Colossians Lesson 9 Week 2
Colossians · Mike Doyle · Jun 8, 2014
Colossians (2014), No. 23
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926430382745

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

We're working through lesson nine, right? And we took a little detour last week. We took a detour last week to discuss one subject, and that was the mystery. We went through a bunch of verses. So question three today would probably be a good place to start.

Why is it important to know and understand the mystery? I use the word critical. Why is it important to understand the mystery and what it is? Don't all you guys talk at once. Well, the one thing to reveal Christ in the story is to have the Holy Spirit, so who Christ is. Okay. I don't want to put any of you to shame, but I need to ask you what the mystery is after last week. Huh? Okay, what does that mean? Remember I said there's a difference between salvation and the mystery? What's the mystery? We're in heavenly places in Christ. We're united to him there. Yeah. Right. The church. I'm sorry? Has to do with the church. The body of Christ.

That's right. Of which we're all members. And so why is it critically important that you understand that? To know where we stand. Know where you stand, okay. To rightly divide the scriptures. Pretty good, that's pretty good. Boy, there's more Hemingway kids out in the hall. You said that the heavenly secret is that we're positioned in God. Positioned in Christ, yeah.

And so, we're dealing in Colossians with a potential problem. What was the problem? Did you spend time talking about the problem? What's the issue? What is he trying to... It's another question I have. What was the problem that they were facing or about to face?

That they were trying to add to their salvation with the angels. Angels? They were trying to use man's abilities his concepts, his philosophy, to add to Christ. They didn't believe Christ was divine either. These people did, they're believers. Not the Colossians? Yeah, they did. Well, the ones that weren't believers didn't, but the ones that were believers, you have to know that to even get saved. But they were influenced by those people. Yeah, they were. And the other part of it was they were allowing in tradition, traditional things to contribute.

Now, nobody here has ever been guilty of that, right? You guys have never done spiritual push-ups so that God would bless you more, right? So now, here's the relation question. Why would the mystery be the defense against that danger. This knowledge of who they are in Christ makes them depend less on their flesh. Okay, that's not bad. Everybody hear that? Their knowledge of who they are in Christ causes them to depend less on their flesh, on themselves.

What else? Because if Christ is our identity, then He is completely sufficient, then we don't need anything else. Correct? Yeah. Did you hear that? If Christ is everything that He is to us, then we don't need anything other than Him. Yeah, because Christ is in you and you are in Him. Do you need anything other than that? No. Do you need a job? Yes. So, the mystery is so important to us because every believer needs to learn, as Josiah said, that Christ is everything. We don't need anything other than Him.

How come none of you are looking me in the eye? You don't buy that, do you? We're studying on Tuesday, this will give you a good example. We're studying on Tuesday the Green Letters and we're in, what's the chapter we're in called, Help? Remember I said last week, did God help you get saved? No he didn't. Is he going to help you live the Christian life? Well, why didn't he? I mean, why didn't he help us?

He sent his son. Because Josiah just gave us the answer. He's everything. He is the Christian life. But he did help us by sending Christ to die for us. And how did that help you? Well, now I live under grace instead of the law. Okay. Is that a help or did he do everything?

Here's the point. When you read John 17, John talks about overhearing this prayer that Christ is speaking to his Father. And one of the things he says, a really important thing, is, Father, that they might be one as we are one, that they may be one in us. So the idea of help is dual. It's him helping me. That's not the same thing as my being one in Christ. Do you see that? So the mystery has to do with this oneness in Christ and that He is everything. And it's His desire to live His life through us. Could you say that He helped us by crucifying us? Getting rid of us? Getting rid of us because we didn't have anything to bring.

That's right. When you start to think about Christ being your helper, then along with that comes the idea that you've got something to contribute. And all you need is a little help to get over the hump. Yes, that's where Catholicism stands up strong. That's where a lot of people in this class stand up strong. Don't we think like that? I'm not criticizing you, we just naturally think like that. We think dualistically.

We think, I'm here and God is there, and he's got to help me. When in fact, the reality is, that has to do with this mystery, is this oneness idea, a principle, of which I am united to Christ, and he is my life. And he intends to live his life through me. I think a lot of the hungry hearts lately, or in the last month, have kind of hit on this, where we want to bring Christ here to help us out.

