SPEAKER_01: Let's get started.
SPEAKER_01: Sorry, we're a few minutes behind.
SPEAKER_01: Let me pray.
SPEAKER_01: Heavenly Father, thank you for this morning and thank you for this church.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for this comfortable building we get to meet in.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for the opportunity to uh update it and make it better suited to the needs of our church.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for the resources to be able to do that.
SPEAKER_01: I pray that you help us as we adjust to some of the inconvenience that causes.
SPEAKER_01: We thank you, Lord, that we get together, we can get together here now to think intentionally about your word and the great benefits that are ours in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, our justification, our adoption, our sanctification, our assurance of your love, our peace of conscience, our joy in the Holy Spirit, our perseverance to the end.
SPEAKER_01: These are great gifts you give to us.
SPEAKER_01: So I pray this morning that you help us to better understand them so that we can better enjoy them.
SPEAKER_01: And that in sharing your word and sharing the gospel, we might hold them out to others.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, send your Spirit now to help us during this time we pray.
SPEAKER_01: In Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Alright, so over the past several weeks, we have been talking about the benefits of redemption that we have in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: We've talked about justification of the act of God's free grace where He pardons all our sins and accepts us as righteous in His sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us and received by faith alone.
SPEAKER_01: We've talked about adoption as our being received into the full number and having a right to all the privileges of the sons of God.
SPEAKER_01: We talked last week about sanctification, which is the work of God's free grace, where we are renewed in the whole man or woman and are enabled more and more to die into sin and live unto righteousness.
SPEAKER_01: This week we talk about the several benefits that accompany or flow from our justification, adoption, and sanctification.
SPEAKER_01: The question is question 36.
SPEAKER_01: It asks that question.
SPEAKER_01: What are the benefits which in this life do accompany or flow from justification, adoption, and sanctification?
SPEAKER_01: The answer is the benefits which in this life do accompany or flow from justification, adoption, and sanctification.
SPEAKER_01: Our assurance of God's love, peace of conscience, joy in the Holy Ghost, and perseverance therein to the end.
SPEAKER_05: And you would never make a good auctioneer.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_05: You just don't have the breath for it.
SPEAKER_01: I've got the breath for it.
SPEAKER_01: I don't got the tongue for it.
SPEAKER_01: I tend to trip over myself.
SPEAKER_01: So we're going to take those kind of blow by blow, benefit by benefit.
SPEAKER_01: And first we'll talk about assurance of God's love.
SPEAKER_01: What is that?
SPEAKER_01: How would you articulate that?
SPEAKER_09: There's no way I can mess it up.
SPEAKER_01: There's no way I can mess it up?
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_02: As I am God so love.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: So it's uh it's not it's not just an articulation of that truth, right?
SPEAKER_01: It's the actual embrace of it, right?
SPEAKER_01: Something subjective, you get that for you.
SPEAKER_01: You don't just say that theoretically, but you know it in your heart.
SPEAKER_01: Anything we want to add to that or take away from it?
SPEAKER_05: My assurance lies in the character of God and all that means.
SPEAKER_05: Who that is.
SPEAKER_05: He is the He is love, He is truth.
SPEAKER_05: I cannot even begin to appreciate what truth is until I begin to know God.
SPEAKER_05: The fear of the Lord is beginning to wisdom.
SPEAKER_05: Until you know and see everything within the light of who God is until I've been reading about the movie.
SPEAKER_05: Um you just really can't know anything because who God is provides the context for knowing anything else.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, assurance, I mean, given all that you know about God and all that the Bible teaches about God, uh, you can either regard him as a terror or as a father.
SPEAKER_01: An assurance of God's love for you plays a major role in which.
SPEAKER_01: Because if you're not assured of God's love, if you're constantly worried that God is angry with you, or that his love isn't for you, that really he hates you, then what reason do you have to come to God as Father or to expect any good from him?
SPEAKER_01: Assurance of God's love, is that something that you think Christians ought to have?
SPEAKER_01: This kind of seems like an obvious question, right?
SPEAKER_01: You think we should have it, right?
unknown: Absolutely.
SPEAKER_05: I think we should have it at some point in our Christian development.
SPEAKER_05: I'm not sure that assurance of God's love is healthy right at the beginning when people were still clinging to their sinful ways.
SPEAKER_05: And think, and then because they're so tempted to think God loves me no matter what I do, and I'm just gonna continue sitting away because he'll love me regardless.
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
SPEAKER_05: So I think there's a misunderstanding of God's love.
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
SPEAKER_05: But I don't know if those people are regenerated.
SPEAKER_01: I think that's the key distinction, right?
SPEAKER_01: For a true for an unbeliever, I'd say yes.
SPEAKER_01: I'd say once someone puts their faith in Christ, the definitive turn has been made.
SPEAKER_01: Um and we'll unpack that more as we as we wrestle with assurance.
SPEAKER_01: But the reason I asked the obvious questions, like like Christians, true believers, can we have assurance, should we have assurance, is because growing up Roman Catholic, the answer to that question was no.
SPEAKER_05: Growing up Mennonite, the answer to that.
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05: Growing up any kind of uh works sort of works righteousness based.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_01: It's you know, I remember asking those kinds of questions in catechisms, like, you know, what had a really godly grandmother, and uh, you know, she died.
SPEAKER_01: Is she in heaven right now?
SPEAKER_01: Oh well, we don't know.
SPEAKER_01: You can't you can't really know.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what the larger catechism says in question and answer 80.
SPEAKER_01: Can true believers be infallibly assured that they are in the estate of grace and that they shall persevere therein unto salvation?
