Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Hillview Bible Chapel is a vibrant Bible-based church centered on the Lord Jesus Christ, in the heart of Silicon Valley. Join us each week as we learn from God's Word together. To learn more about Hillview Bible Chapel, please visit https://hillviewbiblechapel.org
This is the first message of a two-part series focused on living what we have termed the cross-shaped life.
By God's grace, we hoped over the course of the next 17 weeks to consider first our position and practice in Christ.
This is such a refreshing topic to dwell on. I gotta tell you, it is soul anchoring to think about who you are in Christ. It says in Ephesians 1, verse 6, that as a believer, you are accepted in the beloved. That's the King James version of that. I kind of like the way the King James puts it. You are accepted. Anyway, we work so hard to be accepted by other people, but when we begin to kind of immerse ourselves in God's Word to listen, what He has to say about us is refreshing, It is refreshing, it is encouraging, it is soul-anchoring to be listening to what God has to say about us individually.
We are accepted in the Beloved.
The NASB of that same verse says that it is a grace that He has freely bestowed on us who believe.
That is encouraging.
I don't know what you dwell on, but what we hope to do over the course of the next 17 weeks is kind of help with the dwelling part. Because sometimes you and I may not dwell on things that are particularly helpful, but we want to be thinking and dwelling on who we are in Christ. It is soul anchoring that various aspects of our position in Christ who we are in Christ. It is soul anchoring.
There are various aspects of our position in Christ that we are saints, that we are children of God, that we are righteous, that we are priests, that we are citizens of heaven.
These are some of the examples of what we mean when we talk about our position in Christ.
And the hope that in doing that is that we think about who we are in Christ, we will be inspired, words chosen carefully, not told.
We will be inspired to live it out.
That if I am declared righteous in God's sight, that I'm not going to be, you know, but I'm going to be inspired to live that out.
There is a position and practice.
They go together. And so we want to be inspired to live that out. There is a position in practice. They go together, and so we want to be thinking about that. Then the other half of our series, we've entitled Freedom Through Surrender, which will actually start with Galatians 2.20. We hope to kick that off with that very key scripture, Galatians 2.20, that I've been crucified with Christ. And it's no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me in the life that I now live in the flesh. I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me. That is, that verse has got to be a gold mine of treasure for us to unpack. I know that it's the favorite verse for some that I've talked to in the audience, but probably the sticking point and maybe the most difficult part in that verse to listen to and to absorb and to rest in is where it says, tough. And so, we're like, what do we call this? Initially, it was living the crucified life, and oh no, who's going to want to come week after week to listen to the crucified life? But what we wanted to call it is freedom, finding freedom through surrender. There is a giving up, and where there is a giving up and a death, there is a resurrection as well.
and a death, there is a resurrection as well.
And so that's what we hope to do, is to cover these two parts.
But here at the outset, baby steps for baby minds, we want to start first with talking about our union with Christ.
It is really our union with Christ from which all of these blessings that we'll be talking about, they flow from that. So really, for the bulk of this message, what we want to do is just talk about our union with Christ and what that means to be in union with Him. While union with Christ is not a specific phrase found in the scriptures, although Romans 6-5 is very close, united with Him in the likeness of His death, the doctrine presents itself in many other grammatical ways in Scripture.
The words in Christ, if you were to, you know, just in your English Bible look for how many times this phrase in Christ crops up. It is 90 times.
If you expand that to be in Him, then you're well into the hundreds.
I know that those of us in STEP that were studying the book of Colossians, we found that multiple times.
You guys are smiling in Christ.
But I want to park right there on that phrase and just think about, what does that mean to be in Christ? And how can we think about what does that mean to be in Christ and how can we think about that and appreciate all that that means. And so that's what we want to do is just think that through. The Christian doesn't merely have God near him, it is that the Christian is in Christ, Christ is in him. This is such a wonderful thing to think through and to be meditating on as we think about, really the closeness of Christ.
Maybe even as I give the message today, I will intentionally or unintentionally conflate the omnipresence of God.
You know that he is everywhere present, but for the believer, He is in you.
Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Isn't that what it says in your Bible and in mine? So we know that God is everywhere present, but for the believer, He is in you.