Where the real focus should be, we're looking where we're positioned. We start in the heavenly places and work from that position. We're always trying to bring him down here to give us the bump. And I think a lot of the hungry hearts have been pointing out, no we, and it's kind of the Ephesians 5, we're from heaven looking down. That's where we should be. And it's our inclination is to bring him here to give us a little help. But if we're looking at the mystery, the identification, the union with him in heaven, that's where we should be focused.

Then it doesn't mean we don't need help. I think a lot of those hungry hearts have been trying to point that out in the last month. They have been. And I know that when you talk about this kind of thing, it's complicated because we don't normally think that way, right? We think I'm my own entity. It says so in the Constitution. And, you know, I need help. You know, I need assistance. But I'm me.

And this idea of oneness and unity with Christ actually puts you in a position where everything's been done. So what's the drawback in terms of, well you logically would ask yourself, well how come I don't think like that? How come I don't go at things that way? Why wouldn't you? Because that's how God created us. We have crazy thinking. Is that what you're saying? No, but you know, you're never good enough. You want to please God and all of that. Well, you want to please yourself, and if you can use God to do it, you'll do it. Yeah. This goes back to my premise of identification. If you don't understand that, it's kind of like, and this is what many people do, including myself and all that, the beginning is what I can't, I need Christ to save me.

But then after that, it's on my own. And it's stupid thinking. You need everything for him to be saved, but then he's going to leave you on your own to work it out. And it's totally... nonsensical. But the problem is, the identification is that crucifixion, that co-crucifixion and placing a sin to him and separating from the old man. The old man is the one who's doing all this stuff, the crazy thinking.

Here's the subtlety of it. That your sin nature and my sin nature has one capacity and it has the capacity to desire. And it desires to be relative. to be consequential, to be noticed, to be involved. So when you go to Romans 7, Paul says, I had not known sin except the law said I should not desire. What is that verse really saying? It's saying to the sin nature, the very thing that you are is illegal. can't do it. And how does the sin nature react? As soon as you tell it, you can't do that, it explodes. The issue of the cross is designed specifically to put the sin nature, the self, out of business. So you won't rely on it for anything. You won't, in the Colossian issue here, you won't contribute.

And we're going to talk next week, or probably won't get to it when we get into 6 and 7, as you have begun in the Lord Jesus, one of the things we're going to go through is, what isn't salvation? A lot of the concepts of salvation are things that I did. And so I start out on somewhat other than a gracious method that I received Jesus into my heart. That means I contributed. No, you didn't. You exercised faith And I say this all the time and I don't think it registers very hard.

Faith is the one thing a man can do he cannot take credit for. Why not? Why can't you take credit for your faith? Because it's the Holy Spirit that gives it to you? No. Okay, what is it? I'm asking a question. Why can't you take credit? Why can't you go to God and say, look, I'm a believer, you owe me. I did my part, that's what I contributed. Why can't you do that? Because it's the object that holds the value. That's exactly right. It's what you believe that's valuable, not the fact that you believe. Christ died on the cross.

What did you have to do with that? You helped him up there. Other than that, what did you have to do with it? Nothing. He was buried and resurrected. What did you have to do with that? Nothing. And then God decided that he would offer, because he was satisfied, he would come to humanity and say, look, I'm going to offer you the ability to be saved by believing me about my son. Did you contribute anything to that? Nothing. So your faith allows you to enter into all of this grace that God has procured. You didn't procure anything. If you go at Christianity in any other way, then you think you're a contributor.

I had somebody tell me, six months after I was saved, that I was a real prize for God to get. I looked at them and said, really? Nobody explained that to me. Yeah, the fact that we are able to believe in the sense that we understand the need. Suddenly I say, oh my goodness, I'm... In trouble. Yeah, big time. And oh my goodness, I can't fix it.

I'm out here and I am who I am. And the fact that we are able to come to the point that we recognize that, and the light goes click, is, I think, the work of the Holy Spirit. There's no question it is. So the fact that we believe, isn't that a response, nearly a, oh my goodness, yes, to what the Spirit is telling me?

