Principles of Position Lesson 21

Okay. Chapter 21. We had finished up. We're not moving very fast, but that's okay. Let's see how good your memory is. Chapter 21. Verse less than 21. Sorry. So we talked about this last week, but I've been thinking about it all week and thinking I've got to probably revisit it. Will guilt and chastisement do a thorough work in us regard sin and confession? Will it? And we talked about Psalm 32, 3 and 4. When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. Or day and night, My hand was heavy upon me.

Eww. Eww. What do you think about that? Don't think about it. You feel convicted of your sins? Your sins? Let's say you're hiding one. You feel convicted about it? So kind of screw up your whole program until it gets rectified? Or not? You just keep cruising? You're so used to walking in the darkness?

I know that I had, as a Catholic, they want to keep you under a rock as long as they can. And I was convicted of a sin for several years, something I did in the first grade. And really it took me almost to high school before I sat down with a priest and laid it out to him. He said, well, you probably didn't need to go through all of that. But a lot of us, I think, have certain issues about sins in our lives that maybe that we just don't sit down and lay them out before the Lord and so this psalm is kind of an interesting interesting for day and night my hand is heavy upon us I know before I came to the Lord the Lord's hand was heavy upon me for a long time I kept ducking those of you When I was a little kid in Sunday school they would have this every now and then point and say you go collect the offering. So I'd go collect the offering and then I'd reach behind while they were praying and steal money and put it in my pocket. I love that. That was horrible. I would do that. I definitely would.

So guilt and chastisement do their thorough work and we learn to appreciate the fact that God's way of confession is imperative. Now, I'm talking to a woman, I don't know, maybe a month ago, and she's going on and on about circumstances in her family that she really doesn't have much to do about. put something that her daughter is doing that she feels guilty about because she feels guilty that she didn't correct her or raise her right or set a good example. What do you think about something like that? Is that the spirit of God laying a heavy hand on you? I don't think so up here. None of you guys have just boring experiences. You don't deal with sin. You're all so good.

So what should I say to her? Number one, feeling guilty, is that appropriate about something like that? Why not? Wouldn't you say that's part of the all things that work together? Yeah, it is that. I mean, if you have an adult child that's decided they're going to do something sinful, why is it your problem? You know, is it your problem? I should have raised them better? From a child's perspective, when we were kids, you always thought that I did something wrong, why should that be a reflection on the parents? It's mine, I'm doing it. In this case I think it reflects on the parents because the parents did the same thing. And they feel like they set a bad example.

And so they feel guilty and then of course that leads to all kinds of other guilts. Does that go back to that scripture about it being the sins of the parents of his generation? That's the Old Testament thing and that's an interesting principle that God had in play in the Old Testament, especially in the Jewish community. The sins of the father would be resident in the children and even the grandchildren. They would suffer. You know when, who was it, the crippled man at the well? And the apostle said to Jesus, did he sin or did his father sin? But that's not the way it works anymore. Because we're responsible for our own behavior.

And I can't force my children not to sin. I can give them good examples. I can teach them. I can lead them. But if they make a decision to sin, it isn't my guilt. What if you didn't teach him? Yeah, what if you didn't teach him? Is that a guilt on my part? Well, let's say that when it comes down to it, they say to you, well, if you'd have taught me how to do this right, I wouldn't have done it. That's what you mean, right? So, am I guilty there?

It still comes down to the sin nature. Even though we're dead to the sin, it still resides there and it still has an influence for a candle. I think as you grow in the Lord and begin to know Him more, it isn't so much a guilt thing, but when that sin comes along, the lack of fellowship or the breaking of that fellowship It's really tremendous. It's a lot more than when you're younger as far as the believers. I think that's what I'm trying to get at.

If we're believers that understand the provision that God has given us for confession and restoration, then we teach our kids that. They know when we sin, most of the time, unless they went to bed early. And they know, and they know, and they watch how you deal with it. Don't they?

There were times when I was raising John right after I wanted to kill him, that I had to go to him and ask him for forgiveness. Because I was really mad. I was saying things I shouldn't have said. And it's a good thing I belong to the Lord because I would have carried out a few of them.

