Well, it's good to see you again. Turn to Colossians, Colossians chapter three, as we continue. And I must share with you that, oh, I was so frustrated when I got through last week. I appreciate the kind words that many said to me as they were leaving. But it's one of those days I'm not sure whether you really meant it or not. I felt like I just sort of muddied the water, confused the issues. And this is so important. Colossians 3, we're talking about how to live the Christian life. Nothing very important. How do you live the Christian life? Colossians chapter 3, beginning in verse 12. Put on, therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, vows of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering, forbearing one another and forgiving one another. If any man have a quarrel against any, even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. And above all these things, put on charity or love, which is the bond of perfectness. I keep telling myself this ought to be easy. It's sort of like telling skunks to just go out there and do what skunks do. Just go stink it up. But no, skunks don't have the problem we do. They don't have a nature, old nature, that they carry along with them that says don't stink. Secondly, they don't live in a culture that says, don't stink. The whole culture and the whole nature of skunks is to stink. That's what they do. That's what they're good at. Everything about what we're talking about is so counterintuitive. On one hand, it seems so easy. It is to tell Christians, just go out there and be and do what you are. Just live like a Christian. Should be the simplest thing in the world, but it's not. Because everything about it is so counterintuitive to the way we are accustomed to thinking. And that's why I've entitled this series, Unraveling the Mystery of God. These things have to be shown to us. This is not what we would normally come up with on our own. Everything about the gospel is counterintuitive. For instance, in our world, if you want to become, let's say, a musician, You get you an instrument and you start taking lessons and you work and you work and you work and maybe at some point in your progress you'll get good enough that somebody will call you a musician. You'll finally work your way to that standing. Or let's say an athlete. You decide you want to be a football player or a baseball player. You go get you a glove and a ball. You get you a uniform. You start playing and you start working at it. And maybe one of these days the big leagues will sign you up. That's how things work in our world. That is not how the gospel works. It's exactly backwards. Consider for a moment how we're saved in the first place. Not because we earned it, not because we deserved it, not because we have performed some good thing. That God, you know, if we just do enough of these good things, sort of like the musician or the athlete, we'll finally reach the point where God is pleased with us, where He'll declare us His child, where He'll accept us fully. Instead, we get it all, and we get it at the very beginning, and we'll all get it freely, freely in Christ, all because of Him. It's like a woman, a poor slave girl marrying the king's son, and suddenly she's royalty. She's rich. And it's all because of him, all because of her union with her husband. So it is with the sinner. Our union with Christ brings us in to this wonderful place called grace. What others are trying to earn. We already got. And then how you live the Christian life, as I've been explaining, or at least attempting to explain over the last few weeks. We're not attempting. Well, let me put it this way, the legalist. Is striving to become something he's not. We, on the other hand, are simply trying to demonstrate what we already are. Did you get that? We're no longer striving to become or obtain something because I've been expressing to you, we already are living in the reality of having obtained all things in Christ. There's nothing we lack. I was thinking just this week, I said, you know, somewhere there's another passage other than what we've been looking at that talks in these terms. And sure enough, I happen to finally remember what it was. It's over in First Corinthians, Chapter three. 1 Corinthians chapter 3 is where Paul is dealing with the fact that there's divisions in the church at Corinth. Some of them are calling themselves the disciples of Paul and some of the disciples of Apollos, some of the disciples of Cephas, Peter, or some just say, well, we're of Christ. And a lot of it goes back to which man they were converted under whose ministry and who baptized them. And how Paul finally addresses that problem as he sort of concludes it in 1 Corinthians 3. In verse 21, he says, Therefore, let no man glory in men. Why? For all things are yours. It doesn't matter who baptized you. It doesn't matter whose ministry you were saved under. It's all yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death. All things present or things to come are all yours. You've already got it. You're acting like he's got something I don't have, and I've got something he doesn't have. In Christ, you've got it all. And he goes on to say, and you're Christ, and Christ is God's. Again, you've got the whole enchilada when you've got Christ, lacking nothing. And so, as I tried to illustrate last week, it's like a race, an obstacle course, except Rather than starting at the starting line, we're starting at the finish line. We are already running. We're sort of running the victory lap, running. In fact, we sang and I was going to jot it down. I knew I'd forget it in one of the hymns that we just