SPEAKER_01: The answer is such as truly believe in Christ and endeavor to walk in all good conscience before him, may, without extraordinary revelation, by faith grounded upon the truth of God's promises, and by the Spirit enabling them to discern in themselves those graces to which the promises of life are made, and bearing witness with their spirits that they are the children of God, they may be infallibly assured that they are in the estate of grace and shall persevere therein to salvation.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: So given what we believe about the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts to regenerate us and unite us to Christ, the freeness of grace, the definitive nature of God's grace to us in justification.
SPEAKER_01: Remember, we talked about it's an act of God's grace, not a work of God's grace.
SPEAKER_01: It's something that's objective, it's something that's true, it's something that's past tense.
SPEAKER_01: If you are in Christ, you are justified.
SPEAKER_01: And then what does Paul say in Romans 8?
SPEAKER_01: Justified, he also glorified, right?
SPEAKER_01: Those whom he predestined to be conformed to the influence of Christ, he justified, glorified.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: So the promise is that if you are in him, you will remain in him.
SPEAKER_01: And if you are in him, you can be assured of God's love for you in him.
SPEAKER_01: So we can have that.
SPEAKER_01: Believers can have that.
SPEAKER_01: It's not a presumptive thing, it's actually one of the good graces, gifts, benefits that God gives to us in redemption.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't want us second-guessing it all the time.
SPEAKER_01: He wants us to rest in the finished work of Christ and to know that we are his and then press on, right?
SPEAKER_01: And to live in response to that.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_05: Where that happened for me was when I suddenly realized that Paul's words were extended abound, great, didn't much more abound, and that the powerful, the powerful salvation that Jesus earned for us is so much more vast and powerful than my little.
SPEAKER_05: Oh, and I won't want to minimize my sin now.
SPEAKER_05: I'm a word person, but it is so much more powerful than my little sin.
SPEAKER_05: And I needed to take my eyes off my pilly little self and keep them on him.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01: Um, something we ought to have.
SPEAKER_01: Follow-up question Is it something that true believers always have?
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_05: No.
SPEAKER_05: Even Paul, fighting without fears within.
SPEAKER_01: Right.
SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, there are plenty of examples in scripture of true believers who lack assurance of God's love, at least for a time.
SPEAKER_01: Psalm 22, verse 1, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
SPEAKER_01: Why are you so far from saving me from the words of my groaning?
SPEAKER_01: That's David, the man after God's own heart.
SPEAKER_01: Psalm 51, 2, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sins.
SPEAKER_01: Habakkuk, chapter 1, verse 2, O Lord, how long shall I cry for help and you will not hear?
SPEAKER_01: Or cry to you violence, and you will not save.
SPEAKER_01: There are lots of places in the Bible where true believers.
SPEAKER_01: Believers we have no reason to doubt.
SPEAKER_01: They're not perfect, but we have no reason to doubt that they truly believe in the Lord or one of his people, or they lack assurance of God's love.
SPEAKER_01: They find themselves experiencing the dark night of the soul, as we say.
SPEAKER_01: Here's the next question and answer in the larger catechisms, 81.
SPEAKER_01: Are all true believers at all times assured of their present being in the estate of grace, and that they shall be saved?
SPEAKER_01: Assurance of grace and salvation, not being of the essence of faith, true believers may wait long before they obtain it, and after the enjoyment thereof, may have it weakened and intermitted through manifold distempers, sins, temptations, and desertions.
SPEAKER_01: Yet are they never left without such a presence and support of the Spirit of God as keeps them from sinking into utter despair.
SPEAKER_01: I've mentioned it before in this class.
SPEAKER_01: I've known lots of good, godly Christians who, you know, you look at them and they radiate Jesus, and there's no doubt for anyone around them that they're true believers.
SPEAKER_01: And yet, because of the tenderness of their conscience, they're constantly questioning their own salvation.
SPEAKER_01: They don't have an abiding assurance of God's love, at least one that sticks with them all the time.
SPEAKER_01: So this is a real struggle for some people.
SPEAKER_01: And it doesn't necessarily mean that they're not Christians.
SPEAKER_03: You know, when that assurance is weakened, it can be a blessing because it drives you back in scripture, right?
SPEAKER_03: If you had assurance 100% of the time, um then complacency, right?
SPEAKER_03: Complacency.
SPEAKER_03: And uh complacency is just a growth killer.
SPEAKER_03: Um but yeah, when there are times that assurance weakens with me, drive to the promises.
SPEAKER_03: Drive to the promises in scripture, yeah, right?
SPEAKER_01: So that's uh it can be a blessing.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: So what are um what are some of the reasons?
SPEAKER_01: Uh you can draw on what I just read from the catechism or your own sense of things.
SPEAKER_01: What are some of the reasons that you think true believers might lack assurance?
SPEAKER_01: Ron?
SPEAKER_10: I think some people grow up in unhealthy families, so they have fathers and mothers.
SPEAKER_10: When they become Christians, that's all they have to go on to understand what God thought.
SPEAKER_10: Yeah.
SPEAKER_10: And so it takes a while of, I think one of the things is when we're constantly confessing our sin, we experience the forgiveness.
SPEAKER_10: There's experiential stuff that they go through in accordance with the word to help them overcome what they grew up in.
SPEAKER_10: I think that's just one.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: There's a process involved there, Brandon.
SPEAKER_09: Uh, from the Armenian church that we came from in the past.
SPEAKER_09: Every time we had an invitation at the end of the service, of course, it was mainly for people to come forward for salvation, but they generally always included come forward to reconvict your life, you know, is another thing that you might do.
SPEAKER_09: And I gather some of that was kind of geared towards people that felt like they, well, I'm just not quite measuring that.
SPEAKER_09: You know, uh, I could be a lot better.
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
SPEAKER_09: And therefore, come not coming forward, you know, and making that profession of uh recommitment was something to do.
SPEAKER_06: I think pride was a big part of it.
SPEAKER_06: You think your wickedness is stronger than his grace.
SPEAKER_01: Like you're special.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you're special.
