Principles of Position Lesson 21

So I think we finished, we're in lesson 21, right? And I think we finished question 9, right? 1 Timothy 6.15, 6.12.

The good fight of faith? Did you think faith was a fight? You think faith is a fight? You don't? I better put my glasses on. Maybe I don't have fight in my eyes. He says, Fight the good fight of faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called, and you may the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. So it's living by faith to fight.

What do you think? Have you ever thought of it that way? You know, it sort of seems like it's a bite that's modified itself. Jesus does the work through us. So he helps us so much. Does Jesus ever help us do anything? He's already done everything we need. When the flesh lusts against the spirit and spirit against the flesh, is that a fight?

What do you think? The spirit has really strong desires against the flesh and the flesh has really strong desires against the spirit. They're contrary to one another. There's no compatibility. And it says that because of that I'm not able to do what I want to do.

Is that a fight? I think it's a fight. You get two guys in a boxing ring, they're contrary to one another. They're fighting. What happened? There's a winner in a fight and a loser. So what's the fight all about? It's a good fight of faith. What's the fight all about? It's got to be the focus of what the fight is. The fight is of faith.

Yeah, it's the thing. all these things. It's about the faith. Everything is about do you believe it? Do you believe all these things he's told you? That's the fight. It's not against the enemy. It's not against all that. It's do we believe what he's told us? Isn't that interesting? That's the focus, not the issue, the that. It's do we believe the things he's told us about him and us?

The opposition, they want you to believe what they're selling. That's the flesh. And that's the flesh. So how does the flesh sell its program? What is it telling you? What's the fight? What's their side of the fight? It's not true. One, what the other people are telling you isn't true. That's the first thing. Second thing is that the emotion or fleshly desires are true. That what you're feeling and what your mind is telling you, in spite of what the Word of God tells you, this is really true. How did Lucifer sell Eve? If you're a salesman like me, you read that and you think, oh, that was pretty slick. What did he do? He asked her a question. You know why a question? Because the person who asks the questions is in control of the conversation. Right? That's why I ask a lot of questions. That's really right. That's why I do it.

So he says, did God say that you couldn't eat of any of the trees in the garden? Answer, no he didn't say that. But Eve answers. Who's controlling? Satan is. She said, no, no, no, no, he said that we shouldn't touch this tree right here or we shouldn't eat it and if we do we will surely die. Is that what he said? That's not what he said. What did he say? Don't eat it. He didn't say anything about touching it. And then what did Satan say? He lied to you. He told you a lie.

Because he knows that if you eat this, what happens? You're going to be like him. Okay? Oh, really? So what did he get her to do? He got her to look at it and focus on it. So here's the circumstance in your life. And she wanted it. Because it looked good. It looked like it was really good to eat. And it was really desirous to make one wise. Hallelujah. And so she took it and ate it.

So could you say that the flesh is always trying to express itself through your body to sin? Absolutely. It always is sinning. And it's selling you the same apple every time. It's selling the same dance every time. One, there's a lie. Two, God's a liar.

And three, it's really good for you. This is what I need. I need to just do this to satisfy my flesh just this time. And even when you get in the position where you can confess and be restored, there's a whole series of selling that goes on with the flesh right there. I better feel remorse. I better do penance. I better feel bad. Oh, I confess, but this is never going to change. Another cell job. You see how that goes? So here's the fight. The flesh and all this dance over here in the Spirit of God and the Word of God.

So when we start to study about positional truth, it contradicts what their flesh is selling, doesn't it? So like Courtney says, who are you going to believe? Well, you're so used to believing your feelings and your emotions and your experience that sometimes it's really tough to buy into positional truth because you don't have any experience there. And you feel justified a lot of times on the flesh they say. I've done it this way a hundred times. How many times you hear somebody say, well I'll forgive you, but I'm not forgetting. Really? Who won that war? The flesh won it. And did you really forgive? No way. No way.

So, the fighting the good fight of faith, there is aggressive opposition. There's also the fight of faith and the object of your faith are the things of God, when we studied in the faith class, the things of God that are laid out before us. And I'm like Courtney. The biggest issue in most Christians' life is they don't believe what they know.

Do you really believe you were crucified with Christ? Do you really believe that? Come on. Do you? And do you believe, because I did die, all that it means? Well, not really. Sounds good. If someone asked me about it, I'd say, oh sure, I believe that. But when it comes to this fight of faith, do you rest in that? That's what it comes down to. So let's say you don't. Let's say you don't. Say, oh boy, you know what? I've been losing this fight so often, I'm getting comfortable being a loser.

