The Work of Christ: Its Application

In the section of Colossians, where in chapter 1, and we're at verse 21 of Colossians, but we're at the section where Paul is describing to the Colossians who Christ is, right? He wants to set that in their mind, as to who He is. So in verse 15, He's the image of the invisible God, and that He's the creator, in Him all things were created. both in heaven and on the earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions. And then, I think Roger, you covered verse 18, he's the head of the church. And then he's switching, he's pivoting here from his person, who he is, to his work. What Christ did for the Colossians. Because, as again, we've been, and this is said every Sunday, but he's battling Gnosticism, right? All the doctrine that comes with Gnosticism.

So, Bob, last week, covered verse 19. Is that correct? And 20, okay. And 19 is important, for it was the Father's good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself. having made peace through the blood of the cross through him. I say whether things on earth or things in heaven. So I'm taking over at verse 21, but I'm in the same context, if you can see.

If you see that word fullness, so the fullness is doing two things. The fullness of the Godhead is doing two things. It's one, pleased to dwell in Christ. And it's doing another thing. And it's also pleased to reconcile. So you see how the fullness is pleased to dwell and to reconcile? So I'm still in the context that Bob was in last week. So I begin at 21, verse 21, and although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet he has now reconciled you in his fleshly body through death in order to present you before him holy in blameless and beyond reproach. if you continue in the faith, firmly established and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel that you have heard, which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, was made a minister.

So that's where we're at today. We're still kind of in this reconciliation work here. But first I want to, my mom's here, finally. for the first time. So mom, I have a quiz for you. This was my first week. So this was, here's the city of Colossae right here in Turkey. So here, there's the arrow. So mom, what is that called, that hill? Colossae? No, no, no. It's the Klossy Tel, right? Tel Aviv or Tel Megiddo. I had that all planned out that week. I left her at home. You went to California and never got there.

I'm going to call your attention to Colossians 121. And there's a conjunction there, as you see, and although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds. So listen, I like this, I like this formerly. You were formerly alienated. that's Apollo trio and they call that a transliteration, right? Yes. Roger, yeah. If it had Greek characters it would be the actual Greek. This is so I can read it. Yeah, and I like that. Yeah, yeah. So Apollo trio or Apollo trio.

Its meaning is strange or shut out from fellowship and intimacy. The word estrangement is important because, we'll get to it later, but it comes up when we look at reconciliation, which is kind of the core. That's kind of where I focused this lesson around today. You're alienated and hostile.

Hostile is ekthros, and look at those definitions. Hated, odious, and enemy. And a lot of times, most of the times in the New Testament, Ekthras is always used as an enemy. So I have there, you know, with the wars and stuff, and they invented this word, enemy combatant. And I think that's a modern day rendering, would you say? Guys who are just enemies and odious and hated.

And that led me to a question. So this is who you were formerly in Christ, alienated and hostile and full of sin, just totally, well, again I say odious to God. So isn't it reasonable for God to And this came up in my mind, to create a barrier or a wall between sinful man and his character, his holy and righteous character.

And I was thinking, ah, that makes sense. And that's why for years and years here we have that there's a sin barrier, a barrier, well, a barrier between God and man, isn't there? So here's man, here's God. There's a barrier. And I was thinking, it's interesting that it might be because, well, it's because of sin and he's holy, but we're also alienated and hostile. So what do you want to do for enemy combatants and hostile and aliens? You build a wall. Keep them away, keep them out. But I don't know.

Would God create the sin? No, he didn't create the sin, but he Because of the sin, there's a barrier. Right, because of the sin, there's a wall. And he had to barrier himself from all the sin. But yeah, he didn't create the sin. Or a gulf. A chasm. Yeah, and I just thought of aliens and I thought of, oh, wall. Keep out all these people. And keep separate from them. So here's our odious past, the formerly's. Here's what we were formerly. Just a few things. And I want you all to go through there and pick out. What about stills does not adhere to baseball rules? Yeah, right. Oh, exactly, right. That's a good thing.