This is sort of one of those things of, if I can even call it that, arguing from the lesser to the greater. If you can call the omnipresence of God a lesser, if He's that way, you know, then how much more? That's the way that works, lesser to greater. How much more is He, you know, how much more rich and special is that for that He is living in you? We want to look at this from three different angles and kind of organize our thoughts around three different points this morning.
One is, what is the nature of God's presence with us and in us? What is it like? And there are so many wonderful word pictures in the New Testament that describe this is what it's like to be in Christ. I want to park there and just think that through, what it's like. And then we want to, the point number two is to be considering, you know, what is the what is the strength of that? Is this something that is as fragile as, you know, a feeling that comes and goes? Is it up to you? You know, just how, you know, you need to have everything quiet. Earplugs in, headphones on, and be in the forest in order to be near God and in Christ? I don't think so. I want to look at that. And then lastly, what difference does it make? Is this just a lot of theological mumbo- jumbo that's only for spiritual eggheads to think through? Or is this, sorry, that wasn't intended to be so long, but I mean, you know, I'm kind of reacting against the just, let's just put this on the shelf and just think about that. Oh, isn't that neat? No, this should make an impact in our life, the way that we think, the way that we relate to God, the way we relate to one another, the way that we handle difficulty. And so these are the points that we want to make here. So maybe just at the beginning here we'll kick off looking at one scripture here, 1 Corinthians 1, verse 30 and 31. There's a bunch of scripture I want to look at today and I'll have them on the slide, but if you want to open your Bibles, you can park there. It's good to open your Bible. I like to highlight certain words and look at them, but here's one here in 1 Corinthians 1, verses 30 and 31 that it says, By his doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us the wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that just as it is written, let him who boasts boast in the Lord." So as we begin to think about what is the nature of being in Christ, what is the nature of our union with Christ, the first point is that it is a work of God. The nature of this union with Christ is based upon what Christ has done so that no one would boast. The moment I stopped striving to be good enough and rest in the finished work of the cross, I was placed in Christ.
This rubs against your grain and mine. We are very much an achievement-oriented society.
We're sort of inculcated in everything that we do, from the trophies that are given out when you played soccer as a kid to certificates, and everything that we do is achievement-oriented.
The moment you trust nothing else but the finished work of cross, by His doing, you are placed in Christ Jesus, who became wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification. Those are wonderful positional truths. And we're going to—I want to do all of everything in one message today, but we're going to just take them little by little, and we're only talking about being in Christ today. And so when we begin to think about it that way, so that's so no one would boast in the Lord. Most relationships begin with some type of introduction. May I introduce ours as an introduction by faith. Look at Romans 5 verses 1 and 2.
Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand and we exult in the hope of the glory of God." So here's something that I would just ask you to say to yourself.
I am prone to merit achievement, being good enough.
I will leave my competitive spirit at the door.
It's not needed or wanted in my relationship with Christ.
My only boast is in what He has done.
It is a work of God. That's what it means to be in this union with Christ. My only boast is in what He has done. It is a work of God. That's what it means to be in this union with Christ or to be in Christ. It is by His doing. We have sort of on the slide this motif of this Japanese art form called kintsugi. And so, kintsugi is a Japanese art form that is where it means golden jewelry.
It's the art of repairing broken pottery with special tree sap, lacquered with mixed with gold or powdered dust, silver or platinum.
And it's beautiful in its own right, you know, taking something that is broken, something that is fractured, something that is no longer functional, and putting it back together in a beautiful way.
And while the analogy of kintsugi has its limitations, it provides a helpful picture of the gospel.
Christ does more than simply repair us and repair what sin has broken. He makes us new. Therefore, if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature. Many of us have come to Christ through different backgrounds, through different situations that we have found ourselves in. Some of them may be traumatic. Some of them may be horribly difficult.
But that is not a problem for God at all. It says that if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature.
The old passes away. The new has come. So, when you're in Christ, when you find yourself in Christ, Christ is creating something new and you need not be defined by your history, by the difficulties and traumatic experiences that you have experienced. Our brokenness becomes the backdrop for displaying the riches of His grace. Ephesians 2.7 talks about the riches of God's grace, the riches of His grace. You and I have a tendency to measure things out in metered fashion, sort of miserly ways. At least I know that I do. But the rich think through, why would we have this modifier? I love these, I kind of keep track of them. I have a little special place where I want to keep track of the modifiers of God's attributes.
