Podcasts about by christ

God takes sinners and, through His grace, transforms them into His precious treasures. By Christ's sacrifice, we are restored, forgiven, and made valuable in His sight. Through faith, we become God's cherished possession, proving that no one is beyond His redemptive love. The post The Precious Things of God appeared first on Preachers Corner.

Whenever we walk through affliction, Christ walks with us by His Spirit/Word, which is why we love The Book of Truth!1. By Christ's grace, we take to heart His instructions that shape us. (v.1-2)2. By Christ's grace, His commands direct our ways. (v.3-4)3. By grace, we ever re-learn, trust and obey His gospel. (v.5-8)When we suffer, what help is the Bible to us?Why must the King be a Ps. 119 man? Deut. 17:18-20How was Joshua made into a Ps.119 man? Josh. 1:7-9, Mt. 13:44In what way are sinners made righteous? Rom. 2:29, 5:19,10:16

A Clean Slate | Pastor Jarod Smith Hebrews 9:14 declares that the blood of Christ purifies our consciences so we can serve the living God. This message uses the metaphor of "a clean slate" to illustrate spiritual renewal through Jesus. By Christ's sacrifice, we are not merely made "like new" but "brand new" at the deepest level— spiritually regenerated. The blood of Christ reaches into the most hidden parts of our being, cleansing us from sin and empowering us to overcome past failures and live victoriously in faith. ____ Partner with New Tribe: Give | https://newtribe.church/give/ ____ Connect with New Tribe: Website | https://newtribe.church/comeexperience/ Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/newtribechurch Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/newtribechurch YouTube | https://www.youtube.com/newtribechurch

By Christ's sacrifice on the cross, we are made worthy to worship and serve the Lord. Subscribe to daily devotions e-mails: https://wcm.link/ddsub

 This message was given by Pastor Steve Thomas during Orwell Bible Church's morning service on our Anniversary Sunday, June 30, 2024. Pastor Thomas spoke from 1 Timothy 1:12-17, showing us from the text that By Christ's work and not by ours, God graciously forgives and transforms those who trust Jesus.

Death Brings Life By Tammy Lacock “Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh.” (2 Corinthians 4:10)In this final part of The Cross, Warren takes us into the very heart of the Apostle Paul in the hopes that his gospel of grace will take hold in the hearts and minds of those who hear it. Without Paul's writings, we would never fully understand what exactly happened at the Cross. Paul was the only one raised up by Christ Himself to explain it. Paul's gospel explains the abundant life Christ promised to us by His death on the Cross. As believers in Christ, we are now complete in Him, by the uprooting of the sin-nature passed down through the curse of Adam by Satan, replacing it with Christ's nature, His Incorruptible Seed. By His very life within us now, we can now truly live free, free to rest in Him and experience and know His Peace “that passeth all understanding,” even amidst our inevitable sufferings. By Christ in us now, we stand perfect before God as His bona fide sons and daughters. There is nothing we can do to be perfect. Christ is our perfection. Paul's gospel of grace tells us that even when we fail, God only sees Christ. In 2 Corinthians 4:10, Paul expresses his intimate love for the Christ within him by acknowledging our need to bear the suffering in our bodies and death to ourselves as the only means by which Christ can be manifested through us as believers. Just as by Christ's death we have been given new life, so too, by our own suffering and death to our old lives, Christ's life can now come through us. Life comes through suffering and death. The suffering and death to ourselves manifests His life through us to others. The trials and tribulations in this life are meant to cultivate a deep and unique relationship with Christ, one that becomes a love affair as we continue to live and breathe in Him. Through Paul, God's ultimate plan for us is revealed: To know and live Christ as our new life, to live and rest in Him knowing everything is in His hands, and to reciprocate His perfect love for us by making Him our first love each and every day and through every single suffering. His death ushered in our new and everlasting life. Christ in you and me, the hope of glory!“Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.” (Colossians 1:26-28)

Jesus is the very first person to inherit eternal life, literally never to die again. By calling something the “first”, it holds that more like it will follow. By Christ being the first to receive eternal life, you can be fully confident that you will follow in like manner! Let's honor Christ with our lives, acknowledging that in giving His first for us, He sets the tone for a life of gratitude, expectation, and eternal hope.

Jesus is the very first person to inherit eternal life, literally never to die again. By calling something the “first”, it holds that more like it will follow. By Christ being the first to receive eternal life, you can be fully confident that you will follow in like manner! Let's honor Christ with our lives, acknowledging that in giving His first for us, He sets the tone for a life of gratitude, expectation, and eternal hope.

It Is FinishedBy Tammy LacockThis week, Warren Litzman dives deep into Christ's death on the Cross so we might understand exactly who we are now in Christ. In His last words, “It is finished,” Christ testified that His death was the culmination of God's plan of salvation for humanity. If not for His death on the Cross, we would not have new life. We would remain dead in this world, never to experience eternal life with Him. By Christ's death, Satan's nature, which was passed down to us by the curse of Adam, can now be uprooted and exchanged with Christ's nature, joined to our spirits making us one spirit in Him (1 Corinthians 6:17). We are brand-new creations, crucified at the Cross with Christ, and raised to a new life in Him in His resurrection. We are no longer defined by anything outside of us. Our identity is Christ, alive and well in each of us. The Apostle Paul was the greatest psychologist of all time because not only did Christ reveal to him his new identity, but He revealed to him exactly how the believer in Christ can now live in freedom from sin. Warren explains, through Paul's epistles, that the reason we continue to make poor decisions as believers is because we don't know who we are. Paul's gospel of grace—that we are saved not by anything we do or don't do, but by Christ's perfect sacrifice on the Cross—reveals to us our new identity in Christ, and by Him we are made bona fide sons and daughters of God. “To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” (Col. 1:27)“The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.” (Rom. 8:16-18)We can be confident of eternity with Christ in heaven when we know Christ is already in us now. Once we start to get a grip on Christ as our new life, the Holy Spirit continues to renew our minds, bringing us into a closer unique relationship with the Christ in us, through our everyday circumstances and situations and especially through our adversities. God's plan of salvation is finished. By only believing in Christ as our Savior, we are redeemed, co-heirs with Christ to God's kingdom. Yet the Apostle Paul tells us this is just the beginning of our new life in Christ. By cultivating a deep relationship with the Christ that lives in us now, through the renewal of our minds, we can begin to experience here and now the abundant, eternal life that Christ's death promises. “The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” (John 10:10)

At The Cross: Satan Out, Christ In By Tammy Lacock This week, Warren Litzman makes it plain and clear exactly what God did at the Cross. We must look to the Cross to understand God's boundless and unconditional love for each and every one of us. By Christ's death and resurrection, the sin-nature (Satan nature) passed down through the generations from Adam's curse by Satan, is literally uprooted and replaced with the incorruptible seed, Christ. This is what it means to be saved, born again. By just believing in Him, we are made brand-new creations and bona fide sons and daughters of God, to live eternally—now and in His heavenly home. Jesus was more powerful in His death than when He was alive. By Christ's death, we are no longer bound by Satan and this world. When Christ died, we died too, to our old lives operated by Satan. We have a new Operator in Christ. In Him, there is no more sin and death for us. It's important to understand that God didn't change our minds when we got saved. Our spirits were saved, being joined to Christ making us one spirit in Him (1 Corinthians 6:17), yet our minds have a lot of catching up to do. The Apostle Paul makes this clear throughout his epistles, helping us understand our new life now in Christ. Now as new creations in Christ, and by the help of the Holy Spirit, we must now allow the Holy Spirit renew our minds, by letting go of the old knowledge of good and evil, sin and death, which we were cursed with by Adam's sin. We look to the Holy Spirit to replace it with a new knowledge, “the excellency of the knowledge of Christ,” as the Apostle puts it in Philippians 3:8, “Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ.”God wants us to come back to life. Our minds have been corrupted and now need a full housecleaning. Christ living in us now brings us back into the awareness of our status as God's bona fide sons and daughters and therefore, our inheritance of eternal life in Him. Satan's knowledge of good and evil no longer can take hold, once we decide to give our minds over to Christ and begin living our new life in Him.

“Death, Where Is Your Sting!”By Tammy LacockThis week, Warren Litzman takes us to the Cross yet once again in the hopes that we can understand who Christ really was, as we live and move in Him now. As we go through Christ's suffering and death while on the cross, we see a man who still wasn't thinking about Himself. Christ was loving and affectionate to His mother and to John, the only disciple at His crucifixion. He made sure His mother would be taken care of by John. He was loving and forgiving to the thief on His one side, assuring him he would be with Him in paradise. And He personified love in His last words when He asked God to forgive those who participated in His suffering and death and said, “They know not what they do.” The only suffering He acknowledged was by saying “I thirst.” Even in His last words on the cross, He didn't complain. Jesus had no time to think of His pain and betrayal. His death was the epitome of forgiveness. He knew He had to die for our world to be saved, to receive the gift of His eternal life within us. He loved even unto His death. Through Paul's epistles, Warren reminds us of the gospel of grace, the only gospel for believers today. He reminds us that by Christ's death, God poured out His love and grace unto us. We are no longer corrupted by the curse of Satan by Adam. By Christ's death, our Satan-natures have been uprooted and replaced by His incorruptible seed. By His unconditional and boundless love within us now, death and sin no longer have a hold on us. The Apostle Paul knew this when he said in 1 Corinthians 15:55, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” Christ's death accomplished all things: fulfilled the law, conquered sin and death, and ushered in grace and our new life. By God's grace, Christ is now literally living within us. We now have His eternal Life and His unfailing love to draw from. Now we are free to enjoy a unique and personal relationship with Christ as we live and move and love in Him.

When Paul says we are “dead in our sins” (Romans 6:23; Ephesians 2:1), what does that mean? Scripture teaches that we are not only fallen but that we have a strong tendency to sin without the fear of God, called concupiscence. To speak correctly of Christ is to have a correct understanding of our sinful nature. We are fallen, dead in sins, and have no fear, love, or trust in God, including adults, infants, and children. By Christ's cross and empty tomb, God removes the condemnation of all sin, by applying His righteousness, holiness, and innocence upon you in faith. You are dead in sin and need help: Be baptized, confess your sins, and receive full forgiveness in Christ by His Word. Thanks be to God! Rev. Eli Lietzau, pastor of Wheat Ridge Evangelical Lutheran Church in Wheat Ridge, CO, joins Rev. Brady Finnern to study articles 1-2 of the Apology of the Augsburg Confession. Find your copy of the Book of Concord - Concordia Reader's Edition at cph.org or read online at bookofconcord.org. Study the Lutheran Confession of Faith found in the Book of Concord with lively discussions led by host Rev. Brady Finnern, President of the LCMS Minnesota North District, and guest LCMS pastors. Join us as these Christ-confessing Concordians read through and discuss our Lutheran doctrine in the Book of Concord in order to gain a deeper understanding of our Lutheran faith and practical application for our vocations.

What's In The Cup?By Tammy LacockWarren Litzman discusses exactly what was in the cup Jesus drank in the Garden of Gethsemane of the night before His death. We are in the cup. Each one of us is in that cup. Everything that has to do with our lineage since Adam is in that cup. Everything that makes us a human being is in that cup. The cup consisted of every sin, every transgression — past, present and future — no matter by whom, was in that cup. The sin of Adam is in the cup. The sin of Abraham is in the cup. The sin of Sodom and Gomorrah is in the cup. The sin of Hitler is in the cup. The sin of Saddam Hussein is in the cup. Every sin is in that cup. No exceptions. When Jesus drank of the cup, every single one of our sins and transgressions were poured into His body.When all of our sin went into His body, it pushed out life. Death went into His body and pushed out life. Christ knew that His time had come to eradicate sin and death once and for all. The end of sin is death, Christ's death. Life of the flesh is in the blood of Christ. He paid the penalty for our sin, and now we are completely freed from all of it by faith in Christ. When He died, we died, and all of our sins died, too. Buried and dead. Yet by God's Grace, when Christ arose from death, as believers we arose, too, to a brand-new life in Him. We have been made anew. By Christ's death, burial, and resurrection at the Cross, we went from a God-breathed Adamic living soul to a quickened spirit, joined to Christ making us one Spirit in Him. He is our new identity. We are now complete in Him and free to live exactly who God created us to be.This is why Christ's death on the cross is the ultimate sacrifice, the gift of all gifts. He paid for every single penalty, and he paid in full.

What Happened At The Cross?By Tammy Lacock Warren Litzman poses two questions in this week's podcast: Do you have one foot in law and one foot in grace? In order to answer this question, we must then ask ourselves: do we understand what happened at the cross? If we are still living as if we are in bondage to sin and death under the law, what Warren calls “doer religion,” then we are not living the brand-new life God promised us through Christ's death, burial, and resurrection; and, we don't have a complete understanding of what happened at the cross. The Apostle Paul was the only one raised up by Christ, Himself, to bring to the world a new gospel, one that explains exactly what happened at the cross. Before the cross, Jesus preached the kingdom gospel, salvation by works, meant only for Israel. The apostles also preached the kingdom message because it had not yet been revealed to them what took place at the cross. Paul tells us Christ revealed to him an entirely new gospel, that we are saved by God's grace. By Christ's death, burial, and resurrection; “whosoever believeth” in Him as their Savior is saved (John 3:15-17).Grace happened at the cross. Christ's death, burial, and resurrection abolished the law and ushered in grace, making every believer brand-new creations in Christ. Christ now literally lives in every believer, His Spirit joined to us making us one spirit in Him (1 Corinthians 6:17).“Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace.” (Ephesians 2:15)We are no longer bound by sin and death under the law and its distortions. By the cross, we are now free to live and move in Christ by God's amazing grace and boundless love for us. In fact, Paul tells us it is now time to rest in Him. As we get to know the Christ that now lives in each of us, we begin to actually understand His peace that “passeth all understanding” (Phil. 4:7) and live life more abundantly. By the cross, we went from a soul life dictated by our outer works to a spirit life in Christ. We died with Christ and arose with Him to a new life. He is our new life, the very breath we breathe. He is our righteousness, and nothing we do will ever change that. God sees only Christ in us now, making us His bona fide sons and daughters. In Philippians 3:17, Paul tells fellow believers to follow him because Christ is now revealing through him an entirely new gospel, the gospel of God's amazing grace.So why are we trying to finish what Christ did on the cross!? Why are we living our lives as if we are justified by our works? Christ did the work on the cross and and we are justified only by His grace. By the cross, Christ is our new life, our new identity. Our only job now is to live and move freely in Him, guided by His Spirit to do His good works, knowing He is our strength, our peace, our joy, our everything.

'During the days of Jesus' life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him and was designated by God to be high priest in the order of Melchizedek.' (Hebrews 5.7-10.) Jesus chose to obey His father, even though obedience led to suffering and death. Because Jesus obeyed perfectly, even under great trial, he can help us obey, no matter how difficult obedience is. Jesus didn't passively obey, it was a life He chose freely.  Jesus is the source of our salvation. There is no other name by which we can be saved. He is the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through Him. By Christ's sufferings, He purchased a full deliverance from sin and misery, and enables us to receive eternal life. 

He That Hath The Son Hath LifeBy Tammy Lacock “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” (2 Corinthians 5:17)Warren Litzman's goal throughout this study is for listeners to get ahold of the Apostle Paul's gospel of Christ, the only gospel for us today. Paul's gospel is simply this: By Christ's death, burial, and resurrection, we as believers, are brand new creatures, a new race of people. By God's grace, and by nothing we do or don't do, we are now brand-new creatures by His uprooting of the sin nature, passed down by Adam through the curse of Satan, and His replacing it with Christ. Christ has been joined to our spirits making us one Spirit in Him (1 Corinthians 6:17). Christ is now literally living in us and because of Him our old lives are now dead and buried with Him. Yet when He rose from the dead, we arose with Him to a brand-new life. He, the person of Christ, is our new life. He is our salvation, our eternal life living within us right now. “He who hath the Son hath life; and he who hath the Son of God hath not life.” (John 5:12)However, Christianity today has ignored Paul's gospel of Christ living in every believer. As a result, Christians don't know who they are. Comingling works salvation and grace salvation, it's no wonder we are confused. Paul tells us we are saved only by God's grace. As Warren puts it, God poured out a whole bucket of grace on us, yet Christians have no idea what this grace is all about. By God's Grace, not only are we saved by just believing, but we now have the very life of Christ in us, the life of the one who conquered death. What does this mean? Paul tells us that by God's grace we now have the opportunity to know this very Christ who now lives in us. There is no separation between us and Christ. He will never leave us nor forsake us. As believers, we can get to know Christ now on a uniquely personal level because He lives within us. Paul wanted nothing more than to know this Christ, so much so that he made Christ his first love. So much so that he boasted in his weaknesses knowing these very weaknesses brought him closer to knowing Christ. In his weakness, Christ was his strength. Paul fell in love with Christ knowing he could do all things in Him. By the help of the Holy Spirit, Paul says, our minds must be renewed (Ephesians 4:23), burying not only our old selves but also our old mindsets of who we thought we were and having the revelation and understanding of our new life in Christ. In fact, he tells us that we are predestinated with this understanding (Roman 8:29; Ephesians 1:11). God put this knowledge within us, and now our new lives in Christ can reveal it, helping us in our spiritual growth. Paul realized his battle was not with the world or with Satan but with his own mind. His struggle was transitioning from a believing mind to a knowing mind, a knowing that his old self no longer lives, and his new life is Christ (Galatians 2:20). All he wanted was to know this Christ and for this Christ to now live through him. “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 2:5)“And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” (Romans 12:2) “For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? but we have the mind of Christ.” (1 Corinthians 2:16)

Why Paul?By Tammy Lacock“Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ.” (Philippians 3:8)The question Warren Litzman begins with this week is, why did God choose Paul to deliver a message to humanity that no other person had ever heard before? In order to answer this question, it's important to look at Paul's life before his conversion on the way to Damascus. Paul was born into a wealthy Jewish family, privileged as a Roman citizen and highly educated. Today, his education would equate to two doctorates. In Philippians 3:5-7, Paul boasts of his life before Christ to show us that he had everything going for him in an earthly sense, considering himself to be an avid obeyer of the Jewish law and, in fact, blameless. He even persecuted Christians in his adherence to the law. He was a Pharisee. Yet, in Philippians 3:8, Paul makes it clear that he now counts his upbringing and scholarly background worthless, nothing but dung. Without any doubt, he gladly loses it, lest any or all of it get in the way of knowing Christ. Paul was utterly determined to share with the world what Christ, Himself, revealed only to him. Paul's gospel is by Christ's death, burial, and resurrection, we as believers, are rebirthed, given a new life. Christ's death ushered in God's amazing Grace being poured out unto us by the Holy Spirit. By His grace, God can now uproot the sin-natures and replace it with the incorruptible seed of Christ (Peter) in our very spirits, making us one spirit in Him (1 Corinthians 6:17). Christ now lives in us, literally, not figuratively. By Christ living in us, we are born again into God's family, now His bona fide sons and daughters. We see in Ephesians chapter 1 that Paul was given insight into God's plan. In verse 4, Paul reveals that Christ living in us was God's plan before the foundation of the world. It took over 4,000 years for God to reveal His plan, and Paul knew it. Furthermore, Paul knew it was only revealed to him. In chapter one, Paul continues to reiterate that God's plan has everything to do with Christ. He makes it clear in verse 10:“That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him.” Throughout Paul's writings, we can see that this is a man whose heart and mind has been captured by Christ. He was determined to know Christ. If this meant suffering, then he says bring on the suffering. He was determined to share this revelation of Christ in him to the world because he knew Christianity wouldn't work without it. “For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.” (1 Corinthians 2:2)God used Paul's zeal in his new life in Christ. God chose Paul to reveal His Son in him first because He knew Paul's zealous mind could now be used to reveal this message to us. By the help of the Holy Spirit, Paul was given this radical mind-change of an outer Christ to Christ living in him. He wanted nothing more than to know this Christ and for us to have this radical mind-change, too!

Why Are We Here? By Tammy Lacock“But when it pleases God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace, To reveal his Son in me that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood.” (Galatians 1:16) In this podcast series, it is Warren Litzman's ultimate goal to help us understand the Apostle Paul's gospel, the final gospel to the world, so that we might understand who we are and why we are here. Paul, the meanest man on earth at the time by his persecuting Christians, was raised up by Christ Himself to bring us this new gospel. Only two men in the Bible were raised up by God to bring us a gospel. Moses brought us the law (Old Testament); and Paul brought us grace (New Testament), the gospel of Christ. Paul's gospel of grace supersedes any other gospel, including the Kingdom gospel preached initially by Peter and the disciples.In Galatians 1:16, the Apostle Paul tells us something that has never been told before, that the Holy Spirit had revealed to him that Christ is now living in him, literally, not figuratively. Paul taught of Christ living in us and we in Him over and over throughout his letters. This is Paul's gospel, the final gospel of God's grace for humanity. That by Christ's death, burial, and resurrection, we as believers, have been rebirthed by the very seed of Christ in our spirits (1 Corinthians 6:17). By just believing, God can now uproot Satan's sin-nature passed down by the curse through Adam and replace it with the incorruptible seed of Christ (1 Peter 1:23). By this, we are made brand-new creations, no longer bound by law, sin, and death. God now sees Christ in us as our righteousness, making us His bona fide sons and daughters. By Christ, we are complete. Only by Christ. Our identity is Christ. In Him, we are now free to live who God created us to be. Warren Litzman points out the importance of understanding the role of the Holy Spirit, part of which is to teach God's born-again children about our new identity. Jesus tells us in John's gospel that the Holy Spirit will come upon us to be our teacher and our comforter, helping us to understand our new life in Christ, our new life in grace. The Holy Spirit's power is revealing Christ and who He is now living in us. “At that day (Pentecost) ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.” (John 14:20)The Holy Spirit renews our minds, as Paul says, helping us to understand and cultivate a beautifully unique and reciprocal love affair with Christ, the Christ that now lives in each of us who believe. The Christ that is our strength, our hope, our peace, our very life. This is why we are here, to learn of Him, to know Him, to rest in Him, and to fall in love with Him more and more every day.