And Paul says, look, take hold of eternal life to which you were called. Being called to eternal life. Positional truth? Yeah. and you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses." In other words, he said, you professed, you confessed the things that you know of salvation and beyond. Why aren't you holding on to that? I've got to tell you, you don't want to embarrass people or expose them, but the real issue in the Christian life is do you believe what God is telling you or don't you? And what if you don't? Back to the question, what if you don't, and you realize you don't, what do you do about it? Take it until you make it, okay? What do you do about it?

You rely on self. What's that? You rely on self. So I'm relying on self, but I know I shouldn't. And I've learned some things that Mike and Courtney have told me are positional truths, and they're true of me no matter how I feel about them. What do I do about those things? How do I express that belief?

Thank the Lord that it's true. So do you sit around and wait for an experience? Will there be a confirmation from the Spirit of God? Answer, yes, there will be. This is your fly. It's confirmation. Yes, there is confirmation, because when we studied Hebrews 11.1, which was what the essence of faith was, 11.2 says what?

What does Hebrews 11.2 say? Somebody read it. People can grab for their electronic devices to beat the people that are turning the pages. I think it's the other way around. What? I think the pages are faster than the device.

For by it, the men of old gained approval. For by it... Say it again. For by it, the men of old gained approval. For by it, the men of old gained approval. What was it? So they're believing they got approval. Who approved them? The old King James says that they received witness. There was a confirmation from the Holy Spirit that what they believed was true. And I think that we all know that in terms of our salvation. We believe in the person and work of Christ. There's sort of a honeymoon time. Then our faith gets tested. And then there comes a day when you're persuaded that you're saved no matter what, right? I mean, you can't walk up to somebody and say, well, I can give you empirical evidence about my salvation. No, you can't. The Spirit of God persuaded you. You think the same thing happens when we're talking about as you go on and learn the greater truths of the Christian life? Absolutely. It's the same thing. God's principles don't ever change.

He doesn't say, I'm going to give you the facts of your salvation, you believe them, then I will demonstrate to you, I will approve you, I will show you and persuade you that what you believe is true and you can't be persuaded otherwise. But now we're looking at different truths and a growing expansion of the things that God did on the cross through Christ. And okay, we believe those, but then slowly there's a confirmation. But the confirmation will not come unless what? You have to believe it.

And you can say to God, you know, I know you said it, I trust you, I have no idea what this really means, but I do believe you about You know, we think, I hear at camp and other places, you know, fighting and fighting and fighting the enemy and fighting this. And it's, all the other, you know, the verses are stand firm.

It's defensive. It's not, we don't, I don't think we aggressively go after Satan or we go after this. Ours is just this, all the fights are with faith. It's going back to, do we believe this? Is it true that we are It always resides back to that, and I think a lot of believers are out there. fighting other battles, not the fight of faith. Faith is the one that gets you through everything. And that's where I see just a lot of believers are not... Again, the focus is wrong. I'm going to go out and I'm going to slay Satan today. I'm going to go out and I'm going to... The fights are always on the basis of faith. Always. Always. And that's where, you know, If we go back to that, the personal faith, well first faith, the definition or the essence of it, but then the personal faith is just believing. That's all we're supposed to do. And it's not our fight.

How long does it take to learn that? Which leads into question 10. How does the Holy Spirit bring us through this transition? from sin and self to the liberty that's in Christ. So the first principle here is that we begin to recognize it's the Holy Spirit who's going to bring us through. Like Courtney says, it isn't going to be me bringing myself through. It's the Holy Spirit who will bring me through. And the transition is really done by a pretty simple process.

The first part of it we don't like to hear, but this is the process. The very first thing is that he allows us to struggle with sin and self until we learn the futility of it. True? Absolutely. Now that process, for some of us that have flat foreheads, takes a long time. For some of us who think we're better than others, it takes even longer.

It's really interesting to get to the point where I have been struggling with sin and self, and it's a futile effort. I'm going to quit. Okay to quit? Especially after it says fight the good fight of faith? Is it okay to quit struggling with sin and self? Think about the equation now. What's the good fight of faith? I'm believing. I'm not struggling, I'm believing. If I'm trying to do it myself, I believe that I can do it. with God's help, He's going to enable me to do it. He is not going to help you. He's either going to do it all or none of it. You see that? So, we spend a lot of time, and by time I'm not talking about a couple of weeks.