His grace is not just presented as a thing. It's presented as the riches of His grace, like there is a lot of it. It's like, you know, when you go to get an ice cream and you hope that, Lauren, I have this thing. Well, is it the girls or the guys in the ice cream and you hope that Laura and I have this thing.
Well, is it the girls or the guys in the ice cream parlor who scoop out the big scoop? We concluded that the place we love to go, this one place, we think it's the gals that give the bigger scoops of ice cream. So we try to line ourselves up.
I want to get the girls because they're always giving the bigger scoops. I don't know why.
Is this some sort of a DNA thing? I don't know how that really works. But you want big, and so we have the riches of God's grace. It is huge. It is boundless. It is large. And we also have His, it says it describes His mercy as being his mercy as being great mercy. 1 Peter 1 verse 3, because of his great mercy. Have you ever found yourself praying the prayer, Lord be merciful to me? I've messed up so many times. Are you kidding me? Here I am dipping in the till again. I'm sorry, but you know, am I going to use it up? No.
I use it up?" No. His mercy is great. It is large. And so, we find ourselves interacting with these wonderful, forgiving, gracious, merciful attributes of God. They're described with greatness. They're described as rich.
And that is a wonderful truth to rest in. It is intimate. But just how close, how close we are in Christ. You know, we've seen this a hundred zillion times in our Bible.
I hope after this message today that when you see these words that they'll sort of pop out at you. I was reading one author who wrote on our union with Christ and he said, you know, once you study this topic and begin to see these things, you can't unsee them anymore in your Bible. So, I hope that one of the impacts of today is that when you come across that phrase and you come across in Christ or something having to do with our union with Christ, that the Holy Spirit, for example, is given as a pledge of our inheritance.
This is not an isolated doctrine by any means. This is replete on just about every page of the New Testament, our union with Christ.
But just how close is close? Consider the Old Testament for just a moment.
Psalm 46, verses one through three.
There's a word in here that just, you know how sometimes you read something that's familiar and you're like, where did that word come from? I never noticed it before.
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
Therefore, we will not fear, though the earth should change and though the mountains slip into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains quake at its swelling pride.
This is a wonderful, comforting verse, but there's just one word that I wanted you to notice from this song.
It's the word, very. I mean, we don't talk like that. It says that God is our refuge and strength, a very present help. Just how close is God? Very. Very. And for us in Christ in the New Testament, it is like super duper close.
It's like in you.
I know omnipresence, our union with Christ, argument from the lesser to the greater, if you will.
Think through this verse.
I mean, that the Lord is with you.
Do you think about that? We tend to, I don't know, I kinda, we have a tendency to kinda distill our Christian walk with the Lord, and that's really what we're talking about here, is how you do Christianity.
If I were to ask you, how do you do Christianity? Well, you gotta go to church, and you gotta read your Bible.
We've been hearing a lot about that. Is that enough? You got to do what it says. You got to do what it says. If you're gonna read the Bible, you got to do what it says. Then you got to go to church. Is that enough? Well, and then you got to forgive people the way that Christ has forgiven you.
Oh, now we're beginning to kind of get somewhere.
But is there something more? Does Christianity kind of begin to interfere or amass or right side the way that we think about things? Well, you know, one of the ways that you do Christianity is you have fellowship with God.
I would say that if we're talking about just how close God is with you, that that's sort of a fellowship thing. That I talk with God. I would say that if we're talking about just how close God is with you, that that's sort of a fellowship thing. That I talk with him, he talks with me through his word, not in a weird sort of way.
Very close. During the First World War, in an island community in the highlands of Scott, young men were called up in increasing numbers for military service as the servicemen were gathered at the pier to sail to the mainland, their relatives would gather and sing this psalm.
Bill McDonald writes, Thousands have been comforted by this psalm in times of great crisis.