SPEAKER_01: You're the one person who can outsend God's love.
SPEAKER_07: So being raised Baptist, it was Jesus opens the door, I choose to step through.
SPEAKER_01: Right.
SPEAKER_07: But predestination, I don't have that self-assurance that I've chosen God, therefore He loves me.
SPEAKER_07: And being human, we believe incorrect things all the time.
SPEAKER_07: So if predestination is true, then how do I know God's chosen me?
SPEAKER_07: I might believe that he has, and I could be wrong.
SPEAKER_07: So how do you know?
SPEAKER_01: Well, it's like I've said before, look to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And that seems like a you know a Pat Sunday school answer, because but that is what John Calvin said about that question, that Jesus is the mirror of election.
SPEAKER_01: So, you know, keep choosing Jesus, right?
SPEAKER_01: You don't just go to Jesus once for salvation, but every time the question arises, you run to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And insofar as you're running to Jesus, well, that's you know, that's a Christian thing to do.
SPEAKER_01: I might have told you, I might have told the class, I was meeting with a younger guy for a while that you know he'd struggled with, he didn't know whether he was a Christian in some ways, like he hadn't really definitively put his faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And uh, and yet he's like telling me about all the time he spends reading the Bible and how much time he spends talking to other people about Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And he talks about like conviction over a sin and repentance and all this sort of stuff.
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, dude, that's Christian stuff.
SPEAKER_01: You're doing Christian stuff, right?
SPEAKER_01: So what does scripture tell us?
SPEAKER_01: Like, if you're in the flesh, you don't want anything to do with any of that.
SPEAKER_01: You only want to do with that if you're in the spirit.
SPEAKER_01: It's the spirit that draws you to Christ, it's the spirit that brings conviction over sin.
SPEAKER_01: It's the spirit that raises the question at all, like, am I elect?
SPEAKER_01: And actually causes us to worry about it.
SPEAKER_01: And so it's, you know, reformed preachers say this all the time, but if you're worried about it, then you don't need to worry about it.
SPEAKER_01: I was just gonna say, you asked that question.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, dude.
SPEAKER_01: Cash and chicken baby.
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, yeah, we're you know, we're hearing there.
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I was just I don't want to have the rest of it.
SPEAKER_00: No, go ahead.
SPEAKER_05: And my brother back there who said the family you're raised in.
SPEAKER_05: My husband Bob was raised in a family where he was the only boy.
SPEAKER_05: The dad deserted them for a man, deserted his wife and children for a man when Bob was like five or six.
SPEAKER_05: Can you imagine the struggle he has had to trust anybody, to trust any man, to to even appreciate what the concept of father is, yeah, his whole life.
SPEAKER_05: And I've been married 52 years for him, with with I've been married 52 years to him, and I've watched him labor and sweat and agonize and God working in him, and say this.
SPEAKER_05: I do not mind that he's not here.
SPEAKER_05: He's at another church which is much more structured and much more uh what's the word I want.
SPEAKER_05: Anyhow, he it fits him better, and I'm fine with that.
SPEAKER_05: I'd say, Bob, go be go be a blessing.
SPEAKER_05: Because he's had a hard life.
SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
SPEAKER_05: I mean that that haunting shadow of his childhood has just hung over him.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so there are there are sins that have been committed against us that make us difficult, to make it difficult for us to draw near to God the way he calls us to draw near to him, and to enjoy him as the father that he says he is to us.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, there are theological reasons, right, that might make that difficult too.
SPEAKER_01: Again, going back to if you're in a very works righteousness kind of setting, then you know, how can you be assured of God's love if you're constantly trying to earn it by what you do?
SPEAKER_01: If you're honest, you're gonna realize that you keep failing to measure up.
SPEAKER_01: The door is open before you, but you're you just can't really seem to take a genuine definitive step through it.
SPEAKER_01: Um we talk about sins committed against us.
SPEAKER_01: Is there anything we can do to harm our own sense of assurance of God's love?
SPEAKER_02: I mean, just from personality standpoint of being like your own worst critic kind of personality.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: You're constant constantly beating yourself up over stuff you have no control over.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: So we we can beat ourselves up, right?
SPEAKER_01: Maybe when we don't deserve to be beat up?
SPEAKER_05: Well said, well said, yeah.
SPEAKER_01: But also sin, right?
SPEAKER_05: Look at every frustration as, oh, I must be a sinner because God's trying to tell me something.
SPEAKER_05: And because things aren't working out the way I want them to, which is totally focused.
SPEAKER_01: Well what what if you are walking in sin?
SPEAKER_01: If you're walking in unrepentant sin for a season, you might call it backsliding.
SPEAKER_01: Might your assurance of God's love struggle during that season?
SPEAKER_05: It should.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: You can be a true believer in that season still, but you're in a dark spot.
SPEAKER_01: You're in a valley.
SPEAKER_01: Um temptation.
SPEAKER_01: Temptation can lead you in that direction.
SPEAKER_01: Desertion is the other word that the larger catechism uses.
SPEAKER_01: Uh neglecting the ordinary means of grace.
SPEAKER_01: You haven't read your Bible in a couple months, you've been to church a handful of times this year, uh, you're not really engaging with fellow Christians, you're not really praying at all.
SPEAKER_01: Do you feel like you're gonna, do you think in that sort of frame you're gonna feel super assured of God's love?
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna feel close to him, you're gonna feel connected to him?
SPEAKER_01: Probably not.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: So that kind of tees up the question: what do we do?
SPEAKER_01: What do we do if we're struggling with that lack of assurance?
SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, what do you what do you do if you sense coldness in a relationship with someone in your life?
SPEAKER_01: Draw near.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: And I realize it's easier to say than it is to do in some circumstances.
SPEAKER_01: Draw near, right?
SPEAKER_01: The ordinary means of grace.