And these things are odious, aren't they? just you'd see why God would want to keep these things out and for the for the benefit of the people listening you know later or on there on the world wide web or whatever I have a list of many many many types of sins all types and it's from when you cut the major Bible theme from Roger and my dad yeah and I don't know how he came up with this OK. He'd pull everyone, I guess. I'm thinking of Tom Lehrer's theme poem about the elements, and you could really do two dances on this beat. There's 52 elements here, or more.

Now, I want to point you to one particular, this one, magical art. So before I did, I think, the last class, I was in Durango. We had a concert. We went out to lunch afterwards with some people from Durango, the singers and the choir director. And we went to a Mexican restaurant. And one of the women in their choir, Durango, her son was there.

And he had these cards. And he would do these fabulous, just excellent magic tricks right there for you. And sleight of hand. And he was really good. He was 14 years old. And I thought, gosh, this kid has a future because he's well-spoken. He looks you in the eye. He engages you. And he is very eloquent.

And I thought, wow, that's great. So he did one in line as we were waiting for a table. And then after dinner, or after lunch, he gave me another magic trick. And it was great. And I said, hey, you should work this summer doing birthday parties. He's really impressive.

And so what I should have done is I should have had this list on a pocket version, laminated, and gotten that. Yeah, like Tom has it. I showed him that and said, hey, kid, do you notice anything interesting about this list here and show them magical arts and then put them on a guilt trip, I guess. I'll have those little pocket cards next week for you. Yeah, next time I teach. So what was my response? I said, hey, I got one that you really should know. I gave him my own magic trick. So, I engaged in it.

And what's worse is, guess who gave me that magic trick? My dad. So, everyone's guilty all around. So, okay, let's move on from these. No, this is page two. Part two. Oh, and I've thought of sins Like gambling, I don't see that on here. I love Moody. So this is a partial list. And as I had this up on the computer at home, and I walked by it and I go, oh, yeah, gee, yeah. So I shut down the computer.

And then when Jean walked by it, she was like, oh, yeah, that's you. Are these conditional or positional? Isn't that a positional issue in Adam? So you're in Adam, this is what's produced, and so you're odious and you're an enemy, and you're hostile to God.

And I was thinking when I was going through this, and this odious word just really was on my mind during this study, and I was thinking about all in the Bible, leprosy, there's always leprosy, in the Old Testament and the New Testament. And why were there lepers? And why are these these stories about leprosy? And I think that's a physical, something God did to physically show mankind how odious sin is to him. So he would have lepers who were odious to people, right? As a physical threat. Yeah, or as a physical representation of how he is spiritually offended by all the sin and our sin in Adam. Does that make sense? Are you tracking me? Yeah?

Well, like it was the worst disease at the time. Yeah, right. And they were, in fact, I think, Jean, you heard this up in Telluride, this lesson we had. If a leper was coming towards a crowd of people, he would have to say unclean, like really loud, so all the crowd of people could create a buffer around him and not get near him. And he'd have to cover his mouth, everything below his nose, just to keep from spreading. Yeah. Right. So the lepers were odious in that day.

And I think that's a good illustration of this, how odious we were in Adam, and our past to God himself but luckily he's taking care of this and he's taking care of this anyone want to read Colossians 1.20 right above there? 1.20 and having made peace through the blood of his cross by him to reconcile all things unto himself by him I say whether they be things in earth or things in heaven Yeah, so God's made peace. He's reconciled. Does it say the world there? Oh, it says whether things on earth or things in heaven.

1 Corinthians 5.20. I'll flip back there. I think I have it right here.

1 Corinthians 5.18 is No, I'm sorry, 2 Corinthians 5.18. 2 Corinthians 5.18.

Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us Himself through Christ, and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. And it's 19 that I really want to get at here. Namely, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against Him, and he has committed us to the word of reconciliation." So he was not counting the trespasses of the world, right? He was reconciling the whole world to himself.

So, all this on the left hand side here, there's 128 sins, there I counted them, and those are all, even for a sinful man, now are reconciled. And reconciliation is from God to man. It's never man-God word. It's always God to man. And through the blood of the cross of Christ, He has reconciled all those things.

And I have two verses up there that came to mind, that really popped out at me. Genesis 6, 5, And God saw the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And Jeremiah, down at the bottom, Jeremiah 17, 9, The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.