No one can know the hearts that have been lifted as these majestic lines have been read in the sick room, the house of mourning, the dungeon of persecution, and the narrow chamber of suffering and tragedy. It was this psalm that led a tried and harried former Augustinian monk by the name of Martin Luther to pen his famous Reformation hymn, A Mighty Fortress is Our God. Its message is timeless and its encouragement is unceasing. If I were to change my clothes real quick and mimic Martin Luther, and we had Martin Luther, you know, what does, just how close do you think, you know, God is to you? He might say, well, He's like a mighty fortress around me.
Is that what you think of when you think of just how close the Lord is to you? Like a mighty fortress? A mighty fortress. This is just how close the Lord is to you.
Do you think about these things? I don't. I'm like, where has this topic been all my life? I haven't interacted with it and thought just how close the Lord is.
We have union with Christ as we're talking about our position in Christ and all that that means.
We want to park right here and think through just how rich it is to think about our union with Christ, that he is close, he is uber close.
The Lord's presence with us is more than just like near or in. No, that falls short. If we were just to close in prayer right now, well, the Lord is near us, let's close in prayer, and we are missing something huge. We are missing something really big, and what we're missing, we're missing Revelation 3.20. Do you know how that goes? That's one of our favorite, you know, gospel verses that we use in the gospel outline.
How does it go? Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone opens the door, I will come into him and dine with him and he with me." Open the door. What does that tell you about the Lord Jesus and the way that he is? I mean, the context of that is, you know, he's addressing a lukewarm church and lukewarm people. And you think, ah, you know, I'm feeling far from the Lord.
He probably doesn't want to have anything to do with me.
He's knocking, you know, open the door.
And the Lord wants to have fellowship with us.
What a word picture, dying with us and we with Him.
This union with Christ is deeper, it's richer, it's more than proximity.
I mean, come on, it is fellowship.
It is fellowship with the Lord.
We have other, ah, time is just zooming past me.
Now we got this dumb clock on the back of the auditorium that I gotta look at, I gotta pace myself.
And I'm told that it's gonna start flashing yellow and red.
No, I'm just kidding, they're not gonna do this.
But we have other word pictures in the Bible that describe our closeness and proximity with the Lord.
It's like, he is the vine and we are the branch.
In 1 Corinthians 3.16, it talks about how, do you not know that you are the temple of God and the Spirit of God dwells in you? See, now I've kind of wrecked things for you.
Now when you read your New Testament, every time you see this, you're going to think about your union with Christ every time you see these wonderful truths. And so we begin to kind of think about your union with Christ every time you see these wonderful truths.
So, we begin to kind of think about, well, what's the point? And we're talking about our position and practice in Christ, and here we're talking about our union with the Lord. What is the point? The point is this, that it's not like when we begin to interact with some of the wonderful ideas of our position in Christ Christ that we are saints, that we are priests, that we are children.
It's not like we've been suddenly given grandma's jewelry and we open the jewelry box and we're like, oh wow, look at those things.
Those are wonderful.
Look at those things that I have received.
It's not like that. There are certainly side benefits of being a Christian, and there's wonderful aspects of that, but the point is that they come along with the giver, that our position in Christ, those wonderful blessings, they come along with the giver. They are in Christ. They are unearned declarations made by God himself as he takes up residence in the life of the believer, empowering us to live a life that pleases him. I know, I already told you I've ruined it for you, so here comes another ruin verse for you. I'm being cheeky. "'For it is God who is work in you.'" Wait, wait, wait.
What did you say? I know, we gloss over it.
"'For it is God who is at work in you.'" Oh my.
"'It is God who is at work in you, "'both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
1 John 4, you are from God, little children, and have overcome them, because greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world.
And I had those on a slide that I forgot.
So now we'll advance to thinking about the strength.
Well, it's great that the Lord is in me and there's these different word pictures of really what this is like, but just how strong is this? Is this a fragile idea that's dependent upon my performance, my feeling, or is it something more? The Lord knows that we are often prone to trust our emotions and our feelings over His word. He knows that because people have been the same for a long time. But there's a verse that I want to share with you and pretty soon in the foyer, we'll have a little booklet that's called the most encouraging verse in the Bible.
I got a bunch of them, because I'd like you to kind of read it.
What do you suppose is the most encouraging verse in the Bible? It's like, not the most important.
Maybe the most important might be John 3.16.
That's probably the most important.
I don't know if you can even choose the most important might be John 3.16. That's probably the most important. I don't know if you can even choose the most important.