So I have no part in this. It's like the Philippian jailer. What must I do to be saved? And what was the answer? believe. That's it. I hesitate to mention these verses because we went over this a little bit already. In Hebrews chapter 13 it says, it's in an environment of security in the Lord in the midst of persecution. He says, I will in three times never, never, never leave you. What a comfort that is. And in the midst And then he says, so thou, we may boldly say, the Lord is my helper. It's in that context that he's living his life in me. I can say that he's a helper, but it's in the context that he's doing it all. Yes, see, and that's the thing.

That's the hard thing to learn for a growing believer, is to learn to be a dependent person for everything. Because we can all, I mean we all went to school, we all have jobs, well most of us, you know we all, I was going to say we all stay in shape, most of us, some of us, but we all can do things. And so we think that, well it's natural for us to think, well we can contribute to our spiritual progress. And so when he comes along with this issue in Colossians and he says, wait a minute, You have to understand that there's nothing you can contribute to your own spiritual progress.

And you come back and say, well, I can read the Word. Okay. Can you understand it by yourself? Well, you say, gee, the Word never comes back void. But what are you learning when you read the Word? You're learning dependence. You're learning the glory of Christ. You're learning where all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are. Where are they? In Christ himself. Not some of the treasures, all of them. And why are they treasures? All the treasures of what? Wisdom and knowledge. All of them, not some of them.

You know, it's like, oh, I read in Romans 8 that God works all things together for good, so when you called me up on the phone and started complaining about one of these things that didn't look like it was working out, Scripture must have been wrong, right?

When I'm trying to contribute to my own spiritual growth, and it isn't working out so good, maybe I didn't find all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, or better said, I didn't find the one who is all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Now in my mind that leads to a very important step and I guess I would call it a step.

We make Christianity a religion with principles and we forget about what it really is about is a person. It's the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. And the whole idea of God in His grace giving us His Word, and God in His grace giving us His Holy Spirit, is to just accomplish that one thing, that we might know Him, and not know about Him, but know Him. Think about the person in your life that you're closest to, that you understand the best. That's knowing somebody. It's even eons greater than that. And so as you grow in the knowledge and grace, this intimacy with Christ, guess what you discover? He is all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I don't need anything but Him.

I discovered one about 15 years ago that he knew more about real estate than I did. Haven't you all discovered that in your work? If you get in a medical situation, you think the Lord Jesus knows more about what this doctor is trying to accomplish than he does. So do you trust the doctor or do you trust him?

So, that's the point. Do those dots connect with you? So, how do you go about this process of knowing Christ? Let go. It's a trick question. Let go of what? of everything I thought I knew. Spoken like a true Baptist. One of the things is you read the Word of God now for a different reason. You don't read it to get all of the questions answered, all of the facts straight, although the facts are really important. You read it to know Christ. you're in there to spend time with him. Is the Word of God important to us? Absolutely. But as you go into the Word of God, you understand, because you've read it in there, that you've been given the Holy Spirit and that it's his job to reveal Christ to you. He's going to do it through those words.

And Paul is contrasting. We're talking about the treasures being hidden in him. Paul is contrasting the Gnostics and the false teachers who are coming in because uses there for hidden was the word that they used for this kind of collection of writings or knowledge that you had to be enlightened to get to the point where you could even understand them. So Paul is saying that you don't need any of that knowledge.

All that higher enlightenment, all that knowledge, all that writing, all that secret stuff that you would never know is hidden in him, in a person. That's an important point because in all Religions and cults and something are one of those things. And even in Catholicism that I came out of, there's an inner circle of guys or women that know all the secrets, you know, the secret handshake and all of that. And that's the danger. The danger is that you need to perform, perform, perform, so that they'll dole out the secrets to you a little more.

I mean, I've had arguments with Catholics that are pretty funny, because I will say that the Word of God is Christ is in the Word of God and all the treasures are in there, and they say, no, it's in the church and it's in some library in Rome. I say, really? But they're serious. They say that the church is the final authority, not the Word of God. Well, where does that leave the common guy every day. He's relying on whatever the Pope has put out this week, whatever they tell you. So if you look at their doctrine, some of the stuff they've come up with is incredible. That's exactly the danger.

All religions are like that. Probably one that we're familiar with is Scientology, which is a cult. But the more money you pay and the more you're involved in, the more you get the secrets. Where in Christianity, Christ himself has all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge and he's eminently, put it this way, the Father wants you to know him a lot more than you do. He's working everything in that direction so that we're not ignorant. Believers are to be very understanding about who they are, where they are and what they have and that's where the protection is. Yes ma'am?

