you can open your Bibles again
to 1 Peter chapter 3, 1 Peter chapter 3. Now as we've been going through
this book, a great deal of the material
has been about how we as Believers in the Lord Jesus Christ should
conduct ourselves in this world. We should live our lives. And
all of it, all this instruction is summarized in verse 15 of the first chapter. But just as he who called you
is holy, So be holy in all you do. Now because of our particular
view of our nature and our conduct and with some
of us because of the religion we were raised in, we have a
little difficulty when it comes to such exhortations as be holy
in all you do. And most of that comes from the
fact that we don't know what the word holy means. The religion
of the world has so twisted and distorted the meaning of that
word that for them, holy actually means holier than thou. And holiness
of life consists in things which we do or are supposed to do,
which would be readily observable by other people. and is likely
to be praised by them. And the fact is that holiness
of life is generally speaking an irritation to this world and
in particular to the religious world. No one lived a life more holy
than did our Lord Jesus Christ. And who hated him the most? Who was most irritated by the
holiness of the life that our Lord lived? Those who thought
themselves to be holy. The religious people of that
day, whose holiness was readily visible because they wore special
clothes. And I don't know about the Sadducees,
but I know that the Pharisees would wear these things called
phylacteries, which were little boxes, and they would put little
pieces of scripture in them, little bit of, you know, a verse
of scripture on a piece of paper, so that everyone would know that
the word or the scriptures were always close to their minds. And they would make loud and
auspicious prayers in public places and people no doubt would look
at them and say that's a holy man and yet the Holy One of God appears
on earth and he becomes an irritation to them because he doesn't do
any of those things. He wore the common clothes of
the day We have no indication that he
wore a phylactery, that he put on any airs. And while he was
not ashamed to pray publicly, most of the time that we read
of our Lord praying, he went off by himself. And he didn't
pray prayers in which he loudly declared things like, I thank
you, God, I'm not like other men. But it says he would pray
all night long, was in communion with his father all night long,
sometimes agonizing over things. Holiness of life in a believer
doesn't look like what the world thinks holiness is at all. And
what we read here in this scripture just a little bit ago shows us these things. Some of
them. Talks about living in harmony
with one another. And believers should live in
harmony with one another. What do we have to fight about?
Say, well, we have disagreements. We have disagreements about the
things of this life. We don't have any disagreements
about the issues of the next life. We don't have any disagreements.
about the vital and most important things, why then should we allow
the lesser things of this life to disrupt our harmony, our peace? To be sympathetic. When we see a brother in trouble,
a sister in trouble, Whether that trouble is just simply a
matter of the circumstances in life, or even if it be some trouble
that they brought on themselves by some foolish choice they made,
some foolish direction they took, whatever, be sympathetic. I find
this liberating, I don't know about you. It is so much nicer
to be able to live without judging, but instead being able to help. It is so much more enjoyable
to find the fallen and help them get up than to find the fallen
and kick some dirt on them or kick them, you know, kick them
while they're down. See, that's what the world does. It's even
what worldly religion often does. You'll find worldly religion
doing two things with regard to the fallen. One of them, we're
seeing this happen more and more, they just come by and say, you're
not fallen. They say, what you did is okay. And it's not. They think it's unloving to say,
no, that's wrong. Nobody should do that, particularly
a believer shouldn't do that. So they think that's love. The
other side, in order to promote their own self-righteousness, they will focus on the sin. And
they will tell the person, get up. Quit doing that and won't
lift a finger to help. They don't act like the good
Samaritan that pictures our Lord Jesus Christ and come upon the
fallen and help them and bind up their wounds. To speak comfort to them as God
has commanded us to do. Comfort ye, comfort ye my people
says the Lord. Tell her that her sins are forgiven,
that they've been paid for. Instead, the world wants to bring
up everybody's sin, or say it isn't sin in the first place.
Love as brothers. It's amazing what people will
put up with in family members, isn't it? Now, when I say it's
amazing, I don't think it's wrong. I like that. Nearly every family's got someone
in it that doesn't seem to walk like the rest of the family does,
always in trouble. And yet the family never kicks them out.
