Union with Christ in Baptism

Have you ever been in a place where you felt like you needed to find yourself? Maybe go on a walkabout? People used to talk like this. They needed to go find themselves. And I found this to be somewhat of a funny idea. It reminds me of the great philosopher who said, wherever you are, wherever you go, there you are. Well, I'll make fun of the phrase, I get it. We oftentimes want to take a break of the hustle and bustle and the chaos of life to get settled. Life is busy. Life is complicated. And we oftentimes want to just find a way to get back to some rooted definition of who we are and what we're supposed to do. As Christians, we are not called to find ourselves for this. We are called to see Christ. We're not meant to find ourselves. We're meant to find a deeper rooted relationship with Jesus Christ. That stability that we desire is only found in the God who redeems us, rejuvenates us, and calls us to Himself. Many things are going to compete for that stability. Many things are going to try to distract us, to deceive us, to take us off the way. But the Christian must always seek to find Christ. and let Him be the foundation of their life and let Him be their head. Our message this morning comes from Colossians chapter 2. We'll begin again in verse... we'll actually go back to verse 8 and we'll go through verse 12. Our message is this. We must caution our minds by clinging to Christ. We must caution our minds By clinging to Christ, you can see an outline of the sermon on the last page of your bulletin on page 11. This is connected to last week's passage as really Paul begins to go deeper into the particular problem that's facing the Church of Colossae. There's a deeper problem here in that he goes into the deception, the falseness, the kinds of deception it is. It's a tradition of man and it's trusting in spirits or maybe practices. He tells us how to do battle. There's two main parts to our passage. That's why there's two main sections there. There's a caution and there's a clinging. As we saw in verse 128, Paul says, Him we proclaim a warning and teaching. So we're going to get a warning and we're going to get a teaching. There's a strong warning in verse 8. See to it. That's really the great declaration. Behold, watch out. There's a warning involved in our passage this morning. And then there's a ground for that warning, or a basis, a proclamation of what we should do. Starting in verse 9, we should be looking to Christ. Let me read our passage in its entirety. I'm in Colossians 2, verses 8 through 12. See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty the seat according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. In him also you were circumcised, with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead." Our first point comes from verse 8. Caution your mind and your heart. Caution your mind and your heart. And really, after they behold, watch out. He begins with really some of the most disturbing language. The disturbing imagery of what takes place. Do not be taken captive. It's the same word that can be translated into kidnapped. There's nothing more fearful of a parent of their child being taken from them. There's nothing more sad than a child being taken from their family. Here, this is how Paul is describing what happens when a child of God is taken out of the assurance of Jesus Christ, when they believe in false. Well, they believe in lies. They believe in the other ways of coming to Christ. So they see this. Paul is making a very dramatic appeal. Watch out. Someone is trying to kidnap you. Someone is trying to dupe you and to trick you and to lead you into falsehood. It says, be careful. Caution your mind. Do not be captivated by philosophy and empty deceit. Now, philosophy, we could get into what that means, but he really just continues to qualify it. The philosophy is empty deceit. To see it, it's lies. It's misleading and misguiding. It should remind us of the very beginning of our problem. We could go all the way back to Genesis 3. It reminds us of that untruth that Satan told Adam and Eve. It reminds us of that half-truth that claimed to be a full truth in saying, you surely can take the fruit of the tree. It's good. It was a lie that was meant to take us away from our Father. It was a lie that was meant to take us out of His personal presence. More so, it should remind us of our lack of trust in God and His Word personally. It doesn't just take us all the way back to that first sin, that first lie. It takes us back to how we continually believe and trust in lies rather than the Word of God. Lies make big promises. The world makes big promises, but they're never fulfilled. If you listen to commercials, if you only have this, you'll be happy. If you only buy more of this particular product, if you only have this kind of lifestyle, you would then be happy. It is all a lie. It's all trying to promote a certain idea that never satisfies. That's why Paul says it's empty. It's without basis, content, power, truth, or authority. It leads us to the wrong end. It leaves us feeling unsatisfied, incomplete. Now, if we look at this, the lies that are most luring, the lies that entrap us so quickly and easily, are those lies that are closest to the truth. It's those lies that take a half-truth and masquerade as