About hidden, when hidden is used here it seems to me that it should mean found, that's where they're found and safeguarded as opposed to obscured. When we get to chapter 3, I think that's where that answer is. For you're dead and your life is hidden with Christ and God. You're safe there. Yeah, and you're safe there. Now, back to one more question about the mystery. What's the other aspect of the mystery that's important in terms of where you are? You're in the heavenlies, in Christ now.

One of the biggest problems I think with Christians even today is the fact that they don't see themselves there. If I drew a cross on the board and on the right side of the cross was the resurrection and on the left side of the cross was the crucifixion, which side of the cross do you live on? the crucified side or the resurrected seated side? Answer the question in your own mind. Sure, I mean the right answer, but so many believers don't.

And I'm not criticizing because I think part of spiritual growth is understanding how valuable the crucifixion is, not only for me but to me, but you can't stop there. You have to go to burial, resurrection, and seeding. And seeing yourself seeded in the heavenlies is really important, because then you function from there.

Does that make sense? And because they're stuck in their crucifixion, it's the picking up their cross daily? That's right. And the trying to die to yourself, instead of reckoning it already to be true, that you just kind of get stuck in that cycle. You do.

I live across the street from I live across the street from a Jewish rabbi, and he's the neatest guy, he really is. So Wednesday and Thursday I think they're celebrating, I forget the Yiddish word, but it had to do with the Holy Spirit. So it's hailing like crazy, and he and his sons go out the door and they're walking up to the synagogue. So I pulled up next to him and I said, you guys want a ride?

Oh no, oh no, we can't do that. All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. You were talking earlier about the Catholic religion. Now you're thinking, if you look at any religion over any period of time, it's always changing. Today's truth is not the truth that was promulgated a hundred years ago. Whereas the word of God never changes, our understanding of it does. His word never changes, and that's the problem with any religion.

Yeah, I mean probably the greatest symbol in religious denominations of misunderstanding what the gospel really is, is that thing called the crucifix. You know what a crucifix is? It's a cross with Christ still on it. Does that show you where they stopped? Is that why the Catholics have, in your background, why do they teach and show that Christ is on the cross? Because they don't want you to know anything beyond that. So they're focused on his death? Yeah, they're focused totally on his death, but then they came up with this cool little thing called purgatory.

And if you write some checks, you might miss it. I'm serious, if you die as a Catholic, and they're going to have a mass and all this stuff for you. One of the things that people do is they say, well let's have some masses set for this guy, write some checks to shorten his time in purgatory. You know what the most awful thing about that is?

It's just blatant, Christ didn't do a finished job on the cross. I think that the Catholics have changed their mind on that? Some have. On purgatory? Some have. On the church? I thought that the church had. Now I don't know, but I just, I read that somewhere, or... Yeah. That they no longer... My brother just went through a whole class on it, and they still teach it. What? His brother just went through a whole class on it, and they still teach it. They're still teaching it? They still teach it. And they say, the person will always go to heaven, But some people take longer than others. You will always eventually get. You know, let me ask you, let me say one thing.

You know, how was so happy to. He could hardly wait to go to heaven. And Catholics are scared to death because they have to go to purgatory. So why look forward to going to heaven if you have to go there first? Well, look at it this way. If you understand the mystery, and you understand where you are now, then how long is the trip from here to heaven?

You already made it. You're already there. So why do you think Paul doesn't use the word death for believers dying? He uses the word sleep. You just move. Because you already died, right? Everybody in this room has already died. You've already been buried and resurrected.

You're seated in Christ in the heavenly, so when it comes time for you to check out of here, I would think it would be kind of a cool day. I think there's two great days in a Christian's life. You know what they are? The day he's saved and the day he gets to go home.

We don't belong here. This isn't our home. And that's part of the mystery. Paul is trying to explain to these people, look, you're not from around here. You're from heaven. You're seated in the heavenlies and you don't need anything from here to contribute to what you already are. Does that make sense?