The family never says to them, I won't have anything to do with
you ever again. I know there's a few that do
that, but generally speaking, our family in this world, whatever
they do, we count them as family and we do what we can to maintain
a relationship with them. How come then we are so quick?
and find it so easy to distance ourselves from our brothers and
sisters in Christ who are far more closely related to us than
any natural relationship we have in this world. Love as brothers, no matter what they do, no matter
how grievously they may fall, no matter how seriously they
may offend, at all times, Love them and seek restoration and
do good for them. Be compassionate and humble.
Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. I said in the Bible class, I
read a good many political columns and stuff. Tell you, I get riled
up when I read them, and I hear what some say that I don't agree
with, and I am just ready to lay into them. And if you spend
any time on social media, it's amazing the mean things people
will say when they're not face to face. It's just awful. I recommend that you not spend
much time on social media, that you don't read the comment section
after newspaper articles, because it will really make you think
that the human race is not going to last very much longer. The
thing is, the attitude I see in them, I see it begin to rise
up in me. And the language that they use,
I find it ready to come out of my mouth. I find that I am ready
to curse and condemn and wish for bad things upon those with
whom I disagree, and that's simply awful. And it gets me all tied
up, and it's a miserable way to live. Do you know what is
the better way to live, the happier way to live, more enjoyable way
to live? To bless those who curse you. Now, it's not an easy thing
to do. It's not a natural thing to do. but to take those, to say to
those who speak evil of you, do evil to you, insult you, and
to speak blessing upon them. And Peter goes on to say we were
called to this very thing. That is, we were called to mimic
what our Lord Jesus did Because when they spoke evil of Him,
He said, Father, forgive them. When they nailed Him to a cross,
He said, Father, forgive them. At one time, the disciples were
upset about some people who didn't receive the Lord Jesus. Some towns where they would go
and the people there rejected Christ and they said, Lord, do
you want us to call down fire from heaven like Elijah did and
just burn these guys up? And our Lord said, you don't
know what spirit you are of. The son of man did not come to
destroy, but to save. And we've been called to the
same thing. We are in this world, now of
course we can't save, but we can talk about him who does save,
and we can make it our goal anyway to have the same attitude he
did, even to those that reject him. The most disappointing comments
I find in social media often comes from the mouths of those
who profess to believe this book, profess to follow Christ, profess
even the very same doctrines that are taught here week after
week, and the mean and awful things they say about one another. I keep on saying, you don't know
what spirit you're of. Someone once said, you can disagree
without being disagreeable. You can speak the truth, but
as Paul said, speak the truth in love. I'm sure too, if you were to
be able to index everything I've ever typed out on the internet,
you'd find some ungracious responses I've made to people. Sad thing
about the internet is you can't go back and erase it. It's also
somewhere else. It's been copied and pasted somewhere. But he quotes some scripture
here. Whoever would love life and see good days must keep his
tongue from evil and his lips from deceitful speech. He must
turn from evil and do good. He must seek peace and pursue
it. For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his
ears are attentive to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against
those who do evil. Now we're thankful we've got
a covering in Christ Jesus, don't we? And even when Unkind and
malicious speech comes out of our mouth. There is blood to atone. Nonetheless,
do you not find it appealing to live like this? Oh, I wish
I could. I wish my knee-jerk reaction
to insults Injustice and cursing
were words of blessing and lifting up. He says, who's gonna harm you?
Verse 13, if you're eager to do good. Now that's a generalization. Our Lord did nothing but good
and they harmed him, didn't they? And he's gonna get to that. He's
gonna get to that. But basically, in this world,
if you live decently, people aren't going to harm you. Most
people won't. But now verse 14, even if you
should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. Now, I don't know if Peter was
in prison at this point. I know he's eventually in prison.
And I know he suffered a great deal from his own countrymen
and from others because of the gospel he preached. He was doing
good and he suffered for it, and yet he counted himself blessed. In Acts chapter 15, it is written
that the Sanhedrin called, I believe it was Peter and John, before
them. That's a Sanhedrin was a Jewish
ruling council. And they judge things and pronounce
sentences and all that in the matters that Rome would allow
them to. And they had told Peter and John, now you just, you quit
preaching in that name, in the name of Jesus. And they said
to them, well, you figure it out for yourselves whether we
ought to obey you or obey God. And they went back out preaching.
And they even put him in jail. But the Lord delivered them from
jail, and interesting enough, evidently delivered them from
jail without even bothering to unlock the jail. And they were
found the next day in the temple courts still preaching in that
name in which they were forbidden to preach. And so they got hauled
before the authorities again and said, didn't we tell you
not to preach in that name anymore? Yeah. But you telling us not
to is not going to change. And it says, then they beat them.