if it's the whole truth. We're prone to oversimplification and reductionism. We need to make sure we know the entire Word of God so that we do not oversimplify the truth of God. We do not take one part of God's Word and over-embellish it at the cost of the rest of God's Word. Let's look at how he continues to qualify this empty deceit, this philosophy. He contrasts it with Christ. He said, it is not according to the teaching of man, it is not according to the elemental spirits of the world, not according, I'm sorry, it is according to the teaching of man, it is according to the elemental spirits of the world, not according to Christ. We are not to follow the teaching of men, but we are called to follow the teaching of Christ. Jesus is the Word of God. He has come and He has proclaimed all of God's truth. This is God's Word. It is His law. It is good. Everything that is proclaimed here is trustworthy and reliable. Jesus did not come to put an end to the law. He came to fulfill it. What He came and preached against was man's tradition. You can look at Matthew 15 and see the clearest example of this. He is not coming to abolish any word. He is coming to fulfill it. And He's coming to correct how we add to God's Word and corrupt it. The problem with men's tradition is this. It will take us in one of two ways. Our traditions either add to God's law so that we can build up our own self-righteousness. We add rules that we want to follow and then we look down upon others who do not follow them. That makes us feel more self-righteous. Or we loosen God's law when we come up with loopholes so that we give excuse to our sin. Our traditions, our rules only lead in two directions and they're both problematic. What we must do is seek to follow the philosophy according to Christ. We must seek to find our righteousness only in Him. We must seek to follow Him. Paul also continues to qualify it that they are following a philosophy according to the elemental principles of the world. Not according to Christ. Now, our translation says the elemental spirits. The word spirit there is added as a translation and interpretation. Really it's just the rudimentary things. The most basic elements. Those things of the world. It could refer to two different things here. One, this could refer to the powers and authorities that he's already referred to in chapter 1, verse 15. Christ has authority over all the angels, over all the authorities. There's nothing that is better than Christ. There is nothing that Christ is not over. Or, this could be referring to the basic traditions and practices of man, of the world. rituals and observance of sacred days that we add, seeking to purify ourselves and make ourselves more righteous. We can see this as a parallel to Galatians 3, where Paul warns the Galatians, O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you only this, did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish, having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Did you suffer so many things in vain, if indeed it was in vain? Does He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, do you so by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Just as Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. and the Scripture, for seeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, And you shall all the nations be blessed. So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith." There's two ways in which they're being duped by philosophy. They're either trying to trust in angels, thinking there's a hierarchy of being. They need to trust this other kind of being that will give them another step towards God. Or, possibly, these rudimentary things, these elemental things, are referring to these practices. Maybe it's circumcision. Maybe it's observance of other feasts and days. The last one makes sense in the sense that now Paul is going to correct them in terms of trusting in circumcision by hands or circumcision of Christ. Really maybe both are combined here. As Paul says in Galatians 3.19, the angels provided the law. Stephen says the same thing in Acts 7.53. Maybe they're actually trusting that the Spirits have given another law, and they're separating this from the Word of God, which is Jesus Christ. They're believing the Spirits have given some principles and practices by which we can practice and seek godliness, and Christ has given others. We really don't know a lot about Colossae. It was destroyed by either earthquakes or just a loss of commerce. We don't know what the exact problem is. Maybe these two are combined. The point is this. They're trusting in something other than Christ. They're trusting in a power, either of their own hands, of their own doing, or another power like an angel. They're not trusting in Christ. As we see, the very last part of this warning, it's contrasted according to Christ. As we quoted last week from Calvin, He said this, those who are not satisfied with Christ are the most susceptible and vulnerable to the deception of this world. We must constantly be reminded that Christ is all we need and we need to want nothing else. Christ is the head of the church. Christ is the creator. Christ is the great authority in whom we can trust. We try to find an easier way. We try to find our own way. We try to find loopholes and ways to make