So what's the word beguiled mean? I bet you've looked it up. Mary did. What does the word beguiled mean? Paul warns them about being beguiled or deluded. Deceived. Deceived, okay. Anybody else? I was led to believe lies. Led to believe lies, okay. OK. You're not talking about our government. Some illustrations it means to reason. off to the side. It means you listen to a clever argument over here. You know, it was just whispered kind of a thing. Something that you didn't get all the facts about. You go on the web and you start looking stuff up and you find all kinds of delusions about things, right? There's an element of temptation. Yeah.

There's always a lure that promises you something that you don't already have and there's a whisper about it. Maybe I'll ask it this way. What is the greatest tool that Satan and his boys have? What's their number one thing? Doubt. That's close. Deception. Deception is their number one thing, right? Starting from Genesis on, it's always about deception. What do you think this is about? Deception. Deception. Enough truth that a lot of people will believe it. but not enough to be saved. Yeah, or already saved. You see, a person who is saved is a babe in Christ.

But if you don't understand the mystery, you're not very useful. Are you? Are you very useful in terms of being an ambassador of the reconciliation, to be here for Christ, if you don't understand who you are, where you are, where you came from, and what you have? No, because you're still performing. You're still operating out of the flesh, and the flesh isn't what you're here to demonstrate.

Do you see that? So, if I'm Satan, what do I want to keep you from understanding? Once you're saved, well, you've got the salvation thing down, so I'm going to create these massive programs where we're going to try to save everybody, but nobody's ever going to find out about the mystery, because then you're dangerous. Do you see that? It's really subtle. It's really subtle. Most churches don't teach that though. Really, this is the only church that I've ever heard of.

He's doing a pretty good job, don't you think? Huh? He's doing a pretty good job, don't you think? Yeah. So it's a wonder that anybody gets saved at all. Yeah. If we're all out there working out of the flesh. Well, it's not so much the issue of being saved, it's the issue of Christ being everything to you. The number one thing through deception is to keep you from Christ. I'll let you be religious. You can go to church on Sunday. I'll even let you take a shower. But you are not going to get close to Christ because then there's a problem. Now you're spiritually intelligent. You know what's going on and you can't be fooled. You can't be deceived. And the reason you can't be deceived is because you're dependent on him. You're not dependent on yourself. So if we're dependent on ourselves, in a sense Satan wins even though we're saved. Say that again. Because if we're dependent on ourselves after we're saved, in a sense Satan wins even though we're saved and he can't claim us eternally. He neutralizes us to some degree. And he neutralizes you through religion. That's how he does it. Building the church in spite of.

There's a lot of things, a lot of bumps that we can send you on now. I want you to notice one other thing. In chapter 1 verse 4, somebody read that. And somebody else read verse 8. One fourth, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love which you have for all the saints. Okay, verse 8 somebody. And he also informed us of your love in the Spirit.

Okay, sounds like they're doing pretty well, right? My question is, why wasn't there good discipline and stability of faith protection from the evil that was about to believe the leaguer then? Why wasn't it enough? Well, they didn't know the mystery, did they? That's the right answer. Oh my goodness!

The fact that they were orderly and they were steadfast in the faith, which was characterized in verse 5, That really was no effectual protection for them against the evil that was about to menace them. Don't you see that around today? That people are solidly saved but This is such an extreme example, but I've got to tell it to you anyway. My niece is going to go to a quote unquote Christian college in California. So just for grins, I went on their website and looked around.

And I run into this name, what is his name, Dallas Willard. I run into the name Dallas Willard and I've heard about him, so I studied him. And they idolize this guy. And he is at the top of the list of the false prophets. This guy is a, it's like, hello? And this is a Christian college, are they deceived? Sure they are. Now the big question is, how am I going to tell her parents? But, I mean, Dallas Willard died a year ago, and they have a monument to this guy.

And he was a philosophy teacher at the University of Southern California. And he intermixed Christianity and human philosophy. This guy is the walking poster child for the collationaire. That's exactly what he is. Which is a minimal amount of scripture and a whole bunch of human contribution.

And he ends up teaching stuff that is... You have to read it twice to kind of figure out what is he really saying. And why did a whole college, and I know some kids that were going to Colorado Christian University that idolized this guy. And I remember sending an email to this one girl over there that I know and I said, look at these articles and she just blew me off. It's interesting when you get guys up on a pedestal. It's tough to take them down.