Christianity Is A Love Affair By Tammy Lacock In this new study, Warren Litzman sets out to make known the true and only gospel for believers today, that is the Apostle Paul's gospel of grace. There are two pillars that form the foundation of this gospel, and it's these pillars that help us to discern it in a world where Christians are commingling gospels. These pillars are:“According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.” (Ephesians 1:4)“But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you.” (1 Peter 1:19-20)Both pillars make Paul's gospel clear that this is a gospel God had in mind before the world was created and now God revealed it to Paul (and later Peter) to proclaim to the whole world in this current dispensation of grace.Paul's gospel is quite simple: By Christ's death (lamb slain) burial, and resurrection, we as believers, are saved by Christ now living in us (chosen in Him). This was a gospel like no other. And when Israel rejected it, Christ told Paul to take it to the Gentiles (Acts 28:28).“To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” (Colossians 1:27)However, there are two kinds of Christians in our world today. Those who know they are saved by Christ in them and those who know they are saved yet are searching for Christ outside of themselves, commingling grace and works salvation. Paul tells us the problem with this is that believers who search for Christ outside of themselves will never truly live who God created them to be. They are saved and going to heaven, but they never had the mind-change, or mind-renewal, to the Christ that now lives in them. Moreover, they will never get to really know Him and fall in love with Him. Paul tells us we need to have a radical mind-change, moving from an outer mindset to knowing Christ who now lives in us, joined to our spirits making us one spirit in Him (1 Corinthians 6:17). Warren reminds us that, in order to understand Paul's gospel, we must rightly divide the word of truth (Hebrews 4:12; 2 Timothy 2:15). To understand what actually took place within us as believers, we must rightly divide our souls and spirits. We were born again in our spirits, made perfect here by the incorruptible seed of Christ. Yet in our souls, where our minds reside and where the Holy Spirit works, we are perfecting (maturing). This is where the love affair with Christ takes place, in our souls. The Holy Spirit teaches us and comforts us in our new life in Christ. It is here where we truly learn to let go of our old selves, the old man, and begin to truly learn Christ. It is here where we begin to learn reciprocal love. It is here where our minds undergo such a radical change that we choose Christ over everything else, making Him our everything, our first love (Revelation 2:4). We were chosen in Him before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4). Now it's time to choose Him.

Why Paul?By Tammy LacockThis week, Warren Litzman focuses on the very possible reasons why God raised up only Paul to reveal the “mystery” of Christ living in him and to deliver this new gospel to us. Paul was not a follower of Jesus of Nazareth like the apostles. He was not a member of the early church of the New Testament when God chose him for this mission. He knew about Jesus and believed to be doing God's will by persecuting His followers, making Paul the meanest man on earth at the time. He was rank-and-file Judaic, as Warren simply puts it. He was extremely learned in the Torah and Moses's Law. God needed a special, bold voice to deliver His gospel of grace to a world inundated by fear, sin, and law. Christ knew that, by the help of the Holy Spirit, Paul would be the perfect man to deliver a new gospel, one that had been hidden since the world began, yet now revealed to him. “Whereof I am made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you, to fulfil the word of God; Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” (Colossians 1:25-27)In John, chapter 14, Christ spoke of the “mystery,” this revelation knowledge, that would be revealed to believers by the Holy Spirit. He spoke of the Holy Spirit's role as Comforter and Spirit of Truth. He spoke of going from a believing mind to a knowing mind. He tells us, only the Holy Spirit will reveal truth, new knowledge of Him, and He will speak only of Christ, not Himself. “Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.” (John 16:13)“But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me.” (John 15:26)By this revelation knowledge, he tells us, we will be comforted and will know the truth, that is, knowing He lives in us and is now our very life. No separation. Christ sums it up in John 14:20, speaking of the Day of Pentecost, “At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.”We are one by Christ and we are one in Christ (John 17:21-23). He is joined to our spirits making us one spirit in Him (1 Corinthians 6:17). By Christ's death, burial, and resurrection, God's grace poured out into humanity, and we are now freed from this world, a world of law, sin, and death. Christ made a way for us to live with our Heavenly Father. He made a way for us to come out of an old mindset corrupted by the sin-nature, passed down through Adam by the curse of Satan, and ushered us into a brand-new mindset of grace and love. He made a way, the only way, we could now live who God created us to be. In Christ, we are now complete. We are now free in Him. As our new life, He now comes through us. By Him we can bear His fruit.“I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.” (John 15:5)Christ raised up only Paul to deliver this revelation knowledge to humanity. Throughout his epistles, Paul “suffered the loss of all things” for Christ. Nothing else mattered to him than to know Christ, the Person of Christ, living in him. He wanted nothing more than to reciprocate the love and grace that his Savior poured out on the cross for him, and now through him. “Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win...

Learn Christ By Tammy Lacock“Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began.” (Romans 16:25)This week, Warren Litzman further explains the Apostle Paul's message to believers in Romans 16:25.Paul uses the word “according” in Romans 16:25 to brings us back to the beginning, God's original plan.In Ephesians 1:4, Paul, once again, reveals God's eternal plan to us when he uses the word “according”: “According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.”By Christ's death and resurrection, God uprooted our sin-nature and planted the incorruptible seed of His Son within our spirits (chosen in Him). By this we are born again and made brand-new creations. This is God's original plan, the mystery kept hidden since the world began yet revealed to Paul. Paul calls this “my gospel” because it was given only to him. Moreover, the seed of Christ now in him, and in each one of us, comes forth through him and us uniquely and according to our knowledge of Him.By each of our unique circumstances and situations of life, and moreover through our sufferings, God is establishing us in Christ, pushing us to Him, prompting our love affair with Him and preparing us, as His children, to live in His house. Now that we are established in Christ by His seed, God's eternal plan, His plan from the beginning, can now be fulfilled. The circumstances and situations of our lives help us break the hull of Christ's seed in us so that we no longer live by our old natures but allow Christ's nature to come forth. By the help of the Holy Spirit, we can now learn of Christ and our new life in Him.As we learn Christ as our new life, our old mindsets break down and our renewed minds now become subject to Him. Thus it is in our souls (where our minds reside) where our love affair with Him can begin. And this is God's eternal plan for us: to be established in Christ, to know Him, and to fall in love with Him more and more every day.

All Things Are Of GodBy Tammy Lacock“Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began.” (Romans 16:25 KJV)This week, Warren Litzman dissects Romans 16:25, a mostly overlooked but loaded verse from the Apostle Paul that is for believers today. Paul tells us in Romans 16:25 only God has the power to establish us according to his gospel. Only God has the power to reveal to us, help us understand, and to live Paul's gospel, a gospel God kept secret since the beginning of the world, and now has been revealed only to Paul. Warren explains that only through our circumstances and situations of life will God's plan for us—to understand and live Paul's gospel—become manifest. Paul's gospel, the mystery kept hidden, is that by Christ's death, burial, and resurrection, we are saved from the bondage of sin and law. When Christ died, our old lives died, too. And when He arose, we arose to a new life in Him. By Christ's death, God poured out His grace upon us by uprooting our sin-nature, the corruptible seed of Satan, and exchanging it with Christ's nature, the incorruptible seed. To anyone who believes, this is literally what happened within us by the cross. We're born again and now bona fide children of God by this unconditional act of love. God's seed, Christ, in us is total and complete. The very situations and circumstances in our lives provide the environment and nourishment we need to now bring forth His fruit. And now, only God, not religion or churchianity, establishes us in our new life in Christ by these circumstances and situations. He is not separate from these events but very much alive and well, working through these to bring us into closer relationship with Him through His Son now living in us. In Christ, God is now intimately intertwined in our choices so that we can finally live who He created us to be.

Moving From Outer To Inner By Tammy Lacock “But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.” (1 Corinthians 2: 9-10)In this week's podcast, Warren Litzman dives deeper into the writings of the Apostle Paul to help us understand the true gospel for us today and to show us the intimate relationship between Christ and Paul. Christ called Paul to bring humanity a new gospel, one that moves us from a law-based mindset, basing our salvation on outer works, to relying on the work of Christ in the inner man as our salvation. The Jews and the early church had a very difficult time accepting Paul's gospel of grace, his gospel of completion by the very life of Christ within us, because all they knew and understood up until that time were their own outer workings and the outer workings and miracles of God. By Christ's death, burial, and resurrection, a new covenant was made, which Christ revealed to Paul, saying believers are to no longer know the outer Christ, Jesus of Nazareth (2 Corinthians 5:16). We are to know Him now in Spirit, now that we are joined to Him in spirit, making us one (1 Corinthians 6:17). The only way to now know God is through relationship with His Son, God's incorruptible Seed, Christ, literally placed in each of us who believes. By God's amazing grace, we are to know Him now as the resurrected Christ who is alive and well in us. Christ said, “At that day [the Day of Pentecost] ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you” (John 14:20). The Jews and early church had no idea what this meant because they had always focused on the outer works of man. Jesus was saying an inner work took place: on that Day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit delivered the Seed, Christ, into the believers, and we have been made brand-new creations by His life in us. For God, what we do or don't do will no longer cut it. Only by Christ joined to our spirits are we made new (2 Corinthians 5:17); only by Christ in us are we reconciled to God, making us His bona fide children. We were literally born again. Out with the old man and sin nature and in with Christ as our very life. In 1 Corinthians 2:9-10, Paul tells us our relationship now with Christ cannot be heard, seen, or felt. Here he rules out anything outer in our new life in Christ. It is not an outer relationship, based on sense knowledge, but one that can only be revealed by the Holy Spirit in our soul-mind (where our emotions, intellect, and will reside). On that Day of Pentecost, not only did the Holy Spirit deliver into us the very seed of Christ, making us brand-new creations, but He also came into us as our comforter and teacher of our new life in Christ. We can ask the Holy Spirit for what Paul calls a constant mind-renewal so we can continually understand and grasp our new life in Christ. We are perfect in spirit, now joined to Christ; but our souls are continually perfecting (maturing) as we live in relationship with Christ by the Holy Spirit revealing this new life. To help us understand the role of the Holy Spirit in our new life in Christ, Jesus tells us in John chapters 14, 15, and 16 exactly what that role is. The Holy Spirit will never speak of Himself but only of Christ. Only by revelation of the Holy Spirit will we ever move from focusing on outer things to an inner relationship with Christ who now lives in us, indeed the deeper things of God (John 14:26).

We Are Complete In ChristBy Tammy LacockIn this week's podcast of Jesus and Paul, Part 2, Warren Litzman helps us rightly divide the Scriptures to distinguish and understand the one true gospel for believers today. First, we must take a look at the gospel of Jesus of Nazareth and define His gospel before we can understand Paul's gospel. Before His death, burial, and resurrection, Christ preached the Kingdom message, that God's Kingdom is at hand. For the Jews, this meant heaven on earth. Being under the Judaic law, He preached works as a condition of being pleasing to God. He was obligated by God not to destroy the law but to fulfill the law and prophecy. Jesus wasn't obligated to bring the message of grace, yet He was grace personified by His unrelenting forgiveness of sins and keeping the company of sinners. He could not yet preach grace because He had not yet died as a sacrifice, as an atonement for our sins and the sin of Adam passed down to us. When the Jews rejected Christ as their Messiah, the kingdom message was postponed. In obedience to His Father in heaven, Christ's knew His death was imminent and needed to fulfill God's plan for humanity. Paul's gospel is that of pure grace, of new life, and completion in Christ. Christ's death and resurrection ushered in grace and now there was nothing we could do or not do (no more works) to be saved. Christ did the work on the cross and by His blood, by His grace, we are saved. Christ raised up only Paul to bring this message of grace and new life to humanity. By just believing, we are saved. Yet Paul doesn't stop there. He reveals to us a message of completion. He calls it the “revelation of the mystery” which is the literal planting of Christ's seed, the incorruptible seed, in every believer. This is what it means to be born again, to have new life. We are brand new creations by the completion of Christ in us, literally and not figuratively. On the Day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit planted the seed of Christ in the spirit of every believer, making us one Spirit in Christ (1 Corinthians 6:17).“At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.” (John 14:20)However, it wasn't until Christ raised up Paul, and only Paul, that we would know exactly what happened on that Day of Pentecost. Paul calls it the mystery hidden from us through the ages yet planned by God before the foundation of the world (1 Corinthians 2:7).“According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will.” (Ephesians 1:4)Paul's gospel of grace and new life fulfills what Jesus said in John 12:24: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.”Only by Christ's death and resurrection can we be born again, having a new life and even more so, an abundant life. The abundant life is Christ living in each of us, completing us, and bearing His fruit through us. We no longer live for our own glory but for Christ to be glorified through us. God no longer sees our works as pleasing to Him; He sees Christ. By Christ we are now His bona fide children, born into His family. We are complete by Christ, through Christ, and in Christ. Paul's gospel of grace, Christ in us, is a message of the fulfillment of Christ's death and resurrection, which is our completion in Him.“Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: to whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” (Colossians 1:26-27)“And ye are complete

One New ManBy Tammy Lacock “Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace.” (Ephesians 2:15 KJV)In this week's podcast, Warren Litzman continues to explain, through Paul's epistles, how extremely important having a radical mind-change is to our new life in Christ. First, we must understand what it means to be in Christ. In Ephesians 2:15, Paul says by Christ's death on the cross, He abolished salvation by law and ushered in salvation by grace, bringing peace between God and man and Jew and Gentile. By His death and resurrection (His conquering of death), Christ atoned for our sins and the curse passed down to us through Adam by Satan. We are freed from that old life. Even more, we are born again by Christ's very life within us now. For the first time, through Christ, God did away with the old man and made Jews and Gentiles the same, one new man. By Christ's work on the cross, and not by our own works, we are all reconciled to God and to each other. By His life within us now, God no longer sees our old identities and what we do or don't do to be saved. He sees Christ. He is our new life. By God's grace, we are complete in Christ and now a new race of people. It's important to understand that since we are brand-new creations in Christ, we no longer have a past. We are “babes in Christ” now, as Warren puts it. If we are to grow up in Him and live now who God created us to be, our minds must be cleared of our old understanding of who we were. Our minds must understand the radical change that took place within our spirits in that moment we believed in Christ as our Lord and Savior. We underwent a rebirth by Christ's Spirit now being joined to ours (1 Corinthians 6:17). Yet our minds must undergo this radical change as well. This takes time. The Holy Spirit comforts us and teaches us about our new life in Christ and uses the circumstances and situations of life to help us in this mental transition. Warren notes that there have been at least four gospels in scripture, all true but each having a significance in its time, place, and purpose. Christ, Himself, raised up only Paul to bring us a new gospel, that of Christ living in every believer. This gospel is for us today. God put the Spirit of His one Son in every believer, speaking to us now through Him (Hebrews 1:2; 1 John 1:5).Throughout his epistles, Paul tells us how to live our new life in Christ. This is the gospel of Jesus Christ, from law to grace, from outer works to His work within us. We now know Him living in us, no longer knowing Him as Jesus of Nazareth but as our Lord of Glory (Colossians 1:27)!“And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.” (Ephesians 4:24 KJV)

We Are Complete In ChristBy Tammy Lacock “For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power.” (Colossians 2:9-10 KJV)In part seven of “Renewing the Mind,” Warren Litzman emphasizes that, as believers, it's important to understand what it means to be complete in Christ if we are to ever fully live who God created us to be. By God's grace, when we believed in Christ as our Savior, a radical change took place within us. Literally, the old sin nature, passed down to us by the curse of Satan, was uprooted and the Seed of Christ was planted in its place. God made us in His image and likeness so there was nothing wrong with us at our creation. Because of our own free will and the deception of Satan, his nature became our operator, unbeknownst to us. With Satan as our operator, we are inclined to do his will. Over time, we begin to know this doesn't fit our creation, realizing we can't live this false life on our own anymore, trying to be someone we're not created to be. Our need for a Savior becomes a real choice. By Christ's death, burial, and resurrection, God's amazing grace was poured out onto us, and we now have the opportunity for a brand-new life, free from the bondage of Satan. By Christ's death, we died as well to our sin natures, our old lives, and our old identities. We are no longer identified by anything in this world. By His resurrection, we arose with Christ into a new life in Him. He is our new life. The Apostle Paul tells us our minds must be renewed to this knowledge of Christ living in us as our new life. In 2 Corinthians 5:17, he says we are brand-new creatures in Christ, living a brand-new life. We must understand that our old lives are no longer who we are. Our new identity is Christ, who is our new operator. There is no separation. We are now complete in Him. In Ephesians 1:4, Paul tells us we were “chosen in Him before the foundation of the world.” We were chosen to be completed by Christ before God created the world. We are not complete until we make the choice to believe and accept Christ as the one who redeemed us, and now He lives in us.Warren explains, through Paul's epistles, that we must have a constant mind-renewal now that we are living a brand-new life. Our minds must have a radical mind-change in order to catch up to the radical change that took place within our spirits. Christ is now joined to us making us one Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:17).As our minds begin to renew and understand our new life, our new identity in Christ, our completion in Him, and our non-separation from Him, and thus our Father in heaven, we also begin to develop and nurture our unique, personal relationship with Him. Complete in Christ, we progress into the person who God created us to be. Only then can we truly live out His purpose for us. “I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.” (John 17:23 KJV)

The Greatest Power Is In Knowing By Tammy LacockIn this week's podcast, Warren Litzman reinforces our need for a constant mind-renewal as we live our new life in Christ. The Apostle Paul was the only man raised up by Christ, Himself, to bring us the gospel of Christ literally living in us as believers and details throughout his epistles how we are to go about this constant mind-change in our new life in Him.Paul emphasizes that our understanding of the godhead, the Trinity, is vital to living our new life in Christ. We must rightly divide the godhead and we must rightly divide the three parts of man: body, soul, and spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:23; Hebrews 4:12). This requires a radical mind-change. First, our minds must be renewed to the understanding that God is now our Father. Christ's death, burial, and resurrection allowed God to replace the seed of Satan with His Seed, His Son, in each and every one of us who believes. We are now joined to Him in our spirits, making us one Spirit. (1 Corinthians 6:17) Christ is our new life, our eternal life. By Christ in us, we are brand-new creations, a brand-new race, bona fide sons and daughters of God. By God's grace, we can now call Him “Father”! Second, we must understand the role of the Holy Spirit. In John 13, 14, and 15, Christ introduces the Holy Spirit who will come to us as our teacher, comforter, advocate, and revealer. The Holy Spirit's sole purpose now is to teach us of the Christ who now lives in us in spirit so that we may know Him. No longer are we to know Christ in the flesh.The Holy Spirit works in our soul part of us, where our minds reside. It is here where our mind-renewal takes place. It is here where the Holy Spirit reveals and teaches us through our circumstances and situations of life so we may grow in our personal relationship with Christ. We must rightly divide between our “old man,” sin-natured knowledge and the knowledge of Christ that now comes from the Holy Spirit. Warren explains that the greatest power we will ever have as believers is the lessons learned by the Holy Spirit. These are extremely helpful in our mind-renewal because through these we learn Christ. We begin to know Him as Paul knew Him, as the Christ alive and well in us. These lessons help us understand that there is no separation now between us and Christ. He lives within us and is the one who now lives through us. In fact, in Galatians 2:20, Paul tells us we no longer live, and our new life is Christ. In Christ, we are now complete. We can finally live who God created us to be. This was His plan before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4).In Philippians 3:10, Paul pours out his heart, knowing that through his sufferings he will know Christ more deeply. This is all he wanted. Yet he also understood that through his sufferings he would also know the power of Christ's resurrection. This is the power of His resurrected life in us and the power in knowing that everything we think, say, and do now belongs to Christ. He is our one and only life now flowing through us, but we must give Him our minds to use. Our minds, and our whole being, become a living sacrifice in return for His. Through our constant mind-renewal, knowing Him and falling in love with Him becomes our daily and ultimate goal. “That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death.” (Phil. 3:10)

Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic BostonChurch. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston inour neighborhood churches or donate to this ministry, please visitmosaicboston.com. Happy New Year. It's great to see everyone all together at one service and especially to have the families, kids and parents together. This is fun. This is exciting. I love this. This is great. So happy New Year everyone. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Tyler. I am, as pastor Randy mentioned, the youth, the teens, and the hospitality director here at Mosaic. And it is my honor and privilege to be able to be up here preaching God's word to all of us today. And over the Christmas holiday break, I had the opportunity to go down to visit my family in Virginia and attend church with them on Christmas. And that was fun. It was exciting. It was great to be able to fellowship and worship with another gospel preaching and faithful church. And it's just fun. It's fun to be able to worship God together in unity. And so today, because we have kids in the service with us, I'm going to do something a little bit different that I'm taking from that church. What we're going to do is, I'm going to start by reading our text. And while I'm reading, we're all going to stand. I'll tell you when, you don't have to do it yet. And then when I'm done reading, I'll say, "This is the word of the Lord." And I want everyone to scream as loud as you possibly can, "Thanks be to God." Amen. Amen. And the idea of this is that we should be thankful for the word of the Lord. It is good, it is glorious. It is something we should appreciate that we have. And so I want everyone, parents included, to shout, "Thanks be to God." After I say this is the word of the Lord. And kids, I want you to be louder than your parents. And parents, I dare you, I bet you can't be louder than your kids. And so we'll see how much praise we bring to the Lord through the noise. So if you will stand with me and we'll read from Philippians chapter 2, verse 1 through 11. It says this, "So if there is any encouragement in Christ and any comfort from love, any participation in the spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility, count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind amongst yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth. And every tongue confessed that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father." This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Thanks be to God. Amen. You may be seated. Thank you. Kids, I hope that was an opportunity for you to get a little energy out because I am not known to preach for a short while. I'll do my best, but hopefully that'll sustain you through the whole sermon. But we are in Philippians chapter 2, verse 1 through 11. As you heard, and we've been going through this text the last two weeks, pastor Andy has been preaching on them and we've been seeing the divinity of Christ, the incarnation and humanity of Christ. And today we're going to be talking about the exaltation of Christ, that Christ is high and lifted up. And even just from that opportunity where everybody was willing, I've watched most of you, some of you were a little quiet, but most of you were willingly shouting out. We all know how to worship. We all know how to let our emotions out and give praise to someone or something. I was thinking about my junior, or sorry, my sophomore year of college was a year that the Red Sox won the World Series. Now for those of you who don't know, I am a New York sports fan. So that was a day of morning for me. But my college roommates were Red Sox fans and they were celebrating, and they were joyous. And they went out into the streets after the last game and everybody there was singing and chanting, "Let's go, Red Sox." People were taking it a little too far climbing street lights and jumping off of them and people catching them. It was a little insane. But I bring that up to say that even in a city like Boston that we talk about a lot as the reserved intellectuals and bookies, we still know how to worship. And what I hope this sermon does is that it allows us to all freely worship God as he deserves to be worshiped because of who he is, because he is exalted and worthy of our praise. And so we are going to focus on the last few verses of this text on verses 9 through 11 in our time together. But before we do that, will you pray with me over the preaching of God's word. Heavenly Father, Lord, you are good and you are glorious. And your son Jesus Christ is seated at your right hand in power and honor and glory and we praise you for this. We thank you that you are sovereign ruler, King over all the world, over all creation. Give us eyes to see your majesty. Give us hearts to humbly praise you and love you and give our lives and submission to you, our King. Speak through your word to all of us today, humble us so that we can praise you, exalt you, lift your name up and know that you promise to exalt us in your righteousness as well. In Jesus' name, amen. All right, we will be spending our time in three points today. First point is that He, Christ Jesus is exalted. Second, so bow and confess. And third, and give him all the glory. So first point, he is exalted. This is from Philippians 2 verse 9 where it says, "Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name." First, there are two things that stand out to me in this one verse. First is the phrase, highly exalted, exalted means lifted up, raised up, high above. But it's not just exalted. Jesus is highly exalted. This is one of my favorite things that Paul does. Paul makes up words. It's not really making up words, but this is something common in Greek. He would combine two words to make an emphasis or a new meaning of that word. So he combines the word over and exalted. So the idea is that he is highly exalted. He is overly exalted as high and worthy of honor and praise as Jesus is. He is even above that. He is more exalted, more honorable than anyone or anything ever would or could be. My question when I heard this is, why? Yes, he is exalted, he is worthy of praise, but why so emphatic on his exaltation? And the verse that was brought to mind is from Isaiah, chapter 52, verse 13 through 15. And for those of you who don't know, Isaiah 52 is a prophetic passage about Christ, about the coming of Jesus. And in verse 13 it says this, "Behold my servant shall act wisely. He shall be high and lifted up and shall be exalted. As many were astonished at you, His appearance was so marred beyond human semblance and his form beyond that of the children of mankind, so shall he sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths because of him for that which has not been told, they told them they see. And that which they have not heard they understand." So why is Christ highly exalted? It says because he acted wisely. "He shall act wisely." Okay, what does that mean? And this is the foundation of the gospel. This is why we are talking about Christmas even after Christmas. And why it's so important is that Jesus Christ came and lived a life here on earth in reality, in historical fact, Jesus did that. And he lived a life of perfection, complete total submission and obedience to God the Father's will, that's who Jesus is. And in his life on earth, his wisdom in his action was the faithfulness to God's will. It's not about Christ's intellect, though he is the smartest man to ever live. It's not about His understanding, excuse me, His understanding, His ability to teach or preacher any of that, even though He was the best at all of those things, it was about His complete and total submission to the will of God, even to the point of a gruesome death. It says that He was marred beyond human semblance. This is a prophecy about Christ's death on the cross, His beating beforehand and the crucifixion where He was so brutally injured that He didn't even look human anymore, that he looked more like a monster than a man and that He was willing to follow the will of God, even to that extent. Even to that point, nothing would shake him from the will of God. And so He is highly exalted, so He is worthy of our praise and our honor because of his obedience to the Lord no matter what. And the second thing that stood out to me from verse 9 is it says that, "God has highly exalted Him." Right? We see here in Isaiah that he acted wisely, and that might tempt us to think that Christ's action made himself worthy of praise and that he exalted himself because of the things he did. So if we want to exalt ourselves, we just need to be really good people. But know God is the one, God, the Father is the one who lifted Him up, exalted him and put Him in a place of honor. And this is an important distinction because it reflects a teaching of Jesus in the book of Matthew. It's actually in most of the gospels, but in Matthew chapter 23, Jesus teaches verse 12, whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. And so yes, it is about Christ ultimate submission and fulfillment of the will of God. But in order for Him to do that, He needed to be humble. He needed to be a man of ultimate humility, submitting again to the will of God. And as He humbled himself, made himself lowly, He exemplified this throughout His whole life. But one of the most famous in our minds is when He washed the disciples feet, a place of a servant and of a slave. He was willing to do that humbly. And as He humbled himself, as He recognized, I'm just doing the will of the Lord, God honored Him and exalted Him. Christians, do you know that it's not our job to exalt ourselves? We live in a world that is all about credentials and ideas, and who is the smartest, who's the best, who has made the most impact in this world. Christians, that's not your job. Make a great impact in the world for Christ, for the kingdom of God, but not by earthly standards. The way we do it is by being the most humble we can possibly be, by submitting fully to who God is to Christ and His exalted place at the right hand of God, the Father seated on the throne ruler of all things, king of all things. Scripture tells us, "All of existence is held together by the power of Christ. And it continues to exist because of the power of Christ." And because of that, we need to recognize He is there and I'm not. He is there and I'm here. I am a sinner. I am a man. I am a woman. I am a child of God. I need forgiveness. And when we recognize the position of Christ, that should change the way we view everything in the world. Everything in the world is under his authority. Everything in the world is under his rule and reign under the rain of a good sovereign loving God. How come the world doesn't look like it then? How come we see sin? How come we see pain and hurt and suffering? Well, the book of Hebrews tells us clearly chapter 2, verses 8 and 9. It says this, "At present we do not yet see everything in subjection to Him, but we see Him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death. So that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone." "At present we do not see everything in subjection to Him," because why? Because of the fall, because of sin. And because of Christ's promise coming again, His second coming, the second Christmas you could say where he will make all things in subjection to Him. But in this in between time, what are we to do? It says that we are to first recognize the position of Christ that He is now presently crowned with glory and honor because of the work he did on the cross. But then we should also be thinking about things in the world as not, I like this, I don't like this, I would change this or that. But the way we should view things on earth is either in subjection to Christ or not in subjection to Christ, either in the kingdom of God or not in the kingdom of God. And I know a couple weeks ago, about a month ago, we were in the book of Romans and we talked a lot about how each of us has a call placed on us by God. And there was a lot of talk in community groups about, well, what does that mean for us individually, for us as a group and things like that. And that's great, continue to discuss those things. And I want to point out something here that wherever God has called you to be in your life right now, make it your aim, make it your goal to make that part of your life in subjection fully to Christ. Can you imagine a world where modern medicine was in subjection to the authority of Christ, to the loving, merciful, gracious God who heals and desires for the health and wealth of his people? That would be amazing. Can you imagine a world where the justice system was just and merciful like our just and merciful God? I can go on and on about example and example. But think about wherever you are called, wherever you are working, wherever you're in school, whatever you are doing in your life right now, how can you do it? How can you live it out in a way that is fully, completely in subjection to the kingdom of God, to His rule and reign and authority and say, "Lord Jesus, I'm following you in this realm and not society, not people." Now we do still submit to the authority of the governing authorities. That's in Romans, you could rewatch that sermon that's there too. But our focus should be exalting the name of Christ, wherever we are and making everything we do fully submitted to Him. And in life where we see things that are in submission to him and are bringing praise to his name that should result in greater praise of God. We should rejoice over that. We should praise his name for it. And where we see things that are not in subjection to God's will, His kingdom, our heart should be broken a little and we should be moved with compassion to see those things brought into the kingdom of God, not by force or not by selfish motivations or because of anything in ourselves, but because we know the real reality of Christ as King. And we don't want anyone to be his enemy. We don't want anything to be in opposition to him. And I said anyone, because this mostly applies to people. Every single person you're here today, even if you're not here today, every person is either in submission to Christ or not. Everyone is either recognizing the reality of Christ's rule and reign and submitting our lives to Him or we're not. And if you're here today and you say, "I'm not a Christian, I do not submit fully to Christ as Lord and savior." I urge you to do so because he is a good, powerful, loving king who wants to help you, wants to save you, wants to bring you into His kingdom. And if you're here today and you're not a Christian, maybe you're here today because a friend invited you or someone you know who cares about you, invited you. I want to tell you that person loves you more than you could ever understand because they want you to understand the gospel of the one true King and Lord. And even if you disagree, if they believe this is true and I believe this is true, and they invite you, want you to hear it, how greatly they must love you to invite you to hear the gospel of God.Now Christians, do we share the gospel of God with people? Do we love people enough that we know do not know the gospel, that we are willing to share it with those who do not know because we want them within the kingdom of God? We want their prosperity, their health, their wealth, yes, but not here on earth but an eternity under the sovereign rule of Christ. And when I think about this idea, this concept, I just want to read from the book of Acts, doing a lot of reading today because other people are smarter than me and I was working on my humility. But in the Book of Acts, Peter gives one of the greatest presentations of the gospel on the day of Pentecost. And it's a powerful thing that we should all remember and be reminded of. And I just want to read it for us now. So in Acts chapter 2 says, in verses 22 to 33, I'll read it in sections and we'll break it up. So it's not going to be so long, but, "Men of Israel hear these words, Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty who works and wonders and signs that God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves know..." Pause, Peter is writing to people who are eyewitnesses of the life of Christ. He is writing to people who saw him, who knew him. They were not fooled by stories of old. They saw the things that Christ did. And Peter is appealing to them saying, God attested, God said that he is the Messiah, the coming one by the works that he did and by the signs that he has done in your midst. You know it's true. You know it's the reality. You cannot deny that these things happened. One of my favorite things is that historians who are not Christians affirm that these events happened from the modern, sorry, the current day from the first century, they affirm, "Yeah, these things happened." They might not believe that Jesus was real. They not believe that he did them by any power, but they admit that they happened. And Peter is saying, "You cannot deny the reality of the works and life of Christ." Continues in verse 23, "This Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and for knowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosen the pangs of death because it was not possible for him to be held by it." We'll pause there. So this Jesus, the real historical Jesus who lived for Christ or lived for God the Father, in complete submission to his will, He was delivered up to be crucified because of the total definitive plan of God, but also because of us. Yes, Peter is speaking directly to people who had a physical hand in the crucifixion of Christ, delivering him over to the Pharisees, delivering him over to Pilate. But the reality is the same that each and every one of us is responsible for the death of Christ on the cross. Why? Because that is the penalty our sin deserves. Anything that we do in rebellion to God, sin, rejection of His rule and authority as king of our lives. Scripture tells us the penalty for that sin is death. But Jesus died to pay that penalty for us. And he did not only die, he was also raised. Why? I love this part. Because it was not possible for him to be held by it. This is the power of Christ of our God. That death itself has no power to hold Jesus in the grave. This is the power of our almighty exalted king. Death itself cannot hold Him. And He did this to prove His power, to prove His authority, prove His divinity, and to save us from our sins and prove that He is worthy of it. And this has been the case through all of history. And here Peter appeals to David and in the Old Testament brings in some of the prophecies about Christ. And I'm going to read it so that we can see that this has always been the plan of salvation throughout all of history. In verse 25, for David says, concerning him concerning Christ, "I saw the Lord always before me for He is at my right hand, that I may not be shaken. Therefore, my heart was glad and my tongue rejoiced. My flesh also will dwell in hope for you will not abandon my soul to Hades or let your holy one see corruption. You have made known to me the paths of life. You will make me full of gladness with your presence. Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us today. Being therefore a prophet and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that He would set one of his descendants on His throne, He foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption." Even back then. God was making it clear to his people, this is the plan of salvation, that his holy one, the Messiah, Jesus Christ would come, would die, but would not be abandoned to death because death has no power over Him. And He will raise proving His power to save us from our sins. Praise be to God. He has the power to do it. And this is a reality that we can live in if we recognize that Jesus truly is Lord, He truly is king. He is sovereign ruler of all things and we submit our lives to Him. This is why he continues. Peter continues in verse 32 saying, "This, Jesus God raised up..." He raised him from the dead. "And of that we all are witnesses." If you ever wondered what church is, it's a gathering of witnesses in a sense. It's that we are witnesses to the resurrection of Christ, not literally as Peter was saying, that they literally saw the resurrected Christ. But I'm here as a witness to tell you I've seen the power of the resurrected Christ in my life to save me from my wickets sin, to save me from my heart that has been warped into sin and desired that. And God saved me from it to give me a new heart, to a desire to serve Him and love Him, even though I'm not perfect, nowhere close. But He's changed my heart. And every single one of you who's here today bearing the name of Christ that is true of you, you are a witness to the power of the resurrected Christ in your life to change you, to sanctify you, to make you more like Christ. How? Through the power of the Holy Spirit. This is what Peter says in verses 33, "Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God..." Now that Christ is there at the right hand of God. "And having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing." So Jesus at the time of Peter is at the right hand of God, had received the promise of the Holy Spirit was pouring it out on the apostles. And this is the day of Pentecost where they are preaching and proclaiming the word and gospel of the Lord so that every person can hear them in their own native tongue so that all can understand that's powerful. And while may not look the same today, it's still true today that Christ has poured out the promise of His Holy Spirit upon all who bear the name of Christ. So that way we can live in a way that exemplifies to the world around us, that we are in the kingdom of God. If you're here today and you're not a Christian, what you are seeing and hearing today is the power of the Holy Spirit to change my life, to change this church's life, to bring honor and praise to His name because He is worthy, he is loving, he is deserving of it all. It's nothing to do with us, it's all about Him. Praise be His name. And the only natural response for us is to bow and confess. For those of you who are like, we're just getting to point 2, don't worry, two-thirds of my notes were point 1, so we're we're coming along. But he says in verses 10 and 11 in our text in Philippians, "So that the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father." Praise be his name. Our natural response when we understand the position, the reality of Christ as king over the universe, but also over our lives is that every knee is going to bow. What does that mean? It's a position of humility. It's a position of total submission and recognition of the authority and power of the one you are bowing to. This was something that has been done throughout history, but especially in the Old Testament. It was a sign of saying, "I come with no arms. I come with no weapons. You can see I'm bowing before you. My head is before you. I cannot defend myself. If you want to kill me, you can. I can do nothing to defend myself because I am not worthy. You do with me whatever you wish." That should be the posture of the heart of a Christian saying, "Lord Jesus, you do with my life whatever you wish and I will follow and I will obey whatever it is you can do it." And this is a phrase about position and about relation. One of the things that I want to point out is that it's all about our relation and position according to Christ, not according to each other. This is something that we talked about in Romans. And actually in the book of Romans chapter 14, Paul quotes the same verse that he is quoting here in Philippians to make a similar point in Romans 14 verses 10 through 12. He says this, "Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. For it is written as I live says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me and every tongue shall confess to God. So then each of us will give an account of himself to God." We talked in Romans about how this means we shouldn't be judging one another, we should be focusing on the Lord and praising Him and recognizing our position before Him. And that's true here. And Paul's point in Philippians is the same referencing this verse that our position is not to look at each other and say, "I'm better than them or I'm not as good as them, or I fall somewhere in between on the hierarchy." No, God doesn't care about that. God cares about your relation to Him. We don't look at each other and say, "I am humble because I'm not as good as other people. Or I am not humble, I'm boastful and proud because I'm better than other people." God doesn't care. We all need to be humble regardless of our lives here on earth, regardless of what we say or do, it doesn't matter because we are nowhere near the power and authority and might of God, of Jesus Christ, our Lord and king. So we bow before Him, we are humbled before Him. But there's good news here. I know that that sounds a little like we are humbled, we are low in it. But that's good news. That is good news. And one of the greatest news that I don't know if everyone here knows this, but that Christ promises to exalt you, to exalt me to anyone who is in his kingdom, who has been in submission to his rule and authority, He says that He will exalt, He will lift up in honor and praise. How does that happen? This is from James chapter 4, verses 8 through 10. It says, "Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts you double-minded be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will exalt you." It's all so intense. "Cleanse your hands, you sinners." Wow, that's powerful language. But the idea is that we are all sinners. We all have sinned, we've all rejected God. So how are we saved? How are we cleansed and purified from that? We draw near to God, we run to him. When we sin, we don't hide it. We don't keep it away and say, "Oh, it's too shameful to talk about." No, we bring it to God and say, "God, forgive me. I repent. Save me. Cleanse my heart. Make me more like you so I won't keep doing it." When we are in states of mourning, when life is hard and things are depressing, we go to God, we draw near to Him. We don't let those things get in the way and keep us from Him and say, "Life's too hard. I don't feel like talking to God right now. I'm going to stay away." No, we run to Him. We draw near to Him and He promises He will draw near to you. And as we bow, as we humble ourselves before the Lord, He says He'll exalt us. Why? Because again, it's the same teaching that Jesus taught that we talked about for his exaltation, is that those who humble themselves before the Lord will be exalted. This sounds a lot like I'm talking to people who don't know Christ or maybe just know Christ. And I want to be clear, this is for all of us who are Christians. And no matter how long we've been Christian, our goal is to be more and more humble, to be more and more like Christ who was the most humble, who has ever lived to be able to fully submit to the will of God. And as we are humbled, it's not a depressing, woe is me. It's a recognition of the greatness of God. And the more we recognize the greatness of God, the more we recognize how not great we are. And then the more we are lifted and exalted by Christ where he says, "Yeah, but I saved you." By Christ's righteousness, He saved us and we can partake in His power, His glory, His honor in heaven for all of eternity because of Him. Praise be to God. And so we bow in humility and we confess with our mouth that he truly is Lord. We are unashamed of that reality, that He is Lord of our lives. And as we bow and confess this reality, naturally we give Him the glory. We give Him the glory. This is the end of verse 11 where it says, and every tongue confessed that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father. We are bestowing honor and praise and glory to His name. When we recognize the greatness of His salvation, when we recognize how great of a gift that is to us. We're talking about this on New Year's Day while kind of talking about Christmas still. And it's like, what's going on here? Christmas, New Years? What are we talking about? Well, New Years is a time to look back, to look back on our lives of the past year and say, "What went well? What do I need to change?" And then make changes for the future? And what we are doing today is we are looking back at Christmas, that just happened, but we're looking back at it and saying, "This is the reality of Christ coming. This is true. He came. He was born as a baby. This is great. This was the impetus for all that we've been talking about today." Now, how is that going to affect how I live from now on? We cannot lose sight of that. And the reality is that we need to give God more glory. We need to be more humbled. We need to give Him more glory. We need to give Him more and more constant praise. This is done by, as I talked about, giving all of our lives in submission to the will of God, doing everything that we can to Him, but also being thankful in all seasons to God. No matter what is going on in our lives, we can say, "God is still in control. So I am thankful to Him." And so we should be growing in thankfulness for the Lord and His work in all seasons of our lives. And I take this from Psalm 107 versus 1 through 3, and I find it funny that this is basically a command to us as Christians. It says this, "Oh give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for His steadfast love endures forever. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so. Whom he has redeemed from trouble and gathered in from the lands, from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south." If you are a child of God, if you have been saved by God, no matter where you come from, no matter how far east, west, north or south, it doesn't matter if you are a child of God, give thanks to the Lord. Why? Because he is good. It has nothing to do with our situation. It has nothing to do with what's going on in the world around us. It's just because he is good and his steadfast love endures forever. Praise God. Give Him the glory. And I love to talk about worship through song. If you listen to me preach, I talk about it every other time that I preach because I love it. But also scripture loves it. There's a whole book of Psalms, of songs written to God in praise. But also throughout the Old Testament, as major events happen of God's working they write songs. After the Exodus, they wrote multiple songs of phrase to God because of his goodness. There is something intrinsic about Christians worshiping God through song. And I bring that up to say, let's sing to the Lord. We're going to do that in a little bit, but let's sing. Let's praise him and not be ashamed of what we think about each other or what's going on around us. But just praise him because he is good. And I bring it up to say that sometimes when life is hard, that's the times it's hardest to sing. It's the times where it's hardest to lift your voice in praise. Because songs most of the time are joyful, upbeat things. And if we're sad, we don't want to be joyful and upbeat. But even then, this is from real experience. When you don't want to sing, sing and God will soften and change your heart and help you give Him more glory. Two things before we close. First we will be partaking of communion after this, but then after that we are going to sing some Christmas songs. And I say that to prepare you because I know we live in a divisive culture. Where can we listen to Christmas music after Christmas or not? It's still a worship song, so we're still going to sing it. And I want us to really just focus on that. Not to be thinking of it as a Christmas song, but to be singing it as a song of praise to God. And the second thing, I'm going to read a section from S.M. Lockridge sermon, That's My King. I don't know if anyone knows who S.M. Lockridge is. If you think I'm a passionate speaker, and preacher, I've heard that said about me. If you think I'm passionate, comes nothing close to this guy. S.M. Lockridge, you know his family loved the Lord because the S.M. stands for Shadrach, Meshach, so they really wanted him to be faithful. But he was an African American Baptist preacher in California and he died in 1993. But he has this sermon that's called, That's My King. And I'm going to read less than a third of it. It's a very short sermon, but I cut out a lot. I just want to give you guys a taste of it because it's a song, well, it's a sermon that gets put to music a lot that I listen to every year on Easter. On Easter I listen to him preach this. And on Good Friday he has another sermon called Sunday's Coming. It's also great, listen to that. The idea is how dark and depressing the world is on Good Friday, but Sunday's coming, so we have a reason for hope. Anyway, great sermon. I'm just going to read a section of That's My King, to try and stir up our hearts, to praise and recognition of the true authority of Christ. And then I'll pray and pastor and will come up after that to lead us in communion. "But speaking of Jesus..." He says, "He's the king of the Jews. He's the king of Israel. He's the king of righteousness. He's the king of the ages. He's the King of heaven. He's the king of glory. He's the King of Kings and he's the Lord of Lords. Now, that's my king. I wonder, do you know him? There's no means of measure that can define His limitless love. He's enduringly strong. He's entirely sincere. He's eternally steadfast. He's immortally graceful. He's imperially powerful. He's impartially merciful. That's my King. He's God's son, the sinner savior, the centerpiece of civilization. He's unparalleled, unprecedented supreme. He's preeminent. He's the loftiest idea in literature. He's the highest personality and philosophy. He's the fundamental doctrine of true theology. That's my King. He's the miracle of the age. He's the superlative of everything good that you choose to call him." "Well, he's the only one able to supply all our needs simultaneously. Well, I wish I could describe him to you, but he's indescribable. He always has been, and He always will be. You can't impeach Him and He's not going to resign. That's my King. Great is the Lord. That's my King. Thine, thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory. Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever and ever. How long is that? And ever and ever and ever. And when you get through it with all the forevers, then amen." Let's pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, you are glorious. You are good. And we praise you that your son, Jesus Christ, saved us from our sins and that he is now seated at your right hand, in all power, glory and exaltation. Help us lift Christ as the one true king and ruler over everything in our lives. Help every aspect of what we say and what we do. Bring honor and glory to your name in submission to your kingdom. Lord, humble us. Give us humble hearts to bow before you and recognize that we are not worthy of your salvation. Yet you are so good and glorious and great that you give it to us anyway. Help us to confess to all those around us of your greatness, of your love, of your goodness, and bring praise to your name because you are good. And we know your steadfast love endures forever and nothing in this world can change that. Give us passion and desire as we leave here today to live in honor and glory of your name so that when the world sees us, they see your power and glory. Amen.

Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic BostonChurch. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston inour neighborhood churches or donate to this ministry, please visitmosaicboston.com. Happy New Year. It's great to see everyone all together at one service and especially to have the families, kids and parents together. This is fun. This is exciting. I love this. This is great. So happy New Year everyone. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Tyler. I am, as pastor Randy mentioned, the youth, the teens, and the hospitality director here at Mosaic. And it is my honor and privilege to be able to be up here preaching God's word to all of us today. And over the Christmas holiday break, I had the opportunity to go down to visit my family in Virginia and attend church with them on Christmas. And that was fun. It was exciting. It was great to be able to fellowship and worship with another gospel preaching and faithful church. And it's just fun. It's fun to be able to worship God together in unity. And so today, because we have kids in the service with us, I'm going to do something a little bit different that I'm taking from that church. What we're going to do is, I'm going to start by reading our text. And while I'm reading, we're all going to stand. I'll tell you when, you don't have to do it yet. And then when I'm done reading, I'll say, "This is the word of the Lord." And I want everyone to scream as loud as you possibly can, "Thanks be to God." Amen. Amen. And the idea of this is that we should be thankful for the word of the Lord. It is good, it is glorious. It is something we should appreciate that we have. And so I want everyone, parents included, to shout, "Thanks be to God." After I say this is the word of the Lord. And kids, I want you to be louder than your parents. And parents, I dare you, I bet you can't be louder than your kids. And so we'll see how much praise we bring to the Lord through the noise. So if you will stand with me and we'll read from Philippians chapter 2, verse 1 through 11. It says this, "So if there is any encouragement in Christ and any comfort from love, any participation in the spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility, count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind amongst yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth. And every tongue confessed that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father." This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Thanks be to God. Amen. You may be seated. Thank you. Kids, I hope that was an opportunity for you to get a little energy out because I am not known to preach for a short while. I'll do my best, but hopefully that'll sustain you through the whole sermon. But we are in Philippians chapter 2, verse 1 through 11. As you heard, and we've been going through this text the last two weeks, pastor Andy has been preaching on them and we've been seeing the divinity of Christ, the incarnation and humanity of Christ. And today we're going to be talking about the exaltation of Christ, that Christ is high and lifted up. And even just from that opportunity where everybody was willing, I've watched most of you, some of you were a little quiet, but most of you were willingly shouting out. We all know how to worship. We all know how to let our emotions out and give praise to someone or something. I was thinking about my junior, or sorry, my sophomore year of college was a year that the Red Sox won the World Series. Now for those of you who don't know, I am a New York sports fan. So that was a day of morning for me. But my college roommates were Red Sox fans and they were celebrating, and they were joyous. And they went out into the streets after the last game and everybody there was singing and chanting, "Let's go, Red Sox." People were taking it a little too far climbing street lights and jumping off of them and people catching them. It was a little insane. But I bring that up to say that even in a city like Boston that we talk about a lot as the reserved intellectuals and bookies, we still know how to worship. And what I hope this sermon does is that it allows us to all freely worship God as he deserves to be worshiped because of who he is, because he is exalted and worthy of our praise. And so we are going to focus on the last few verses of this text on verses 9 through 11 in our time together. But before we do that, will you pray with me over the preaching of God's word. Heavenly Father, Lord, you are good and you are glorious. And your son Jesus Christ is seated at your right hand in power and honor and glory and we praise you for this. We thank you that you are sovereign ruler, King over all the world, over all creation. Give us eyes to see your majesty. Give us hearts to humbly praise you and love you and give our lives and submission to you, our King. Speak through your word to all of us today, humble us so that we can praise you, exalt you, lift your name up and know that you promise to exalt us in your righteousness as well. In Jesus' name, amen. All right, we will be spending our time in three points today. First point is that He, Christ Jesus is exalted. Second, so bow and confess. And third, and give him all the glory. So first point, he is exalted. This is from Philippians 2 verse 9 where it says, "Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name." First, there are two things that stand out to me in this one verse. First is the phrase, highly exalted, exalted means lifted up, raised up, high above. But it's not just exalted. Jesus is highly exalted. This is one of my favorite things that Paul does. Paul makes up words. It's not really making up words, but this is something common in Greek. He would combine two words to make an emphasis or a new meaning of that word. So he combines the word over and exalted. So the idea is that he is highly exalted. He is overly exalted as high and worthy of honor and praise as Jesus is. He is even above that. He is more exalted, more honorable than anyone or anything ever would or could be. My question when I heard this is, why? Yes, he is exalted, he is worthy of praise, but why so emphatic on his exaltation? And the verse that was brought to mind is from Isaiah, chapter 52, verse 13 through 15. And for those of you who don't know, Isaiah 52 is a prophetic passage about Christ, about the coming of Jesus. And in verse 13 it says this, "Behold my servant shall act wisely. He shall be high and lifted up and shall be exalted. As many were astonished at you, His appearance was so marred beyond human semblance and his form beyond that of the children of mankind, so shall he sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths because of him for that which has not been told, they told them they see. And that which they have not heard they understand." So why is Christ highly exalted? It says because he acted wisely. "He shall act wisely." Okay, what does that mean? And this is the foundation of the gospel. This is why we are talking about Christmas even after Christmas. And why it's so important is that Jesus Christ came and lived a life here on earth in reality, in historical fact, Jesus did that. And he lived a life of perfection, complete total submission and obedience to God the Father's will, that's who Jesus is. And in his life on earth, his wisdom in his action was the faithfulness to God's will. It's not about Christ's intellect, though he is the smartest man to ever live. It's not about His understanding, excuse me, His understanding, His ability to teach or preacher any of that, even though He was the best at all of those things, it was about His complete and total submission to the will of God, even to the point of a gruesome death. It says that He was marred beyond human semblance. This is a prophecy about Christ's death on the cross, His beating beforehand and the crucifixion where He was so brutally injured that He didn't even look human anymore, that he looked more like a monster than a man and that He was willing to follow the will of God, even to that extent. Even to that point, nothing would shake him from the will of God. And so He is highly exalted, so He is worthy of our praise and our honor because of his obedience to the Lord no matter what. And the second thing that stood out to me from verse 9 is it says that, "God has highly exalted Him." Right? We see here in Isaiah that he acted wisely, and that might tempt us to think that Christ's action made himself worthy of praise and that he exalted himself because of the things he did. So if we want to exalt ourselves, we just need to be really good people. But know God is the one, God, the Father is the one who lifted Him up, exalted him and put Him in a place of honor. And this is an important distinction because it reflects a teaching of Jesus in the book of Matthew. It's actually in most of the gospels, but in Matthew chapter 23, Jesus teaches verse 12, whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. And so yes, it is about Christ ultimate submission and fulfillment of the will of God. But in order for Him to do that, He needed to be humble. He needed to be a man of ultimate humility, submitting again to the will of God. And as He humbled himself, made himself lowly, He exemplified this throughout His whole life. But one of the most famous in our minds is when He washed the disciples feet, a place of a servant and of a slave. He was willing to do that humbly. And as He humbled himself, as He recognized, I'm just doing the will of the Lord, God honored Him and exalted Him. Christians, do you know that it's not our job to exalt ourselves? We live in a world that is all about credentials and ideas, and who is the smartest, who's the best, who has made the most impact in this world. Christians, that's not your job. Make a great impact in the world for Christ, for the kingdom of God, but not by earthly standards. The way we do it is by being the most humble we can possibly be, by submitting fully to who God is to Christ and His exalted place at the right hand of God, the Father seated on the throne ruler of all things, king of all things. Scripture tells us, "All of existence is held together by the power of Christ. And it continues to exist because of the power of Christ." And because of that, we need to recognize He is there and I'm not. He is there and I'm here. I am a sinner. I am a man. I am a woman. I am a child of God. I need forgiveness. And when we recognize the position of Christ, that should change the way we view everything in the world. Everything in the world is under his authority. Everything in the world is under his rule and reign under the rain of a good sovereign loving God. How come the world doesn't look like it then? How come we see sin? How come we see pain and hurt and suffering? Well, the book of Hebrews tells us clearly chapter 2, verses 8 and 9. It says this, "At present we do not yet see everything in subjection to Him, but we see Him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death. So that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone." "At present we do not see everything in subjection to Him," because why? Because of the fall, because of sin. And because of Christ's promise coming again, His second coming, the second Christmas you could say where he will make all things in subjection to Him. But in this in between time, what are we to do? It says that we are to first recognize the position of Christ that He is now presently crowned with glory and honor because of the work he did on the cross. But then we should also be thinking about things in the world as not, I like this, I don't like this, I would change this or that. But the way we should view things on earth is either in subjection to Christ or not in subjection to Christ, either in the kingdom of God or not in the kingdom of God. And I know a couple weeks ago, about a month ago, we were in the book of Romans and we talked a lot about how each of us has a call placed on us by God. And there was a lot of talk in community groups about, well, what does that mean for us individually, for us as a group and things like that. And that's great, continue to discuss those things. And I want to point out something here that wherever God has called you to be in your life right now, make it your aim, make it your goal to make that part of your life in subjection fully to Christ. Can you imagine a world where modern medicine was in subjection to the authority of Christ, to the loving, merciful, gracious God who heals and desires for the health and wealth of his people? That would be amazing. Can you imagine a world where the justice system was just and merciful like our just and merciful God? I can go on and on about example and example. But think about wherever you are called, wherever you are working, wherever you're in school, whatever you are doing in your life right now, how can you do it? How can you live it out in a way that is fully, completely in subjection to the kingdom of God, to His rule and reign and authority and say, "Lord Jesus, I'm following you in this realm and not society, not people." Now we do still submit to the authority of the governing authorities. That's in Romans, you could rewatch that sermon that's there too. But our focus should be exalting the name of Christ, wherever we are and making everything we do fully submitted to Him. And in life where we see things that are in submission to him and are bringing praise to his name that should result in greater praise of God. We should rejoice over that. We should praise his name for it. And where we see things that are not in subjection to God's will, His kingdom, our heart should be broken a little and we should be moved with compassion to see those things brought into the kingdom of God, not by force or not by selfish motivations or because of anything in ourselves, but because we know the real reality of Christ as King. And we don't want anyone to be his enemy. We don't want anything to be in opposition to him. And I said anyone, because this mostly applies to people. Every single person you're here today, even if you're not here today, every person is either in submission to Christ or not. Everyone is either recognizing the reality of Christ's rule and reign and submitting our lives to Him or we're not. And if you're here today and you say, "I'm not a Christian, I do not submit fully to Christ as Lord and savior." I urge you to do so because he is a good, powerful, loving king who wants to help you, wants to save you, wants to bring you into His kingdom. And if you're here today and you're not a Christian, maybe you're here today because a friend invited you or someone you know who cares about you, invited you. I want to tell you that person loves you more than you could ever understand because they want you to understand the gospel of the one true King and Lord. And even if you disagree, if they believe this is true and I believe this is true, and they invite you, want you to hear it, how greatly they must love you to invite you to hear the gospel of God.Now Christians, do we share the gospel of God with people? Do we love people enough that we know do not know the gospel, that we are willing to share it with those who do not know because we want them within the kingdom of God? We want their prosperity, their health, their wealth, yes, but not here on earth but an eternity under the sovereign rule of Christ. And when I think about this idea, this concept, I just want to read from the book of Acts, doing a lot of reading today because other people are smarter than me and I was working on my humility. But in the Book of Acts, Peter gives one of the greatest presentations of the gospel on the day of Pentecost. And it's a powerful thing that we should all remember and be reminded of. And I just want to read it for us now. So in Acts chapter 2 says, in verses 22 to 33, I'll read it in sections and we'll break it up. So it's not going to be so long, but, "Men of Israel hear these words, Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty who works and wonders and signs that God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves know..." Pause, Peter is writing to people who are eyewitnesses of the life of Christ. He is writing to people who saw him, who knew him. They were not fooled by stories of old. They saw the things that Christ did. And Peter is appealing to them saying, God attested, God said that he is the Messiah, the coming one by the works that he did and by the signs that he has done in your midst. You know it's true. You know it's the reality. You cannot deny that these things happened. One of my favorite things is that historians who are not Christians affirm that these events happened from the modern, sorry, the current day from the first century, they affirm, "Yeah, these things happened." They might not believe that Jesus was real. They not believe that he did them by any power, but they admit that they happened. And Peter is saying, "You cannot deny the reality of the works and life of Christ." Continues in verse 23, "This Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and for knowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosen the pangs of death because it was not possible for him to be held by it." We'll pause there. So this Jesus, the real historical Jesus who lived for Christ or lived for God the Father, in complete submission to his will, He was delivered up to be crucified because of the total definitive plan of God, but also because of us. Yes, Peter is speaking directly to people who had a physical hand in the crucifixion of Christ, delivering him over to the Pharisees, delivering him over to Pilate. But the reality is the same that each and every one of us is responsible for the death of Christ on the cross. Why? Because that is the penalty our sin deserves. Anything that we do in rebellion to God, sin, rejection of His rule and authority as king of our lives. Scripture tells us the penalty for that sin is death. But Jesus died to pay that penalty for us. And he did not only die, he was also raised. Why? I love this part. Because it was not possible for him to be held by it. This is the power of Christ of our God. That death itself has no power to hold Jesus in the grave. This is the power of our almighty exalted king. Death itself cannot hold Him. And He did this to prove His power, to prove His authority, prove His divinity, and to save us from our sins and prove that He is worthy of it. And this has been the case through all of history. And here Peter appeals to David and in the Old Testament brings in some of the prophecies about Christ. And I'm going to read it so that we can see that this has always been the plan of salvation throughout all of history. In verse 25, for David says, concerning him concerning Christ, "I saw the Lord always before me for He is at my right hand, that I may not be shaken. Therefore, my heart was glad and my tongue rejoiced. My flesh also will dwell in hope for you will not abandon my soul to Hades or let your holy one see corruption. You have made known to me the paths of life. You will make me full of gladness with your presence. Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us today. Being therefore a prophet and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that He would set one of his descendants on His throne, He foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption." Even back then. God was making it clear to his people, this is the plan of salvation, that his holy one, the Messiah, Jesus Christ would come, would die, but would not be abandoned to death because death has no power over Him. And He will raise proving His power to save us from our sins. Praise be to God. He has the power to do it. And this is a reality that we can live in if we recognize that Jesus truly is Lord, He truly is king. He is sovereign ruler of all things and we submit our lives to Him. This is why he continues. Peter continues in verse 32 saying, "This, Jesus God raised up..." He raised him from the dead. "And of that we all are witnesses." If you ever wondered what church is, it's a gathering of witnesses in a sense. It's that we are witnesses to the resurrection of Christ, not literally as Peter was saying, that they literally saw the resurrected Christ. But I'm here as a witness to tell you I've seen the power of the resurrected Christ in my life to save me from my wickets sin, to save me from my heart that has been warped into sin and desired that. And God saved me from it to give me a new heart, to a desire to serve Him and love Him, even though I'm not perfect, nowhere close. But He's changed my heart. And every single one of you who's here today bearing the name of Christ that is true of you, you are a witness to the power of the resurrected Christ in your life to change you, to sanctify you, to make you more like Christ. How? Through the power of the Holy Spirit. This is what Peter says in verses 33, "Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God..." Now that Christ is there at the right hand of God. "And having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing." So Jesus at the time of Peter is at the right hand of God, had received the promise of the Holy Spirit was pouring it out on the apostles. And this is the day of Pentecost where they are preaching and proclaiming the word and gospel of the Lord so that every person can hear them in their own native tongue so that all can understand that's powerful. And while may not look the same today, it's still true today that Christ has poured out the promise of His Holy Spirit upon all who bear the name of Christ. So that way we can live in a way that exemplifies to the world around us, that we are in the kingdom of God. If you're here today and you're not a Christian, what you are seeing and hearing today is the power of the Holy Spirit to change my life, to change this church's life, to bring honor and praise to His name because He is worthy, he is loving, he is deserving of it all. It's nothing to do with us, it's all about Him. Praise be His name. And the only natural response for us is to bow and confess. For those of you who are like, we're just getting to point 2, don't worry, two-thirds of my notes were point 1, so we're we're coming along. But he says in verses 10 and 11 in our text in Philippians, "So that the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father." Praise be his name. Our natural response when we understand the position, the reality of Christ as king over the universe, but also over our lives is that every knee is going to bow. What does that mean? It's a position of humility. It's a position of total submission and recognition of the authority and power of the one you are bowing to. This was something that has been done throughout history, but especially in the Old Testament. It was a sign of saying, "I come with no arms. I come with no weapons. You can see I'm bowing before you. My head is before you. I cannot defend myself. If you want to kill me, you can. I can do nothing to defend myself because I am not worthy. You do with me whatever you wish." That should be the posture of the heart of a Christian saying, "Lord Jesus, you do with my life whatever you wish and I will follow and I will obey whatever it is you can do it." And this is a phrase about position and about relation. One of the things that I want to point out is that it's all about our relation and position according to Christ, not according to each other. This is something that we talked about in Romans. And actually in the book of Romans chapter 14, Paul quotes the same verse that he is quoting here in Philippians to make a similar point in Romans 14 verses 10 through 12. He says this, "Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. For it is written as I live says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me and every tongue shall confess to God. So then each of us will give an account of himself to God." We talked in Romans about how this means we shouldn't be judging one another, we should be focusing on the Lord and praising Him and recognizing our position before Him. And that's true here. And Paul's point in Philippians is the same referencing this verse that our position is not to look at each other and say, "I'm better than them or I'm not as good as them, or I fall somewhere in between on the hierarchy." No, God doesn't care about that. God cares about your relation to Him. We don't look at each other and say, "I am humble because I'm not as good as other people. Or I am not humble, I'm boastful and proud because I'm better than other people." God doesn't care. We all need to be humble regardless of our lives here on earth, regardless of what we say or do, it doesn't matter because we are nowhere near the power and authority and might of God, of Jesus Christ, our Lord and king. So we bow before Him, we are humbled before Him. But there's good news here. I know that that sounds a little like we are humbled, we are low in it. But that's good news. That is good news. And one of the greatest news that I don't know if everyone here knows this, but that Christ promises to exalt you, to exalt me to anyone who is in his kingdom, who has been in submission to his rule and authority, He says that He will exalt, He will lift up in honor and praise. How does that happen? This is from James chapter 4, verses 8 through 10. It says, "Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts you double-minded be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will exalt you." It's all so intense. "Cleanse your hands, you sinners." Wow, that's powerful language. But the idea is that we are all sinners. We all have sinned, we've all rejected God. So how are we saved? How are we cleansed and purified from that? We draw near to God, we run to him. When we sin, we don't hide it. We don't keep it away and say, "Oh, it's too shameful to talk about." No, we bring it to God and say, "God, forgive me. I repent. Save me. Cleanse my heart. Make me more like you so I won't keep doing it." When we are in states of mourning, when life is hard and things are depressing, we go to God, we draw near to Him. We don't let those things get in the way and keep us from Him and say, "Life's too hard. I don't feel like talking to God right now. I'm going to stay away." No, we run to Him. We draw near to Him and He promises He will draw near to you. And as we bow, as we humble ourselves before the Lord, He says He'll exalt us. Why? Because again, it's the same teaching that Jesus taught that we talked about for his exaltation, is that those who humble themselves before the Lord will be exalted. This sounds a lot like I'm talking to people who don't know Christ or maybe just know Christ. And I want to be clear, this is for all of us who are Christians. And no matter how long we've been Christian, our goal is to be more and more humble, to be more and more like Christ who was the most humble, who has ever lived to be able to fully submit to the will of God. And as we are humbled, it's not a depressing, woe is me. It's a recognition of the greatness of God. And the more we recognize the greatness of God, the more we recognize how not great we are. And then the more we are lifted and exalted by Christ where he says, "Yeah, but I saved you." By Christ's righteousness, He saved us and we can partake in His power, His glory, His honor in heaven for all of eternity because of Him. Praise be to God. And so we bow in humility and we confess with our mouth that he truly is Lord. We are unashamed of that reality, that He is Lord of our lives. And as we bow and confess this reality, naturally we give Him the glory. We give Him the glory. This is the end of verse 11 where it says, and every tongue confessed that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father. We are bestowing honor and praise and glory to His name. When we recognize the greatness of His salvation, when we recognize how great of a gift that is to us. We're talking about this on New Year's Day while kind of talking about Christmas still. And it's like, what's going on here? Christmas, New Years? What are we talking about? Well, New Years is a time to look back, to look back on our lives of the past year and say, "What went well? What do I need to change?" And then make changes for the future? And what we are doing today is we are looking back at Christmas, that just happened, but we're looking back at it and saying, "This is the reality of Christ coming. This is true. He came. He was born as a baby. This is great. This was the impetus for all that we've been talking about today." Now, how is that going to affect how I live from now on? We cannot lose sight of that. And the reality is that we need to give God more glory. We need to be more humbled. We need to give Him more glory. We need to give Him more and more constant praise. This is done by, as I talked about, giving all of our lives in submission to the will of God, doing everything that we can to Him, but also being thankful in all seasons to God. No matter what is going on in our lives, we can say, "God is still in control. So I am thankful to Him." And so we should be growing in thankfulness for the Lord and His work in all seasons of our lives. And I take this from Psalm 107 versus 1 through 3, and I find it funny that this is basically a command to us as Christians. It says this, "Oh give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for His steadfast love endures forever. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so. Whom he has redeemed from trouble and gathered in from the lands, from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south." If you are a child of God, if you have been saved by God, no matter where you come from, no matter how far east, west, north or south, it doesn't matter if you are a child of God, give thanks to the Lord. Why? Because he is good. It has nothing to do with our situation. It has nothing to do with what's going on in the world around us. It's just because he is good and his steadfast love endures forever. Praise God. Give Him the glory. And I love to talk about worship through song. If you listen to me preach, I talk about it every other time that I preach because I love it. But also scripture loves it. There's a whole book of Psalms, of songs written to God in praise. But also throughout the Old Testament, as major events happen of God's working they write songs. After the Exodus, they wrote multiple songs of phrase to God because of his goodness. There is something intrinsic about Christians worshiping God through song. And I bring that up to say, let's sing to the Lord. We're going to do that in a little bit, but let's sing. Let's praise him and not be ashamed of what we think about each other or what's going on around us. But just praise him because he is good. And I bring it up to say that sometimes when life is hard, that's the times it's hardest to sing. It's the times where it's hardest to lift your voice in praise. Because songs most of the time are joyful, upbeat things. And if we're sad, we don't want to be joyful and upbeat. But even then, this is from real experience. When you don't want to sing, sing and God will soften and change your heart and help you give Him more glory. Two things before we close. First we will be partaking of communion after this, but then after that we are going to sing some Christmas songs. And I say that to prepare you because I know we live in a divisive culture. Where can we listen to Christmas music after Christmas or not? It's still a worship song, so we're still going to sing it. And I want us to really just focus on that. Not to be thinking of it as a Christmas song, but to be singing it as a song of praise to God. And the second thing, I'm going to read a section from S.M. Lockridge sermon, That's My King. I don't know if anyone knows who S.M. Lockridge is. If you think I'm a passionate speaker, and preacher, I've heard that said about me. If you think I'm passionate, comes nothing close to this guy. S.M. Lockridge, you know his family loved the Lord because the S.M. stands for Shadrach, Meshach, so they really wanted him to be faithful. But he was an African American Baptist preacher in California and he died in 1993. But he has this sermon that's called, That's My King. And I'm going to read less than a third of it. It's a very short sermon, but I cut out a lot. I just want to give you guys a taste of it because it's a song, well, it's a sermon that gets put to music a lot that I listen to every year on Easter. On Easter I listen to him preach this. And on Good Friday he has another sermon called Sunday's Coming. It's also great, listen to that. The idea is how dark and depressing the world is on Good Friday, but Sunday's coming, so we have a reason for hope. Anyway, great sermon. I'm just going to read a section of That's My King, to try and stir up our hearts, to praise and recognition of the true authority of Christ. And then I'll pray and pastor and will come up after that to lead us in communion. "But speaking of Jesus..." He says, "He's the king of the Jews. He's the king of Israel. He's the king of righteousness. He's the king of the ages. He's the King of heaven. He's the king of glory. He's the King of Kings and he's the Lord of Lords. Now, that's my king. I wonder, do you know him? There's no means of measure that can define His limitless love. He's enduringly strong. He's entirely sincere. He's eternally steadfast. He's immortally graceful. He's imperially powerful. He's impartially merciful. That's my King. He's God's son, the sinner savior, the centerpiece of civilization. He's unparalleled, unprecedented supreme. He's preeminent. He's the loftiest idea in literature. He's the highest personality and philosophy. He's the fundamental doctrine of true theology. That's my King. He's the miracle of the age. He's the superlative of everything good that you choose to call him." "Well, he's the only one able to supply all our needs simultaneously. Well, I wish I could describe him to you, but he's indescribable. He always has been, and He always will be. You can't impeach Him and He's not going to resign. That's my King. Great is the Lord. That's my King. Thine, thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory. Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever and ever. How long is that? And ever and ever and ever. And when you get through it with all the forevers, then amen." Let's pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, you are glorious. You are good. And we praise you that your son, Jesus Christ, saved us from our sins and that he is now seated at your right hand, in all power, glory and exaltation. Help us lift Christ as the one true king and ruler over everything in our lives. Help every aspect of what we say and what we do. Bring honor and glory to your name in submission to your kingdom. Lord, humble us. Give us humble hearts to bow before you and recognize that we are not worthy of your salvation. Yet you are so good and glorious and great that you give it to us anyway. Help us to confess to all those around us of your greatness, of your love, of your goodness, and bring praise to your name because you are good. And we know your steadfast love endures forever and nothing in this world can change that. Give us passion and desire as we leave here today to live in honor and glory of your name so that when the world sees us, they see your power and glory. Amen.