ourselves feel more righteous. And the only way we can be closer to God is to grow closer to Christ. Many of the early church fathers, they called Christianity the true philosophy. The philosophy is meant to be seeking the happiest life. A true philosopher is someone who asks, what is the happiest life and how can I accomplish that happiest life? How can I get there? In the early church fathers, they saw all the great philosophies of the world. They read Aristotle and Plato and Xerxes and they saw it all failing and wanting. They looked at Scripture and they saw a true remedy for the problem, the problem of sin. The problem of not having a foundation and a basis in life and one which we can build our lives. The early church fathers, they call Christianity the true philosophy because they recognize that it solved the problem and it gave them the right means by which they could accomplish the happiest life. And that is Christ. Let's move to our second point. As we look towards baptism, we see here that Paul moves us to think about circumcision and baptism. Our second point is this. Be captivated by Christ. The way this functions in the verse is fairly simple. Verse 9 is a fourth. It shows a ground, a basis. He gives a warning and now he's going to give a positive teaching. Be warned against being kidnapped. For Christ is your circumcision. For he is the creator. He is the head of the church. He has given you all you need. There's really three different ways in which we need to be captivated by Christ. One, by recognizing He is God. Two, recognizing He is our head. And then three, recognizing that He is our circumcision. First, Christ is our God. Verse 9, For in Him the whole fullness of deity dwells. Many people say, I don't like going into deep doctrine. Tell me how to live. That's all I really want. I don't want to go into the depths of worrying about the Incarnation, the Trinity, the Atonement. I don't want to go into the depths of doctrine. Well, Paul is taking the depths of doctrine and he's applying it. We don't get application unless we have the truth of God. Here we see him going back to that great Christ hymn. In chapter 1, verses 15 and 16, Christ is the firstborn of creation. He is before all things. Through Him, all things have been created. Here He says, for in Him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily. Christ is God. He is God who became man. He is the one who created all things, sustains all things, and keeps all things. Why is it important that Jesus Christ be God? Because our problem is a God problem. Our most basic problem is a God problem. Now I realize that in the secular world that we call a God problem is trying to figure out how can we have a right relationship and communication with one another when we talk about God. You know, one of the questions would be, a God problem in the secular world would be, how can Christians and Muslims not talk past one another when they're talking about God? That's not the kind of God problem I'm talking about. Our problem is that we have sinned against God and His wrath is on us. Our problem is that God has enmity toward everyone who is a sinner. Our problem is that we have sinned, we have rebelled, and we are found hopeless and helpless unless God Himself fixes the problem. We have a God problem and God has come to provide the solution. It is important that God came to save us because he's the only one who can fix our problem. We cannot make ourselves righteousness enough to please God. We cannot do enough good deeds to ever think about even overcoming our bad deeds. That does not work. Balancing out our bad with our good, it doesn't really remove the deep, dark stain of our sin. We cannot cleanse ourselves. That's why it's so important that God fully came to take upon a human nature just like ours. So that He could die to remove our offense. So that He could reconcile us to Himself. To be captivated by Christ first, but recognizing that He is God. Secondly, to finish out verse 9, be captivated by Christ by confessing Christ as our Head. Paul finishes verse 9, you have been filled in Him, who is the Head of all rule and authority. He is the Head of the church. He has all authority. He has all power. He is the source of our unity. I pray He continues to be the source of our unity and our unity continues to grow under His power, under His guidance. He has authority to do whatever He wants. What's amazing here in this passage is that Paul says, you have been filled in Him. Now this is not necessarily connected to the first part of verse 9. The fullness of deity has come to take on human form. Now, we are filled in Him. It's the same exact word. What a great confession we have. We are complete in Christ. We are fulfilled in Christ. We have a fullness of life. These are the different ways it's been translated. So, we often think of becoming a Christian as losing something. Too often we think, when I become a Christian, I lose something. The only thing you lose when you become a Christian is your sinful practice. What you lose is sin having its power over you. What you lose is the guilt and the shame that's piled on upon our sin. What you lose is what you're supposed to be repenting of so that you can live new life and enjoy new freedom and new peace and new joy. You lose nothing when you become a