It can be decades, struggling against sin to find out the futility of the struggle. And that's okay. because the Spirit of God is the orchestrator and the manager of this process. Then it is that he shows us that the Lord Jesus has already done for us what we could never do for ourselves. And the verse Romans 7, 24 and 25, O wretched man that I am, well I can't ask how many of you know what it means to be a wretched man. who shall deliver me from the body of this death. You go from there to I thank God, who has already accomplished it through Jesus Christ. So a wretched man that I am, you've probably heard me say this before, if you've studied Romans chapter 7, what's really interesting about it is that there's a lot of questions in Romans 7 and they all start out with how.

How can I do it? How is it to be done? What's the process? What's the formula? It's always those questions until he finally gets to the right question. And the right question is what? Who? The right question is who? So, all of this rhetoric about the Christian life and spiritual growth and all of that, if you haven't figured out it's a who yet, you haven't figured it out. It's a who. Who shall deliver me from this body of sin and death? Is that the good fight of faith?

You're learning. You're learning, put it this way, you're learning how to fight. You're learning. Because you're learning that you can't do for yourself what Christ has already done. So our focus, our energy of faith is on what Christ has already done, not engaging in the battle myself. So I'm supposed to sit around and grit my teeth and reckon, reckon, reckon, reckon, reckon, reckon, reckon, right? We talked about how David struggled with his sin. in the 32nd song, you know, the description of what he was going through and his struggle. Doesn't that just remind you of that?

And then Paul talks about his struggle. Right. And then David says, blessed is the man in whom the Lord does not account to be iniquitous or however that goes. Right. And how blessed is the man. So it's a struggle that's similar to what we're talking about. It is. It's a very horrible struggle. It can be a very horrible struggle. Oh yeah, it is. No one likes to find out in the process of their spiritual growth that they're a dog, that's just a rotten sinner in the flesh, and that God has taken care of it.

You know the cool thing about David though, what we learn from David is, the one thing that David didn't have that we have, identity with Christ and his crucifixion. There's a positional separation that David didn't have. And yet he knew what a blessing it was to be forgiven. That's right, and he knew he had new life, but he wasn't in Christ.

And God had given the Jews that had a system whereby they dealt with sin. But we, you don't have to go to the temple and have a bunch of animals around to sacrifice every time you sin. Why not? Because the sacrifice is already done. It's already done. We have new life in the Holy Spirit. And the life we have is not just new life, it's Christ's resurrected life. And that's huge. It's Him. Back to the Him. So, the next part of that, it is from the bondage of the law in my members warring against the law of my mind. and bringing me into captivity for the law of sin which is in my members."

What's interesting is that if you change those words, law, to principle, it sounds better. The principle in my members. What's the principle in your members? What's the principle? A principle, just of itself. You're an engineer. What's an engineering principle? Give me one. Gravity. Gravity. operates the same way every time, right? So are there principles, spiritual principles? Answer, yes there are. And there are principles of sin and the flesh that operate the same way every time. And there are principles of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus that operate the same way every time. Principles. So Paul says, the law or the principle in my members, what do those principles do? they warring against the principles of my mind and bringing me into captivity with the principle of sin which is in my members.

So who won that fight? Who won this fight? Think about it. The principle of my members which is warring against my mind. I got my mind right. The Marine Corps used to say, get your mind right, boy. I got my mind right, but it brings me into captivity to the principle of sin which are in my members. Who won? Sin one. You see that? Because my mind is not strong enough to deal with the sin issue. I may know it, but I am not going to live in victory just because I know it. Right? That's what it's saying.

To the liberty that the principle of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. There's another principle. It is the Holy Spirit who is the very life of Christ. His principle does what? which has already made me free from the principle of sin and death. Already done. So it's not my mind, renewed as it is, that brings me into victory. It's the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. It's Him that does it. So many people read Romans 7 and they get down to the end, that last verse, so with my mind I serve the law of God. but with my flesh the law or the principle of sin?"

Well, that's the answer. I've got my mind right. No, it's not. You can have your mind right and still be a slave to sin. If the spirit of life does not live through you, which already has the victory in Christ, you're not free, conditionally. Does that make sense?

Do you understand that? It's a great principle because what it does is it takes, once you understand that and rest by faith in it, and the spirit begins to persuade you about it, then you always are dealing from a position of victory. You know what they say in the world, you should always negotiate from a position of strength. You should always know what the opposition is going to try to do ahead of time. and you should always have your ducks in a row before you open your mouth. God has done exactly that. The issue about sin has been totally resolved by the Lord Jesus Christ and the Spirit has been given to us for no other reason than to implement that life in us which is victorious.

