and energizes. The E words. We live in an E time. It's either E or I with all the electronics, right? We live in an E time since the day of Pentecost.

We're enabled, empowered, and energized to live things out. So the thing that we have that nobody under the law of Moses had was enablement, empowerment, and energizing to carry it out. Here's Moses. He says, do this and you'll live. Don't do it and you'll die. Do this and you'll be blessed. Don't do it and you'll be cursed. Gave them all 613 laws, 365 don'ts. Gave them all that. What did he tell them about their being enabled, empowered, and energized? Zip, nothing, nada. One guy goes out one day. and he's picking up firewood too late, what do they do to him? They stone him to death. Because he picked up firewood too late.

For us, it isn't a matter of our trying to operate by the guidelines. The guidelines tell us this is what abiding in Christ looks like. This is what it means to fellowship with Christ and have His life living in and through me. Galatians 2.20. It's no longer I who do the living and all the do's and don'ts, but Christ does all the do's and don'ts within me. Because does Christ have a problem being moral and ethical? No. Does Christ struggle with living out the character of God?

No. That's what Galatians 2.20 is about. It's no longer I who go around trying to do the right thing and trying not to do the wrong thing. Why am I no longer in the picture?

How does Galatians 2.20 start?

We are crucified with Him. I have been crucified with Christ. Perfect tense, by the way. I've been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who have to go about trying to live out what's good and trying not to live out what's bad. But Christ does the living out of what is good and the not living out what is bad within me. That's how life gets lived. And what we see as imperatives and urgings and all those things in the New Testament are explaining to us, this is what Christ's life, this is what the Holy Spirit's enabling, empowering, and energizing looks like. And that's the huge distinction, and it's all by grace.

By the way, when I go to see the Lord face to face, is He going to say, now Vern, I told you not to do this, this, and this, and this, and this, and this, and this, and this, and what did you do? I did this, and this, and this, and this, and this, and this, and this, right?

On down the list. And so what's the Lord going to say? You know, Vern, I'm sorry, I'm just going to kick your hiney from here to eternity. Is that what He's going to do? No. To the extent that I trusted and rested in Him for all the enabling and empowering and energizing, He says, I'm going to reward you for eternity. for depending upon me forever. That's a good thing, right?

So it's important to look at what is in the New Testament. You're right, there are all sorts of things that say You know, do this, don't do that. And urge us, aside from just imperatives, urge us to do this or not do that. But all those things are within what the life of Christ looks like and what the Holy Spirit is enabling and empowering and energizing in our lives.

And my best efforts, trying hard to be a good Christian, is not what God's looking for. At all. And that's not why I was crucified with Christ. But it's His life lived out in me, not my trying as very best I can to live by the guidelines. By the way, how many of you are really, really good at living out the guidelines? My hand goes down, right? And so God says, look, I'm just going to eliminate that as an issue. And I'm going to make it, you've been crucified with Christ, completely eliminated that as an issue. But when you stand before Christ, he's not going to say, did you try really hard to do good things?

Did you try really hard not to do the wrong things? He's not going to ask that. He's going to ask, did you depend upon and fellowship with me and rely upon me? Did you abide in me? Right. Everything done while abiding and depending and fellowshiping with me, I'm going to reward you forever for those things.

But right now, we have together our access in one Spirit to the Heavenly Father. Does He want us to run into the throw room and say, Lord, I'm trying really hard to be good, will you help me? No. Not His intent. Not His intent. It's by grace. Here's the Apostle Paul, he says, I'm the least of the saints. He says, for what we deserve, I don't get there. But the Lord had something else entirely. And now we need to pray because we've run out of time.

Thank you, Lord. Thank you for these precious and marvelous truths. Thank you for these unfathomable riches that we have that we really spend the rest of our lives discovering and finding out about. We just pray, Lord, that you continue to teach us as we explore these precious and marvelous truths. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.