But what's the most encouraging verse in the Bible? There's this guy, Armin Tift, who wrote this little book, the most encouraging verse in the Bible.
And this is what he believes is the most encouraging verse in the Bible.
It says, let your character be free from the love of money, be content with what you have, for he himself has said, I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you, so that we may confidently say, the Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid, what shall man do to me?" The most encouraging verse in the Bible.
In the New Testament, we have what's called a double negative.
It is used oftentimes to convey a sense of certainty.
It's not for those that are taking Boolean algebra.
You know, a double negative doesn't mean that it turns into a positive.
You know, a double negative is to emphasize.
Never, no, not ever.
And so we have these wonderful double negatives in the scripture, and there's one actually here.
This verse is loaded with negatives that are meant to convey strong truths.
And so here's what Armin Tif, here's how he unpacks this.
When the Lord says that I will never desert you nor will I ever forsake you, it's as if he is saying this, I will never, no not ever, no never leave you or forsake you.
Now, let me ask you a question.
Many of you are parents and maybe you tell things to your kids and sometimes you yell at kids.
That's probably not very effective, but maybe you use other things to convey the importance of an idea.
We use this all the time.
How am I going to convey? This is something I feel really strongly about? So here it is. Let me ask you a question. Let's go back to the verse.
You will notice, audience, that the verse has quotes around it.
Let me ask you who it is that is speaking around the quotes.
The Lord. The Lord Himself. He Himself.
We also don't use that language. It doesn't say, for the Lord says. It doesn't say that. It says, he himself. Now, moms, I know that you talk that way in the grocery store. You talk to yourself. It's not like you're losing your mind a little bit, but you'll talk to yourself in third person. Now, mommy says, right? That's the way you talk. It's like you're using that tool because it's like you are asserting your authority.
So here the Lord says, He Himself says, the Lord Himself says, I will never. Now, let's go back to the way it is. I will never, no not ever, no never leave you or forsake you.
That is a strong way of the Lord saying that he is with us. So let me ask you, is this union with Christ, this idea that we are in Christ, is it a fragile thing that is dependent upon us? Look at the way this verse is put together so that we may confidently say, the Lord is my helper, what can man do to me? A wonderful truth here. Let's think about and a wonderful truth here. Let's think about some examples of this idea of just how of individuals who have lived this out. Mary Slessor was a Scottish missionary who spent 40 years serving in what's now southeast Nigeria. She was born into a poor working-class family. Her father was an abusive alcoholic.
Mary's mother, if she knew that her father was coming home drunk, she would send Mary out into the cold basically to isolate her from the abuse that would take place in the home.
At age 11, Mary was sent to work in the factory. Raise your hand if you're 11 years old. Where's the kids in the audience? Plus or mine, 10, 11, 12. Any 10, 11, 12s in here? 10, 11, 12s. So, off to the factory for you. But can you imagine Mary Schleser going off to earn a living because her father spent the money on alcohol, going off to the factory at age 11 to work to earn money to hold the fort? She became a Christian as a young teenager and had an intense desire to serve Christ. She was particularly influenced by the missionary stories of David Livingstone, whose example convinced her that the gospel needed to reach the people who had never heard it. So at age 27, which is basically about 150 years ago based on the calendars, she set off for Calabar, West Africa. Calabar was an extremely difficult place for a European missionary to be. It was full of disease, violence, tribal conflict, dangerous travails. Slessor eventually moved further inland away from the established mission compounds and lived among the people. She learned the local language.
One of the practices that she's confronted was the killing of twins.
In some communities, twins were regarded as an evil omen and were abducted or killed.
Slessor rescued babies, took them into her own, and cared for them.
She became almost a combination of missionary, mother, nurse, teacher, judge, and peacemaker. She was fearless.
The historical accuracy of this is hard to verify, but there's one story that where she woke up in a tent one night and a leopard had entered and had one of her babies in its mouth and Mary rammed a burning stick into the leopard's face.