Knowing Christ By Tammy LacockIn this week's podcast, Warren Litzman begins a series on “Renewing the Mind,” based solely on the Apostle Paul's gospel of grace for us today. Paul was the only man Christ raised up to deliver the message of grace by Christ alive in every believer. He didn't just know about Christ; he knew the resurrected Christ who, by His death, was joined to him in Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:17). In fact, Paul makes it clear that the only thing he wanted was to know this Christ who lived in him. Everything else was “dung.” “Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ.” (Philippians 3:8)“That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death.” (Philippians 3:10)Paul tells believers how to live our new life in Christ; by the help of the Holy Spirit, we must have a constant mind-renewal if we are ever to know Christ and develop our love affair with Him. We must change our mindset of outer works to the Christ living inside each of us. He likened our new life to a marriage, Christ now being our first love, the one we go to for everything and the one that now comes through us. Warren Litzman explains that in our world today, we are stimulated only by outer things. Christians are being “dumbed down” by Paul's gospel of Christ living in us not being preached. Christians are focusing on the things of this world rather than looking within ourselves for Christ. Paul tells us over 146 times that Christ lives in us. Yet most preaching today is not based on our our faith and works, not our inner relationship with Christ. Faith is the hardest work a Christian does because we base it on results. We have missed the essence of Paul's gospel. Our faith must not be based on results but on knowing Christ alive in us now. Paul says it is now the faithfulness of Christ, not our own faith that matters. Our salvation is the person of Christ in us and not anything outside of us. “And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.” (Philippians 3:9)In the Old Testament, God dealt with his people by outer works. Righteousness was based on what man did to please God. In turn, God performed many miracles. However, Paul tells us our righteousness is now Christ by His life within us. We are to focus on knowing Christ. Because Christ now lives in us, we can get to know Him personally in a unique relationship with Him. We are no longer the overcomers because we now have the overcomer within us. Stepping into God's grace means getting to know Him now. By Christ's life within each of us, we can now say we are all one body in Him. He in us and we in Him, chosen in Him before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4). Now that we are complete in Christ and we are getting to know Him, we can truly live out God's purpose for us. “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and have all been made to drink into one Spirit.” (1 Corinthians 12:13)