I assume meaning by that, with a whip. Scourged them. And that was no
easy matter. And it says, they went out rejoicing. Rejoicing. that they were counted
worthy to suffer for the name of Christ. Have you ever considered
that something associated with being worthy? And something to
rejoice in? That you preached the gospel
and you got beat up for it? The apostles did. And he says,
do not fear what they fear. In the margin it says that could
be, do not fear what they threat, or do not fear their threats.
And it can be taken both ways. The things that make the world
afraid, don't be afraid of them. What are they afraid of? Well,
they get the threats that those in power make. We'll take away
what you have. We'll kill you. Or you can take
it that don't fear their threats. When the world comes to you with
its threats of some kind of loss because of who you are, or more
importantly, who you worship, or any good that you do for the
sake of his name. He said, don't be afraid of that.
Don't be afraid of that. Rather, verse 15, in your hearts
set apart Christ as Lord. Now, Lord is a word of authority,
but it has a different connotation than the word king. The word
king, carries authority, but when you speak of a king, you're
thinking more in terms of power. And a king can crush you. When they spoke of lords, and
it's different words, and even in our language it's different
words, but we've kind of made it to where they mean the same
thing, but even back in the days of the medieval period, You had
kings, but then you had lords over sections of the country.
And a lord had authority over that section, but he was given
authority because he was also responsible for the welfare of
the people in that locality. I'm not saying the lords didn't
abuse their authority and all that, but what they were supposed
to do, is take care of the people that live there. And for that
reason they were given the authority in that area so they could manage
the affairs. And so when it says set apart Christ as Lord, it's
saying of him not only that he has power, we know the Lord has
power, he can do anything he wants to do. But here it's saying,
when we set him apart as Lord, we're looking to him as Lord.
We're looking to him as the one who's been given all authority
in heaven and earth for this purpose, to take care of us. He is Lord of the universe, Lord
of this world. He manages everything in it.
And he manages it with this purpose in mind, the eternal welfare. of his people. Now if I have
such a one as my Lord, what do I have to fear from what's going
on in this world? I don't have to worry that he's
like some of the lords of old who they were given that authority
and yet they use that authority to enrich themselves at the expense
of those they were supposed to be taking care of. Our Lord is
not that way. After all, he already owns everything.
What's he going to get from us anyway? There's nothing for him to gain
by doing us any evil. But this is not just a Lord in
position. He is a Lord who loves those
over whom he is the Lord. We read earlier. In verse six, when it was telling
the women about being submissive to their husbands, it says, like
Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her master. Now, I
believe in the King James, it says, Lord. Lord. Now that doesn't mean that she
looked at Abraham and just felt as though he was some kind of
tyrannical authority over her. She looked to him as provider
and therefore was submissive to his general direction. And
we set apart Christ as our Lord. People in the United States of
America have the privilege of casting a vote for who shall
be their lords in the government. And with the way our government
is set up, at least the way it's supposed to be set up, it was
written in our founding documents that the very purpose of government
is to secure and preserve the inalienable rights we've been
given by God, our creator. That's what our founding documents
say. It's debatable how well they've done. That's what the
founder said government's for. In other words, government's
supposed to be serving us and we give them, grant them authority
so that they can secure and preserve these blessings
of prosperity and peace and the rights we have and things like
that. Therefore, because people have really widely varying opinions
about what their rights are and how their lives ought to be going
in this world, they get terribly worried about who serves in this
or that place of power, of lordship in the United States. I do too. I'm just about to say
something and I don't want to sound like a hypocrite, so I'll
just admit to you, I get wrapped up in that stuff. Oh no, what's
going to happen? I shouldn't, but I do. But what that means is when we
get all wound up about it, what are we doing? We've set
them apart as Lord. We've looked to them thinking
that they are the source of our protection and provision. And we've quit looking at them
as simply tools in the hand of our real Lord to accomplish his