So the point is, I think here, is that the conviction of the Holy Spirit in the body of Christ for believers is a wooing thing, it's not a heavy thing. We talked about weeks ago that how do you know you're being convicted by the Spirit or Satan is banging on your head. up and down. The spirit always points up to Christ, Satan always tries to condemn you.

But in the Old Testament, it was weighty. But it can be weighty too now. Do you think it's weighty if the Lord is convicting you of something and you choose to ignore it? When you're walking in the darkness, that gets to be an increasingly larger burden.

I think it does. Eventually there's a wooing back to the light. What I do is I end up agreeing with God in His way of doing things, which is to cleanse me vis-a-vis confession. I think so. But the point being is that the door is always open with him. He's already put the provision in place. He's taken care of the penalty and guilt of your sins, my sins anyway.

And I think it takes believers a long time that they'll allow the fact that their sins are forgiven and they're not going to go to hell. But how long does it take some of them to realize that they're not guilty anymore? It's one thing to stand before a judge and get off, knowing that you did it. It's another thing to stand before the judge who absolutely took it all away. There's some of those things, like anxiety or fear, that you find they just show up. How do you mean that? That it's your first reaction. Oh, you're fearful? Yeah.

Have you ever been convicted, or I don't want to use the word convicted, have you ever had a sin that you did back when that was really pretty awful and it had consequences to people that even probably abide to today and now you're a believer and you know you've been forgiven but every once in a while that sin shows up in your mind? What do you do about those? You guys don't know? Geez, I must be the only sinner in the room.

I think you start realizing as you grow and mature that that's the flesh. It's the flesh and again the pointing up or the pointing down. With guilt and all that, those things that reoccur, it's always the flesh trying to reassert itself. And if you're being dragged down, if you're pointing down, you realize it's the flesh and the same nature. you start to realize that you're able to release those faster and not to succumb to those as much as you realize that I'm being dragged down.

That's the confession. That's not who I am. You find that as you grow spiritually you're way more sensitive to sins than you used to be? Stuff that you wouldn't even think about back then now is an issue? I think so. Especially those little deadly suckers that go on inside. new creation is so important. You know about your position. It's everything. So 5.

Why is the Father able to think of us as in Jeremiah 29.11 and Psalm 32.1 and 2.

So Jeremiah 29.11. Somebody read that. Quickly. For I know the plans that I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for calamity, to give you a future and a hope. Okay, so, I as a believer, that's from Jeremiah, can I say, oh wow, I have a position in the Lord Jesus, so the Father says, I know the plans I have for you. Oh, and by the way, I know them too. We know them too. You know what the plans are? What's he doing? Conforming us. He's conforming us to the image of his son. We know the plan. And we know that he's working all things together. I'm not sure Jeremiah knew that, but we do.

Okay, Psalm 32, 1 and 2. How blessed indeed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. How blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity. And in whose spirit there is no deceit. Oh, how cool is that? Back in the Psalms, probably written by David. David was an outstanding guy, wasn't he? Upright. Yeah. Except when he wasn't. Once in a while. Once in a while he tripped, right? Yeah. That was a trick question. Well, kind of. All because of our position in the Lord Jesus. And in spite of our condition. In ourselves, our Father is able to say these things to us.

In Romans 5.1, he says, therefore, being justified by faith. Are you justified? The answer is yes, I am.

We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. position, I have peace, by whom we also have access by faith unto this grace wherein we stand and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. I watched on TV last night on the news, all these guys are going down somewhere in New Jersey to have an audience with Trump. And he kept showing the door to this house he was in. And I thought about this verse and I thought, you know, I got the key to that door and I can go in there anytime I want. I have, you have, access by faith into grace.

I have it now. Not only that, we're seated in Christ right next to him. That's right. And we permanently stand, and once you know that, what do you do? Here's the response. You rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. I was thinking about Ben King the other day. The hope is gone for him. There he is. You know the great saying about him, I'm just waiting. Well, the wait's over. He's there. It's cool.

To understand, as a believer, how the Father thinks about you is really important to us, because it's probably going to be a little different than you think about yourself. You agree? I mean, for Him to say these kinds of things about us shows that there's nothing between Him and us, and He took care of it all. And a lot of times, especially if we sin, we think, oh gee, the Lord's changed His mind about me.