SPEAKER_01: God's word, uh, prayer, the sacraments, gathering with God's people to worship.
SPEAKER_01: We don't hold any of those things forward as magic bullets or magic talismans where if you spend 45 minutes every day in the word like it's a prescription or something, then you're gonna be automatically more assured of God's love at the end of the week.
SPEAKER_01: But guess what?
SPEAKER_01: You're far more likely to be assured of God's love after consistent time with him in his word and prayer than you are to be apart from it.
SPEAKER_01: So it's something we can take to encourage ourselves if we're struggling with assurance, and something we can take to encourage other people too.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: We don't have to be legalists about it.
SPEAKER_01: You know, you know, you don't have to be the do it in a jerky kind of way where someone says, Hey, I'm struggling.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, you've been in the word, right?
SPEAKER_01: You know, did you have your quiet time this morning?
SPEAKER_01: The question should come in a kind way, right?
SPEAKER_01: In a patient way and in an appropriate way.
SPEAKER_01: But that's yeah, that's fair.
SPEAKER_01: It's a fair question to ask, right?
SPEAKER_01: But I you know, have voice.
SPEAKER_03: I'm calling this woman right here.
SPEAKER_03: When you say you don't have to come at the end of the word, she went, bam.
SPEAKER_03: Because that's what I say.
SPEAKER_03: Ask me some of that.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
SPEAKER_03: I guess I could like, I don't know, rub your shoulders with my ass.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, do that.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but you're also the guy that I expect to hear that from, right?
SPEAKER_01: And there's something to be said about relationships and personalities, right?
SPEAKER_01: So be who you are, according to God's grace and gifting.
SPEAKER_01: And you know, get there.
SPEAKER_01: Have that conversation.
SPEAKER_02: You say the same thing directly, but you get there, it's take five years.
SPEAKER_02: You get there.
SPEAKER_01: Alright, that's assurance of God's love.
SPEAKER_01: Let's talk about peace of conscience.
SPEAKER_01: In Romans 5, verse 1, Paul says, Since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Now, what is peace with God?
SPEAKER_01: We'll talk about the conscience bit in a couple minutes, but just thinking about peace.
SPEAKER_01: What is peace with God?
SPEAKER_01: Well, earlier Paul talks about we are children of wrath.
SPEAKER_03: So the converse of that is we are now at peace with him.
SPEAKER_03: To steal the words of a pastor in Atlanta, he no longer has beef with us because of Jesus Christ through our Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_03: So we're cool now.
SPEAKER_01: We're cool.
SPEAKER_01: No more beef, no more bad blood.
SPEAKER_01: Score's been settled.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like that.
SPEAKER_05: I would take it more, I I mean, I'm not disagreeing or anything, but the word peace, every time I see that scripture, I think shalom.
SPEAKER_05: I think total well-being.
SPEAKER_05: And then peace with God just means a whole lot more than he's not mad at me anymore.
SPEAKER_05: It means that my relationship with God at least can take the first baby steps in that total well-being of a relationship with him.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there's there's kind of two poles to it that we need to keep track of.
SPEAKER_01: We have peace with God in an objective sense and in a subjective sense.
SPEAKER_01: Ephesians 2, 14 through 16, speaking of Christ, he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.
SPEAKER_01: So this is Paul talking about Christ in himself tearing down the wall that divides Jew and Gentile and making peace between insiders and outsiders by way of peace between us and God through Christ in the Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: So that's that's like an indicative reality.
SPEAKER_01: That's an objective reality that's saying Jesus did this, Jesus accomplished this on the cross.
SPEAKER_01: Past tense, he accomplished it.
SPEAKER_01: So if you are in Christ, you have peace with God.
SPEAKER_01: He no longer has a beef with you.
SPEAKER_01: You are reconciled to God in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And that's objectively true.
SPEAKER_01: But of course, the subjective aspect of it, growing in your sense of peace with God, that isn't as neat and clean always.
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna struggle, some people are gonna struggle more than other people struggle, the same way we struggle with assurance of God's love.
SPEAKER_01: Is he really not mad at me?
SPEAKER_01: Because I just did that thing again.
SPEAKER_01: And I kind of feel like God is mad at me about it.
SPEAKER_01: And instead of going to talk to him about it in prayer, I'm gonna go play a video game or watch a movie or whatever.
SPEAKER_01: Here's Philippians 4, 4 through 7.
SPEAKER_01: Rejoice in the Lord always.
SPEAKER_01: Again I will say, rejoice.
SPEAKER_01: Let your reasonableness be known to everyone.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord is at hand.
SPEAKER_01: Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.
SPEAKER_01: And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: So there's Paul basically encouraging us to grow into the peace that we have objectively with God.
SPEAKER_01: Avail yourself of it, right?
SPEAKER_01: When you're worried, when you feel no peace in your soul, when you feel like God is mad at you again, reread the terms of the peace treaty.
SPEAKER_01: Reacquaint yourself with the promises.
SPEAKER_01: Prayer and thanksgiving.
SPEAKER_01: Let him know what's going on.
SPEAKER_01: Let him know what you need.
SPEAKER_01: And in offering Thanksgiving, thank him for everything you have.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, Thanksgiving and Paul, it's not just a matter of like minding your P's and Q's.
SPEAKER_01: It's actually the practice by which we thank God and remind ourselves that every good thing we have is a gift from him.
SPEAKER_01: So reflect upon the gifts and graces of God, and that will be a practical reminder that you have peace with him, and he has peace with you.
SPEAKER_05: Thanksgiving is an act of a creature he says before God.
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
SPEAKER_05: We are creatures, he's the creator.
SPEAKER_05: Everything we have, my beating heart, my breathing lungs, everything is from him.
SPEAKER_05: And I give him thanks for that.
SPEAKER_05: Paul in Romans talks about lack of thankfulness being one of the earliest symptoms of wickedness and failure to give thanks.