purpose for our good. And so he says, if you don't
wanna worry about what's going on in the world and you don't
wanna worry about the way the world treats you, you set apart
Christ as Lord. You look to him and him alone
to provide and to take care of you. because he's more powerful
than anybody else. He's more powerful than the ones
who speak maliciously of you. He's more powerful. He is more
authoritative than the ones who occupy the various places of
authority and power in our governments. He's more powerful than soldiers. He's more powerful than entire
armies of soldiers. And you look to him and to him
alone, and you don't have to worry at all about these other
guys. He's in control of them. and you don't have to seek your
vengeance against them, because if any vengeance needs taken
against them, the Lord will see to it as it is written. Vengeance is mine, thus saith
the Lord, I will repay. If there's any repaying that
needs done, you'll get it done. As I say, this is not natural
to us, therefore it's not easy, but wouldn't it be blessed? Wouldn't
it be wonderful just to not worry about anything? To not worry about anybody. But to set apart our Lord, Jesus
Christ, truly to be the Lord to whom we look for all things
and to whom we trust, the disposition of everything about us. I remember one time, and I don't
know why it got in my head, but it does that. Worried about what
if I lost that nice house I got? I like my house, I like the property
we live on. If I ever get all the projects
finished, Bonnie will like it too. No, I got a lot of stuff
going on there and someday I got to get them finished, but I like
it. And I got bothered about the prospect of losing it. Would my Lord let me lose it
if it was something that was good for me? And if I lose it,
does that not mean my Lord thought it wasn't good for me to have
it? And can I not trust his wisdom in determining that? And come this November, no matter who comes up the winner,
can I not say my Lord put him there? I'm not gonna worry about
him. I'm not going to be upset. Or if it's the guy you wanted,
I'm not going to suddenly feel relieved like things are going
to be better. Why? Whoever's there, our Lord put
him there. And he put him there as an act
of taking care of us. And in some way or another, whether
he likes it or not, whoever sits in the Oval Office, is taking
care of the people of God. That's why God put him there.
And they may, he may do things that the world thinks are wonderful
and they may make a statue of him someday and 100 years later
somebody, another group of people get mad at what he represented
and pull the statue down. I don't know. They may make a
statue of him, but they probably won't make a statue of him for
why God put him there. God put him there. to take care
of you and me, whose trust is in the Lord. And always be prepared
to give an answer to everyone that asks you to give a reason
for the hope that you have. Now, why would they think you
have a hope if you act or react to the matters of this world
just like they do? I mean, if their guy doesn't
get, get elected, oh, you know, they're at wit's end. Or if their guy does get elected,
they think it's just the most wonderful thing and they relax
and all that. And if you're not doing that,
if you go cast your vote and then read the results the next
day and go, well, wasn't the guy I voted for, but it's God's
guy, so now I'm just going to get on with what I was doing.
Well, aren't you concerned? No. Well, His policy is to do
such and such. Doesn't that bother you? Well,
in my flesh it does, yeah, but you know something? My Lord's
got Him in hand. He's not going to do anything the Lord doesn't
permit Him to do. Our hope isn't in this world. It's out of this world. Therefore, we don't need to be
exercised like the world is about the things in this world. And so they ask us about the
hope we have. Someone might say, why aren't you up in arms? Why
aren't you chasing after this? Aren't you worried the economy's
going to fail? Well, I have a hope that's not
founded on the United States economy. I have a hope that's
not rooted in this or that political party. In fact, I've got a hope
that doesn't even, or is not even affected by my own circumstances,
health, life, or death." I said, well, what kind of hope
is that? Let me tell you. Let me tell
you about Him who is my hope. Be ready with an answer, but then do it with gentleness
and respect. I remember when I first started
preaching, I'd heard some preachers who were pretty loud and, you
know, this kind of stuff in the pulpit and all that. Believe
it or not, that's not natural to me. You know, the way I'm
talking this morning, that's more natural to me. But I thought
I had to be like them. And I'll let you in on a little
secret. One time I was, I'd written out
notes for a message, and this was probably the third or fourth
time I'd preached. And there was a point that I
thought was really serious, and I also thought they'd like it.