I'm busted. I'm really a rat, and He's known it all along. No. He never changes His mind because the work of Christ is permanent. Michael, I always come back to this, in Romans 8, 31 through 38, what then shall we say? for us, who is against us? He who did not spare his own son, but delivered him over for us all, how will he not also with him freely give us all things? But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life nor any of the principalities nor things present, things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor any of the created things will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

That's awesome. That is the key. I'm finding out another thing, that all things, you know, with Him, how will He not also with Him clearly give us all things? Yeah, I know. You know what's great about that verse? I think, I hope you can see this. I spell lesser E-R-O-R.

The point is, if God did the great thing, if He did the really big thing, won't He give you the little thing? That's the principle right there. If He did everything about sin, about His relationship with you, He got everything out of the way, everything, won't He give you the little stuff? That's the point. That's the whole point.

And so lots of times we're complaining to God, Well, we've got this little problem, and won't he give it to you? Don't you already have it? It's a principle we all need to understand, because if he did give us the greater thing, won't he give us the lesser thing? Answer, yeah. You think about what position is in terms of the greater thing. What do you get in position? You get it all. Now, done. So here comes a circumstance that is minor. Did the greater thing cover the lesser thing? The answer is yes, it did. Yes, it did. Okay, streaking along here, question six.

Define grace and how can I get access to it? We have borrowed and probably adopted Chet McCauley's definition of grace which I think is the best one I've ever seen. So those of you who know it, what is it? Courtney can't answer. Unmerited and unlimited blessings from God. What's it based on? Totally adequate work of Christ. Do you ever think about that God that we live under this umbrella of grace.

If you walk outside in a tropical rainstorm, there's not any part of you that won't get wet, including inside of your wallet. And so that's what it's like living under grace. Or it's like, I watched them send that weather satellite off yesterday. It's like standing underneath that thing when they light it off. That's what it's like living under grace.

It's totally unmerited. and it's unlimited. We're always trying to merit something. Always. We're always going to God and saying, I have to do something to have a greater standing before you than I already have. That spoils the grace right there. It's totally unmerited. And it's unlimited, so no fair complaining that I don't have enough. But then he says, I should go to the throne of grace in times of need. So is he contradicting himself? Must be, you guys got real quiet. It's not that it's a contradiction so much as that he has to deal with us. And we're the ones who need to go there. He doesn't need us to go there.

The grace is there, but to appropriate it for my particular need. It's always there. And it's all based on what Christ did. It's not anything based on what we did. That's kind of cool. That's really cool. So is it a difficult thing for us as believers to accept and live under this principle of grace? Especially you guys that are type A's and B's and C's. We don't like somebody doing everything for us, do we? We just don't like it. Why don't we like it? They don't do it the same way. No, that's not it. Why don't we like it? Because there's nothing to brag about. That's right. And who wants to brag?

The old man. See, that's the biggest problem. The old man raises his head and says, wait a minute. God has set up a plan whereby the old man has absolutely nothing to do. And he's not going to sit still for that. He has to be relevant. You know people that do things in their life just to be relevant. That's what your old man does. It does things just to be relevant.

And here comes this definition of grace, which is unlimited and unmerited. There's no place for you, old man, There's no place for you. And so when he talks about in Romans 6 that the body of sin might be put out of business or taken offline, that's really what he means. We're crucified and live under grace so that there is no place for the sin nature to operate. No place. Doesn't mean it stops trying. But there's no place.

So, now that we've got the definition, the second part of the question is, how do I get some? By faith. By faith in what? How does it work? You should come to the Tuesday Bible study. Whenever I get the two-word answer, I make them explain. It's like Luke downstairs. He was seven years old. Every question I asked, he'd say, Jesus. He always had the answer.

How do I operate or get into this environment of grace by faith. How do I do that? Give me the mechanics of it. Just say thank you. Just say thank you. Okay, that's it? That's all I got to do? It is. It is. That's why we talk about growth. What are we growing in? We're going in the knowledge and the grace. So we're learning it. We're learning Christ and we're learning the grace. I think that as we grow we learn to stand in our standing of grace. We have to learn that.

Nobody comes to Christ, enters into this new life with any sort of understanding about what grace is and how it operates. Nobody, because the world doesn't operate on grace. Have you ever before, of course a lot of you people were saved really young, but do you know any circumstance in the world in which you were living under grace or grace? You might have gotten a break now and then, but it cost you.