sang expressed this thought that we're going forth to battle, but we've already won the battle in Christ. So it is that we're running the race, but we've already won the race in Christ. Now that's a very unintuitive way for us to think. So our race is not so much to win that which we don't have, it's to celebrate what Christ has already won for us. It's to demonstrate in our lives what the triumph, the victory He has already accomplished. And throughout this study, You have heard me insist on this notion of a vital living union with Christ. The reason that we have all of Christ is because we are in him, to use Paul's language. And not only are we in him, but he is in us. And it's not just in a representative way, it's an actual way. It's like the way a branch is in a vine. It's like the way a finger is in a body. There's a living connection. with the whole, and so that's the way we are when we are joined to Christ by faith. And that's why faith saves us. Faith is what brings us into this union with Christ. And therefore, being in that union, we have everything that belongs to Christ. His history, as I've tried to explain, becomes our history. We had a sort of illustration of this just this past week. Rhys Norris down here, he directs the middle school choir at Horn Lake Middle School? Hernando. Yeah, one of them H's. Yeah, one of those places over there. It's not on a branch, doesn't matter. Anyway. Anyway, his choir won at state level this big contest. And as a prize, they sent his choir down to the performance last Sunday afternoon. If you saw me and Linda duck out early, that's where we were headed. Last Sunday afternoon, they did a performance of Verdi's Requiem down at Ole Miss. They had the Mississippi Symphony Orchestra and the University of Mississippi Chorus gave this presentation of Verdi's Requiem. I got elected. I got chosen. Reese chose Linda and I to go. Now, most of you out there are saying, I'd rather be shot than have to go listen to Verdi's Requiem. It's sort of like an Italian opera masquerading as a requiem, OK? You know, one of those things, it's not over till the fat lady sings. That's sort of what this is like, OK? And so a lot of you, I can see Chuck French dying in two hours of this. You know, most of you would say, I'm sure glad I wasn't elected. And the sinner is saying the same thing. I'm sure glad God didn't choose me. I didn't want to go. I didn't want to go to Christ. I just want to live my life. I want God to leave me alone. And he's doing that. Thank you very much. But Reese knew that I would like this, so he chose me. He called me, invited me, and Linda and I accepted. We were given seats. Seats won by somebody else. Do you realize that what's happening there? We're sitting there in the midst of his choir, just as if we had won the prize, and we never sang a note. But because we are included in union with the group, we inherit the history of the group. We are deemed as if we have won. We participate. We get the blessing as if we had sung in the contest and we never sang a note. You see the illustration? So it is those of us who are in Christ. We share, we benefit in His glory, in His reign. in His Sonship, just as if we were really assigned, just as if we had really won the battle ourselves, just as if we had died on that cross. We've died in Him. We've risen with Him. We're seated in heavenly places in Him, to use all the analogies that Paul does. Now, consider what had to happen for that to happen. On our side, it's pretty simple. We called and we said yes. That simple. That easy. On the other side, raising that choir had to work a lot, hard work. They had to compete. They had to win before it could be freely offered to me. Do you see what's going on here? From our side, from the sinner's side, things are really simple. We are simply receiving what has been won for us, what has been wrought for us. But from the other side, from Christ's side, there is the righteous, holy life to live. There is that cross where he must die. There is that tomb from which he must rise. Oh, he does the heavy lifting. You see, we get it for no good reason without cause freely given to us. Now that's what we're dealing with. In fact, I sat down last week after I got home from the concert and sort of wrote that down so I wouldn't forget it this morning to share with you because I'm trying to get you to grasp, get your mind around the concept. And what Paul is assuming is that by now you and I have got this, that we realize that what we have, we have through union with Christ. And now the Christian life becomes a matter of simply fleshing out what we've already got. And that involves like putting off certain clothing, putting off certain behavior. And last week we looked at that. Notice in verse eight, we are to put off all these anger, wrath, malice. Today, we look in verse 12, our text, put on as the elect of God, holy and beloved. Notice the difference. It's like we're putting off one set of clothes. We're putting on another set. However, in this case, it's not clothing, it's conduct, it's character that we are putting off and we are putting on. The most important word in both cases is found in verse five. And verse 12, if you're reading out the King James or the NIV, I think the ESV manages to mess this up. But the King James and the NIV in verse 5 and verse 12 have this most important word. Look at it a minute. Can you figure out which word is the most important word? It's the word therefore. Paul is simply not saying that, OK, would you like to be a Christian? Here's what you need to do. You need to quit doing these things. You need to start doing these