The battle is over. I don't care what the opposition says. It's over. and the Spirit of God. So not only do I understand that it's over, but I have this power within me, who is the third person of the Trinity, to implement that victory inside and expressed out through me. Pretty cool. What's my job? Believe Him. Simple. My job is to believe Him. You alright with that? You want to argue about that? Okay. True or false? Abiding and walking in the light keeps us honestly aware of our sins. It's not a trick question. Abiding and walking in the light keeps us honestly aware of our sins. True or false?

True. True? True? Everybody think it's true? It is true. Whether you believe it or not. That's true. Honestly, it's a key word. So that you're not being deceptive about your own sins. Yeah. What's Satan's greatest tool? The number one tool he has? Deception. That's what he's really, really good at. You see it in the world. His world operates on deception.

Paul wrote to Timothy here in chapter 4 that we were just reading about. Well back in 4 he says that the Holy Spirit is speaking clearly that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith giving heed to seducing spirits. That's the characteristics and the doctrines of devils. You know the doctrine that's in the church today that fits that? We don't talk about it much in this church because we don't have it here.

But it's that spiritual formation, that contemplative prayer thing that was started way back when by Thomas, whatever his name is, Merton, Thomas Merton. And I've told you this before, but basically what that program is, is transcendental meditation with holy water on it.

What they sell, and they're selling, is that if you want to be more spiritual, so based on positional truth, can you get more spiritual than you already are? No, you can't. But you want to be more spiritual, here's what you've got to do. You've got to get along, you have to empty your mind, and you have to, in essence, have a mantra.

You have to sit and wait for the Spirit of, and they say, the Spirit of God to come and give you peace. What is that? He just read what it was. It's a demon. I'll give you peace. As long as I can keep you away from Christ, I'll give you peace. I'll give you anything you want, as long as you don't get him. So that's what they're selling.

The key also is, where in Scripture does it say empty your mind? I don't know where. Exactly. It goes contrary to everything the scripture says. That's the key right there that it's in the wrong direction. Even there, you've already read the verses in Romans 7 that says our mind is not going to be the solution. It isn't what we think, it's who.

And I couldn't help but think, Mike, all of this that we talked about today focuses on us believing when really what we're saying, if you help me out here a little bit, The reality is that we are now in the realm of Christ. That's right. And it isn't so much... Yeah, you're right. Our belief doesn't make that true, it's already true. That's right.

So, what are we talking about then, today? Are we talking position? Or are we talking condition? We're talking conditions. How is that position implemented? That's really what we're talking about. Yeah. Well yeah, there's no condition. Sure it is. Sure it is.

And you know, we talk about, we live by faith every day. When you believe When you are confronted with the alternative to your positional truths, to positional truths about your sins, or they're covered up, or you're defending yourself, or you're buying into your emotions, what are you doing? You're living by faith on that side of the street. We all live by faith. We all do.

So we need to not believe in the rationalism of all this, but in the actual Word. Yeah, it really gets to be a situation of objectivity. You know, it comes down to, I think, to, well, the Lord says it, in His Word, that's good enough for me. I don't need anything other than that. I don't need anything other than the Lord Jesus Christ. I don't need a new Buick. I need Christ. I don't need patience. I need Christ. You know? I just need Him, because He is all of those things. Oh, and by the way, I already got them.

True or false? There are sins committed as we grow, because we take our eyes off the Lord Jesus and foolishly rely upon self. A defiled conscience and a broken fellowship are the result. True or false? True. Absolutely true. If we have a defiled conscience, and we're one of those people that think that conscience is everything, can you trust your conscience? What do you think? You do. I mean, we do. Can I trust my conscience, especially if I have sinned? What's your conscience tell you when you sin? You're walking in darkness. What's your conscience tell you?

Doesn't it condemn you? Does the Spirit of God condemn you? No. What does He do? He restores you. How do you know when you're in a sinning situation who's tugging at your shirt tails? Is it Satan or is it the Holy Spirit? How can you tell the difference? Satan always points you down. The Holy Spirit always points you up to Christ. Real simple. Which way does the flesh point you?

Down. Yeah. So, over here, did we get a true over here? Yes. To turn from the darkness and death of self to the light and life of Christ is not to give up the fight and give in to sin. Boy, that one tricked you. I'm going to read it again. It's the last chance you got, otherwise you're condemned. To turn from the darkness and death of self to the light and life of Christ is not to give up the fight and give in to sin. It is not to give up the fight and give in to sin.