So we learn it. We learn grace and we learn about our standing and we learn to abide in the Lord Jesus. We learn it. So who's teaching it to us? Yeah. So what are we learning to do? We're learning to receive. To trust. But we're learning to receive. That's right. Oh, tell me. We're learning to receive on the basis that we didn't merit it and we didn't earn it and we didn't pay for it. And it's way more than we could possibly imagine in terms of what it is. We have to learn that. We don't show up one day all graced. I'd like to add another adjective to grace that's unmerited and unlimited and powerful. That's powerful. You know the word I use there is motivational. There's no greater motive than grace.

You can live under a law or an ought to or a tyranny system. I'm married to Donna and because she's my wife, she ought to 1, 2, 3, 4. It said so in my, I read it at the wedding vows. And she comes right back at me and says, well because of that you ought to 1, 2, 3, 4.

But here we are living under grace. How does that work in terms of motivating you? How does it do that? How does grace make you or get you moving and motivate you to move? I don't know if I can repeat it the way you said it last week, but when we realize what something that sends the entire world past us in the future.

And we want to, we love him. We want to have fellowship with them. So, if we were to, if we think, let's say I can sin, I just do 1st John 9. If we can sin, I can do 1st John 9. That's not what it's about. Don't you get sick of that after a while? Yeah, but it's about loving Him. And I don't want to be out of fellowship for a nanosecond. And so, like you were saying, it's not out of fear, it's out of our love them.

He draws us. Yeah. We find it safe there. And we're loved there. And so he puts us in this thing that we've talked about for a couple of months now. He puts us in this thing called the light of the Father's presence. And we find out, being there, that we belong there. And that's where fellowship is. And so therefore we're motivated to stay there and to rest there.

And we begin to appreciate what God is doing, based on what Christ has already done. We have a position, and whenever sin raises its head, once we take up the mantle to fight it and we lose, over time we realize, wait a minute, that's not the way to go. I need to rest in the grace and the position that I already have. And does that motivate me? Is it powerful? Yes, it is. Yes, it is.

Because Courtney just read, you know, who can separate me from the love of God? Well, if you don't know the love of God, the verse means nothing to you. But if you do know the love of God, you begin to realize there's nothing that can separate me from, you know, even if I sin, I'm conditionally separated from the fellowship and not from the position. That's why position is so important.

Alright, 1 Corinthians 11, 31 and 32 are real blessings to us. Are they? Somebody read it. But if we judge ourselves rightly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged, we are disciplined by the Lord so that we will not be condemned along with the world. So here we go. If we would judge ourselves, what's he talking about?

What's the judging here? If I'm going to make a judgment about something, what do I have to have? I've got to have the facts, don't I? I've got to have the facts. So he says, if I would judge myself, and he's just finished up talking about the possibility of taking the Lord's table in a sinful manner. This is right after 1123 where we talk about the Lord's table. He's talking about if we would judge ourselves, that puts an onus on you, right? It does. Judge yourself about what? What's the information about the judging you're going to do about yourself?

We agree with him about our sin. About our sin, and what else? We confess it. And what does confession mean? Agreeing. So if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastised of the Lord. Do you see in that so far that there is an incredible grace in there? Where is it? Where is the grace in that verse?

If we are honest with God up front, That sin is taken care of and he doesn't need to labor disciplines. Let's say you don't. That's where the grace is. Let's say you don't. Let's say you don't judge yourself. Where's the grace now? In the chest, I think. Who's going to do the judging now? God's going to do it. Is that gracious on his part? Is it really gracious to you? Sure it is. You think he's going to let you stay there? If he was other than the God that he is, he might. But if you don't do it, he's going to do it. How cool is that?

So you think you're this Rudy Kizuti Christian and you decide, I'm not going to judge myself. Get ready, because here comes the grace, and the grace is going to do the judging. You're also going to be child-trained about it. You're not going to get beat up about it, but you're going to be child-trained about it.