things. Instead, he says, if you are this in Christ, now do this. Therefore, do this. Put this off. Put this off. You see the argument? In other words, everything here that falls as our duty is predicated by what He has just said about us as what we are in Christ Jesus. You said, what is that? I'm glad you asked. You are dead. Look at Colossians 2, verse 20. If you be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, then do this. Put this off, put this on. In chapter 3, verse 1, if ye then be risen with Christ. If that's true of you, then put this off, put this on. Look at verse 3, if for ye are dead and your life is hidden, if that's true of you, then do this. Verse 4, if Christ is your life, then here's what you ought to do. Now, if that's not true of you this morning, you might as well just click me off right now. You don't have a ghost of a chance of fulfilling the duty because everything Paul is telling you to do is predicated on the assumption that you are in Christ. Because if you are not in Christ, you are not qualified to do the duty. You can't put to death that which has not already been slain in the person of Jesus Christ. You hear me? You'll never mortify, you'll never put to death anything that didn't die with Jesus on that cross. If you're not in him and participating in his death, then you're not going to be able to perform these duties. These things have no meaning to you. But if you are in Christ, and I dare say, if I asked you how many of you this morning are professing Christians, a bunch of hands would go up. If I said, how many of you are in Christ? Some of you did not raise your hands to Christ. But you understand you can't be one without the other. There's no such thing as a Christian who is not in Christ. And so if you are and that is your profession, then here's your duty. Here's how you are then to live. If not, it's an impossible task, it's a fool's errand, and it will never, ever work. You simply cannot mortify what has not been crucified in Christ. But if that's the case, then you have a standing and a status in Christ Jesus, just like the slave girl that marries the prince now has the standing, the status of royalty. She's a princess. So in Christ, you and I have a standing, an office, a status, and have you noticed that the higher the status is, the standing of someone, the more likely it is that they dress a peculiar way? Now, I realize we live in a culture that has pretty much lost all sense of propriety. what's proper. There was a time, I remember seeing Ken Burns' series on baseball. Some of you may have seen that, especially in the 50s, which was sort of when I got interested in baseball. I was a big Brooklyn Dodgers fan for some reason. So the Brooklyn Dodgers playing the Yankees or the Giants, well, this was big stuff for me. And I remember seeing in that video a picture of Yankee Stadium in the mid-50s when men were in the seats of the stadium in long coats and top hats. Can you imagine dressing up like that to go to a ball game? I can remember growing up on the farm when we used to dress up to go into Dallas. We didn't want to look like a bunch of country hicks. You dressed up when you went to town. Now, we've lost all that. We're in a casual culture. You say, well, why are you still wearing that coat and tie? Haven't you learned anything from old Rick Warren? Where's your sandals and Hawaiian shirts, you know? Well, my dad told me a long time ago, if you can't sound like a preacher, at least look like one. OK? So I'm doing my best. It's the only hope I've got. But there is a sense that even today in as casual a culture as we live, if you were invited to the White House, would you wear your shorts and t-shirt? Well, you might. I'm looking at some of you here. But you understand what I'm saying? No, there's a certain decorum. There's a certain properness that we're expected that our standing and our statute, the executive, the president of the country doesn't run around sloppy. Most of the time, he has a decorum about him. You understand? My uncle, my uncle Earl, Earl grew up on the farm, spent his life on the farm before he went away to college and got a job with the oil company in Dallas. And we used to rib old Earl terribly when I was a kid, remember, making fun of him because every day when he got up to go to work, he had to put on a white shirt and tie. Every day to go into the office. And I remember asking him one time, Uncle Earl, don't you ever get tired of wearing that white shirt and tie? He says, no. He says, because every morning when I put on my white shirt and tie, I stand there and I look at myself in the mirror and I say, I ain't going to be chopping cotton today. I'm just not dressed for it. You see, I never chopped cotton in this white shirt and tie. There's a certain decorum. There's a certain thing. If you're going to go out to the field and work, you wear this. You're going to go to the office in a big oil company, you wear this. Well, that's what our scripture is teaching us, is that there's a certain dress that you and I, as children of the king, are expected to wear. You remember the story, of course, the parable Jesus told of the king that gave a wedding for his son and the first guest didn't show up and then they went out and just gathered up a bunch and came in and the king came in and what he spot a fellow there without a wedding garment on. He said, how dare you come in here without a wedding garment? How dare you? Now, I don't know. There are some who say that in the case of a king's wedding or for a son, they would give you the garment. I don't know whether that's true or not. All I know is E.W. Johnson put