INTRODUCTION: Ciahnan is the author of two novels, the award-winning A Lifetime of Men (Propertius Press, 2020), and the critically acclaimed Blood at the Root (Atmosphere Press, 2021). He holds Masters degrees from the University of Chicago and Stony Brook University, and a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University at Buffalo. Both his creative work and his scholarly research explore systemic inequality and the ways in which discourse on race and gender shape the horizons of individual and social life.  INCLUDED IN THIS EPISODE (But not limited to): ·      A Look Into “Blood At The Root”·      Critical Race Theory·      How Homeless Veterans Are Represented·      Respect For Women ·      The Implications Of Work/Life Balance·      The Black Wall Street/Tulsa Race Massacre ·      Shootings·      Race Wars Between Blacks & Hispanics ·      Ciahnan's Philanthropy ·      Advice For Aspiring Writers  CONNECT WITH CIAHNAN: Website: https://www.ciahnandarrell.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ciahnan-darrell/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CiahnanQuinnDarrellInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/ciahnan_quinn/Twitter: https://twitter.com/CiahnanQuinn  CONNECT WITH DE'VANNON: Website: https://www.SexDrugsAndJesus.comWebsite: https://www.DownUnderApparel.comYouTube: https://bit.ly/3daTqCMFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/SexDrugsAndJesus/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sexdrugsandjesuspodcast/Twitter: https://twitter.com/TabooTopixLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devannonPinterest: https://www.pinterest.es/SexDrugsAndJesus/_saved/Email: DeVannon@SexDrugsAndJesus.com  DE'VANNON'S RECOMMENDATIONS: ·      Pray Away Documentary (NETFLIX)o  https://www.netflix.com/title/81040370o  TRAILER: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk_CqGVfxEs ·      OverviewBible (Jeffrey Kranz)o  https://overviewbible.como  https://www.youtube.com/c/OverviewBible ·      Hillsong: A Megachurch Exposed (Documentary)o  https://press.discoveryplus.com/lifestyle/discovery-announces-key-participants-featured-in-upcoming-expose-of-the-hillsong-church-controversy-hillsong-a-megachurch-exposed/ ·      Leaving Hillsong Podcast With Tanya Levino  https://leavinghillsong.podbean.com  ·      Upwork: https://www.upwork.com·      FreeUp: https://freeup.net VETERAN'S SERVICE ORGANIZATIONS ·      Disabled American Veterans (DAV): https://www.dav.org·      American Legion: https://www.legion.org ·      What The World Needs Now (Dionne Warwick): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfHAs9cdTqg  INTERESTED IN PODCASTING OR BEING A GUEST?: ·      PodMatch is awesome! This application streamlines the process of finding guests for your show and also helps you find shows to be a guest on. The PodMatch Community is a part of this and that is where you can ask questions and get help from an entire network of people so that you save both money and time on your podcasting journey.https://podmatch.com/signup/devannon  TRANSCRIPT: Ciahnan Darrell[00:00:00]You're listening to the sex drugs and Jesus podcast, where we discuss whatever the fuck we want to! And yes, we can put sex and drugs and Jesus all in the same bed and still be all right at the end of the day. My name is De'Vannon and I'll be interviewing guests from every corner of this world as we dig into topics that are too risqué for the morning show, as we strive to help you understand what's really going on in your life.There is nothing off the table and we've got a lot to talk about. So let's dive right into this episode.De'Vannon: Blood at the root is a coming of age take on critical race theory among other poignant issues. And Ciahnan Darrell is the amazing individual who has brought this great word to us. Please join us as we discuss how Canaan's contributions to literature are influenced by racism, respect for homeless veterans, respect for women, and so much more.Canan is an author with a huge heart and at the center of his heart and [00:01:00] his workis the spirit. Of this quote from James Baldwin, which says that not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced. Let's face some tough shit together.Hello, are you delicious? Delectable delights out there and welcome back to the Sex Drugs in Jesus podcast. My name is Devon, and I'm your host, and I have with me the very, very soulful and intuitive Darrel. He's an author and a writer, and a a scholar on many fronts. How are you today, my friend? Ciahnan: I'm doing well.I'm excited to be here and you know, ready to really get into it, you know, the depth of things. Mm-hmm. . De'Vannon: So we, we, we shall go meaningfully deep today. [00:02:00] Okay. Now you've got two books that we're, we're gonna talk about Blood at the Root. Your first one was called A Lifetime of Men. Can you give us just like a little synopsis of what that one was about?A lifetime of men? Yeah. I'd love to thank you. Ciahnan: It's about three generations of women fighting against a society that wants to take their autonomy away from them, that wants to tell them how they can live, how they can dress, how they can talk. The first one is contemp with the Great Depression, and then it goes on to the present.Just the inspiration real quick for this was the fact that I grew up, I was raised by women you know, my aunts, my grandmother, and my mother, they're all very strong, all very intelligent. And so I knew no different. And then I went away to college and I heard the word feminists and I like, I didn't really know it.I'd heard it, but I didn't know what it meant. So I. And someone said, well, it's someone who believes all these d [00:03:00] derogatory things about women that I was scandalized. Like, they better not say that around my grandmother. She'll cut 'em . You know, I was, you know, I, I was lucky. I was blessed to have these women in my life, and so I guess, You know, part of the, the subject matter of the book is a tribute to them.De'Vannon: You know what? There's nothing wrong with that. I was raised by like three women too. Cuz God knows the men in my life. I did not want to be like, you know, like pretty much every male in my family either hits women. or cheat son or like, or a combination of the two. And so I think the Lord really did me a mercy by letting me be the gay one , you know, who was more drawn to the females.You know, I would rather this life than to be like they are on any fucking day of the week. So that gave you that view, you know, from the, from the female perspective. Now the book, blood at the Root. talks a lot [00:04:00] about like racial issues and things like that, so people watching and listening, you know you know, as you know, as you've stated in like, different research I've done might go, what does white boy know about that?You know, . But I'm gonna tell y'all, I'm gonna tell y'all from, from my days in the Air Force to my days on the streets selling dope in Houston, Texas, there are a lot of white boys out there. Who are very, very soulful and really, really feel what's going the struggles of like ethnic people. I'm not talking about like white guilt.I'm talking about like they just identify with more of a diversity of racists than you might. Think the type of guys I used to hang out with didn't hang out with really white people. They would rather hang out with, with the folk and things like that, and I appreciate. The sympathizers and the empathizes and the [00:05:00] diversity.God has given us some, all the way back in the slave days, not every white person was pro-slavery. You know, we had the defectors that would come and help the black people and stuff like that. And so I believe it's a way of God balancing things out. If someone's more proponent of the universe, you could say it's the universe bringing.Or whatever the fuck. And so give us like, like a brief over like rundown of blood at the root and what it means to you. Ciahnan: Okay. Well, I, I have studied critical race theory and my dissertation was on racialized and gendered violence in South Africa. So at least the, the, the bones of the theory are familiar to me.When it comes to BLI at the. I think it's important to say that it began not in a desire to say what race is cause that's not my place. It began by looking at this society in which I live and seeing all these false narratives [00:06:00] and, excuse me, their narratives that crushed people, that denigrated them that them and James Baldwin was writing about this, you know, in, in the fifties and sixties and he basically said, you.How dare you try and reduce me to my suffering. How dare you try and reduce me to. You know, to my the racism I've experienced. And so what I did is I looked at these narratives and I tried to pick out false narratives, and then I don't think with a story you can disprove it because it's a story, it doesn't follow a logical argument.But what you can do is you can tell other stories, stories that like, take, you know, take. The pin and prick the balloons of, of those those stories, stories to problematize them so that you're not getting that collapse collapsing of all black people into one identity or you're not getting that collapsing of all women into [00:07:00] subordinates, to victims to play things of men.And so what I tried to do, part of the reason I have 33 different characters in here is cuz I didn't want anybody to be able to point to one. And say this is what he believes. Because this isn't about belief beyond the fact that I think that what is is sick. I think that the narratives that we as a society have internalized and project, you know, onto ourselves are sick.So, you know, again, the idea is, is to just make it impossible to take these dominant narratives, these violent narratives, and take them as gospel. De'Vannon: Hmm. Well that's the gospel right there. Have I ever heard it y'all? Hallelujah. Tabernacle and praise. And so like, like the man said, yo, the book is broken down in the 33.Is there, like, you might call 'em like little short stories and things like that and, and there's like humor drizzled, I would say throughout [00:08:00] these these. Excerpts or little snippets called Giggle House, which I think are meant to like maybe lighten the mood as you're going through it, but they can get a little dark too.I, this is a very dark read . It's dark and I'm here for the darkness. Especially as we get this close to Halloween. So delicious. But you know, the darkness though is true. You know, it's not, You know, it's like fictional, but it's also, it's a lot of truth to it too. And so you mentioned how Mr. Baldon was talking about not being reduced to his struggles.So I'm gonna cut right over to my favorite story, the one that stood out to me, which in within the book is called Voices. Okay. Okay, so I'm gonna read a little excerpt if I may. Actually, I have several excerpts that I, that I might read. I'm channeling my inner Bugs Bunny right now. So this first, this first Ex from Voices, it says, He drank when he [00:09:00] could malt liquor or skunked beer or ethyl alcohol until he blacked out.He smoked or ate or snorted or shot whatever drugs he came across with communal pins or razor blades or jagged edged light bulbs. Turned crack pipes bent on annihilation if possible, oblivion at a minimum. This story here was talking about a homeless person. Who, but I like abandoned his family. I wanna know how, how were you able to tap into this sort of reality?Because the writing speaks like somebody who was homeless before. Have you been homeless before? Ciahnan: No, but I, I I worked as a chaplain in a VA hospital. and over 50% of the country's homeless population are veterans. So I would get a lot of people that would come in and it was the most heartbreaking thing [00:10:00] because there's a limit.I think it was 60 days, it might've only been 30. So you get these people who are hooked on drugs. You know, out of their mind, their body's crashing. They come to the VA hospital, they get in the alcohol program. They get to have three meals a day in a warm place to sleep for, you know, the 30 to 60 days.And then they go right back out and the cycle starts again. And I say this not, I'm not trying to judge them. I'm just trying to say, watching them. , they took so much pain upon themselves. And some, some soldiers were more transparent and others were less transparent about the reasons why they, they were living the way they did.But, you know, what it all come, came down to is that, you know, they didn't have in anyone in their life, To love them. And I know love sounds like such a hokey word, but you know, I, I, I think when you're not talking necessarily about the hearts and flowers love, but you're talking about that, okay, I'm [00:11:00] gonna look you in the eye.I'm gonna listen and let you tell me who you are and what you need, and then I'm going to respond to you. And you know, either they don't have family or they've sort of, Broken the family's hearts. So many times the family has cut them off. Mm-hmm. , when it comes to the doctors and nurses, it's not like they don't care, but they're trying to carry a massive caseload and they just don't have the time to sit down and hold people's hands as much as they'd like to.So, you know, I listen to a lot of stories from such people men and women you know, some stories that, that I'll never tell not because. I guess because I want to think that in some way, even though I'm not a Christian, I wanna believe that those moments were sacred. I wanna believe that when we sat down and I allowed them to say what they wanted to say and listen with them, listen to them, I think it actually made a difference.So anyway, that's, that's how I had insight. [00:12:00] Into that. I also and this is me being bold and doing what I know is right as uncomfortable. It's, I'm I'm very significantly bipolar. And so when you see the voices and the bifurcation, the tri, what that is, it's pulling together the gross statistics about former servicemen, veterans.being homeless, and then the percentage of the homeless that are mentally ill is massive too, because Ronald Reagan said in the eighties, you know what, we're gonna eliminate all federal care for, for, you know, the mentally ill overnight. And he, he doubled the homeless population. So there's a lot of drawn together, a lot of anger, a lot of betrayal and.You know, I think there's so many different ways to read a scene. I think I wrote it one way because I am bipolar, but for me, the guy left his family cuz he didn't want to expose them to what was coming. And, and you know, [00:13:00] that's significant I think, I hope because I think there are a lot of people who deal with that.And I think there are a lot of people who don't know from day to day whether their presence in somebody else's life is positive or. And I mean, I can tell you, you know, sometimes I struggle with that, that question, but the idea for me of walking away from people that I love as my wife and son is just.Devastating. So when I was writing that, I was trying to put myself in the head space of somebody who felt so hopeless, who had so little access to the care they need, the therapists they need, the drugs they need that they thought the the best thing they could do for, for their family is to walk away.So yeah, I No, I've, I've lived a pretty sheltered life in some ways, but I've, through various decisions I've made and jobs I've taken, whatever, have run into some [00:14:00] well, a, a wide variety of people with very different experiences, and it, it's something that I'm grateful for and, but it's also something that's tremendously humbling because I can't understand.What they went through. I can only listen. And really and blood it the root. That's what I'm, I was trying to do, is just listen, listen to the things our society says and talk, you know, interact with them. Let me, let me give you one more example and I'll shut up and let, let you. How the floor again, sorry.So the way this book works is by inversion distortion manipulation, but there's also celebration in there. And so it's not meant to be unrelentingly. You know, dark and horrible, but there's a lot of dark and horrible in there. But anyway, one of the perversions that's in there is the, the Latin name of the billionaires company stands for stands for it translated as someone [00:15:00] who has been elected to have to accumulate limitless wealth or limitless, limitless profit.And I think that sort of, Sort of, you know, just encapsulates a lot, a lot of what makes our country so sick is it we teach people to pursue things that aren't gonna make them happy, that aren't gonna fulfill them. We have people who save. Family is the most important thing, working 60 hours a week. And we have this idea of, of limitless profit, limitless income, but it literally can't work out.And I won't go into the technical details of derivatives and whatnot, but let's just say that in the eighties there were about I wanna say eight eight billion worth of derivatives out there. There's over 700 now. So a derivative is essentially a made up A made up financial product and, and it just goes to show that our house is a house of [00:16:00] cards.We're, and we're telling our people, we're gearing our people to this unlimited consumerism. So we're, we're, as a society telling them to do things, basing around based their lives around something that can't happen. You know, something, something that, that is an illusion. . And so that's one of the things in, in making that the name of the, the corporation, I wanted to kind of point to.The fact is like thi this is, this is perverse, you know, we are all of us for the most part, directing our energies towards things that A, we don't need, and B, they're not going to solve the problems that society has anyway. You have to pick up . De'Vannon: No, you know what? I like my show to be cathartic, you know, for, for my guests.And I could tell this is this, this is some shit you need to say. So I'm, I'm just gonna let you go ahead and get it off your chest. And so [00:17:00] couple of things here. So, You know, you know, plenty of people in the military, you know, we go in there and we just don't come out the same, you know, whether you went over to a war or not.And so I appreciate that that aspect of it. Now, you, you, you mentioned like if you were being nice and talking to these people and you said, even though I'm not a Christian, why did, so do you equate like some sort of. A valor or some sort of characteristic of niceness to Christianity, and yet you disassociate yourself with that.Why did you specify that you're not a Christian, but you feel like you were still doing a good Ciahnan: thing? I guess the reason I specify that is cuz I grew up evangelical. Oh, okay. went to seminary and I got ordained. I did that whole thing. Oh. And so, like it or not, those are the words and images [00:18:00] that are in my head.Like when I search for, you know, when I, when I search for something that has the power of what I'm trying to say, it often falls back on that kinda language. Now I left. Basically cuz I didn't feel like I could in good conscience continue in the church. As far as you know, any anger or residual hurt I, I really I really try to.To let go of anger and who, who doesn't. Right? But I'm very much, I, I wouldn't say I'm a Buddhist, but that's the practice that I follow. The precepts, you know, the meditation, the, you know, what have you. And one of the things that Buddha teaches is that, you know, the future is in your imagination, the past of your memory.The only thing [00:19:00] that's real. Is right here, right now. Now, I'm not saying take that in a hippie dippy, you know, live in the moment type thing. But what I am saying is that I don't wanna reach for something that is gonna be like poisoned to me. I don't wanna reach for something that is going to make me angrier than I already am.So I guess the, the reason I was trying to say I'm not a Christian, but I had that experience was just, To take advantage of that, that imagery, but also to say that when I'm talking about this interaction, when I'm talking about its power, it's not what you hear about in church for the most point. I don't mean angels or Jesus or, or God or anything.What I mean, and, and I guess the closest thing I would, the definition I would, I would give of God at this point in my life is to say that God is what happens when two people are present for each other. So in listening to the person, it wasn't just being nice. It was like, you know, especially street people, how many people stop and have a conversation with [00:20:00] 'em?You know, you hear all , all the debate about, well, what should a homeless person be able to spend their, you know, food stamps on or whatever. They're not treated like human beings. And I know most homeless don't have food stamps, but you know what I mean. And so for me to just say, you know what, I'm gonna give myself to.For, you know, for this time. I think it, it is a tremendous gift. And, and you know, it's not just homeless people, I don't think, I think everybody wants to, to be heard. Mm-hmm. . You know, I think anytime somebody pays attention to another person, that person is gonna feel valued to a greater or lesser extent.That person is gonna feel like they've been invested in you know, You could be doing any, any number of other things but you're here talking to me or more appropriately listening to me De'Vannon: so you know of. [00:21:00] So, you know, something that that stands out to me about you is that you took the time to write this, and this book is really all about, you know, disadvantaged people, marginalized people, people who haven't been heard, people who are reduced to their negative circumstances and things like that.And, you know, you could have walked by, you know, or nothing like, you know, you didn't have to even, you know, stop and do this. So I'd like you to give yourself a hell of a lot more credit , you know, than what you. Do, because writing a book is AAN undertaking. You know, people might say, oh, I'm gonna write that book, girl, or whatever.Most people won't like actually sitting down and do it. You've done it twice now, and both times you did it for the sake of giving voice to people other than yourself. And so, I don't refer to myself as a Christian either because the word has become corrupt and I don't need a word to define my faith anyway.Jesus himself [00:22:00] technically wasn't a Christian. That's something that people came up with after the fact, and so I'm actually, I'm actually about to release a free book that's just gonna be on my website called don't Call Me a Christian, and it's gonna get into like my my views on the fuckery that has become of the church.And you're right, the, the sort of love you're showing is not found in churches, not, not typically. And so, I appreciate the vegan food that they have down at the Buddhist temples. You know, I've been to the lawns here. It's always great to go hang out with other ball bitches, such as my . I, I, I don't feel alone when I'm there.And so so y'all, he mentioned, Ken mentioned Mr. Fairchild, like the billionaire from the book. So when the book opens Fairchild's kid. Has decided that he's going to make a video like sacrificing himself in a [00:23:00] way. He's g he's like getting his ass kicked and beaten. He's like walking on broken glass and he hadn't eaten in 22 days and all of this, you know, is going on and he's videoing this and broadcasting this as if to a tone for all the like race racist sins of his forefathers and stuff like that.And so you see this echoed throughout the stories through. The book there is the appearance of like, you know, like Hispanic people and, you know, middle Eastern people. I think you really covered like the gamut on a lot of different eth ethnicities here, sir. I mean, I am impressed. Thank you, . Ciahnan: I'll, I'll tell you the first scene that you mention, I've been, I've been accused of being a racist against whites.Because, because I wrote it. Fuck it. Yeah. To me, to me, with a book that. It doesn't have a traditional structure. There's very obviously something going [00:24:00] on here that isn't normal, so if you wanna just blow through it, that's fine. I, you know, there's many ways to read, but don't blow through it and then go and write a review and say these insane things.That first scene with Christopher Fairchild being led. That's an inversion of the historical reality, one of the biggest slave markets in the country. Ut used to be in New York City on the corner of Wall and Pearl. So what, what do we assume with, with wall Street? It, it's like this symbol of American wealth, right?So you have this scene that people are objecting to and calling me anti-white . And it's like the history isn't hard to find. You can read it for. My point is not to be anti-white or pro-black or anything like that. My point is to say we are telling ourselves this story. We're not telling ourselves these stories as the case may be.And guess what? They're real. We need to face them. We are destroying [00:25:00] ourselves by making these lies, this center, center of our social life in the country. You know, that opening scene is super. And just so all your listeners know, I'm not a psycho. I did not get off writing that there's tons of violence in there, but guess what?Sit down and talk with some people who've lived in certain places or escape certain places or whatnot. It's a violent fucking life. Sorry, I didn't mean to say that, but, and, and people like. It just is insane to me. They so hate being uncomfortable, even for 10 seconds, that they're gonna completely reject this scene and not sit with it.And you know, I know I sound like a pissed off writer, and I guess I'm letting myself express that a little more than I De'Vannon: should today. Let it out. Let it out. . Ciahnan: I mean, the reality is, is we need to, we need not just to talk to each other, but we need to listen to each other. We need to listen to what's happened.[00:26:00]You know, it's probably cliche at this point but James Baldwin, he said, not everything we face can be changed, but nothing can be changed until we face it. And I think that at the heart of all this, the, the heart of this project is, This sort of almost petition on my part. It's like, what if we gave honesty a chance?What if we sat down and acknowledged what had happened? You know, what would that do to our society? Now I've been really frustrated by people going on and on about Black, black Lives Matter recently, cuz they completely misrepresented in so many ways. They're also acting like the American public has attention span that's going to last more than 18 months.You know, in this stuff it just goes further and further from, from memory. And so these people are convincing themselves that this is a great threat. Their, well, their way of life in their [00:27:00] rights are, they're not even trying to walk reality. And, you know, I just, it, it, I don't know. I keep tripping over my own words, but I, I guess what I want people to see is that, you know, there's a liberation in truth.You know, it'll be uncomfortable for a while, maybe for a very long time. But wholeness is the point, right? We wanna be healthy, we wanna be there for each other. We don't wanna be at war with each other. We want to understand each other to a certain extent when we talk. And and that's only gonna happen if you're willing to do the work required to uncover the actual.Of this country. I mean, I don't know how many people are aware that the, the, we bombed bla Black Wall Street into non nonexistent. We say that, well, you know, black people have never had wealth. Actually no. We just bomb the shit out of 'em every time they get it, you know? And I lived in Chicago for a while and one of the things they [00:28:00] had theirs, you know, they have these sort of neighborhood stores.The idea being that if you're black, you give your mind to another black person, not to some. Billionaire who owns a corporation. Well, guess what? Those stories were put out of business, and it wasn't because of anything that those, the proprietors were doing. It was because the powers that be recognized, the threat that equality posed to their bullshit narratives and to the power predicated.It, it, I, I don't know why. Maybe it shouldn't, but it does bother me sometimes that that. Enjoyed such privilege and so maybe there is a, a mona of guilt or anything here, but I really think that where most of where I'm coming from is just disbelief that amidst all this darkness, there can be celebration, there can be triumph.It won't ever be final, cuz we'll always be imperfect, sinful to use the Christian phrase, but, [00:29:00]We don't even know because we're not even willing to try to, with, with the levels of joy and wholeness and health that, that are available to us that we could have in our lives. De'Vannon: So y'all, what, what what, what Ken is talking about when he says like the Black Wall Street you might wanna look it up. This is the the Tulsa race massacres back in in 1921. And I'm just gonna put that out there and y'all can go and research it. Man, I feel like you talk like, like a.Like a minister, like a, like a preacher. Not the fake ones, not the rapey ones. Like , like, like, like the act, right. Hallelu. Like the actual real ones that I, you know, and I remember listening to whenever I did go to church, they had a certain [00:30:00] anointing and like the spirit of God, like was truly, truly, truly with them and they were.You know, and like different, and therefore I can see that you're cold, like, like by God, I can see that you're cold. And I believe that that is what has given you your perspective. Because when the Lord puts his puts, puts that stamp on our forehead like that, it changes us. It changes the way we look at the world.It changes the way the world perceives us. You're somebody who has been set apart. By Christ. And so what I appreciate about the openness of Jesus Christ is that you don't have to go to church, find him like you don't have to. These things, all these religions and stuff that people have created, the 50 million versions of the Bible, well, well, 50 million versions of Christianity and all of that unnecessary.All you need to do is be sincere. in your relationship with him and you, you carry that sincerity heavily. And thank you. And I, and I respect that you're a, [00:31:00] a practicing Buddhist now, but I, I still, I, I, I feel, I feel that, I feel that spirit on you, bruh. And so cuz your first book in this one here, they both sound.It is like, it's like, it's like written ministry because y'all preaching and carrying the gospel. It's not just standing in a fucking pool pit wearing a suit that is so last season, you know, now you reach people. It's, it's just reaching people in whatever way you can be that YouTube books. Podcast setting down at a coffee table, talking to somebody, preaching the gospel or carrying the message of Jesus Christ is not relegated to televangelist in four goddamn walls.God is not limited to that. Now, you had you had. Dropped an F Bond, you said Fuck seem to be quite comfortable with that. But I just wanna remind you, , this is, this is the sex drugs in Jesus podcast where we discuss whatever the fuck we want to, and [00:32:00] so you and I, and I know where you're coming from, you still have those like re maybe like religious restraints and stuff and you, but I'm just gonna let you know again that you were free on this show,Thank you. So now. I have in my head who I think your book is for. And when you were writing this and when you finished it, and I want this is going beyond that, that boring old question, you know, who is your ideal reader? Mm-hmm. , this, this, this dark, this dark stuff right here. Doesn't really, this is different.And I also wanted to tell you about those, the negative reviews, because I get those. We have to remember that people like Amazon and different book retailers don't make their, the people who read and review things go through mental health tests or anything . So literally anybody can go on there and say anything and remember the devil.The devil will try to attack you whenever you're going to [00:33:00] do good. And this is a very good thing that you're trying to do. People have called me entitled after reading my memoir. You know, they, they, they, they, they took away from it that I was entitled . So, and I just had to like, okay, we're just gonna like, let that one go.And so, What kind of change would you like to see this book make in the world? Who did you personally write this for? Why? Who do you want to read this? Is it white people? Is it what? Like who is it? I don't know. Ciahnan: I think I think it just one. People who read it, who will think about it. I don't think it, it's sort of a call to arms and the way that some, some other things are like marching orders.But I, I do hope that people will look, look at this and look at some of the stories and be like, you know, start, like, getting in their head and, and, and asking theirself why, why does it seem different or why does it seem weird? I, I would like them to see [00:34:00] and most people haven't commented it. I dunno if they see it or not, but I would like them to.The spots where joy crops up the spots where healing crops up. One of my favorite chapters in there, I is you know, Mary the Mary section, and it's these two church going people father kicks. The the son out of the house because he is gay, even though he doesn't want to, even though he's like crying as he's doing it and like tries to distract his wife so he can slip a ton of money into his son's pocket.And, you know, that's, that's so much pain and, and. And whatnot. And then you, they go ahead and, and after limited reconciliation, they lose him to aids. And so all this unrelenting pain and like the worst kind of pain, the deepest pain, and at the. That chapter, this woman and her husband before they passed, he [00:35:00] passed away, were able to reconcile.They were able to be together to name their mistakes and find love in the love that carried them. And the, the chapter ends with Mary writing a letter to Fairchild his, to his father, saying, you know, whatever he did, however bad it was. Love is the. Trust me. We mess this up and don't do it. You know, all you need is love.And so on the one hand, like I intentionally chose that hokey all you need is love. But I did that because here's a woman who's been through Helen back, who's lost every person that mattered to her. and she's okay. She found a way to interact with her husband and her son, even though they're both gone.She's found a way to look at the garden that he made for her and, and to Dr. Derive joy from that. And so here's this woman. Who suffered so much and she's discovering these [00:36:00] blessings and then she reaches out to another person. And that's the big thing there. That's what I want to, that's the theory that I wanna test that love cannot but extend itself.So I've heard some, somewhere along the way, I think it was Richard of Saint Victory, he was a theologian and he said that the reason there is the Holy Spirit is because when there's love, it can't. Go outward and create something new. So, you know, is that chapter key to understanding the whole book?No, but it's definitely raising a possibility that maybe we have something right available to us that we don't take advantage of, that we don't know. You know, and, and one of the things, and, and this was important to me, is that these people, I wanted them to have, I wanted them to be sinful, especially the father, so that, that love, it wasn't just coming to Miss Perfect.It wasn't to j just coming to somebody who'd earned it. It was love [00:37:00] and coming and it changed things. You know, so I think, I think what I would like people to do is maybe just read the chapters and ask themselves if there's anything in. That resonates with them deeply or anything in there that, that jars with some of the stories that they've been told.De'Vannon: So yeah. Well, something that jars, thank you for that breakdown with my friend. And I'm gonna read me another X. So, because this here jarred with me and And this here is a good example of kind of like how the comedy can be mixed with this seriousness here. And so I'm gonna read now. So it says, y'all hear about the new drug they coming out with?Yeah. It's a dick pill. They're calling it black guaranteed to double your dong and a New York minute. There's a lot of New York references y'all, because this store is based in New York City. So now before you, why [00:38:00] people? And he's spelling it. W Y P I P o, which I think is hilarious. I don't know if there's a reason, but I really, really love it.So now, before you, why people hiding in the corner get too excited? You should know that it has some pretty serious side effects. Cab drivers, employers, and loan providers won't be able to see you no more cops in your vicinity are gonna hallucinate automatic weapons and hot damn. If you won't be drawing the Tyler Perry.Drinking water at room temperature and baby bougie teas, like a moth to a motherfucking flame.And then I'm gonna add to that. Piggybacking off of the hallucinating automatic weapons and take it a bit more serious. There's another excerpt that says we interrupt this broadcast for a breaking news special report. We have unconfirmed reports coming in at a standoff between a man and the St. George Police has ended without casualties.[00:39:00] While we have yet to ascertain the alleged gunman gunman's identity, eyewitnesses describe him as a thin, clean shaven Caucasian male, approximately six feet tall of the military haircut. We can also now confirm that police have recovered. HK four 17, a two 20 inch sniper rifle from the crime scene leading the speculation that they may have apprehended the courthouse gunmen while ballistics have yet to be run.Authorities believe the rounds that killed Stacey Harrison and Terrace Green will match the rifle. Talk to me about both of those excerpts in just how relevant this is. Right. Ciahnan: Well see, the first one I was a little conflicted about early because it's, it's a play on a racist joke. Obviously, you know, dick pill, black side effects can't spell or swim.I, so, I, I didn't mean, I hope that doesn't offend you, but that's the, that's the joke. . And so I was trying to [00:40:00] flip that. Mm-hmm. so that, you know, we're no longer gonna be shitting all over black people with Punch China. This joke, we're gonna be pointing, pointing a lens in society. You know, it is also very hard for a white person to know what.To what extent it's helpful to talk about these shootings. You know, the there's there's been so many. Yeah. And you know, people at Ferguson were railing like it never happened before. It's like, you guys, do you have any memory? We had race Rios in the late eighties. You know, America gets really interest interested in.Every 30 or 40 years. And it's usually just to remind African American people that, you know, if they step outta line, boom. I decided to use it just because it had become so ubiquitous. I'm not saying that any of the [00:41:00] lives that were taken deserved it or anything, but there was one in particular that just devastated me.Tamir Rice, a 12 year old kid. I. Oh my God. Like I, I, I don't, I can't explain that. I mean, I, I've heard all kinds of, you know psychiatric explanations about people seeing what they're taught to see. And so therefore the, you know, the training, the police gett, which is like for Armageddon they see a threat no matter whether or not one exists.So maybe that's the case, but my son's nine and. A nine year old, a 12 year old's gonna be a little bit older, but he's four six or four 10. You can't mistake a child, a pre ascent child for an adult, you just can't. And, and, and that to me says again that there's some narrative buried deep in our psyche as a certain that allows [00:42:00] this, that authorizes this.You know, and, and, and. Obama when he said that that his son would've looked like Trayvon. Like that, that, I mean, it was so right. So perfect. He got slammed for it as we knew he would. But it, it needs to get that kind of real for more people. You know, but before things are gonna happenDe'Vannon: I could see this book here.Used for like open mic nights, you know, in different poetry rooms. I could see this being used on like group Zoom discussions and stuff like that. It's very provocative and the way that it's broken down is good talking points to bring up a lot of things, you know? I could see this in colleges and universities, you know, and, and things like that.And, . It just, it's, [00:43:00] it's, it's a, it's, and it's, there's things like almost 300 pages too, so it's not like, it's like It's, it's, it's, it's like a good whole lot of content. This is very, very high value to me. I cannot wait to leave you quite a delicious review. Thank you. I'm gonna read my final excerpt because it gives me an excuse to speak a little bit of Espanol.Okay. Nice. And also highlights these, you know, the, the race wars that I have witnessed personally between like, And Hispanic people, which I thought was the damn thing when I was in Southern California and a recruiter for the, for the Air Force and some of my high schools, the blacks and the Hispanics were fighting while the white people were standing there looking at them.And I was like, y'all have got this completely fucked up. And so to again, he says who else we got here tonight? I see a bunch of brothers and sisters. [00:44:00] Ss I know my people. Have had beef with your people. Perro, the enemy of my enemyrights. Laquanda is an 87 year old swartz swallowing lesbian from Detroit. Jose is a 17 year old digital overlord from Moka. She loves to doco. His mama once drilled him with his shoe at 30 yards. What brought them together? White people,Ciahnan: I I had a review that one they got left and like his big nasty, you know, the, like, the worst thing he said is, you know what? And that comedy is not funny. Funny to.I am glad it, it resonated with De'Vannon: you, . Yeah. If, if only we could just let the good people come in there and review us there. [00:45:00] I went on someone else's show and we were talking about like Jesus and Dick and fucking, and whatever, and somebody messaged her and she, and they were like fearing, you know, for her soul.You know, it was gonna go, it was like quite dramatic, you know? But there's all kinds of minds in this world. But what, what do you have to say to this whole war between like black people and Hispanic people? Which is I felt like was at the heart of this. Yeah, no, I Ciahnan: It kicked off while I was in Chicago, or at least escalated.And I think what you have is, is something that you can find. In just about every totalitarian society. And what I mean by that is, say I, I'm sitting pretty, I'm a white person. Life is good for me. I got these black people. I gotta keep them under control. They outnumber me by tons. So what am I gonna do?Well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna create a third group or help a third. Achieve some kind of [00:46:00]success, some kind of wealth, some kind of, you know, toehold, and then they're gonna turn on each other. And it's not an accident. It, it's, it's manufactured. It's facilitated. And I mean, it's, it's most obvious, I guess, in South Africa where they, they basically took a small group of the the, the black folk there and some Indians.And allowed them to achieve middle class. And suddenly those black folk and Indians are voting for the Apartheid government and helping them keep the Black South Africans down. And, and I really think that what's, what happens here is sort of to a variety of that. De'Vannon: Yeah, the only thing I have to say to that is, oh hell now.That's all I could say. That's all I could say. So I read where you [00:47:00] donate 10% of the profits from your books to charity, and so I was wondering which charities and why, and then is this 10% like a tithing thing or what did you come up with that number from?Ciahnan: So I came up with a number just cuz it was a nice round number.An independent author like me is like, I don't make any money. I haven't sold that many books honestly. But that said what little money I do get, if I could take that and put it on something that's support. You know, a project that I'm trying to, to help or support in my book, then that's you know, that's a really good feeling.A way of, I think speaking putting my money where my mouth is, if you will. Girls Inc. Is the one that the charity that a lifetime of men donates to. And basically what that is, is a program that through mentorship science, technology, engineering, medi. [00:48:00] Just went right outta me. Sorry. Medicine.Create creates women who will be more likely to success and succeed in the future. It's, it's a program targeted at young girls, teenage girls. So mathematics, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The other one blood at the root supports rock your world. Which is a organization that I just absolutely love because what they're doing is they're trying to teach the next gen generation of artists how to use their art as activism, how to use their art to affect the world.And so I actually had a interview with them. I spoke to their class and accidentally dropped an F bomb, and I haven't heard that from them yet, . But I still love what they're doing and great people great people. De'Vannon: I think you're a great person. Keon. . [00:49:00] He has oh, you're welcome. He has an you said your name's from Ireland.Gaelic, Ciahnan: yeah. GA ish, but yeah, De'Vannon: Ireland gay. I think it's a sexy ass name. . So and so, how long were you in the military? Ciahnan: I was in Roxy from 2001 to 2004, and then I was in the Army national Guard from 2006 to 2011. I never got sent anywhere. I mostly worked as an acting chaplain because the The battalion that I was part of didn't have a chaplain assigned to it.It was for the most part pretty wonderful for me cuz I got to help a lot of people. I didn't have a whole lot of oversight. So I didn't feel the hierarchy. Too intensely. No. There, there's some pretty hard parts though too. [00:50:00] Human beings aren't meant to kill each other. They just aren't. And when, once they have, you know, they come back, like you said, differently.You know, you see some guys who a thousand yards stare. You know, after that just seemed sort of vacant or, you know, one guy I knew stabbed his wife obviously that wasn't who he bet at, at all up to that point. Doesn't forgive what he did, but, you know, I think, I think when you go and you have certain experiences, it changes you.But I did have, this is kind of funny. I did have a guy sign up for a wedding retreat, or excuse me, couples retreat that I was that I was organizing, and he put down one wife's name. In another wife's number turned out he was married to two women at the same time. And [00:51:00] dealing with that, that was fun.I finally said uh, this is above my grade. , just move it up De'Vannon: the ladder. And I'm assuming these, this was not a polyamorous situation. No. No, that's important. They could have, they could have had all the fun three ways every night. Come on. Hell yeah. . So . Well, thank you. Thank, thank you so much for your service.I appreciate that. Thank you. You too. Immensely. Oh, absolutely. I can't say I do it again, but you know, I did what I did and so it's done now, so. Okay. So then my so then just as we get ready to close, and I thank you so much for your time for somebody else who might want to use writing in this way.Or any kind of closing words you have at all, whether it's that or whatever, just for the world in general. Cause this is a very specific type of [00:52:00] polarizing writing that I've never seen before. And so if somebody's inspired to do this, what would you say to them? All Ciahnan: right. Two things. The first is sort of procedural, I guess.Whenever you have violence and you use the word provocative whenever you have a a book that that is violent or provocative, you always have to weigh and it it's this really difficult, difficult calculus because. You risk on the one hand seeming like you're just going in for a pornography of violence, trying to be shocking.And then you lose your ability to communicate. On the other hand, if you get it right, who knows exactly what that means, but then that violence will re lead them to further questions. And one of the things that I have found I is Is that it's, it's can be very [00:53:00] difficult to, to get people to read books that ask questions that, that that demand answers, that require that you not just take your first impression and have that be it.And the final thing I, I wanna say, and this is I think more important if you wanna. And you want to write specifically to have some kind of impact on the world, the first thing you need to do is read tremendously, read widely. There's so much, much out there, so many different circumstances and perspectives.And what that'll do is it will not just give you information, but it'll give you a sense of the conversations that are already going on. So you're not trying to reinvent the wheel. And what that writing or that reading will give you time to do too is get yourself to the point. And this is, this is the most important thing I can say to any aspiring writer.[00:54:00]Get yourself to the point where you can be your own source of affirmation. If you are writing. To get compliments from other people. If you are writing to get a book deal, if you are writing to make money, the odds are you're gonna fail and that failure compounds and then you internalize it. I have to fight that against money against that myself sometimes more successfully than others, and I've seen it in so many others.Do not. For, you know, for, for other people according to other people's standards. Read tremendously. Write for yourself. Figure out who you are and what you're doing, and once you're armed with that background knowledge, the knowledge of your identity and what specifically it is that you want to do. Then you can step out into the world, then you can step out into trying to get published and whatnot, and you could step out with the confidence that comes from knowing who you are, from knowing you know your stuff [00:55:00] and from knowing exactly what it is you wanna accomplish.I think a lot of writers rush things, cuz everybody wants to be published and I wanna be published. And, and what ends up happening is a tremendous amount of rejection and some of it you can learn from. Some of it is really useful. I've had some, some rejection and even a negative re review of, of blood that I felt was tremendously helpful.But you'll be ready to deal with that, to process that. You'll be ready to take it and learn from it if you do the work ahead of De'Vannon: time. You preaching now. Thank you so much Canon for coming on the show today. Y'all's website is kenan darryl.com. I'm gonna put this in the showy notes as I always do.He's on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn. Again, his first book is called A Lifetime of Men, and the second one, it's called Blood at the Root. Both of those are at his website, ken dorell.com. [00:56:00] Thank you so much my friend. It was, Pleasure speaking with you today. You Ciahnan: as well really, really appreciate the opportunity and it was just a fun conversation. .De'Vannon: Thank you all so much for taking time to listen to the Sex Drugs and Jesus podcast. It really means everything to me. Look, if you love the show, you can find more information and resources at sexdrugsandjesus.com or wherever you listen to your podcast. Feel free to reach out to me directly at DeVannon@SexDrugsAndJesus.com and on Twitter and Facebook as well.My name is De'Vannon, and it's been wonderful being your host today. And just remember that everything is gonna be all right. 