Why? That you might not be condemned with the world. So it's interesting. Not only has God taken care of the restoration to fellowship, But he's also taking care of the fact that you don't want to do it. You talk about motivation. Pretty cool. I don't want to confess my sins. I like that sin. Guess what? Too late. You belong to him and here it comes. He's going to restore you. You're going to get your train though. So how can we be condemned of the world if we're saved?

We can't. That's the whole point. You can't. You can't be. The point being is that when the world is condemned, there will be nothing against you. Certainly from a positional standpoint and also from a conditional standpoint. Nothing. The point is that even if we're stubborn, which only a couple of you are, and I know who they are, Courtney's not one of them.

So God is so faithful to us that He comes to us and we admit that we have a responsibility to walk in Him, right? I guess you could say He doesn't compel us, He just makes us willing by the training, the child training. Sure. Oh yeah, now I know. The Spirit of God will tell you when you're sneaking into the shadows, won't He? Sure he will. And we begin to express we have a growing need for him to take care of us, to inform us, to keep us tracking right. And that's a gracious thing on his part, a really gracious thing on his part.

The only way that you and I learn to hate self is because God's at work. He's showing us what it really is and he's comparing walking in the darkness as to walking in the light, walking in fellowship with yourself as to walking in fellowship with him. You know in Romans 1 when he talks about that men are without excuse and that you know that I exist and I require because I'm God and you're not, that you be thankful and you honor me as God, right? And what if you don't?

What does he do? It's really interesting right here. He says, you say to him, I want me rather than you. And you know what he says? Okay, you can have you. What do you get? In the next four verses, it's just awful when he says, okay, you get what you want. But for a believer, he says, even if you don't want me, here I come, because you're one of mine. You're going to get me.

Confessing our sins really amounts to judging ourselves and submitting to indwelling sin. We judge the fact that that's what we did. We didn't have to, but that's what we did. Any questions about that? Let me put it together like this, because I have a whole paragraph.

We express our growing hatred of self by freely confessing our sins, which amounts to judging ourselves or submitting to indwelling sin. Okay? Does that make sense? We have a growing hatred for self, you know, and we freely confess our sins and it amounts to judging ourselves for submitting to indwelling sin. We say, yeah, that's what we did. Okay? Eight.

When it comes to my sins, What provision has the Father provided for us not to dwell there and to be occupied with the Lord Jesus? Has he given us a provision not to do that? So, when it comes to my sins, what provision has our Father provided for us not to dwell there and to be occupied with the Lord Jesus.

I remember, I don't know if you were there or not, I was teaching a class down in Parker to the ladies down there, and I asked them a trick question. Are you ready for the question? Does God forgive you quicker if you feel sorry for your sins? Half the class said yes. Is that a right answer? Does feeling have anything to do with this? Not then.

So we stand in the light. When we stand in the light, there's a couple of cool things that happen. One is that we're aware that our sins have been cleared away by the blood of Christ. And two is, we realize that we, as those who have committed sins, have also been put away in the death of the cross. You can't get to understand walking in the light. You cannot get away from what we call identification truths.

That's the most important positional truth there is. That we were co-crucified, buried and resurrected in Christ. Because that's the mechanics by which God resolved this whole issue. And he gave us this position in the resurrected Christ that is ours eternally and you can't get out of it. But God is so careful to teach us, and to not only teach us intellectually, but that we would know by experience, this is really true of me.

I really did die to sin. I really am alive to God. I'm positioned in Christ. I can now count upon having died to sin. That's the big issue. That's how you really deal with sins. Wait a minute, I died to all of that. I died to that particular sin that I'm being convicted about. I'm really dead to that. And my position is such that I've been acting as though I wasn't dead to that.

Which is a lack of what? Faith. That's why it was real easy for Paul to say, whatever is not of faith is sin. Because the information, the truth that God gives us about our position in Christ, that we're to live by faith, has everything to do with this death, burial, and resurrection, and seated with Christ. That's really where the crux of it is. So we turn from darkness, we count ourselves to have died to sin, and now to be alive as new creations in Christ, as such. We confess our sins as they are revealed in the light, and are thereby freed from self-occupation, free to be fully occupied in fellowship with the Father and the Son.

Can you guys read The Hungry Heart this morning? Kind of interesting, he was talking about being the object of my existence as a believer should be Christ and not me. And so, you know, right away I realized that, well, that's not true of me all the time, so I better get busy. No. It has to do with my position in Christ. I was thinking when I heard that Ben King had gone home to be with the Lord on Monday, he's now occupied with Christ so much that he'll never think about himself again.