Christian. You gain everything. You gain joy and peace and life more abundantly. Paul prays that we will be filled with the knowledge of God's will in verse 9. And we can see now, it is Christ that gives us the knowledge of His will. It's the only way we can be filled. Friend, what do you think it means to be fulfilled? As you walked in the door this morning, what was it that you thought in your mind, if I only had this, I would be happy. I would be fulfilled. Is it a spouse? Is it to be debt-free? Is it to have your college degree behind you? Is it a new job? Is it to have children? What is it that you say, if I only had this, I would be happy? God gives us all these good gifts to enjoy. But you see, we're not going to enjoy them in His will unless we find our peace, our fullness, our completeness in Christ. We were created to be truly happy in God. God created us for a purpose. He gave us all the tools and the means by which we can be happy. And it is only when we trust Him, follow Him, obey Him, that we'll truly be happy. That is what it means to have a happy life. To seek God. To love Him with all your heart. We try to find every other possible way to be happy. We're looking for those loopholes. We must repent of these other pursuits and seek to find our happiness in Him, and then we'll properly enjoy every other gift. Christ is our head, and we are filled in Him. We must seek to enjoy that filling. This brings us to our third means by which we cling to Christ. by recognizing Him as our circumcision. Christ is our circumcision. Here we want to take a good bit of time. In Him you also were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised with Him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised Him from the dead. We chose to do baptisms on this day because of this very verse. It points us to the baptism of Christ. It points us to the reality of who we are in Christ. I want to look here at the very, just generally speaking, what is this verse doing? It's combining two real big theological categories. It's referring to circumcision and this theological concept in Christ. First, what is circumcision? Circumcision was given to Israel, given to Abraham and to his offspring, as a sign of the covenant. It was given to his people to be reminded of God's promises and to be remembering always that God is going to fulfill His promises. Circumcision, in many ways, set apart the people of God. They weren't the only people who circumcised, but they were the only people who circumcised in a religious manner for the purpose of worshiping and trusting Yahweh, the one true God. The bigger theological category, which is rich in this text and rich in all of Paul's writing, is that we are circumcised in Christ. One of the great theological doctrines that I would encourage you and challenge you to pursue is the doctrine of the union with Christ. In Christ, we are filled. In Christ, we are justified. In Christ, we are sanctified. In Christ, we are forgiven. See, all the benefits that we want have to come from a relationship with Christ. It is only when we are in Christ, it is only when we are with Christ, it's only when we trust Him, depend upon Him, place our faith in Him, that we get all those promises from God. In Christ alone, we're going to be happy. In Christ alone, we're going to find the will of God. In Christ alone, we're going to find peace. It is our union with Christ that sets us apart. I challenge you to seek all those different times Paul uses this phrase, in Christ. That will give you an idea of all the many blessings and benefits we can have in Christ. And I pray that will then encourage us to pursue Christ. Here he refers to circumcision in Christ in contrast to the external circumcision by hands. As Ben read for us earlier, Moses was already looking forward to and looking at the need for the internal circumcision. The external circumcision was not enough. So let's ask the question, why contrast between the old external circumcision and the internal circumcision of Christ? First, the external circumcision only had a temporary purpose. Circumcision was given to Abraham in chapter 17 of Genesis. God had made a promise and a command to Abraham in chapter 12. He floundered. He obeyed, but then doubted. So then God, in chapter 15, set up a great sacrifice to reveal his great purpose. And there, in Genesis 15, We see that Abraham believed it was counted him as righteousness. Then he flounders again and he seeks to have a child through Hagar. This time God comes and he says, I'm going to give you a sign. It's circumcision. It's for you and your offspring. It's so that you will remember that I have promised that there will be a seed, an offspring. A child will be born. And this goes all the way back to this promise to Genesis 3 when in the midst of the curse, God said a child will be born and He will crush Satan. He will defeat death. He will reverse the curse. We see here that God is saying a sign is to remind us that a child will be born. Well, if we look at this sign in Genesis 17 and we see in Genesis 15 that He's been declared righteous. We already have a bit of a dilemma that Paul addresses in Romans. How can God be just in saying you're counted innocent in Genesis 15 even though Abraham is still a sinner? Well, it comes in the rest of the promises in the fact