it well years ago. He said somebody that go to the king's son's wedding without the proper dress is just there to get his foot, his feet under the table. You're not there out of respect and out of honor and out of the glory of the king's son. You're just there to get what you can get out of it. Jerry Bridges, I won't name names. I guess I named his name, so you can ask him if you want to know the names. He was telling me about a banquet he was at. I better not say this because our CDs and DVDs are going out to such a broad audience today. This might get back to the person that this happened. But anyway, he was just talking about that he was involved in this big conference. You would know the name if I told you. And the first day, they had all the speakers come. to a big banquet. They wanted to honor the speakers before the conference started. And one of the speakers shows up with a black t-shirt, gold chains around his neck, and so forth. And he's, and Jerry was just shaking his head. And he said, all he's interested in is making a statement. He's right. It's all about me. I'm the non-conformist. I'm the individual here. It's all about me. And that's what we're being taught in that parable about the wedding feast. No, it's not about you. It's about the one getting married. It's about the skinned son. That's who it's about. And since it's all about him, we need to address whether we like it or not. I don't like white shirts and ties, to be quite honest. I'd like to give the guy that invented this a necktie party, all right. I'd like to find him. It's the most ridiculous thing. But you understand, it's not about me. It's about the king, it's about his son, that's who I'm there to honor. And so it is that if we want to honor the son, we got to dress properly, we got to put some stuff off and we got to put some stuff on. Notice in Colossians 3, verse 12, And this is how Paul always approaches this. He's first of all, tells you what you are. And says now, therefore, do this. Notice what you are in Christ. You are the elect. Of God. God chose you. We may argue all day long about why and how, when, but the bottom line is, just like Rhys chose me to go down there to that performance, God chose you. Doesn't that put some sort of sense of obligation on your shoulders? that he chose you to be his child. He chose you to be saved. He chose you to participate in the inheritance of his son. Doesn't that have something to say to you about how now you respond? Notice not only that, but you're holy. Holy, we like to think, is all about, you know, we're sinless and so forth. But holy literally means to be separated. set us apart. That's the idea of sanctification and holiness. God has set us apart from others. We're in a special category. We're in a special group. The claims that are upon us may not be on others. As I've said here, this has no obligation to those that are lost. But if you're in Christ, God has separated you from what you were and what you are now. And then thirdly, not only are you wholly separated, but you're beloved of God. God has shown and showered his love upon you in a peculiar way. There's a sense, of course, in which God loves everybody. I don't deny that, just like there's a sense in which I hope you love everybody. But you would have to admit that you love your own family very differently than you love everybody else. Right. That's normal. In other words, we love on different levels. Do you realize the peculiar love that God has shed abroad upon your soul and my soul? And so notice Paul starts with that. Here's what you receive. Here's what God has done for you. Now you do this. Put on something. Notice it starts from the inside out. We saw this with putting off. That it's a rather strange way that Paul approaches this situation, because we would think that Paul would tell us, don't just drink, smoke or chew, you know the whole story. But instead, he starts with things like, look at verse eight, anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, attitudes, conditions of the inner man. And so Paul is far more concerned about what your inner person looks like than your outer person. He's not that he's unconcerned about what you do outwardly, but notice that this conduct, this character is flowing out from within. Notice it now in verse 12 that we're to put on, he says, vows of mercies. And again, I explain that that's a rather strange expression, but to the ancient world, what we call our heart, Our affections was really used for the mind, what we would call our head, as a man thinks in his heart, for instance. And your bowels, of all things, is what they would refer to as the seat of your affections. So you love with your bowels, you think with your heart. Strange to modern world. I'm sort of glad. often said, you know, I love you with all my bowels. What happened to him? He just had his bowels broken. It just doesn't work for me. OK, so I'm sort of glad that we've made the shift to heart. But notice what is being talked about here is what we would call the inner affections of the soul. I want you to put on this Bows of mercy, these feelings of affection, these feelings of, notice he goes on to say, kindness, humbleness, humility of mind, meekness, long-suffering. Notice all of these are qualities. They're not specific acts. We don't go out, let's go out and meet somebody tonight. You don't do that. But meekness is what you do. It's how you feel within. It's your attitude about your own self-importance. It's the outworking of humility. They're kissing cousins. It's how we think about ourselves. So Paul is exhorting us to put these things on. They are, in every