How cool is that? Because if you're like me, your biggest enemy is you. My biggest enemy is me. It's not my dog. It's me. It's not the liberals or the conservatives. It's me. It's not Satan. It's me. Yeah. Yeah. We have found the enemy within the camp. Guess who it is?

Why? I'm the enemy. I'm my own worst enemy. And what does that enemy try to keep me from doing? being occupied with Christ. That's really what the goal is. If I can get you even thinking about yourself, I've won. Just to think about yourself, I've won. Because being positioned in Christ and all that the Spirit of God does is to occupy me with the Lord Jesus. So I'm occupied with Him. And I don't need a list, or I don't need a disc in my car. I don't need it on my cell phone. It's the Spirit of God's job to do that, to occupy us with Christ. So when it comes to sin, question nine, how do I fight the good fight of faith?

1 Timothy 6.12. Anybody got that? Fight the good fight of faith, take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and you were made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. Okay. What is fight the good fight of faith?

I can see why. You know the next semester, I like semester, it's a good word. We're going to do grace and faith in position again. It's because right now we figured out, we ask questions like this, nobody's got an answer, so we've got to do the class again.

What is the good fight of faith? And is it a fight? The fight has already been fought. True, and it's won, positionally. How about every day walking around? You know, when you hook a ball out of bounds, I don't do that. You slice them out of bounds. Is part of the fight ignoring the rulings of the old man and all the mess he wants to get into? That's the negative side of it.

I think the positive side is more important, which is the reckoning. of who I am side. Romans 6, 11, I'm to reckon, which is a faith word, but I've counted the cost. I know myself dead unto sin and alive unto God. I'm to reckon that to be so. I'm not to reckon to make it so. I'm to reckon because it is so, and I'm persuaded it's so.

That's the good fight of faith. But your sin nature doesn't say, Russ figured it out, so I'm not going to pick on him anymore. No. As a matter of fact, we're probably going to up the heat a little bit. Because what's a sin nature and the opposition's job is to persuade you that what you believe in isn't really true.

And if I can do that, I got you. If I can keep you centered on yourself, I got you. That's all I got to do. I don't need Satan to show up in your bedroom. I just need to get you thinking about you. I got you. Because you're not thinking about the Lord Jesus.

Fight the good fight of faith. Take hold of eternal life to which you were called. What's the take hold part? Take hold means to turn. From what to what? Turn from darkness to light. That's right. Turn from darkness to light. And turn from self to the light, to the light that is Christ. And if you do that, if you rest in the light and rest in the Lord Jesus, you won't give in to sin.

I don't know if you're like me. It's interesting sometimes. There's a temptation. There's something coming at me. I did this experiment with the kids last week where we made this gooey stuff and we put a bunch of iron filings in it and you put a magnet to it and this gooey stuff grabs the magnet. It's kind of like sin taking over.

So the issue is, if I understand and reckon, wait a minute, I'm dead to all of that. What's interesting is that I think you will experience pretty quickly that your mind has gone away from it. The fight's over with. Because if you know that you're dead, you're not going there. I don't have to go there.

How long does it take the Holy Spirit to persuade a believer that they don't have to sin? Because if you're like me, especially if you met the Lord later in life, I had to sin. I was a slave. I had free will. You know how free it was? I could pick between this sin and that sin. But I couldn't pick life. See that? So to turn from darkness and death of self to light and the life of Christ is not to give up the fight and give in to sin. Not at all.

It is the fighting the good fight of faith. It is entering into the benefits of the fact that the fight has already been fought and won for us by another. That's what the good fight of faith is. Faith is always based on what? What's faith always based on? Promises or facts? Facts. Truth.

Not what God's going to do, what He's already done. Alright, we'll pick up with Tim next week. It's close. Father, how we thank you for your provision. that you've given us to deal with the issues of sin in our life, and that we really do, as we grow, recognize that the fight really is a fight of faith, and that we are to trust you, and that the benefits of the facts that you've given us, that we have already, you have already conquered sin, and we can rest in that provision for us. We thank you. We pray in your son's precious name. Amen.