SPEAKER_01: So this so this talks about not merely peace with God, but it says this speaks specifically of one of the benefits of redemption being peace of conscience.
SPEAKER_01: So not just peace, but peace of conscience.
SPEAKER_01: What is that?
SPEAKER_01: Right, we're getting a little more specific here.
SPEAKER_01: What what is peace of conscience?
SPEAKER_01: I'll give you an example from 2 Corinthians 1.12.
SPEAKER_01: For our boast is this, the testimony of our conscience, that we behaved in the world with simplicity and godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom, but by the grace of God, and supremely so toward you.
SPEAKER_01: The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.
SPEAKER_01: 2 Timothy 1.3, I thank God whom I serve, as did my ancestors, with a clear conscience, as I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day.
SPEAKER_01: What is that peace of conscience, that clarity of conscience?
SPEAKER_06: Doing things for the right reason for God or knowing that the intention is in the right place.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's knowing we're doing the right things for the right reasons.
SPEAKER_01: Knowing, right?
SPEAKER_05: Conscience in a human being is that that ability in every human being to have a sense of right and wrong.
SPEAKER_05: And it is universal, there is no human being without it.
SPEAKER_05: People can harden, they can deaden, they can callous their conscience.
SPEAKER_05: And I think only regeneration, only being made anew in Christ gives us a conscience that actually does what a conscience is supposed to do.
SPEAKER_05: A regenerated conscience is recalibrated to the character of God because otherwise we cannot trust our conscience.
SPEAKER_05: It can make us feel guilty about stuff we don't need to feel guilty about and not feel guilty about stuff we should feel guilty about.
SPEAKER_05: It's not trustworthy at all.
SPEAKER_01: The conscience is definitely, you know, the Puritans were really good at talking about this.
SPEAKER_01: It is a sin to go against your conscience.
SPEAKER_01: Paul talks about that in Romans.
SPEAKER_01: And the sticky part about that is that even if your conscience is wrong, it's a sin to go against your conscience.
SPEAKER_01: And so what do we need to do?
SPEAKER_01: We actually need to train our consciences.
SPEAKER_01: We need to train them according to Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: There's such thing as a strong conscience versus a weak conscience.
SPEAKER_01: When Paul talks about the weaker brother in Romans 14, or talking about food sacrificed to idol in 1 Corinthians 8 through 9, and talking about not destroying the weaker brother, that's what he's talking about.
SPEAKER_01: He's talking about weakness of conscience.
SPEAKER_01: There were Christians, mostly Jewish Christians, who had conscience issues with eating certain meats that had been declared clean.
SPEAKER_01: And so if you're a Christian, if you're a strong Gentile Christian who doesn't have a beef with eating pork, and like you are free to do that in Christ, but let's say you're sitting at the table with a Jewish Christian brother who actually has a problem with that.
SPEAKER_01: What should you do?
SPEAKER_01: Should you make use of your freedom in Christ in order to do whatever you want, even if it scandalizes the guy across the table?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, then that's that's essentially what Paul says.
SPEAKER_01: He's wrong, right?
SPEAKER_01: He's objectively wrong, and yet he's doing the right thing by obeying his conscience.
SPEAKER_01: And don't you go trampling in there and destroy your brother or sister for whom Christ died.
SPEAKER_01: So, you know, conscience, like I said, is a tricky thing.
SPEAKER_01: What the gospel gives us is that sense of freedom, where we no longer have to be bound by anything but the word of God.
SPEAKER_01: And so our consciences can be clear insofar as we walk according to the word.
SPEAKER_01: And if we are in Christ, we don't have to live with that sense of dread, that sense of conviction, that sense of everything I do is wrong, I am wrong, God hates me, God's judging me.
SPEAKER_01: I don't have it in front of me, but it's in either 1st or 2 Corinthians.
SPEAKER_01: Paul says to the people, it's like, you know, whether you judge me or not, whatever, right?
SPEAKER_01: I have no sense reason to think that, you know, I'm worthy of judgment, but God is my judge.
SPEAKER_01: And why can Paul say that as a kind of freeing thing?
SPEAKER_01: Like, I don't care if you judge me, I only care if God judges me.
SPEAKER_01: He can say that because his conscience is clear before the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Only God can judge me, and he has already judged Christ on my behalf.
SPEAKER_01: So when I stand before the bar of God's judgment, I am not guilty.
SPEAKER_01: I'm innocent in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: What's that?
SPEAKER_06: Where does an ocean commission?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um.
SPEAKER_01: It definitely does come into play.
SPEAKER_01: I'm just gathering my thoughts about it.
SPEAKER_01: It's our, you know, peace of conscience is a is a benefit, right?
SPEAKER_01: It's a benefit that comes from God.
SPEAKER_01: It's it's part of our redemption.
SPEAKER_01: But just like there are things we can do to hinder our assurance of God's love, I think there are things we can do to hinder our peace.
SPEAKER_01: And so we can fail to enjoy the clear conscience that we ought to have before the Lord by sinning against our conscience, and more generally, sinning against God.
SPEAKER_01: So, you know, there may be times when our conscience afflicts us because we're not, we know we're not walking the step of the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: And admonition comes into play because you have a brother or sister alongside you to help you realize that fact.
SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_05: I think conscience, you you said conscience was tricky, and that's a very good statement because we can set up a rule for ourselves.
SPEAKER_05: I'm gonna read my scripture this time every morning, I'm gonna do my praying this time every morning, and all of a sudden there's a morning when we can't do that, and we our conscience gets all hot and bothered by it.
SPEAKER_05: And then I wonder, I say, okay, conscious, you're all hot and bothered, but I couldn't possibly do what I normally do, so you just touch up.
SPEAKER_05: Um but that can be our experience too, you know.