True or false? True. It's true to me. How many truths do I have? Anybody who says it's false? It's false. I have that was false on the first Lesson 21 you did. It doesn't have the word not in it. She's defending the flesh. You hear that? So, to turn from darkness and death of self to the light and life of Christ, is it to give up the fight of faith or not to give it up and to give in to sin? What do you think? If you take out the word not, then you're saying you're giving it up. Yeah, it is. I think this is a direct quote from the lesson. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. We know how many people read the lesson. You're the only one. So it is false. Why is it false?

Because did you give up the good fight of faith? Turn from the darkness and death of self to the light and life of Christ. It is not to give up the fight and give in to sin. What's that? Well Timothy says fight the good fight. So isn't this saying don't give up the fight? That's right. But if you didn't give up the fight but you gave in to sin, is that a problem? Not to give up the fight and not to give in to sin. But that's the point. That's why it's tricky. If you were fighting the good fight of faith and you had turned but you gave in to sin, I assume there's a knot before the second half of that.

You would? Yes. Well, maybe there isn't one there. It doesn't matter. Alright, we're going to diagram this sentence. The knot goes with both of them. Yeah, the knot was supposedly with both. Yeah, that's true. There's supposed to be a knot given to sin, but it's not there. Because if you're turning from darkness to light, and you're living in the good fight of faith, you don't give in to sin. But? But what? If you're in the light, you don't have to fight. You can see everything.

To turn. To turn. I think this is one of those useless disputing. Probably is. I thought it was really tricky. I liked it. I scratched it out. What idiot wrote this question? That's like I just remembered I was sitting one time years ago with Ron Merriman and he was he decided he maybe wants to be a realtor. He took the he took the broker's exam three times and failed it. You know why? Because rather than just answer the dumb question, he tried to figure out why the guy asked it that way.

And when he applied his philosophy to it, he got them all wrong. So that's not how you take that test. Whatever the book says, you write it down. It sounds like the real Bible is to be believed whether it's true or not. That's exactly right. And they give you a pre-test and what you do is you learn what the answers are.

You can't cheat, but you've been asked the same question so many times, you know it's B. So one thing I forgot to mention, we have, including this Sunday, four weeks left, because we're not going to have Sunday school on Christmas. So we have four Sundays left. I'm going to just start into Lesson 22 now, which means it may take as long as three weeks to get through it, it may not, but if we end up with time, I say the last Sunday before the end of that year, I was thinking today, maybe if you have any questions that were not answered to your satisfaction during the year, write them down and get them to me. And I'll give them to Courtney and he'll answer them. That will go for another month. You can email us all the answers. If you got the book, I mean it came right out of the book.

Is the next lesson the other 21? No, I threw the other 21 away. You know what happened was, I started in, well there's a lot of that 21 and 22. What happened was that I started in on 21 and then I went on vacation. But I didn't finish it, so I came back and I'm looking around and I said, gee, I've got to do 21, so I started over. So Courtney says, look, you've got two less than 21. I said, no I don't. There's one back there that says 22. It's a real 22. It's a positional 22. Did you email that? Yeah, did I email it out? I did. I don't think so. I don't remember. I did. Maybe I didn't send it to the Hemingways. Here's the first question.

It's 1 Corinthians 1.9. How would you define the word fellowship or communion? Do you have that one? I do. You got it electronically? I've got it. I'll send it out this afternoon electronically. You don't have my e-mail. You don't get them? Do you change your e-mail often? I've had their e-mail for four years and I can't get anything to get to them either. Occasionally we get them. Oh yeah, we get them. Do you? Comcast came through. They did? Amazing. So we've got a few minutes, and this is the last part of chapter 10, and there's a verse list back there for chapter 10, 9 and 10, if you want that in your book.

So the question is, in 1 Corinthians 1.9, which is, God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. So the question is, how would you define the word fellowship or communion? And this verse says, who is our communion with? Let's talk about the definition first. What is communion or fellowship?

What is it? You have a lot in common. You have common thoughts about things. There's a lot of earthly examples about this. One is politics. If I'm a liberal democrat and you're a liberal democrat, we have a lot in common the way we think. If I'm a conservative, then you're a conservative, and we think those guys are liberal idiots. We have a lot in common.

Well, the problem with the believers is that we have two lives in us. One of them is a life of sin, and one of them is a life of the Lord Jesus Christ. We're very familiar with the life of sin. We have a lot in common with sin, don't we? But, now that we are positioned in Christ, God is faithful whom you were called into fellowship with Jesus Christ our Lord, we have now common thoughts with him.