Christ Is Our Wisdom By Tammy Lacock“But of him ye are in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.” (1 Corinthians 1:30 KJV)In this week's podcast, Part 9 of Out of Law Into Grace, Warren Litzman further explains, through the Apostle Paul's epistles, what it means to step into the fullness of God's grace. Warren emphasizes that Paul's gospel is that of pure grace, that is grace without any law in it, not one single ounce of it! It's a new gospel, one that supersedes any other, the only gospel for today. And it begun at the cross. Paul's gospel tells us we are no longer to live under any law, that by Christ's death and resurrection, we are freed from it. Although we are living in pure grace now, most of us are still commingling law and grace, Old Testament and New Testament understanding. In 1 Corinthians 1:30, Paul tells us that no longer are we made righteous by anything we do or don't do (the law). In grace, by God's new covenant to us by Christ's death and resurrection, we are made righteous by Christ, who now lives in us. We are freed from the bondage of the law and our sin-natures by Christ. His death and resurrection justified God's uprooting of our sin-nature and replacing it with Christ's nature, His seed planted in us. By Christ's death we have new life. We are brand-new creations, joined to Christ making us one spirit in Christ (1 Corinthians 6:17).Paul's message to us in 1 Corinthians 1:30 is that Christ is made unto us wisdom. Paul emphasizes here that our wisdom now no longer comes from our own understanding (Old Testament-law mind-set) but from the Christ who now lives in us (New Testament-grace mind-set). By the revelation of Christ, only Paul was raised up to deliver this message to the world. It's Christ's wisdom now coming through us, the wisdom of Christ as our new life, that we are saved by His grace and kept saved by His grace. There's no law, no works of our own involved in our salvation. Warren notes that it is important to recognize that the law isn't bad; it brings us to Christ. However, we nullify the cross when we continue in it. Most Christians today are still living in law. Paul says we are saved simply by believing, yet he also reveals that if we are still living in the law (appealing to God by our own works) for salvation, taking the emphasis off of Christ, then we still need that constant mind-renewal to gain the wisdom of Christ as our new life. We haven't yet given our minds over to Christ. (Philippians 2:5). In fact, according to Paul, we have His mind at our disposal. (1 Corinthians 2:16) The question is are we aware of that?This is where we must divide soul and spirit (Hebrews 4:12). In our spirits we are made perfect in Christ, joined to Him in one Spirit. In our souls, the part of us where our minds, intellects, and wills reside, we are maturing in our new life in Christ. It's in this part of us where we need to catch up to what we already are in Spirit. It's in this part of us where the Holy Spirit works. His sole purpose is to comfort us in this transition and teach us of our new life in Christ. We have the tendency to go back and forth in law and grace. But yet, until we step into the fullness of God's grace, we will never live who God created us to be. The Holy Spirit, working in our minds to the awareness of Christ in us and His wisdom coming through us, is the only one who can help us step out of law and fully into God's grace.Lastly, Warren urges us to read and reread 1 Corinthians chapter 2 as the key to understanding grace. In grace, he tells us that Christ is our wisdom. Every one of us who believes has His wisdom at our disposal. Taking that step into the fullness of God's grace in our new life in Christ means giving our minds over to Him so that His understanding and wisdom, not our own, will now come through us.

Today's Reading: Isaiah 11:1-10Daily Lectionary: Isaiah 11:1-12:6; 2 Peter 2:1-22“He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide disputes by what his ears hear, but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth…” (Isaiah 11:3b-4a)In the Name + of Jesus. Amen. As we prepare for the Nativity of Jesus, as we prepare for the celebration of our Lord coming into creation, we also look ahead to our Lord's Second Coming. What does that mean for us? What will happen? Isaiah gives us a glimpse as to what that will look like for us.As God looks at creation, what does He see? He sees a people who have sinned, not just once, but over and over again. In fact, we are people who are sinners to our very core. It is because of that sin that God can and should destroy us, and yet He doesn't do that. By what His eyes see and His ears hear, there should be every reason for God to exact His wrath upon us. Because of Jesus, He judges the poor with righteousness. We are the poor, the poor in spirit, the poor due to sin. God does not choose to exercise His wrath upon us because Jesus intercedes for us. Jesus comes into creation to plead on our behalf. His life, His death, His resurrection do what is expected of us because we cannot do it. He keeps God's Law in our place. He makes us His holy people by His shed blood which washes over us.When Jesus judges us, He judges us with righteousness and faithfulness, except it's not our righteousness and faithfulness; it is Jesus' righteousness and faithfulness. Jesus is righteous because He is without sin. Jesus is faithful to God's Law in its entirety. By what Jesus does for us, He makes us righteous before God. Instead of God exercising His wrath upon us, He exercises it upon Jesus, the sinless one. Jesus takes our place in this great exchange, where we put on His holiness and righteousness and He puts on our sin. We are judged innocent before God, while Jesus is judged guilty. He takes on everything that would keep us from God and it is purged from us. By Christ's actions, we are declared righteous. Jesus does this because it is the Father's will, that all would be saved. God was not content with sin and so He sends Jesus. As Jesus comes into the world, He seems insignificant by others, looked at as a heretic. Despite what people thought of Jesus, He came to save even them. He comes to give His life as a ransom for all people. Even more, Jesus comes to give His life for you. In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.O come, Thou Dayspring from on high, And cheer us by Thy drawing nigh; Disperse the gloomy clouds of night, And death's dark shadows put to flight. Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel Shall come to thee, O Israel! (O Come, O Come, Emmanuel, LSB 357:6)- Pastor Jared Tucher serves the dual-parish of St. John – Farmer's Retreat in Dillsboro and St. Paul, Cross Plains, Indiana.Audio Reflections Speaker: Rev. Duane BamschStudy Christ's words on the cross to see how you can show more Christlike grace in your life. Perfect for group or individual study, each chapter has a Q&A at the end, and the back of the book includes a leader guide. Available now from Concordia Publishing House.

Grace is Christ Christ Is Grace By Tammy Lacock“He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.” (John 12: 25 KJV)In last week's podcast, Warren Litzman explained what Jesus is saying in John 12:24 that death is a prerequisite for bearing fruit. If He doesn't die, then He will not finish His Father's plan and there will be no fruit. He tells us of the bigger picture. He must give up His earthly ministry, His preaching of the law, and His old self in order to bear fruit, to step into the fullness of God's grace. These are all outer things of this world and mean nothing compared to His resurrected, eternal life. Only by His death will He be made free. Only by His death will a new covenant be ushered in — the covenant of God's grace. Only by His death can He step out of this world and its bondage to the law and step into the fullness of God's grace. The same goes for us as believers. In verse 25, Jesus is telling us juwe must die to this world, we must fix our minds on the bigger picture, if we too are ever to step into the fullness of God's grace — eternal life in Christ.“If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honour.” (John 12:26 KJV)And in verse 26, Jesus is telling us that by following Him and dying to this life, we will never be separated from Him. This is the gift of God's grace, eternal life in Christ. As believers, when he died, we died too. When he arose from the dead, we also arose to a brand-new life in Him. Where He is, we are. And By His new life in us now, God no longer sees our old life, He sees Christ. Because of Him, we are bona fide sons and daughters of God. Only by dying to our old lives can we now bear fruit, Christ's fruit, and fully step into God's grace. Christ Himself raised up the Apostle Paul, and only Paul, to deliver the message of God's grace to the world. Paul says follow me as I follow Christ (1 Corinthians 1:11), not the earthly Christ but the Christ who lived in Paul — the Christ who, by His death, abolished the law, ushered in grace, and by God's grace is now joined to our spirits, making us one spirit in Him (1 Corinthians 6:17).Throughout his epistles, Paul tells us what Jesus was saying in John 12:24-27, that our old lives don't matter. Our new life is Christ. As believers, we are no longer separated from Him. But Jesus tells us He must die first to bear this fruit. And by His death, we are no longer bound to this world and the law. By Christ's death, burial, and resurrection, we have been ushered into a new covenant, God's grace. There is nothing we can do or not do to be saved. Christ did the work on the cross so He would bear fruit by living in each and every one of us who believe. Only by our new life in Him are we made eternal beings. Only by Him are we complete. There are many verses where Paul mentions our new life in Christ. The following verses especially align with what Jesus said in John 12:24-28:“There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” (Romans 8:1-2 KJV)“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20 KJV)

Grace Is NOW. By Tammy LacockThrough a dissection of Paul's epistles, Warren Litzman effectively explains God's amazing grace, who it's for, and when it is. He then questions when we, as believers, will be ready to take the biggest step we'll ever take into His grace. “But NOW in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace." (Ephesians 2:13-15)In last week's podcast, Warren explained that in Ephesians 2:11-12, Paul makes it clear that he is addressing the Gentiles. His gospel of grace is FOR everyone, Jews and Gentiles alike, but directed here to the Gentiles, who previously had been without God in their lives, living lives separated from Him. His gospel of grace breaks down the barriers for everyone, telling us Christ and His work on the cross is our salvation, not our works or lack thereof. In Ephesians 2:13-15, Paul tells us Christ's death on the cross, His shed blood, brought about a new covenant for everyone. This new covenant not only abolishes the law (our salvation based on our works), but it abolishes the separation between God and man, and between Jews and Gentiles. It's Christ's work on the cross that reconciles us to God, bringing us back to Him, one body in Christ. By Christ's death, burial, and resurrection, we are no longer separated by the bonds of this world, its laws, and even death! We are brand new creations, eternal children of God, joined to Christ in one Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:17)! We are complete NOW in Christ, and we are one body in Him. Paul tells us Christ is our peace NOW. This is God's amazing grace, His gift to us NOW!Warren makes an extremely important point that most Christians may not know. That is, being joined to Christ in one spirit, He NOW literally lives in us. Christ lives in us and yet we may still be without Him in our actions. We must understand that if we accepted Christ in our lives, God didn't work in us on the basis on what we think or know. He birthed His Son, by placing His Seed (and the uprooting of the sin-nature) in us the moment we believed in Him. Christ completes us, and we are NOW saved only by Him. It is not a progressive salvation. We are saved by Christ, and not by our continual works. Yet, if we don't know where Christ is, He may never come out of us in our expression. As believers, knowing Christ lives in us is the foundation from which we get to know Him and love Him. We now know where He is. Paul's epistles make it clear that He lives in is. There is no separation between us. We abide in Him and He in us. Paul tells us we must now have a radical mind-change if we are to ever live the fullness of God's grace. In fact, he tells us, “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5 KJV).This radical mind-change is literally giving our minds over to Christ, who now lives in us. If we are to step into the fullness of God's grace and begin the love affair with Him, then we must be all in — mind, body, and spirit. We are all NOW joined to Christ in one Spirit, one body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:13). And NOW, Paul says, it's time to give Him our minds, too!

Who Are You Now? By Tammy Lacock “Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ.” (Philippians 3:8) In this week's podcast, Warren Litzman, once again, emphasizes the importance of the Apostle Paul's gospel as the final gospel, the gospel for us today. Paul was the only man raised up by Christ Himself to deliver this gospel, that of Christ literally living in every believer, and he tells us over 146 times in his epistles. He also tells us how we must go about living our new life in Him. In Philippians 3:8, the Apostle Paul tells of his identity crisis after coming to the revelation of Christ as his new life. He considers his old life — all that he thought he was — garbage compared to knowing Christ as his new life. His old life died with Christ on the cross (Galatians 2:20). He's not a changed man now, but an entirely new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). He's born again! (1 Peter 1:23; John 3:3). As believers, sooner or later we have the same identity crisis. Once the mystery is revealed to us, of Christ living in us, Paul tells us that the problem we now face is in our minds. What God did in our spirits, joining us to Christ in one spirit (1 Corinthians 6:17), we now have to catch up in our souls, where our minds reside. Our minds hold on to the identity of who we were. We will now need a radical mind-change if we are to start living our new life in Christ. The problem with religion is that it is dedicated to correcting our old lives. By Christ's death on the cross, Paul says, our old lives died, too. We no longer need to correct our old lives because we are now brand-new creations in Christ. We arose with Him to an entirely new life. He is our new life, and our identity is now Christ. God's plan all along was not to make us better but to put another life in us, Christ's life. Now as we live our new lives in Christ, Paul says, our minds must be continually renewed in our daily walk so that we may express Him. Even more, he tells us many times, to give our minds over to Christ (Philippians 2:5; 1 Corinthians 2:16; Ephesians 4:23). By the help of the Holy Spirit, whose purpose now is to teach us of Christ in us and comfort us as we grow up in Him, we can start to live who God created us to be. He created us to be complete in Christ. He doesn't see us at all by who we think we are. He sees Christ, who now lives in us. We are made righteous by Him. He is our strength, our peace, our joy, our wisdom, our very life now. Our new identity is Christ. Paul wanted nothing more than to know Christ. His old identity died with Christ on the cross, and all He wanted was to know Him as his new resurrected life. Warren tells us, through Paul's epistles, that the key to Christianity is not going out and being a better person but knowing now God's plan of putting Christ in us and giving our minds over to Him. He is our life now. He is our identity. May we get to know Him as our life, more and more every day!

Joined to the Lord in One SpiritBy Tammy Lacock “But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.” (1 Corinthians 6:17) In this week's podcast, Warren Litzman helps us understand what it means to be joined to Christ in one Spirit and how this union takes place and delivers us. We first see this union in Mary's encounter with the angel telling her that God will place His very own seed inside her, and she will give birth to a new life, the life of God's Son, our Savior. Here she was joined to Christ's Spirit. Warren also reminds us of Jesus's conversation with Nicodemus in John 3:3: “Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” There must be a new birth, a birth in spirit. Nicodemus didn't understand at the time what this meant. Not until Christ raised up the Apostle Paul would we have any understanding of what it means to be born again. Paul didn't know Christ in the flesh before He died on the cross. He knew Him only in Spirit, the way we, too, are to know Him now. Christ revealed to Paul what it means to be born again, or to be joined to Christ in one Spirit. He calls it the “mystery”: “To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” (Colossians 1:27) “How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery (as I wrote afore in few words." (Ephesians 3:3) The “mystery” revealed to Paul is this: Christ literally lives in every believer. Paul understood, more than anybody, what this meant and how it happens. When Jesus drank the cup in Gethsemane, He was “drinking” into His body all of our sins, past, present, and future. When He died on the cross, we died too. When He was buried, our old lives were buried. When He rose from the dead, we arose, too. We went through the entire process with Christ and arose to an entirely new life with Him. Our new life, our rebirth, is Christ living in us, our only hope of glory. The Satan-nature, passed down in us by the curse of Adam and Eve, has been replaced by Christ's divine nature (2 Peter 1:4). Paul tells us over 146 times that Christ's life, His Spirit (he uses interchangeably), now lives in us, and we in Him. By Christ's death, we now have a new life in Him! We are born again by being joined to His Spirit. Without God's Seed, Christ, in us, we would have no salvation. This is what Christ meant when he said on the cross in His last three words, “It is finished.” God's intention for us, who He created us to be, is finished. We are complete now with Christ in us as our new life. Without Christ in us, without being joined to Him in one Spirit, we could not function the way God created us to. Paul goes on to explain throughout his epistles, however, that although we are perfect in spirit at salvation, our souls — where our minds, wills, and emotions reside — are not yet transformed to our new life. Our minds, Paul says, must be continually renewed, by the help of the Holy Spirit, if we are to grow up and learn of Christ and our new life in Him. Our souls are being perfected (matured) as we get to know Him and love Him as our new life. Are you an actor or a true Christian? Without knowing their true identity in Christ, Christians today are actors, trying to be somebody they are not. Christianity is a union, a love affair, a marriage to Christ, in operation. It is a personal relationship with Him. It is not what we do or don't do, what religion says, that brings us closer to God. It is Christ in us. A mature Christian knows their true identity, who he/she is in Christ. They've had the revelation of the mystery, that there is no separation now. They see Christ as their only life and, therefore, cultivating a relationship with Him is first and foremost. As born-again believers, Christ is in you as you, joined in one Spirit. A Christian is a Christ-person, complete and “finished” in...