way, B attitudes. They're attitudes that are to flow out of what we are, not what we're striving to become. They are, in essence, the character, the personality, if you will, of Christ our Savior. We are, after all, being conformed to the image of Christ. That's the goal. And in Romans 13, verse 12 through 14, let's turn over there. Romans 13. Where Paul will use this same kind of talk to express exactly the same thing. Romans 13. Down in verse 12, he says, The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the works. Notice cast off, put off, cast off the works of darkness. Let us put on the armor of light. What does that mean? Describe some of this armor to us. Let us walk honestly as in the day. not in rioting and drunkenness, and in chambering, which is immorality, and wantonness, not in strife and envying, but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ. Isn't that a strange way of saying this? Put on Christ. What does he mean? Put on the things that you find in Christ. Whatever you find in Jesus, put them on. Emulate. Follow his example. Strive to be as Christ. As he lived and make not provision for the flesh to fill its loss. That is our goal to put on the traits, the character that was in Christ Jesus. We are to put off. Can you imagine Jesus cussing? Imagine he losing his temper. Because somebody said a cross word about him. Can you imagine the various things that you and I do sort of on a daily basis? The thoughts that we engage? Can you imagine Jesus doing such things? If you can't, then you don't need to be doing them. Instead, put on what he put on. The character. Clove yourself with Christ. So that's number one. Number two is in verse 13. The Christian life is to be a life of forgiveness. Notice the word forbearing. It follows right after the word longsuffering. It means putting up, we would say, putting up with stuff. Be forbearing with one another. See, he knew what you and I would be like. We get to thinking, you know, if you've got a room full of bunch of Christians, man, it's just like heaven on earth. Not necessarily. He knew that we were going to have a hard time getting along with one another. We knew that there were certain personalities that are going to rub us the wrong way. There are certain things people are going to do that are going to get under our skin and aggravate us. There are times that we will offend one another. And so he gives us this duty. I want you to put up. I want you to forbear long with one another. I want you not only to do that. I want you to let it go. I want you to forgive one another. And notice this, if any man have a quarrel against any. Anybody here have a quarrel? Don't raise your hand. Anybody here have a quarrel with anybody? Even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. Why? For no good reason. No good reason in the object of your forgiveness. But there is a reason. But the reason is up there. The reason is not over there in the person. The reason I forgive is because that's how Christ dealt with my soul. Do it for your own sake. I read somewhere recently a guy, this quote, Unforgiveness. is the poison we drink, hoping that another will die. That right? Unforgiveness is the poison we drink, hoping another will die. It's unforgiveness is what keeps us up all night long, twisting and turning, tossing on our bed. The other guy's getting plenty of sleep. We're the ones suffering. So in other words, if you don't forgive for any other reason, this is about as selfish as you can get, forgive for your own sake. But that doesn't even come into view here. Notice there is another reason why we are to forgive. On November 22nd, 1963, there's a famous death. We had a 50-year anniversary a couple of days ago. Y'all know who I'm talking about, don't you? Well, you think you do. I'm not talking about John F. Kennedy. I'm talking about C.S. Lewis. Died on exactly the same day that Kennedy was assassinated. That's why you never heard anything about it. Fifty years ago, C.S. Lewis died. C.S. Lewis said this, to be a Christian means that I forgive and you forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you. Let me say that again. To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable. Because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you. If that doesn't do it, I don't know what else can be said that you have been on the receiving end of God forgiving your inexcusable sin. And therefore, we are to deal with one another in the same way for no reason, for no cause as far as the object of our forgiveness is concerned, our reason. is up there in heaven, how God through Christ has dealt with our soul. And then thirdly, in verse 14, you'll notice that we get around to the idea of charity, which is translated in the Greek word agape or love. It is charitous love. By the way, if you go back to the word forgive. In verse thirteen, you'll see that it has, if you look in the Greek, the same, has the same root, charis, as grace does. In other words, it's to graciously forgive. We're not requiring them to give us what we, you know, just pay me back everything you owe me, then I'll forgive you. That's not forgiveness, that's justice. But it's to let it go, it's to graciously forgive. And now he says, I want you to put on charity. Put on love. Did you get the sense here? Above all these things. And in our ears, that seems to indicate, well, this is the most important. Above all else, put on charity. But literally, it means over. Epi, here's the Greek preposition, over the top. It's still using this clothing metaphor. That put on these other things we've been talking about, that's your underwear. Now I want