And I wrote beside it, yell. Why? Well, because if I didn't
put it in the notes, I wouldn't do it, because it's not natural
to me, you know. But we think that it's just natural. We think
that by our forcefulness, things are going to be accomplished,
as though our forcefulness gives power to the gospel that it wouldn't
have if we weren't yelling or pounding our fist or pointing
our fingers. He said, no, do it with gentleness
and respect. When I read in the book of Acts
how Paul came before kings, and he was in chains, and he was before kings and governors
and stuff like that, you know, trying to gain his freedom, and
he would speak to them respectfully. I know how I feel toward most
of our politicians, and I guarantee you the word respect does not
enter into it. and I'll never get a chance to
talk to him, but if I did, I do hope grace would be given me
in that moment that I wouldn't talk like I feel about them. Paul would use their titles,
and he would commend them for what they had done that had been
helpful to the nation, and he would lay his case before them. Respect. Gentleness. Keeping a clear conscience so
that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in
Christ may be ashamed of their slander. When I listen, see the back and
forth between politicians, sometimes I think, I wish there was just
one person talking like an adult. Do you ever get that sense with
the way things are going right now? Just one of them would with
calm voice, and maybe there are, and that just doesn't make the
news, because nobody watches calm people. Nobody reads good
news. They put on there what will get
people to watch, and generally what people will watch is some
red-faced person just really giving it to somebody else. They'll
tune into that or read it or click on it or whatever. Oh,
it'd be nice if there was someone who was talking like adults are
supposed to talk anyway. Just say, well, we may wish for
that, but I'm not going to expect it from our natural world. Rather,
let us learn to speak without malice. Speak the truth in love. It's better if it's God's will
to suffer for doing good than for doing evil. If you've got
to suffer, make sure it's because you did something good. Say,
well, we can't do anything good. We can't do anything righteous
under the law. But we're not under the law anymore.
The word good is something different from the word righteous. And
good always carries with it the sense of helpful, useful, valuable. And it doesn't have to be perfect
to be good. And that's why it says we're to be zealous of good
works. And so if we're doing what's good, if we're helping
our neighbor, if we're loving people, if we are being submissive
to the authorities that God has put over us, and we suffer for
that, better to suffer for that than to suffer for being a criminal.
Right? Now, Verse 18, for Christ died for
sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous to bring
you to God. He was put to death in the body, but made alive by
the Spirit. So Peter's been talking about
living in a way that the world doesn't live. in a way that if
the world's paying attention, it's gonna kind of stand out.
Not that that's what we're trying to do, but it will because love
is not the way of the world. And it's sometimes when you live
like that and talk like that, you suffer for it. But he said,
none of you, none of you suffered like Christ did. And I think
that's why he interjected this right here. He said, if you're
gonna complain, that you might lose some friends, or that people
are gonna say bad things about you, or that the government's
gonna take some of what you own, maybe everything you own, or
even put you to death. That's what your complaint is
about this. Christ died for sins once for
all. But he didn't commit one of the
sins that he died for. He was the righteous one. And
he died for what us unrighteous people did. And if he willingly
suffered the penalty of the unrighteous, even though he himself was perfectly
righteous, how much more then can we unrighteous people suffer
some of the indignities of this life? Some of the insults of the world.
We can just let it go. He was put to death in the body,
but made alive by the Spirit. I don't know what all that that
means, but I do know this. He was put to death by natural
men, but he's raised again by the Spirit of God. And the life
that he lost, the life that he lost was nothing
compared to the life that he gained. You see, when Christ
raised from the dead, he raised immortal. The life he had before he died
was mortal life. You say, how do you know that?