Freedom Is A Person, Freedom Is ChristBy Tammy Lacock “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law. Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace.” (Galatians 5:1-4 KJV) In this week's podcast, Warren Litzman explains, primarily through Galatians 5:1-4, that our freedom has absolutely nothing to do with self-effort and everything to do with the person of Christ. Christ did the work on the cross and we are free because of Him, whether we accept it or not. Our believing doesn't make us free. Whether we believe or don't believe doesn't change what Christ did at the cross. The Apostle Paul drives this point in the above four verses: If anyone still lives by the law (what we do or don't do to be saved or even to be closer to God) then Christ is of no profit to them. In fact, they have fallen from God's grace. Religion, through Satan's deception, has most Christians striving to be closer to God by their works. And yet, Paul tells us to completely let go of living by the law and stand free in Christ. He is our freedom. He is our new life! Old things have passed away now. Warren details through Paul's and John's epistles, that there are seven freedoms in Christ. He discusses the first four of them in this podcast. 1) Freedom over Self In Galatians 2:20, Paul tells us that our selves are crucified with Christ, yet we live. Christ is our new life; we are one with Him in Spirit. And He now comes through us, our bodies and souls-minds. “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 2:5 KJV) Our selves are subject to Him now. 2) Freedom over Sin There's no other way religion can operate without the guilt of sin. Religion doesn't tell us the truth about sin. Yet in 1 John 3, he tells us four times that he who is born of God does not commit sin against Him. God forgives us over and over when we go to Him. However, if any man commits sin, one that he wills to commit, he sins against himself, not God. Our sin only hurts ourselves, not God. In Christ, we are no longer bound by sin. We no longer sin to God, only to ourselves. 3) Freedom over Satan We are no longer bound by Satan's nature. By Christ in us, we now have His discernment at our disposal. Therefore, we are able to discern spirits, and therefore able to know if we need to face Satan or see our adverse situations from God as a way of helping us know Him. No longer do we need to make excuses for Satan in our lives. Christ already overcame him at the cross. We don't even need to rebuke Satan. We are God's children…we go to Him! 4) Freedom over our Bodies We have freedom from the pulls of our bodies. No longer do we need to give a mind to these pulls. We are free from these pulls when we give our minds over to Christ, who now lives in our spirits. We can now bring our bodies under subjection to Him. His wisdom will discern what our bodies need and don't need. Freedom is a Person. Freedom is Christ, now living in us. May we let go of the bondage of what we must do or not do to be closer to Him. As Paul says, stand firmly and confidently in Him, knowing not what we do, but knowing Him.

By Just BelievingBy Tammy Lacock In this week's podcast, Warren Litzman explains just how deeply rooted we are in the law. Religion has rooted in our minds that we must be good, do this, don't do that to be saved. The law was set into motion in God's plan with Adam in the Garden of Eden when He commanded, “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” Yet when Adam and Eve encountered Satan in the garden, Satan appealed to Adam's most basic emotions and senses (that of his body … a down motivation) by displaying the beauty of the fruit and distorting God's word saying, “Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 2:17; 3:4-5, KJV) Warren explains that God built into humanity our ability to freely choose, but the foundation for choice came with Adam and Satan's first interaction. Satan used third-dimensional knowledge (that of the senses) to appeal to Adam. So here Adam had a choice between God's knowledge (which runs the world) and Satan's knowledge (distortion of God's knowledge) and chose to believe Satan. In that moment, by just believing, Satan's nature became Adam's nature. This is where the fall of man begins. And of course, without the fall, there would be no need for a Savior. To this day, especially by means of religion, the minds of human beings are deeply rooted in the law, third-dimensional knowledge. By the curse of Adam by Satan, we are born into sin with Satan as our nature. Therefore, we must be “born again” to have an exchange of nature from Satan's to that of Christ's (John 3:3). How are we born again? By just believing in Christ as our Savior, we are rebirthed with Christ's nature, His seed. By Christ's death, burial and resurrection, our old lives are “crucified with Christ” and we arose to a new life in Him (Galatians 2:20). By our rebirth, we take on Christ's nature and are now bona fide children of God, no longer children of Satan (children of the “evil one,” of the “liar,” of “disobedience,” of “wrath”). God doesn't correct our sin nature, he gives us an entirely new nature, that of Christ. No longer do we need to live by the law, doing this and that to be saved, to be closer to God. We must be born again! By God's Grace, the Apostle Paul tells us that by just believing we are made brand new creations. Christ is now our new life. Christ living within us as our new nature is the gospel for us now. By the help of the comforter, our teacher, the Holy Spirit, we can now have this radical mind change and move from law to grace in our daily walk. By just believing, our lives are no longer ruled by Satan and his distortion of God's law. We now step into grace, the Christ Life, and live by Truth, by Him! “But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” (John 4:23-24 KJV)

“Nevertheless I Live”By Tammy Lacock “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20 KJV) In this week's podcast, Warren Litzman explains the Apostle Paul's Galatians 2:20 experience and how this knowledge is foundational to our understanding of what it means to be a born-again believer in Christ. In Galatians 2:20, Paul tells us we are “crucified with Christ.” This means everything that has made us who we are before coming to Christ has died. Our old selves, our pasts, have died with Christ. We are no longer Jew or Gentile, male or female, black or white. No more labels telling us who we are. Yet, Paul tells us we still live. By Christ's death, burial, and resurrection, we arose, too, to a new life in Christ. Our old sin natures are exchanged by Christ's nature, His seed planted in us by believing and by God's Amazing Grace. This is what it means to be born again. We live now by the “faith of the Son of God.” Warren explains that faith is God's knowledge in action. Therefore, we live now by the knowledge of Christ, who now “liveth in me.” Our old selves have been cancelled out, and Christ is our new life, literally living in us! The life we now live is Christ. The problem lies in our minds. We must have a radical mind change, by the help of the Holy Spirit, in order for us to understand our new life in Christ. Our minds must get to a place where we can allow Him to break through into our souls and our outward expression. We must make up our minds to stop trying to be like Christ but rather focus on Him and who we are now with Him as our new life. It's time to get to know Him! Warren shares four very important things that make up Christ, who now lives in us. When we set our minds on these things, we will get to know Him more; and therefore, express Him the way God intended. Christ was born to die. His death brought us new life. By Him living in us now, we too have it in us to die and be born again. This is the heart of Paul's message in Galatians 2:20. We have the ability to die to our old lives and to anything that doesn't align with Christ and God's plan. Christ in us lives without hang-ups. Again, it's in our minds where we have our own hang-ups. The more we set our minds on Him, the more we will let go of the things that hold us back from knowing Him and expressing Him. Christ in us is industrious. He's not lazy. He works and earns his pay properly, fitting into His environment. He did this while on earth. And now He longs to work and be productive through us and through who God created us to be, one Spirit in Him. Christ in us loves people. He's a people-person. He wants to love people through us. Throughout Paul's epistles, He tells us Christ lives in us as believers. Galatians 2:20 lies at the heart of his gospel. By His death, we died too. We are dead to sin and our old selves, our old lives. Yet, he tells us, we live! Christ is our new life, and by God's grace, we now live by Him, through Him, and in Him.

Charla was dying, and she knew it. While she was lying on her hospital room bed, her surgeon and a group of young interns poured into the room. For the next several minutes, the doctor ignored Charla as he described her terminal condition to the interns. Finally, he turned to her and asked, “And how are you?” Charla weakly smiled and warmly told the group about her hope and peace in Jesus. Some two thousand years ago, Jesus’ battered, naked body hung in humiliation on a cross before a crowd of onlookers. Would He lash out at His tormentors? No. “Jesus said, ‘Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing’ ” (Luke 23:34). Though falsely convicted and crucified, He prayed for His enemies. Later, He told another humiliated man, a criminal, that—because of the man’s faith—he would soon be with Him “in paradise” (v. 43). In His pain and shame, Jesus chose to share words of hope and life out of love for others. As Charla concluded sharing Christ to her listeners, she posed the question back to the doctor. She tenderly looked into the tear-filed eyes of the surgeon and asked, “And how are you?” By Christ’s grace and power, she’d shared words of life—showing love and concern for him and others in the room. In whatever trying situation we face today or in the days ahead, let’s trust God to provide courage to lovingly speak words of life.

Saved from the Inside By Tammy Lacock “To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” (Colossians 1:27, KJV) “But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace, To reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood.” (Galatians 1:1–16, KJV) In this week's podcast, Warren Litzman explains how Paul, the Apostle of Grace, is the only writer in the Bible who reveals God's final gospel to humanity. This final gospel, what Paul calls the “mystery” is revealed to us throughout his epistles. His gospel is grace, God's grace. Paul tells us we are currently living in the Dispensation of Grace. “If ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to you-ward: How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery; (as I wrote afore in few words, Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ).” (Ephesians 3:2-4, KJV) And by His grace, we need only to believe in Jesus Christ to be recipients of this great mystery. The mystery is revealed to us over 146 times throughout Paul's and John's writings. The mystery is this: Christ literally living in believers. We are no longer subject to our satanic sin-nature passed down by the curse of Adam. We are no longer bound by this world and the law. Paul tells us it's time to move from law to grace. By Christ's death, burial, and resurrection, we moved into grace. When Christ died, we died too. When He arose, we too arose to a new life in Him. Our old lives died. We are born again by Christ's seed now planted in every believer. We are brand-new creations by His unrelenting, amazing Grace. “Jesus answered and said unto him (Nicodemus), verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” (John 3:3, KJV) Paul tells us we are literally saved from the inside. He knew Christ lived in him, and he knew Christ in Spirit more than anyone else in the Bible. He tells us that by the Cross, there's no longer a need for us to be saved by our outer works. Christ did the work on the cross and by His death, burial, and resurrection, we now have His very life in us. This is the mystery. This is what it means to be born again. No other writer — except John in his later years and after 30 years of getting ahold of Paul's writings — tells us of the great mystery of being born again in Christ. The law was so strong in the disciples and other writers that they never preached the cross and God's grace given to us by the cross. In fact, in the 2,000+ years since, the churches haven't caught on to Paul's gospel of grace. We need to understand, by the Holy Spirit renewing our minds, that God no longer accepts us by what we do or don't do. He sees Christ in us, our new life. Paul was the only one raised up by Christ, Himself, to reveal to us the mystery of Christ now living IN us. And he tells us, “Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.” (1 Corinthians 11:1). NOW is the time to spread this final gospel of God's grace to humanity. Simply put, it's an inside job!

Our Completion Is in The SeedBy Tammy Lacock We must first understand what took place in us as believers before we can understand what's in the seed. And yet, we must understand what's in the seed in order for us to understand what God is doing in our lives and who we are now. By just believing in Christ as our Savior, we are born again. When Christ died, we died too. Our old Satan-nature (passed down by the curse of Adam) was replaced by Christ's nature. The gospel tells us that He came into us as a seed. “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.” (1 Peter 1:23 KJV) In Christ's death, burial, and resurrection, we died, were buried, and arose to a new life with Him and in Him by His seed. God literally, not figuratively, planted the incorruptible seed of His Son in our spirits giving us a completely new life. Christ tells us in John 12:24 that there must be a death for life to come forth. This is the deepest truth of God. Just as Christ's death brought life to many, we too must go through a death to ourselves, in our souls-minds, our flesh, so that the seed of Christ can break through our hard shell and bear much fruit through us. “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.” (John 12:24 KJV) The problem is the gospel for today isn't being preached. Most believers don't know what took place in them. They don't know that Christ is now their new life by His seed. They don't know that they are now complete by His seed. They don't know who they are. We continue to identify by what we do rather than who we are now: born-again children of God! Christ is our life now. In Him, we are complete. “Ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power.” (Colossians 2:10 KJV) It's by the revelation of the Holy Spirit through our circumstances and situations that we come to this knowledge of Christ now in us. And it's through the sufferings in these circumstances and situations where we begin to grow up in Him, acknowledging Him in all things and through all things. This is where the fullness of who God created us to be comes to life, the seed of Christ breaking through our old identities and mind sets. This is where we begin to truly understand what the Apostle Paul says in Ephesians 1:4 (KJV): “According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.” By Christ's Seed in us, God's work is finished…we are complete! Now go on and live like it!

If It's in the Seed, It's in You!By Tammy Lacock “Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered.” (Hebrews 5:8 KJV) In Part 2 of “What's in The Seed?”, Warren Litzman keeps us focused on God's Seed, Christ, planted in our spirits as believers. To understand what God is doing in our lives, we must first understand what's in this seed. In Part 1, Warren showed that new life is in the seed, Christ. By Christ's seed, we are born again. At salvation, Christ's nature and traits replace the sin-nature passed down by the curse of Adam. Christ is our new life; we are partakers of His divine nature. Warren explains with Hebrews 5:8 that we begin to truly learn and experience our new life in Christ through our hurts and suffering just as Christ learned obedience through His suffering and death. He knew that new Life only comes by His suffering and death. When He drank of the cup in Gethsemane, all of our sins and transgressions went into His body so that when He died, we died, too! He loved us so much that He suffered and died so we would be free from the sin and bonds of this world. When He arose to a new life, we arose to a new life in Him, by placing His seed in our spirits. “For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.” (Romans 5:10 KJV) It's by the sufferings in our circumstances and situations where we begin to develop a personal relationship with the Christ that now lives in us. In it's our sufferings where we break through the hull of Christ's Seed so He can flow through. There's no other way to grow closer to Him. We must first know, however, who we are now! We need to understand and know now that we are birthed children of God! Our old lives died, and we are born again into His family. We are here to get to know our new family! God's intention for us is completed by the Seed of Christ in our spirits. We are spiritually complete in Him, while our souls are presently being transformed as the Holy Spirit works in our minds to help us understand who we are now. Now in God's family, His fruit of His Seed begins to come through us now. It's His love, His joy, His peace, His goodness, His kindness, His gentleness, His self-control, His patience coming through us. By our sufferings in our circumstances, we begin to see and know Christ in every situation. Over 100 times, the New Testament tells us we are “in Christ,” we are one with Him. Put your confidence in Him. Give yourself over to Him. All that we need is in Him, His seed that is planted in us now. Let Him take over and come through you in your sufferings. He doesn't give us strength; He IS our strength! “I can do all things through Christ which strengthen the me.” (Philippians 4:13 KJV)

Salvation of Our SoulsBy Tammy Lacock Warren Litzman starts off this week's podcast by explaining that the true gospel isn't being preached today. Today there is a commingling of gospels in the Church. One that says we must live by the law (what we do or don't do) to be saved, and one that says that, as believers, we are saved by God's grace through Christ. Because of this, there is not much distinction between the law and Christ today. In fact, there is much confusion! The Apostle Paul (believed to be the author of Hebrews) set out to make this most important distinction in the powerful verse of Hebrews 4:12, where he highlights God's Word as dividing soul and spirit. As believers, we must understand what takes place in our souls and what takes place in our spirits as we grow up in Christ. “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12) By the Word of God, Who is Christ, our souls and spirits are now divided. In the Old Testament, there was never a distinction between soul and spirit. They were used interchangeably. But now, after the pivotal work of Christ on the cross, soul and spirit are separated. This division officially took place on the Day of Pentecost. It was then that after His death, burial, and resurrection, Christ returned to the Father and a new body was formed called Christ. By Christ sending the Holy Spirit, those who now believed in Him would instantly be saved in their spirits. There was an exchange of nature that took place in our spirits. Just as through one man, Adam, all of humanity was cursed by him believing Satan, so too are we saved from this curse (death) by believing in one man, Jesus Christ. As believers, our sin (Satan) nature is replaced by Christ's nature in our spirits. There is never a dual nature in man; either Satan is operating, or Christ is operating. God created us for this void to be filled by the simple simple act of believing. “For by one Spirit [the Holy Spirit] are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit [Christ].” (1 Corinthians 12:13) However, we must understand that there are three tenses of deliverance. In 2 Corinthians 1:9-10, Paul speaks of the tripartite (meaning three parts) man, which is made up of body, soul, and spirit. Although not separate, we are very much distinctive, and each is delivered at different times. “But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead: Who delivered us from so great a death [in our spirits], and doth deliver [in our souls]: in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us [in our bodies].” (2 Corinthians 1:9-10) Paul says we are saved (from death by the curse of Satan through Adam) instantly in our spirits by God placing in us His holy seed, Christ (our new life; our rebirth), yet our souls are continually being saved presently through the work of the Holy Spirit in our minds, wills, and intellect, and our bodies will be saved on the resurrection morning of Christ's return. Paul tells us through his epistles that our souls (man's mind, will, and emotions) need God's ongoing work transforming and maturing us for deliverance from old knowledge and old identity. Yes, we are saved, born-again, by the birthing of Christ in our spirits. By Christ's death, burial, and resurrection, we too died and arose to a new life in Him here, now, and for eternity. We're going to Heaven! We're bona fide children of God now! Yet the deliverance of our souls (mind renewal) is an ever-present journey in our lives. Through the circumstances and situations of life and by the help of the Holy Spirit, we will have our minds renewed if we give ourselves over to Christ. We will get to know Him...

Rev. Dustin Beck, pastor at Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Warda, TX joins host Rev. Timothy Appel for Sharathon 2022 to study the Easter hymn, “O Sons and Daughters of the King.” This joyful Easter hymn tells the account of what happened on the day of Jesus' resurrection and one week later. The faithful women went to Jesus' tomb early in the morning on the first day of the week; there they were met by the angel who told them the news of Jesus' resurrection. They told that news to the apostles, to whom Jesus Himself appeared with His peace that same evening. Thomas refused to believe, so Jesus came again to show Himself to Thomas in order to give Thomas the same peace. Thomas exclaimed in faith, “My Lord and my God!” That same faith is given to us today through the Word. Though we have not seen, we are blessed to believe. By Christ's resurrection, we are children of the heavenly kingdom who rejoice in the eternal life Jesus has won and given to us. Lutheran Service Book 470 1 O sons and daughters of the King, Whom heav'nly hosts in glory sing, Today the grave hath lost its sting! Alleluia! alleluia! alleluia! 2 That Easter morn, at break of day, The faithful women went their way To seek the tomb where Jesus lay. Alleluia! alleluia! alleluia! 3 An angel clad in white they see, Who sits and speaks unto the three, "Your Lord will go to Galilee." Alleluia! alleluia! alleluia! 4 That night the Apostles met in fear; Among them came their master dear And said: "My peace be with you here." Alleluia! alleluia! alleluia! 5 When Thomas first the tidings heard That they had seen the risen Lord, He doubted the disciples' word. Alleluia! alleluia! alleluia! 6 "My pierced side, O Thomas, see, And look upon My hands, My feet; Not faithless but believing be." Alleluia! alleluia! alleluia! 7 No longer Thomas then denied; He saw the feet, the hands, the side; "You are my Lord and God!" he cried. Alleluia! alleluia! alleluia! 8 How blest are they that have not seen And yet whose faith has constant been, For they eternal life shall win. Alleluia! alleluia! alleluia! 9 On this most holy day of days Be laud and jubilee and praise: To God your hearts and voices raise. Alleluia! alleluia! alleluia! hymnary.org/hymn/LSB2006/470

Christ our God took the Roman instrument designed to shame, torture, and bring death and turned it into something magnificent. By Christ's willingness to die such a death, and by His presence on the Cross, He turned the Cross into the very instrument through which we could be released from our shame and given life. How far our Lord willed Himself to go that the paradise of fellowship with Him once again could be open to us. His love enduring the Cross declares how much worth He places on us all.

The Liberating SecretBy Tammy Lacock “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever.” (1 Peter 1:23) “Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakes of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.” (1 Peter 2:4) In Part 2 of this new study of the Birthing, Warren Litzman explains what he calls “the Liberating Secret.” He explains that in a natural, human birth, the father's seed is what brings forth a birth, a new person, a new life. A mother cannot produce the seed, she can only bear it. And yet, it takes time before a woman knows she's pregnant. She can go months before she discovers she's pregnant. The father planting his seed in the woman is one simple act. The same goes for our new spiritual birthing in Christ. Our Heavenly Father places the holy, incorruptible seed (1 Peter 1:23) of His Son, Jesus Christ, in everyone who believes in Him. It's that simple. We need only to believe for our new birthing to take place. By God's grace, we become brand-new creations, born again into a new, eternal life in Christ. Our old lives no longer matter. We don't produce this new seed, and there is nothing we can do to produce it. It has to come from a father, our Heavenly Father. When this happens, we are miraculously made a brand-new creation, a new race of people. This is what it means to be born again. This is what it means to be saved. We no longer are subject to the confines of this world, to the sin nature. By Christ's death, burial, and resurrection, we were brought to life, and out of this corrupt life, by the sacrifice of His life. “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” (2 Corinthians 5:17 KJV) The liberating secret is that simply by believing, by the grace of God, we are saved. The person of Christ, God's seed, is placed in us making bona fide children of God, joint-heirs with Christ. Warren goes on to explain that religion has been dancing around this ultimate truth for thousands of years. As a result, most Christians have no idea who they really are. Christians have come to believe that they are sanctified by what they do or don't do, while they are already complete in Christ by our Father birthing His Son in us. It's an act of love, a gift, and cannot be aborted. The Life is in the seed of Christ, the person of Christ, and we now have His Life in us! “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believers in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16 KJV) The liberating secret, the mystery revealed, is that the incorruptible seed of Christ has been placed in believers. Christ now lives in us! We are partakes of His divine nature now and throughout eternity. We are born again into a new life, the eternal life of Christ. “To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” (Colossians 1:27 KJV)

“Before the Foundation of The World”By Tammy Lacock “According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be Holy and without blame before him in love.” (Ephesians 1:4, KJV) In this new study, Foundation Set 1, Warren Litzman uses Apostle Paul's writings to lay the foundation for us to understand what Paul calls "the mystery.” “To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” (Colossians 1:27, KJV) For over 4,000 years before Christ, God withheld the mystery from man, until the Holy Spirit revealed it to Paul. God chose Paul to bring this liberating secret to the world. Paul tells us this liberating secret is “Christ in you, the hope of glory,” and this secret was in God's mind before the foundation of the world! It was then God decided to take a part of Himself, His Son, and place Him in every born-again human. When we believe in Christ as our Savior, we go through a new birthing, when the incorruptible seed, Christ, is placed in us, making us brand new creations, not just a better version of ourselves. Jesus introduced this mystery with Nicodemus, the leader of the Pharisees and Jews during that time in John 3:3 when he said “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Being born again means a brand-new creation. We are no longer of this world; we are a heavenly people. And this can only be by Christ being our new life. By Christ's death, burial, and resurrection, we died in Him and arose with Him to a new life in Him. “Before the foundation of the world,” God chose us humans to be placed in Christ. God's plan of our redemption and reconciliation back to Him in Christ is no longer a mystery according to Paul. John also wrote of this mystery in John 14:20, years after Paul's death, when he shared Jesus's words, “At that day, ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.” Mystery revealed!