We have common affections with him. That's kind of cool. We have common purpose with him. We have oneness of heart and of mind with Christ, who by the way, just so you know, is the God of the universe. It is to love the Lord thy God with all your heart and with all your mind. That's common. We have fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ. If we have that, which we do, then all of these things are true of us. If we study His Word and dependence upon the Spirit, we are in communion with His thoughts. You hear me talk a lot about the fact that why do you read your Bible? Why do you do it?

You want to be smart. You want to show off in Sunday school. You want people to think you're a scholar. You're really a godly person. No. You read your Bible to have fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ, who is your life, to know him. And part and parcel of this communion is that you have similar thoughts that he does. Why? Because we have the mind of Christ, we've got his mind. Our frame of reference, our view is like his. Because we have the life and we have fellowship. The first there says, beseeching us by the name of our Savior, that you all speak the same name. All speak the same thing. You don't have any schisms or divisions.

Yeah. Apparently there were quite a few of them. Yeah, it's interesting how many, what did Vern tell us one day, there were 500 and some different, or 5,000 and some different denominations or religions on the planet. And I don't know how many denominational differences there are in Christianity, but I'm surprised to hear that there are as many in Islam as there is in Christianity. You know, every six Islams and Muslims believe something different than the other six. What's all the fighting in the Middle East about? Shiite and Sunni. And then all these other guys, they're Muslims too, but they believe something different, so they're fighting about it.

Christianity, or the life of the Lord Jesus, is a dependence on God's word and the Spirit to teach us what that word is. And that word is really the mind of Christ, the truth who is Christ himself. As we love the Lord Jesus, we are loving the one whom the Father loves with all his heart. So if I love the Lord Jesus, it isn't because it's such a big deal and unique to me.

No, it's common. It's common. The Father loves the Son. I love the Son. We have fellowship. We have things in common. Pretty cool, isn't it? The commonality or the fellowship that we have, really, what is fellowship? We think of fellowship as hanging out. Well, if we're hanging out, the people you hang out with, excluding relatives. The next half of the verse says that we're perfectly joined together. Perfectly joined together, yeah. Which affords us a commonality. I was watching the CU football game last night. There was a commonality about CU that Utah didn't have, showed up in their game. Not to mention they probably had faster guys. But there's a commonality.

People desire to be Bronco fans. What do they want to do? They want to have fellowship with the Bronco fans and the Broncos. There's a commonality of thought there. How do you think so and so is going to do? Do you think the team can repeat? Can you do this and can you do that? All trying to be in common.

Well, ratchet that up to the next level with the Lord Jesus Christ. Positioned in the heavenlies, seeking those things which are above where Christ sits at the right hand. Setting my affections and my mind on things above and not on things of the earth. What am I doing? I'm fellowshipping. I have common thoughts. with the Lord Jesus.

And the Apostle Paul says, well, that's where you are from. That's where your thought process should be. So you think like he thinks. And you know what? Over time, you start doing that. You view things the way he views them. And when you read things, like in the Gospels, we're teaching the kids the Gospel of John, as you go through, you really see the mind of the Lord at work. and how he views those around him. We're at the point now where we're talking about Judas betraying him, and that he's teaching the disciples by himself.

And it's very interesting. What you're getting is the mind of Christ. And they're not, because they're not that well informed, in concert with what's going on there. But I am. I'm reading this stuff saying, oh yeah, that's the Lord Jesus I know. That's the commonality. I don't think it's commonality itself as much as it is the work of the Holy Spirit who is the one who causes us to understand and be able to be common. Okay. I'm alright with that. That's cool. Alright. You think about... If Courtney and I had to come up with who God was and is, we wouldn't come up with this idea. We would never do that. Never. We'd want God serving us.

The commonality again, I think, I go back to John 17, which is, that is the one that shows the union we have, the fellowship we have, the intimacy that we have with Christ and the Father. If you think of their commonality or their union, and by Christ we've been put into that union. That's our commonality, our union. It just blows my mind that God was that gracious to us. This goes way beyond... Let's make man in our own image and likeness. It's way more than that. That's close.

Father, how we thank you for your word. Again, we thank you that the position that you have us in is not just objective doctrine, which it is, but that there is a commonality, there is a fellowship, there is a union of thought between and among us. And we thank you for that. We thank you for the Lord Jesus Christ and we pray in his precious name. Amen.