Who can know it? And that's two things I think of the condition of man prior to. Yeah, yeah. Dialed up to 11, huh? So more of the same here of our formerly. And I'm wondering if I have the 128 sins up there, just to make it look like what we're dealing with, the sin nature of man. I have an X through there, but I was thinking, that might should be blank. You know why? Does anyone know why? Right.

Well, the cross has... God has reconciled himself to that, and he doesn't count those towards mankind. So, reconciliation makes man savable, so the sins don't matter. And now man, his responsibility is to come up and say, I've sinned. and enter in through faith, right?

Wait, I'm sorry. Okay, yeah. But that doesn't sound right, because the people who don't partake in that still have those at the end, like the day of redemption, right? It's not all mankind, it's mankind who enters into it, right? Well, no, you enter into salvation by faith, right? But God has reconciled the sins of the world for himself.

He's... All paid for already. Yeah, they're paid for already. So, you know, I have them still up there with an extra, but I was thinking that that left side of the cross, I have a cross on the left side, formerly, and a right side, which is now, that should be blank. So he's...

Think of the prodigal son. So he went off for a couple years and he had everything. He was living in his father's estate. He had all the blessings of being a son of his father. He went off and he sold off half of his inheritance, didn't he? Half of his portion, he wanted it early.

Then he went to Los Angeles, wherever, and he squandered it all away. And he just so badly, it was gone. And then he ended up probably in a ditch. And then he tried to get a job in just a field and couldn't do that. So he came back to his father. Now when his father saw him, what his father should have done is treated him as a hostile, an enemy, an alien. Because he left and he chucked the whole thing away. But when he came in, his father was reconciled to him. And he came back with a blank, all that on the left hand side there was blank and that's how mankind is. So a blank slate and that gets us to where we are now.

Look at the text. We're in 122 now. Yet he has now reconciled you in his fleshly body through death. as holy, blameless, and beyond reproach. And I just like the visual of the 128 sins on the left-hand side of the cross, and the three things that we are now, when we have entered in. We're holy, blameless, and beyond reproach.

But this is, you have to get to hear through faith, right? You can't, you have to believe to get to hear. The wallet card won't work. Right, yeah. Blameless. Well, holy is what? Separator, right? We're separated unto God. Blameless is without blemish. And that has, that picture's a lamb. They would take a lamb and sacrifice it. Do you know how long they would inspect that lamb? to be acceptable for sacrifice.

It was four days. Yeah, four days. But think of it. Four days, ninety-six hours? Three days is seventy-two hours. Yeah, ninety-six. So ninety-six hours, four days. they would take one lamb and like you take your dog to the vet and they feel down the leg and they they feel them and they really go over but they just take five minutes for four days they do this to this lamb and they look inside its mouth and make sure that the gums are nice and pink and healthy they'd make sure that the eyes are not cloudy they're bright so um Think of that, four days to prepare that lamb for sacrifice.

So that's what without blemish means. But think if they choose a lamb. Yeah, Tom. I would definitely imagine it would take four days because they're probably checking every hair or follicle for any imperfection all the way down to the skin. Yeah. It'd be better if they shaved the lamb, but I don't think they did, did they? They probably left it the coat on, but they would have to set aside all the... You've got to do a hard job getting it done. Yeah, right. And then they want to monitor it. They monitor this lamb for four days. When they eat, does it have an appetite? And then what comes in, they monitor when it went to the bathroom, does that look normal?

It was probably down to that level. So what if a novice, one of these novice Levite priests, okay this lamb is clear, he's done on Thursday, he's going to be sacrificed tomorrow Friday, tomorrow evening Friday, or afternoon. And then he puts a red ribbon around this lamb's neck because it's been cleared, puts it in with the other lambs, but somehow that red ribbon gets displaced. Think of that. Which of these little sheep were the one? Oh, wouldn't that be terrible? That you'd have to start over at four days and do this all again.

But that's what being holy is because That's illustrated, and I'm just guessing here, I wasn't there, but I have this in my mind, that they'd take that lamb and instead of even getting it near anything, they would take it somewhere and they'd lock it up. Lock and key. And they'd probably even have someone guard that lamb just to keep it separate, and that's being holy. So you have a lamb without blemish that's kept holy, So that's what holy means. And then beyond reproach. Unreprovable. Without charge.