He died. So whatever human life our Lord
had, Before he suffered for us. It was a mortal life and he was
put to death that mortal life was extinguished But he was raised
again by the Spirit of God with a life that cannot die And that's the life we've been
given We're going to lay this mortal
life on Lay it aside. We're gonna lay
down this body and mortal life will cease for us. But we will
be raised to immortality. Not just a life that can go on
forever, a life that can do nothing else. You see the difference? It's
one thing never to die, it's another thing to have a life
that it's impossible to kill. But such is the life that the
Holy Spirit gives to his people. Spiritually, this work has been
done in us already. If we are believers, we've been
given a spiritual life that cannot die because it's the life from
God. It's not something we got from
our dying parents. It's an immortal spiritual life
and the day will come when this mortal body, whether by the process
of death and later resurrection or by the return of our Lord,
this mortality shall put on immortality. What then do we have to worry
about what's going on in a mortal world when we are immortal? And why should we conduct our
lives like the dying when we are immortal? Now, I'm talking way above what
I've reached, friends. I want to be careful here. I
don't want you to think, boy, I wish I could live like the
preacher does. Preacher doesn't live like this. Preacher wishes he
could. The preacher reads this and says,
why can't I do that? This is what I want. But we're called to it. And we'll
never get perfect at it, but he said, pursue it. And by this spirit, it says that
he went and preached to the spirits in prison who disobeyed long
ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah. And some
say that when Jesus Christ died on the cross, that his spirit
went way back in time where he went to the spirits in prison,
you know, those who died in the flood and preached to them. Well,
what did he preach? What do you tell those? What
message is there for those who die in their sins? None, there
isn't a message for them. So what's he mean? This spirit which gave him life
is the same spirit through whom Jesus Christ preached to the
world in the days of Noah through the mouth of Noah. To those spirits
that are now in prison, that's what he's saying. So what does
he do? He sets before us first the example
of Christ who died because he had done good, but the life that
he lost in it was a mortal life, and in exchange, he got an immortal
life. But long ago, through the Spirit,
he had preached to a bunch of people who disobeyed, and they
lost their mortal life, and they did not get an immortal life. Better to suffer for doing good
than to suffer for doing evil, right? Better to die believing
the Lord Jesus Christ than to die apart from him. Better to
lose this mortal life for the cause of Christ than to try to
hang on to your mortal life at the expense of Christ. In the ark, only a few people,
eight in all, were saved through water. Now why did Peter mention
that? Well, because there weren't many
Christians in this day. Enough for the world to take
notice, but they weren't a minority, and they still are. And the Lord said, I mean Peter
said, don't let that bother you. Out of the whole world of Noah's
day, there were only eight eight whom God chose and put in the
ark and the rest he killed. He says it'll be surprised that
not many believe this gospel and that the world is against
you because the world was against Noah and his family. And he speaks of this water of
Noah's day symbolizing baptism. It was waters of judgment and
baptism symbolizes the waters of judgment in the grave because
it's a symbol of the grave. And he says water symbolizes
baptism that now saves you, not the removal of dirt from the
body, but the pledge of a good conscience. That pledge is not
a good translation there. The word simply means response. And it was used to describe the
plea of a man before the court, guilty or not guilty. Now it
had other uses, but its primary meaning was a response. And what
are we giving a response to when we are baptized? Well, he mentions
up here of giving a reason for the hope that lies within us. Well, what is that hope? That
when Jesus Christ died and was buried and rose again, I was
in him. And on account of his death,
burial, and resurrection, I am not guilty in the sight of God.
And the death symbolized by the grave, the death symbolized by
the flood of Noah and the wrath of God, I've already experienced
that in Christ, and it shall not destroy me. I have a good
conscience toward God because by Jesus Christ my sins have
been taken away. It saves you by the resurrection
of Christ who has gone into heaven and is at God's right hand. Now
we spoke about that quite a bit in the Bible class this morning.
Paul says, Seek that which is above, where
Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. And here, Peter,
he's directing us to exactly the same place. Christ has gone
to heaven at God's right hand, and angels, authorities, and
powers. Now, why does he mention all
of them? Is he trying to give us a description of all the various
kinds of beings there are in this universe, spiritual and
physical? I don't think so. He's just using
words to describe all the various beings there may be that people
fear their authority and their power. And he says all of them
are in submission to him. That includes the angel Gabriel
and it includes that fallen angel, Satan. The good angels, the bad
angels, they're all in submission to him. Both the major political
parties in our country are in submission to Christ. The people you work for are in
submission to Christ. Everything and everybody is in
submission to Him. He's at God's right hand. And the Bible says, that we are
seated with him in the heavenly places. Say, well, I don't think
I've ever been to the heavenly places. You are in the heavenly
places in Christ. And while you have not experienced
that in the flow of space and time, it is such a certain thing
that you shall indeed experience that in space and time. And it
is a certain thing because it's already true in heaven. It's just waiting to become true
here. We can live in the absolute truth of it even now. Which means we can live above it all because
we are. I don't mean we're better than
that, above it all like that. I mean that even as we are down
here, we are above it all. Our important life cannot be
touched by the things concerning this life. Therefore, we can
guide our lives according to the truth that we're immortal. We can live our lives according
to the truth that we are without sin in the sight of God. We can
live our lives according to the truth that no one less than the
one who loved us and gave himself for us is seated at the right
hand of God ruling everything for us. Is there anybody in the world
more blessed than you? All right.