The animal dropped the baby and fled." So ladies think that through next time you call for your husband to deal with a spider. I mean she was Mary Slessor was the real deal. In her biography it has it that when she was journeying from Scotland to Africa, she was sitting next to another missionary who said, so you're going to Calabar, aren't you afraid of that wild country? Mary replied, oh no, because God is with me, he will take care of me. Jesus said, lo, I am with with you always even until the end of the world and I am trusting in his promise You see Her faith wasn't merely I believe that God is everywhere It was more like God is here with me so that I can take the next step be like a Mary Slessor who this isn't just just a theological idea, it is something that actually motivates and guides your steps of your life and the way that you live. Now let's consider the impact of what it is that we've been talking about. Our union with Christ gives us hope. It gives us hope.
You know, you think about those that are sitting to your right and to your left. Those of us that are in Christ, we have the same positional truths that our next-door neighbor has.
that our next door neighbor has.
Sure, over time and sanctification, there's different levels of maturity.
That's one thing.
But the positional truths are shared by us all.
If you have a tendency to think, I am such a mess-up, I am always a failure, woe is, look at me, I have so long to go.
Check those feelings. Check those against the truth of Scripture, the things that God declares about you, that you are just as much a child of God as the person sitting next to you.
There's no hierarchy here in that sense.
Embrace your position in Christ as an act of faith in the giver. Trust his declarations, his verdicts concerning you over your own emotions. I hope that by parking on these ideas of our position in Christ and just resting in them a little bit, that the amplitude of the things that we hear, our emotions and the voices, if you will, the self-conversation, that those will subside over time as we rest in who it is that we are in Christ.
This truth also guards against the tendency that we have to think of that I am broken.
There are the haves and there are the have-nots. And quietly we assume that we're in the second category, that there are people who have things that you don't have. When it comes to our position in Christ, we are on equal ground. Our union with Christ means that what Christ has accomplished becomes the foundation of my standing with God. And I think that And I think that Paul really seemed to take off the gloves in the book of Colossians when he was writing the Colossian believers. This idea of hierarchy, we come across some of these words like Gnosticism, and we think, oh, that's such a New Testament thing. Those people who had sort of that idea that there was some mystical secret knowledge that you must obtain in order to advance in the Christian life.
And so they had established a kind of Christian hierarchy among themselves.
Could it be that there is sort of a modern day Gnostic philosophy that filters into our own minds and just that settled idea that, you know, here I am and I'm so static. I'm not growing in my faith, and I'm going to be the way that I've always been, and I guess I'm just a have-not. You know, Paul, when he wrote the book of Colossians, he said this one phrase. He said, don't let anybody rob you of your prize. He said that in Colossians 2, 18. He said, don't let anybody rob you of your prize. And I might add, don't rob yourself of this prize.
In Colossians chapter 2 verse 10 it says, in Him we are complete. Oh, there it is again. Sorry that I've ruined it for you. Every time you encounter it in the New Testament you're going to see it. In Him we are complete. In Him you are complete. There will be things that you hear over the next several weeks that you will have a tendency to say, oh, not me.
Oh, that's wonderful, but not me.
Don't let anybody rob you of your prize.
Don't let them do it.
Don't let them steal that away. Don't let anybody rob you of your prize.
In this day and age it may be difficult for us to be confident about anything.
There are so many... Do you have a lot of concerns? If I were to ask you, what's your list of concerns? I have a lot of concerns.
This isn't going to solve those, but it may put a right perspective on them.
I mean, I think it might be good for you, and it might be good for me, to at least have one thing that we can be confident of so that we may confidently say, how does it go? What happened to that verse? So that we may confidently say, the Lord is near me. I want to be able to quote it because there was a point I wanted to make so that we may confidently say the Lord is my helper. This is the one who said I will never, no never, no ever leave you or forsake you. So that we may confidently say the Lord is my helper I will not be afraid.
You and I are troubled by so many things that cause us to be afraid.
And that doesn't make you very special at all because so many of us experience that.
But I hope that by embracing this idea and resting in it, that the Lord is with us.
Oh, let's go from the lesser to the greater.
He is in us that we will not be afraid.
That we will not be afraid.
Perfect love casts out fear.
Let's pray.
Lord, we thank you for opening your word to us this morning.
We thank you for this truth that we can rest in our union with Christ, that you abide in us and with us.
Lord, as we explore these ideas over the next several weeks, we pray that you would guide and direct.
We pray in Jesus' name, amen.