So that watchman was paid to have to work in shifts with other people. Yeah, I'm thinking they were exactly right. There must have been shifts of inspecting... He crawls around and is threatening the well-being of the land. This is not as well modern days as present. So anything could have crawled in and contaminated it. Yeah, yeah. So you think of just the detail that they went through to do all this. It's really, it's really amazing. So beyond reproach is unreprovable without charge. That's how we are now. And that's, that's the difference.

And I noticed that I skipped, I kind of jumped down to the end of verse 22, didn't I? I skipped down there. But I wanted those two side by side, the formerly and the yet now. But I skipped some parts, because I need to deal with reconcile now. To reconcile is apokatalaso, apokatalaso, which means at its core, it's a thorough change. So katalaso is to change. the little prefix Apo is back, so to change back. And then the second point I have there is to a former state of relations, right?

So, and I think if you go to, let's say you go to a, no, Quidoba, what's that burrito place called that everyone, yes, Chipotle, yeah, so you go to Chipotle, you order a chicken burrito, You give them a $20 bill, but you don't get your $20. Well, you don't get your burrito.

But you get your change back. You get your $7.43 back. So you have your change back. But there's a discrepancy in the relationship there, isn't there? I don't have my chicken burrito. I have my change back, but there's a disruption in the harmony of the relationship. So you need to get your change back, and your chicken burrito, and then everything's reconciled. You see how that is? And if I'm there, and I don't have that burrito, you'll hear about it, boy. There's an enmity now, I'm really mad.

So the meaning Number two of to reconcile is to bring into harmony by removing an enmity in order to render man savable. See that second point that like Ron Merriman and others have, it renders man savable and that's what we're talking about. That left side of the cross with all those sins, there's kind of two parts to reconciliation. To get sinful man to a point where he's savable at first, and then bring him into salvation when he, by faith, believes on the work of Christ. He has to acknowledge that Christ died for his sins. Otherwise, God is reconciled to man, but man still remains unreconciled to God.

And these aren't really meanings, but these are variations of the meaning of what reconcile, apokatalaso means. And third variation, because I like all these, I just was kind of fascinated, and that's why I went with this. It's a return to fellowship. It's a return to good standing with someone. So what does this? What's the commonality between these three variations of the meaning? The key point is you need a relationship to be reconciled to someone.

Say, Tom, who was your best friend in growing up? What was his name? Looking back on it, it's hard to pick it out from the rest of the landscape. But who is THE guy? It's been a long, long time since I reflected on my growing up years. Does anyone have a childhood best friend? I have one. His name is Dave Galshack. David Galshack.

He was a classmate in algebra class. I met him as a result of I had come into that school for another school and I liked math and did well in math. He was excellent at math so I sat behind him. He had to pass papers back so he noticed there was a paper that got a good score. So he looked around and we became friends. Oh, because you said he was smart so he was kidding. So he was looking for... So you were wearing a dental mirror when you were trying to pick up this. Don't give that to Andolan when you meet Andolan.

So Dave... Dave Gauschow. Gauschow, okay. So say after class you say, hey Andrew, I want you to call Dave Gauchak because I want you to reconcile with Dave Gauchak. You need to reconcile. And what would I say? I don't know Dave. Yeah. Don't know him at all. Never met him. I don't even know where he is. So how can I be reconciled unless there's a relationship?

Yeah. That's the point. So thank you. Yeah. Yeah. That's someone else's idea. I think it was a... I think it's really good to realize that God acted and made all men savable. That's something that not many men realize. That God has made them savable. And therefore has to believe that. And they're at that condition now.

The other thing is man can't reconcile himself to God. This is what I want to say. If someone says, I've made peace with God, you can't say that. You have nothing to offer God to make peace with him. But he has made peace with even sinful man. So here I want to do three more of these variations of what it means to reconcile. Reconcile means to exchange a hostility for friendship. And hostility we covered before, right? So that ties into what a hostile is. And what was that Greek word? I have to go back there. Ekthros? No. Yeah, I think it was.

So to change that hostility for friendship, It's the ending of an estrangement, and we covered that, didn't we, at that first slide. It's the ending of a feud. It's the ending of alienation. And that's what we started with that first slide. It's also an ending of incompatibility.