you to put over. that charity, the outer garment. I want you to put on love towards one another. It is the bond of completeness, perfectness. The idea is something that goes over the top and functions as a girdle. Now, I realize that to us a girdle is not something that you wear on the outside. It's something you wear on the inside to make yourself look skinny. A girdle in the ancient world was not worn under your clothing, it's worn over the top of your clothing. It is the belt, it is the sash that holds it all together. It's that which gives it the complete look. It's sort of like you ladies talk about going down and you get a skirt and a shirt and all this and then you bought yourself an outfit. What do you mean an outfit? When you have an outfit, it's all one, right? It's one look that you're going. I mean, I know absolutely nothing about what I'm talking about, OK? But I hear you talk. And it's the differences, pieces that are put together. In the ancient world, when the warrior went out, he needed to put on his girdle. That's why we're told in the Christian's armor in Ephesians 6, put on the girdle of truth. The girdle is what keeps you, as Chuck Crinch would say, from having to come apart out there on the battlefield. I mean, when you're out there swinging the sword, the last thing you need is to have a wardrobe malfunction, you know? You want it all came together. And so the love is like the girdle that goes over the top of all the rest and holds it all together, mows it all together. It's an interesting picture. Now, some of you are saying, but I have a hard time with that creature because I just don't like these people. I just don't like this guy, this gal. I just have a hard time getting along. He didn't say put on like, he said put on love. And again, we have a cultural problem here because it's sort of like, you know, when you first go out with that girl, you sort of like her, then you like her a little more, and then you love her. You know, to us, love is just like. to a big degree. We like, like, like more, like more, then finally we get to love. And that misses the point. Love in the biblical sense does not necessarily involve liking. Let me give you an example. The Good Samaritan. Y'all all know the parable of the Good Samaritan. You realize what Jesus told that parable to illustrate? A man did ask him, what does it mean that I love my neighbor? And Jesus told the parable of the good Samaritan. Samaritan went down that road and saw a Jew lying in the ditch, all beaten and bloodied. He didn't like him. He didn't even know him, for heaven's sake. He didn't have a clue who this guy was. There's nothing about like in the story. But what did he do? He sacrificed for his sake. He sacrificed his time. He sacrificed his energy. He sacrificed his money. And that's what love is. It's a self-sacrificial determination to do another good, whether or not you like them. And so notice that this again is how God has dealt with us. His love towards us was not because he looked down from heaven and saw you and me so cute and cuddly like a little puppy. And, you know, he just couldn't be happy without us and had to say, how much is that doggie in the window, you know? That's not what happened. He looked down to me and he saw an object of his wrath. He saw a sinner. And in spite of me, he loved me. In spite of me, he sacrificed. He said, what did he sacrifice? His son. He gave his son. His son loved you. How did he love you? He went to a cross. And because of that vast love of God for our soul, we are now told, put on love. Put it over the top. Make an outfit of that assemblage of pieces and parts. Bind your conduct together with a love for one another. Well, there's the picture. We are not told to dress up and be something we're not. I mean, you can go down to the store, I suppose, and buy your policeman's uniform and put it on. They'll get you for impersonating an officer. You're not one. You're just trying to dress like one. In the same sense, there are those who think being a Christian is just about putting on certain things, certain conduct. What Paul is telling us is that we are to be what we are. We're to dress like what we are. And our dress is the character. of Jesus Christ Himself. It works its way from the inside out. And it's based upon the deep conviction of what we are in Christ Jesus. It's based upon this vital union that we are now in Christ. We have a standing in Him. We have a status in Him. And that being true, we then have a demand on us It's not on the person outside of Christ. But it's on us. It is that which we portray. We were talking several couple of months ago now about angelic religion and how that involved rituals and ceremonies and so forth. It is amazing when you look at Christianity, how little of that is in true Christianity. God left us just two rituals. We call them ordinances. Just two. Baptism. the Lord's Supper. What it should do is cause us to treat those two very importantly. If they're the only two that Christ gave his people, then we need to take notice of that. The amazing thing is not that they're more than two, that there's two, given what we've learned, but two things in which we are to illustrate this truth. I've tried to illustrate it. I've talked about the race starting at the finish line instead of the starting point. I've talked about the choir. I've tried to illustrate it every way I know. The best way to illustrate it is the way God has given us to illustrate it, and it's in the ordinance of baptism. I'll meet you over there. Make your way across. Just a few minutes, we'll see it in God's way of depicting this marvelous truth.