that God is saying a son is going to come who's going to be perfect and he's going to die in your place. He's going to take the curse upon himself. As we look at this promise, Circumcision is giving a sign to. Circumcision is testifying to. A son will come. We see that Paul talks about this offspring in Galatians 3.16. He says this, Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, and to his offsprings, referring to many, but referring to one, and to your offspring, who is Christ. See, circumcision was given to point to Christ. Now that Christ has come, circumcision is no longer a sign of the covenant. As God's people, we do not circumcise religiously. You may do it for health reasons, but you do not circumcise your children, your male children, for the purpose of pointing to Christ because Christ has come. As Christians, we no longer recognize circumcision as an ordinance of God, as a sign from God, or as a symbol from God. Now, it's obsolete. It no longer matters to us, no longer benefits us in the spiritual sense. Because what it was meant to accomplish, it has accomplished. It has pointed us to Christ and now Christ has come. There's a new covenant. Now we can see the new covenant as an upgrade of the covenant or as doing away with the old covenant. There's many ways to look at it. What I want to show is that the covenant has changed. And now there is a new sign. The second thing we need to recognize is that external circumcision was ineffective. External circumcision was not effective. It did not provide a cleansing that we truly need. The circumcision of hands does not remove the sin in our hearts. It was only a sign to point to the one who would do that. There's nothing we can do with our own hands. Circumcision, washings, whatever it may be, that can actually cleanse us the way we need to be cleansed to be right before God. Circumcision was never meant to clean us. Circumcision was only meant to point us to the one who would clean us. Moses even sees this in Deuteronomy 30. It's not the external circumcision we need. We need a circumcision of our hearts. I believe Paul points to that in this verse. In Him you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands by putting off the body of flesh." By putting off the body of flesh. We need to define these terms. The body here refers to the human nature. There's nothing necessarily sinful about our human nature. God created us as good. He formed Adam out of the dust. He breathed life into him. Adam was good. But then came flesh. This does not mean the material world is evil. This doesn't mean the material world is bad. God created the material world good. No, flesh has a very theological connotation. It refers to our carnal and perverse nature. It refers to that part of us that is corrupted and perverse. It's not referring to the physical part. Flesh is used in Paul in many ways and many times to refer to those evil desires that are opposed to God and fight against God. Let me give you one sample of this that makes it much clearer. Galatians 5. But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. Here we see the desires of the Spirit, the desires that God gives us, are contrary to that of the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the spirit, and the desires of the spirit are against the flesh. For these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do." The flesh refers to those things that are opposed to God's will. The flesh is what we bring in our sinful nature. We are sinners, and we are opposed to God by nature. Left to ourselves, our sinful hearts are bent away from God and really bent in on ourselves. We need to be fixed. We need our hearts that rebel against God to be cleansed. We need our hearts that are fighting against God to be fixed. We need our filthy sins to be forgiven. We need our bloody hands to be washed white as snow. How does God do that? What's the gospel? It's by God Himself coming down and taking upon Himself a soma, a body, a human nature. He then lives perfectly as a human person. He lives the life we were supposed to. He lives a life that completely and perfectly pleases God. But then He dies. He dies on the cross, not for any of His own sin, but so that He can hang there on the cross on our behalf. That innocent man who was God himself died on the cross and God poured out his judgment against sin on him. He who knew no sin was judged as if a sinner. So that when we believe in Christ, our sins are counted against him and our wrath is removed from us and it's placed on him. Simultaneously, his perfect life is counted towards us. This is the beauty of the gospel. The external circumcision can never forgive us. It can never cleanse us. But Christ has come and he has brought an effective circumcision. Third, circumcision is now replaced by baptism. Let's look at verse 12. I'll begin the last part of 11. By the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith. The sign is different because what it signifies is different. The sign of circumcision was pointing towards a future hope. The sign of baptism points back to a reality. A reality that Christ has come. The Messiah has come. The One who was promised has come. He's been perfect. He's been perfectly divine. He has died and He has risen again. It points back to reality. You see, when we think of