But look at this final kind of variation of the meaning of what it means to reconcile, to overcome a cosmic hostility through the Lordship of Christ. That's a good one, isn't it? Because that ties in, doesn't it tie into that 2 Corinthians 5, 19 verse? It's the whole world that's been reconciled, the whole cosmos.

So that's That's really cool. And that's why I kept that for last, and I highlighted that. That's a key point to know. And I wanted to do all six of those, because they're all good. OK. So we covered what he's presenting us as. He's presenting us as holy and blameless, right? And beyond reproach.

The Greek word to present is paristimi. Notice the purpose clause, in order that. So he died and with the blood of his cross, that was in order to present as holy, blameless, and beyond reproach. So the meaning of paristimi is a place beside or near to proffer or provide And look at that third one, to proffer. I looked that up at dictionary.com. No kidding. Because you have all these books, they were my dad's, about how these things are defined in commentaries. And dictionary.com, this is excellent, to hold someone out for acceptance.

Meaning that you usher someone somewhere, to a third person, and you say, hey, this is So-and-so. I like this fourth one, to place a person or thing at one's disposal. Peristomy. And then this last one, to present a person for another to see in question. So you get the picture there of someone ushering in, putting their hand on your shoulder, and bringing you to someone.

One time in Telluride, I met Governor Hickenlooper. So he was there to dedicate this bridge and I was playing taps on my bugle. So I was the taps player. So after the ceremony, a friend of mine, Stu, who was the mayor of Telluride, and so he knew Hickenlooper because they work the governor's office works with all these towns across the state and Stu would go to Denver a lot and be in all these small town meetings because they were very interested in resort communities so Hickenlooper knew Stu really well and they were friendly so after the thing everyone was meeting Governor Hickenlooper And so Stu brought me over. So everyone else had to go and wait in line and kind of meet him. But Stu presented me to Governor Hickenlooper personally and said, this is Andrew Loy. And Governor Hickenlooper knew Stu really well. So that was being presented to the governor. And he's one of 50, right? So that's pretty important. There's only 50 governors. Yeah, there's 535 members of Congress, right? So it's kind of a bigger deal than a member of Congress. And so what did Hickenlooper do?

He, where is this? Oh, he saw me and he, guess what he did? He, yeah, he asked me a question. And he, he, he, he said, oh, so you play the trumpet. I said, yeah, yes. And he goes, oh, I played the trumpet when I was a kid. I was bad and I quit. So that was our little conversation. So I was a little guy talking to the big guy. And I was presented and he queried me about who I was and what I did and things like that. So it was pretty cool.

And I said, oh, so if I fail at being a trumpet player, I can always descend into politics. I didn't say that. That would have been a good thing. But no, Hickenlooper is a good guy. And then I was arrested. Hickenlooper is a good guy. Oh, gosh. How are we doing on time? Five minutes? Okay.

So, verse 23. Oh, we'll fly through this. you're holy and blameless and beyond reproach if indeed you continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast and not moved away from the hope of the gospel that you have heard which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven and which I, Paul, was made a minister. So that indeed is if And if, you should really translate since, right? It's a first class condition. So it doesn't mean if or if not. Paul assumes it to be true, that the Colossians will continue in the faith, firmly established. In the faith, it's used many times in the New Testament, like it is here.

But if you look at Timothy 3.13, There's a restrictive clause there, the faith that is in Christ Jesus. So it's talking about a specific faith. And of course, in the faith, the is a definite article. So it's the gospel message of Jesus Christ, isn't it?

And he's the author, captain, and prince of the faith. firmly established, to make stable, to lay a foundation, or to found. It's being anchored and moored in the faith. Like a ship, right? A mooring on a ship. Look at Hebrews 6.19, I put that up here. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast, and one which enters within the veil. So an anchor of the soul, I like that. And then moved away. Moved away is metakenao, as long as you're not moved away from the hope of the gospel, is the context here.

It's to move, to excite a riot, a disturbance, or to throw into commotion. Look at that definition, inside a riot, disturbance, or to move away from. And isn't that like a three-year-old, if you leave a three-year-old in the next room, are they going to stay still? No, they're going to... They're going to move away, and they have a lot of meta-kanao in them.