What's his last name? What's that? Willard. Dallas Willard. So, what does this, if I could say to you, while we at Holly Hills have good discipline and we have stability of faith, are we protected? From the intrusion of contribution of outside thought into what we believe?

Nope. You agree with him? What was that? I didn't hear it. He said no. No. Dad, do you agree? Are we protected? Because we have, because we could say, gee, we have good discipline around here. You know, nobody's chewing tobacco. What's that? Let me put it another way. If we have, if we have salvation down, We really understand it, which we'll talk about more next week. And we all behave ourselves, and we walk by faith as best we can, and we're very well disciplined. Are we immune? Or do we need to know more? I keep thinking about Galatians, because up in the frozen north we study Galatians. Repeatedly, it keeps saying that you're justified by faith and you're sanctified by faith. It's just as much of a gift as justification, right?

And then also liberty. So there, we have liberty. We have freedom. So we don't need to know anymore, right? That's just your immediate question. We don't have to know anymore. to stay free. We are free in Christ. How is there to know about that? We're always susceptible, right? Because we have this flesh and so the Lord takes us home. And so we're always going to be tempted to look at our crucified flesh and to trust it. But we are free. And we just need to walk in it. Remember when we did, Courtney, I was just going to say, I think this is the question we've had.

I think there are millions and millions of people who are saved. What the issue is, is growth. They're kept in the nursery. They're babes. The salvation message is simple. It's not complicated. And I think there are millions of people who are saved. but it's the growth.

Satan keeps them there by no knowledge of the mystery, no knowledge of their identification with Christ, and he just keeps them in the nursery, ineffectual in a lot of ways, boiling around in the nursery but not going anywhere. And I think that's where a lot of people, and the danger would be for Holly Hills or any place, is that salvation is simple, simple faith and the message of salvation. But where Satan likes to keep us is with no knowledge, and keep us right there.

You know, when we were doing a class on grace, one of the things that just struck me, because I'm like Josiah, and a lot of you are, I think, well, am I going to get bored? Am I going to run out of information? Am I going to get all of the religious stuff down and I'll be cool? You know?

What I learned about in that grace class is that we never stop learning grace. Because grace is unlimited and unmerited, up until the very last millisecond you're on the planet, we're going to be learning about God's grace. And that, I think, is the motivator. Because if God's grace is unlimited, then I'm never going to arrive at the end of it while I'm here.

And the hardest part for me, and especially Colossians, is to accept it on an unmerited basis. I always want to sneak in there and get a little credit, even for my liberty, or even for any part of it. I want something, you know, I want to be able to at least think in my mind, I did something that that guy didn't do and I'm a little ahead of him. Isn't that what we've been talking about all day?

The object of our faith needs to be Christ. Not our liberty, not our freedom, not even the word grace, but Christ himself. Yeah, it is Christ himself. The Brethren like to ask this question, do you find Christ enough? And that's a great question. Is he enough? If he is the one that has all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge and his whole agenda, he and the Holy Spirit is to be the distributors of grace, is he enough? It's more than you could ever think or ask.

And what happens over time is that you begin to realize that this thing, grace, is what motivates me to move. Do I love God? Why do I love God? Because He loved you first. Is that the second bell? Because He loved me first. So I obey Him, right? Why? Because I love Him. Because He loved me first. Oh, and He's going to reward me for obeying Him, for loving Him, because He loved me first. It's all Him.

But look at my involvement. And next week when we talk about verses 6 and 7, it's the same principle. It's a glazed principle. It has to work on that basis. We'll do lesson 10 next week. I know. At some point in my life in the past, I realized, and it comes to me again, that I think we tend to try to figure out God And so we, in a sense, make him in our image. We try to understand what he's like and how he works and what his ways are. We end up with this thing that we can handle or deal with. And if that's... We think we can explain him and so forth.

And then something happens where we find out, oh my goodness, He's not in my little box anymore. He never was to begin with. That's right. So where do I go from here? Well, we need to learn Christ for who He really is. In His box. Outside. In His box. In His box is called the body of Christ. Okay, let's close. Father, how we thank you for the grace. We thank you that we are members of your body, of the body of your Son, the Lord Jesus, and that we may continue to grow in the knowledge and grace of Him. I pray in His precious name, Amen.