SPEAKER_05: Okay, you can feel bad about it, but don't let it be a conscious thing because there were God knows all about it, He knows all about it, and as soon as you have an opportunity, you're gonna pick up your Bible and do your reading and whatnot.
SPEAKER_01: And yeah, the conscience can be a yellow flag, right?
SPEAKER_01: It's like, hey, you missed your you missed your Bible study this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: And you talk back to your conscience, all right, chill out.
SPEAKER_01: There were good reasons for it, and I'll do it tomorrow.
SPEAKER_01: And you do it tomorrow, and you're you're back in the rhythm, and your conscience is like, alright, okay, I get it.
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, it's a yellow flag.
SPEAKER_05: That's a really great analogy.
SPEAKER_03: Um and sometimes the Lord gives you the rest that you need that you don't, you're driving yourself and you sleep through that alarm where you get up at five to do your reading and time, but then you wake up at seven.
SPEAKER_03: That's a gift.
SPEAKER_03: You've rested, right?
SPEAKER_03: I mean, it's thank you for that extra rest.
SPEAKER_03: Um, so I that's kind of how I look at it sometimes.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
SPEAKER_05: It's so easy to turn into a works person.
SPEAKER_03: It's our nature.
SPEAKER_03: That's why we have to treat us.
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
SPEAKER_07: Isn't it because if you're not doing something for God, your conscience is beating you.
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, it is.
SPEAKER_01: Well, that comes back to why it's important to train your conscience.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Should your conscience be beating you up?
SPEAKER_01: Maybe yes, maybe no.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: If you're if you're completely wasting your life, right?
SPEAKER_01: If you're not obeying God, you're not going to church, you're not the good works that He prepared for you, you're not walking in step with those, your conscience ought to be lighting you up.
SPEAKER_01: But if you're the tender conscience type, where it's like, you know, you slept for an extra hour this morning because you've only been sleeping four hours a night for the past three weeks, then maybe your conscience needs to chill out a little bit, right?
SPEAKER_01: And either you need to have a conversation with it, or a friend needs to have a conversation with it, and you know, to help you see that you're you're burying yourself under the weight of your own expectations.
SPEAKER_01: And it's better to it's better to be free under the weight of God's expectation than buried under burdens that we place on ourselves.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's what the Pharisees did, right?
SPEAKER_01: The Sabbath, right?
SPEAKER_01: The Sabbath was supposed to be this day where we set people free to enjoy the gifts of creation, to be healed, restored, renewed, all the good things.
SPEAKER_01: And the Pharisees just dump a mack truck full of religious obligation on that.
SPEAKER_01: You're not doing it right.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: And so, yeah, why did the Pharisees get so upset when Jesus and the disciples were eating grain in the field on the Sabbath?
SPEAKER_01: Because their consciences were lit up.
SPEAKER_01: They weren't just being jerks, they were scandalized by it, but they were scandalized by something they didn't need to be scandalized by.
SPEAKER_01: So if you find yourself in that position, the right way forward isn't to insist on your own hyper narrow and hyper heavy view of obligation, but to actually preach the gospel to it and be set free.
SPEAKER_05: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Alright, the preaching before the preaching.
SPEAKER_01: Joy in the Holy Ghost.
SPEAKER_01: It's the next benefit that the shorter catechism talks about.
SPEAKER_01: Uh joy in the Holy Ghost.
SPEAKER_01: We know joy is the fruit of the Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, and so on.
SPEAKER_01: Uh what is joy?
SPEAKER_01: Anyone know?
SPEAKER_01: I've been trying to figure this out forever.
SPEAKER_01: Unbounded happiness.
SPEAKER_01: Can you have joy at the right hand of somebody who just died?
SPEAKER_05: Yes.
SPEAKER_05: Gandalf knew what joy was.
SPEAKER_01: What did Gandalf have to say about joy?
SPEAKER_05: Gandalf.
SPEAKER_01: The book of Gandalf.
SPEAKER_05: The book of Gandalf.
SPEAKER_05: Pippen when Minus Tierh was being just surrounded and besieged and everything, Pippen looked into Gandalf's eyes, and there was enough joy in them to set the world spinning.
SPEAKER_05: It was like all these outward things.
SPEAKER_05: Gandalf knew that there was a Louvatar, there was a God in heaven who had everything under control.
SPEAKER_05: And that fact was in his eyes, and the meanest tear of the situation could not wipe it out.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's I think happiness kind of gets us there, but I think happiness, you know, it points to a more circumstantial emotion than joy truly and fully is.
SPEAKER_01: Because, you know, Colossians 1.24, I rejoice in my sufferings.
SPEAKER_01: Uh when Paul's talking about that, you know, is he some weird kind of sadist or masochist where they're, you know, he's getting whipped and he's saying, Thank you, Caesar, may I have another?
SPEAKER_01: I don't think so.
SPEAKER_01: I don't think he's happy when that's happening.
SPEAKER_01: I think he's probably pretty upset.
SPEAKER_01: But the beautiful thing is that, you know, James 1, 2 still applies.
SPEAKER_01: Count it all joy, my brothers and sisters, when you meet trials of various kinds.
SPEAKER_01: I think you could be in the funk.
SPEAKER_01: I think you can be getting beat up, literally or figuratively, and still find a deep joy that transcends that momentary circumstance because it's a joy you have in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: In Philippians, it's the epistle of joy.
SPEAKER_01: The word joy keeps showing up again and again and again.
SPEAKER_01: Paul's writing that from a jail cell.
SPEAKER_01: Ready?
SPEAKER_09: Uh the joy of the Lord is my strength.
SPEAKER_09: I just opened that up, Nehemiah 8:10.
SPEAKER_09: Yeah, and that I think the joy of the Lord is where we find the comfort and the peace of knowing that He has got everything.
SPEAKER_09: He's got it all under control.
SPEAKER_09: That's joyful to know that.