So this is a teenager, you know, emotionally. They have a lot of movement in their emotions. They get excited easily. So Paul, trying to get the Colossians to not move away from that hope of the gospel, which he presented to them, and go with these Gnostics. Does that make sense? I have one more of those.

And that is in football, you have an offensive line and a defensive line. So the quarterback and the offensive line are trying to, in the count, he's trying to vary his audible and making little movements. What are they trying to do? They're trying to get the defensive line to jump They're firmly established on that defensive line and they're trying to get them to move away or to jump to excite them enough to just have just enough movement to get called on it as a penalty.

Or in basketball, let's say, and zone defense, you kind of cover this zone And you don't really cover a man, but this zone you're responsible for. What they don't want you to do is go out of your zone to chase the ball. Because if you do, bad things happen. That ball goes to where your zone was, and then the other... Yeah, so... You see what I'm saying? The metta canaal? Stay where you are. Stay fixed there. And then...

The last little section of verse 23 is... we covered that clause which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven earlier because that was earlier in the chapter Paul bringing the gospel to the Colossians and proclaiming the gospel they believe they had fruit they were exhibiting fruit so he knew they had the gospel down and Paul was made a minister of this gospel it's a special It's a special ministry Paul had, wasn't it? Because God gave him the responsibility to tell the world who the church was. It's a body of believers made up of Jewish, Israel, and pulled out from the Gentiles, and to be made into this mysterious body.

So that was his special ministry, and you can see that in 1 Timothy 1.11. It's a glorious gospel that God appointed Paul personally to, and it was his special thing.

So there you go. Questions? So far? I might be done if... Fragile, yeah? He still hasn't drawn the next bell. The next bell, okay. But is there any... Is there any? Yes. Nice of you to show up, Jean. What was that 2nd Corinthians verse that you referenced? 5? Oh, it's 2nd Corinthians 5... 2nd Corinthians 5, 19. Yeah. And that's just saying that this, and Bob talked about this too, it's a reconciliation of the entire world. Let me go through this really fast. This is, we're kind of done, but if I had time I wanted to go through this.

Here's the works of the cross in Salvation. And I got this from Marchbank, right? Holly Hills went through this Doctrine of Salvation series many years ago with Mike and maybe Courtney. But look at all those things that the cross does. You're regenerated. You have redemption, justification, forgiveness, reconciliation. We covered that today. Assurance, baptism, union, propitiation, judgment. adoption, sanctification, election for knowledge, and predestination. That's quite a list, isn't it?

So my question is, why in Bob last week and me this week, why did Paul focus on reconciliation of all these things? Because he's talking about the work of Christ. They were being duped by the Nazis. Well yeah, they were being, yeah, that's part of the context.

But I think because, and if I have that all, I think what it is because the world can be reconciled. So a lot of those things on that list, the world can't be assured, right? The cosmos can't be propitiated or judged or doesn't have adoption or sanctification the only thing that the cosmos can benefit from the work of Christ is reconciliation and possibly like regeneration or redemption too but he's focused on reconciliation and you notice if you go back look at all to verse 16 through 20 look at all these all things Because by Him all things were created, all things, all things. Verse 17, and He is before all and all things consist together, subsist together. I even missed one in verse 18. He might have first place in all things. and verse 20, to reconcile all things.

So he's on the subject of all things and creation is part of those all things and I think it's my guess that reconciliation is the only thing of the work of salvation that applies to everything, all things. So I think that's why he has this in this section of scripture. And he's not telling them about sanctification or assurance. Because he's on the big picture level here.

I was going to ask you guys, I shared the big list from the big list. Anyone else want to share about sins? I forgot to open that up for Sherry. I don't have a lot of issues with my cats. We'll add that on. That's the only one I got on that website. OK.

Is it clear? What did my dad used to say? Is it clear as mud? or clear as a Rocky Mountain stream in Golden, which is used to make Coors beer. Rocky Mountain spring water, which is really Golden Municipal. So somewhere in between there. Okay. Well, let's close in prayer. Anyone want to close in prayer? We thank you, Father. We thank you for your time today, Lord. Thank you for the blessings we have, Father. Thank you for your care for us and your marvelous Word. In Christ's name, amen. Amen.