baptism, we look back to the death of Christ. We look back to the resurrection of Christ. We look at the benefits of his death, that he died for our sin. We look at the benefits of his resurrection, that he blazed a trail as a great high priest so that we can now have access to the Father without a guilty conscience. We are united with Christ and every benefit that comes from Christ is ours if we are related by faith to Him. We look at baptism as the new sign of the covenant people. When someone is immersed in the water, we see this and we're reminded of the death of Christ. They are dying to their old ways. They're dying to the wrath of God. They are identifying with the death of Christ, which conquered sin and death. They're being buried with Him so that they might then be risen again with Him. They're identifying with His resurrection. which gives us hope of eternal life. It gives us a reminder that we are forgiven of sins. It reminds us that we have now an abundant life in Christ. The new sign reminds us of what Christ has done and that He has done it for us. Fourth and finally, our union is only secured by faith. Let me read verse 12 again. having been buried with him in baptism in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God who raised him from the dead." A key two-word declaration there, through faith. We must believe in Jesus. We must believe in His powerful working and what He says He will do. We must trust that He can do what He says He has done. We must trust that He is who the Word of God tells us He is. He is God Himself, the perfect man who was designed for us. Through faith, we have a union with Christ, and then all the benefits flow out of that. My question for you this morning is this. Do you trust Christ to be more powerful than your sin? Do you trust Christ and His death to be more powerful than the power of your own sin? He's God Almighty, above every rule and power and authority. Are you more powerful in your sin than Christ? The key issue here is can you find perfect and complete forgiveness on the cross of Christ? Can you sin more than He can conquer and forgive? Friends, the answer is clear. You are not more powerful than Christ. His Word is true. His forgiveness is perfect. Do you trust Him to be more powerful than your own doubts? That's amazing about Christianity. We've been looking at perseverance and assurance about Colossians. As we wrestle with doubts, is Christ and His authority and what He declares more powerful than your own questions and your doubts? Is His Word more reliable than the wanderings of our minds? We must trust Christ and what He has said. If you're not a Christian this morning, I pray that you've seen the emptiness of life without Christ, without God. It is only in Him that we are truly fulfilled. It is only in Christ that we truly have the fullness of life. I pray that you are burdened with the emptiness of life that is lived without God, without the purpose God has given us, without the power and the grace God gives us. I pray you're overwhelmed with the sin and corruption that resides within you. You see this power that controls you, and you see you're powerless against it. I hope you see that God's wrath will be poured out upon that sin, and I pray you are overwhelmed by that judgment. I pray you feel the burden of being helpless in your own power. And I pray that all these things lead you to the cross of Jesus Christ, because it's there your sin will be forgiven. It's there your emptiness will be filled. It's there you will find true peace, true happiness. It's there you will stop being helpless and you will be helped. You must believe in Jesus Christ. You must stop being prideful and think you can fix it yourself. You must stop being prideful and think, I can wait. You must stop being prideful thinking that it only takes a little bit more time and a little more effort and then I'll be good enough. Be humble. Go to Christ in your weakness, go to Christ in your sin, and let Him help you, forgive you, and give you the life that God created you for and has meant for you. I pray that we will all realize that we can so easily trust a baptism rather than a faith or rather than Jesus Christ. Christian, too many look back to their baptism and find an assurance there, or a guarantee there. Friends, your only hope is Christ. It's not a baptism that happened way back in the past. It's not the baptism that's going to happen now. Your hope is in Jesus Christ. No institution, no practice, no ritual is going to save you. It's Jesus Christ alone. Baptism is a testimony of what Christ has done because of faith. Let us prepare our hearts in singing now and praying for our baptismal testimonies that God will be glorified and draw us closer to him. Let me pray. Almighty God, we thank you for your power. We thank you that Christ is our circumcision. That He is the one who cleanses our hearts. He is the one who forgives us of our sin. He is the one who sets us back on the path that You have given by Your Word. Lord, I pray that as we hear what You have done in these three ladies' lives, that You would be glorified. That You would continue and further draw us closer to You. We praise You that You are more powerful than our sins. We praise You that You forgive us completely and perfectly in Christ. In Your holy name we pray, Amen.