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
SPEAKER_09: It's not up to me, yeah, you know, to try to be happy or whatever.
SPEAKER_09: I mean, it's I'm just trusting what God has told me.
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
SPEAKER_09: Follow his commandment.
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
SPEAKER_09: That's what I'll have.
SPEAKER_09: Be still.
SPEAKER_09: Be still and knows God in the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: So, how how can we cultivate that joy?
SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, how do we cultivate Christian joy, especially if we're in the valley or we're not feeling super joyful?
SPEAKER_01: There's not a lot in our lives right now to make us very happy.
SPEAKER_03: You cultivate it, it's like going to the gym.
SPEAKER_03: You cultivate it through those trials and tribulations.
SPEAKER_03: You cultivate it when you get a phone call from a client that sends you millions of dollars of work a year, and that phone call is not good.
SPEAKER_03: So that's a moment, that's an opportunity to go right to the Lord.
SPEAKER_03: Praise you, Lord.
SPEAKER_03: It it doesn't, you get pruned, right?
SPEAKER_03: As our Lord said, you know, the father's divine just or he's divine, we are the branches, and sometimes you hear the father start chalking out your ears, and you get those phone calls, and it hurts.
SPEAKER_03: But if you drive to the word, if you drive into prayer almost as a self-preservation, even if you look at it in a selfish way, like I need to preserve my heart and my stress level, it's almost selfish, right?
SPEAKER_03: You're like, no, I'm going to the Lord.
SPEAKER_03: I will reject this, I will reject worry, but it doesn't just come.
SPEAKER_03: These trials and tribulations is what works out that needs your reaction, this reaction, you just go to the Lord.
SPEAKER_03: Then go to the Lord.
SPEAKER_06: Well, everything that happens is for his glory and it's work for his glory.
SPEAKER_06: So if you know that, you never have to be in despair during those things.
SPEAKER_01: Right.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: That's whatever is going on for his glory.
SPEAKER_01: It's ultimately for your good.
SPEAKER_05: There's a I I've got it circled in green on my uh iPad here, a statement by a Hercule Perot, the detective in Agatha Christie's murder mysteries, that gave me such incredible joy.
SPEAKER_05: Let me read it to you.
SPEAKER_05: In all the world, there's nothing so curious and so interesting and so beautiful and true.
unknown: Is that incredible?
SPEAKER_05: Defined in a murder mystery.
SPEAKER_03: It's a gift.
SPEAKER_03: It's a beautiful gift.
SPEAKER_03: And it's a true.
unknown: So beautiful as true.
SPEAKER_04: I mean, can you not also dwell on God's promises?
SPEAKER_01: You can't.
SPEAKER_01: Sorry.
SPEAKER_01: That's absolutely right.
SPEAKER_04: His promises are true.
SPEAKER_04: He doesn't lie.
SPEAKER_04: And so he can dwell on his promises, and that reinforces that deeper joy that wasn't heaven.
SPEAKER_04: I can write on that forever.
SPEAKER_07: So following up on that actually, I have destroyed my joy.
SPEAKER_07: And it seems because I wanted more.
SPEAKER_07: And even from God, I wanted more.
SPEAKER_07: I'm not talking about worldly things.
SPEAKER_07: I wanted more from God.
SPEAKER_07: And it didn't seem to be coming.
SPEAKER_07: Which made me question everything.
SPEAKER_07: And then when I started questioning everything, it got worse.
SPEAKER_07: So that's how I destroyed my job.
SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you for sharing that.
SPEAKER_05: I think there's a my dad had an experience like that where he just wanted this kind of overwhelming emotional experience where emotionally he felt wonderful.
SPEAKER_05: And so he went to all these holiness meetings where they said, Oh, you're going to get the baptism of the Spirit, and it'll be the most ecstatic thing you ever had.
SPEAKER_05: And it was like all the focus was on the experience, the emotional experience.
SPEAKER_05: And I watched my dad struggle through that.
SPEAKER_05: And I just, it's kind of this the thing where you just have to sort of stand back and let the person go through and discover for themselves.
SPEAKER_05: And later in life, I just saw him reading his scripture and tears running down his face, and then just thinking of the beauty of God.
SPEAKER_05: And so the emotional peace came to him later, but it didn't come while he was.
SPEAKER_05: I gotta have it, I gotta have it, you know, while he was kind of thinking at the door to get this experience.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the the uh I think so so often we go wrong in thinking about joy when we equate it to the experience, when we equate it to the emotion, when we mistake it for happiness.
SPEAKER_01: And we keep chasing that feeling, chasing that feeling, try to do more, get blowed up, right?
SPEAKER_01: Like you said.
SPEAKER_01: I think in some ways Christian joy is kind of like sleep.
SPEAKER_01: Like think about trying to fall asleep.
SPEAKER_01: The harder you try to fall asleep, the harder it is to fall asleep, right?
SPEAKER_01: And so I think, you know, chasing joy, I don't think we're gonna catch it.
SPEAKER_01: Chasing the Lord, we will catch it because he's caught us.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: So, cultivating joy, my answer to that one comes back to my same answer to the other ones.
SPEAKER_01: It's not flashy seeking mountaintop experiences to try and gin up something in you.
SPEAKER_01: It's the ordinary, everyday means by which God communicates his extraordinary grace, the consistent time, you know, whatever that rhythm looks like for you, time in the word, time in prayer, time with God's people, time in church, time participating in the sacraments.
SPEAKER_01: And again, like sleep, if you're doing all that just kind of chasing that feeling, then the feeling's probably not gonna come.
SPEAKER_01: But if you're doing all that chasing the Lord, then in time, and maybe not in as little time as we would like, maybe in a lot of time, like with your dad, it'll come.
SPEAKER_01: It's a promise, it's a benefit that we have in Christ, right?
SPEAKER_01: It's it's it's it's something that he holds out to us, but for whatever reason, we have different stories where it's something he might not allow us to enjoy the fullness of for his own good reasons and according to his own wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: That in the middle of the story, we don't necessarily get to see what that is and how it works, but at the end of the story, I have no doubt that we will look back and we will see and we'll praise God for his wisdom.
SPEAKER_03: He rewards that yearning, he rewards that searching.
SPEAKER_03: He promised in his word to reveal himself to those who search him.
SPEAKER_03: Search him.
SPEAKER_03: And that's what you're doing, but that's what you're doing, and he will reward that.
SPEAKER_01: I feel you.
SPEAKER_01: Alright, we got two more things.
SPEAKER_01: Increase of grace, perseverance to the end.
SPEAKER_01: Increase of grace.
SPEAKER_01: Don't think of grace like a substance.
SPEAKER_01: Don't think of grace like something God deposits in your account.
SPEAKER_01: Think of grace as what it is, the unmerited favor of God toward people who don't deserve anything but his wrath.
SPEAKER_01: So an increase of grace isn't as if, you know, you're gonna get more, but you do the right stuff, and God's gonna give you more grace, give you more grace, keep filling up your bank account, and then you're just gonna get fat and rich with grace.
SPEAKER_01: Think of it as a continued enjoyment of God's favor toward you, uh an abundance of his grace that you get to enjoy more of, receive more of in a subjective sense, as you walk in it.
SPEAKER_01: The grace is God's grace.
SPEAKER_01: It always belongs to him.
SPEAKER_01: We don't merit it, we don't earn it, we don't win it, and yet we experience it, and we experience it more and more in its fullness as we walk in light of it.
SPEAKER_01: That's what the catechism is talking about in terms of an increase of grace.
SPEAKER_01: And at the very end, it talks about perseverance therein to the end.
SPEAKER_01: Philippians 1, 6, I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: John 10, 28 through 30, I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.
SPEAKER_01: My father who has given them to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.
SPEAKER_01: I and the Father are one.
SPEAKER_01: So perseverance to the end is God's promise to preserve his people.
SPEAKER_01: It's the perseverance of the saints.
SPEAKER_01: If he has chosen you from the foundation of the world in Christ, he has predestined you to be conformed to the image of his son, he has justified you in order that one day he might glorify you.
SPEAKER_01: And perseverance is that promise that God is not going to give up on that prompt, on what he has done in you.
SPEAKER_01: He's gonna take you all the way home.
SPEAKER_01: Irrespective of how assured you feel of his love, irrespective of how much subjective peace you would get to enjoy, he's going to take you all the way home.
SPEAKER_01: Now, how we got four minutes, so I gotta be careful with this, but how would you say that relates to something like say, once saved, always saved?
SPEAKER_01: Have you heard that in churches before?
SPEAKER_05: I don't pay any attention to that.
SPEAKER_05: I don't even think about that because I'm always thinking about um verses like Zephaniah, um chapter 3.
SPEAKER_05: Everybody should read this.
SPEAKER_05: Verse chapter 3, verse um 16.
SPEAKER_05: On that day they will say to Jerusalem, do not fear, O Zion, do not let your hands angle it.
SPEAKER_05: The Lord your God, Jehovah God is with you.
SPEAKER_05: He is mighty to say, He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.
SPEAKER_05: We have a singing, laughing, delighting God over us.
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, that's what I think about.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: And the promises if you're in Christ, you're gonna get there.
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna hear, you're gonna hear him sing.
SPEAKER_01: And once saved, always saved.
SPEAKER_01: Is it's a common thing you'll hear in the Bible belt.
SPEAKER_01: It's the idea that you know you pray a prayer and you're good.
SPEAKER_01: You get your fire insurance, you get your salvation card, whatever it is, and you're good.
SPEAKER_01: Irrespective of how you live your life from that day on.
SPEAKER_01: The perseverance of the saints, which is what we're talking about, says, yes, if you are saved once, you are always saved.
SPEAKER_01: But more than that, it says, the saints will persevere.
SPEAKER_01: Your life will bear witness to the fact that you have been saved.
SPEAKER_01: God will actually change you.
SPEAKER_01: God will work to bear fruit in and through you, and he will keep you all the way to the end.
SPEAKER_01: He will preserve you so that you persevere.
SPEAKER_01: And so it's not this kind of thing where it's like, I'm gonna put my faith in Jesus one time and then I'm good.
SPEAKER_01: It's like, no.
SPEAKER_01: What's that?
SPEAKER_01: It's active and not passive, right?
SPEAKER_01: You put your faith in Jesus according to Scripture, and you truly believe in him, again, the kind of faith.
SPEAKER_01: We're saved by faith alone, but the kind of faith that saves is never alone.
SPEAKER_01: You truly believe in Jesus, the fruit of that is gonna show up in your life.
SPEAKER_01: Not always uniformly.
SPEAKER_01: It's not, you know, it can be one step forward, two steps back, ups and downs.
SPEAKER_01: That's that's how life is on this side of glory, but the fruit will be there.
SPEAKER_01: And God will continue to prune, and God will continue to make you fruitful until you finally get there.
SPEAKER_01: Alright, let's pray.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, thank you again for this time together.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for these great benefits that are ours in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: That you forgive us, you make us right in your sight, you bring us into your family, you conform us to the image of Christ, you give us assurance of your love, you give us peace of conscience, you give us joy, you give us grace, you preserve us to the end.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, be with us this morning as we come to worship together.
SPEAKER_01: Help us to glory all the more in these great gifts that you have given us.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, help us to rejoice that we have been united to Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Help us to see him more clearly and to know him in every way he's given himself to be known.
SPEAKER_01: We pray this in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
unknown: Thank you.
SPEAKER_02: Is there up there?
SPEAKER_01: Ghost was their word for spirit.