Automatically Generated Transcript

The topic that I have for tonight is the heart of an enthusiast. We may look at ourselves and see we're small in numbers this evening and maybe the enthusiast is not necessarily by being present here. Nonetheless, the topic is really good for us as we face a new year. And I don't know about you, but wanting to think of yourself as able to maintain an enthusiasm for Christ across all the differences in the times and the changes in seasons and all the difficulties that come to us is a very good way to know from the scriptures that can be done. The heart of an enthusiast. And the passage is 2 Corinthians 5 and in particular the two verses that we looked at before in the Bible reading 14 to 15. So 2 Corinthians 5. And 5 verses 14 to 15. Now, these verses are really interesting because it tells us about where the motivation comes from for us to be an enthusiast. And it comes, of course, from the example of Jesus and the person of Jesus. His example and he showed an enthusiast for his ministry and it's linked to his love. The love of Christ controls us. Or various other translations word the idea the love of Christ is what constrains us. And that's one of the older translations. But I think it captures the idea that it is the love of Christ that gets a grip on you. And true enthusiasm, Christian enthusiasm I might say, comes from Christ. There are enthusiastic personalities. Some people have and there are things that can enthuse you which are not necessarily from the Lord. They're not necessarily wrong either. And we had amongst our young people in Adelaide, we had a fellow who so loved football and wanted to become an AFL player that he had a football that he put under his pillow. I imagine it made it feel rather awkward but he had that thing and carried it around and was flipping it over. And getting his subconscious so used to its shape that he thought that it would give him some extra ability to handle the ball. And his was an enthusiasm. I didn't disrespect it because I sort of wished I might myself but he had the opportunity so to be. And he had this enthusiasm, the love of Christ. Whatever you did there, Cameron, turned out the... Yes. Oh, I see. I don't know why that did that. But it's come back. Anyway, this is talking about where the enthusiasm comes from. It comes from a constraint of Christ. However, the verse itself actually can be read more than one way. And the way that I've been reading it would be make it sound like that somehow the love of Jesus causes us to be enthusiastic. And you could take that to be our love for Christ gets a grip on us and therefore we become enthusiastic for him. The love of Christ in the sense of us loving him. But if you're careful and read the passage through you end up coming to the conclusion that it's actually not talking in the first instance about our love of Christ. It's actually talking about his love and what the love that he had did. Because we concluded this way that one has died for all. And it's talking about what his love did to cause him to die for all. He didn't just die for a few select. He died for everybody. And the reason why I know that that's the proper way to interpret it although there are people who do believe that Jesus only died for the elect. And there are lots of passages that you could quote which you're not quite sure whether it doesn't mean exactly that that he died for all the elect or all of the ones to become Christians. But in this passage what it goes on to say gives us a better hint in the other direction. Therefore all have died. Now if it's talking about the elect and it goes on to say therefore all have died it doesn't make the most immediate sense though there is something I'm going to get to later in the sermon that will apply it that way that's because he died for all all of us have died with him. We'll get to that later as one explanation. But at the moment I think the logic of it is that his love was such that he died for all and it shows you that all were in needing of his death because all were dead. All have died. And it's talking about the fall, it's talking about human nature, it's talking about the lost that all indeed are dead they've died. And if he died for all that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised and there it's proof that it's talking about how he died and not only did he die but he got raised from the dead for other people that they might have the benefit thereof. So very definitely the passage is talking about Christ so loving all the world that he died for everybody and eventually not only died for them but he rose for them as well. And so there we have this picture of Jesus and it is his love of Christ that is going to get a grip on us. It's because of how much he put in when he loved people and died for them that it will cause us later on in the passage we'll see to be constrained to be controlled to be motivated to become as my sermon runs enthusiasts. And part of the enthusiasm that we have we learn from this passage is the fact of Jesus' love and the example that he set and it constrains us. Now let's go a bit further as we move along. And just finally cover that question. Is Jesus died for all is it all because you have to qualify the universals that's the way the theologians talk when it says all which all are we talking about? And there is one interpretation of many of the verses that talk about Jesus' death when it says he died for all it's talking about all those who are the elect. And you can take that interpretation because what you're actually doing is saying that's what the all is all of the elect. Other people take it to mean all of humanity. Some people could take it they don't. It would be a silly thing just all the males. But when you have an all when you have a universal then you have to find out from elsewhere in the scriptures all who to make sure you haven't jumped the wrong way. I think that's although the passages that we can turn to I'll turn us to just a few of those where the scriptures are talking about Christ dying for all. Please go to 1 Timothy 2.6 and 1 Timothy 2.6 about Jesus who gave himself as a ransom for all. Again, the universal all it doesn't say which all I was talking about which is the testimony given at the proper time. Jesus Christ gave himself as a ransom. Now this is very definitely his death on behalf of the ones who were dead in sins. But whether they're the all the elect or not isn't really determined by that verse. Another one is in Hebrews 2.9 and this is a very good verse about the death of Christ. But we see him who was for a little while made lower than the angels namely Jesus crowned with glory and honour because of the suffering of death so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. The everlasting. Everyone is the same position as the all. It is the universal but needs to have us apply which everyone it's talking about. And if you're an enthusiast and you decide to take the all or the everyone to be all the elect it actually will deliver you into a different sort of enthusiasm. It is grammatically possible to do that in how the verse is with a universal like this but it will give you into a different sort of an enthusiasm. And then we have to match and see whether that matches the enthusiasm that Jesus had when he came into the world. It pictures him as coming to the world if you think it says all the elect for every one of the elect. Then it's picturing him as having abandons all the rest of humanity of all time to be damned forever. And it's actually a different sort of enthusiasm to attribute to Jesus. But if you take it to be as we have been or as I do in those first verses 14 and 15 to be that it's the love of Christ for the lost that is constraining us. It is his such tremendous willingness to go to the cross for those who had died in their sins that it's a different sort of constraint. And you see that worked out in different Christians' lives. I have an illustration some of you older ones if there are any here might remember but of when Arthur Blessett came to Brisbane and some of us got him to come and speak in the King George Square and he gave a message there and also the pastor I was a youth pastor my senior pastor at Wynnum took Arthur Blessett in to meet the people in the Baptist Union the headquarters they had then was in Eagle Street and he brought Arthur Blessett in he didn't bring his cross that he was carrying around the world because it wouldn't have fitted into the lift and they stepped into this lift and there was a man there sitting on a chair he didn't have many legs because he'd been in the war and back in those days anyway there was a lot of men who got jobs in lifts because they didn't have any legs but he was a friendly fellow and he said to Jeff my senior pastor and to Arthur Blessett he says you're going up or you're going down? And Arthur Blessett replies we're all going down one day or are we going up? But he turned the question into a witnessing moment and there on the spot with the lift going up Arthur Blessett he was one of those enthusiasts who never missed an opportunity to witness to this man I've copied him anybody tells me in a lift similar questions I try and do the same thing but that's what he used to do all around the world doesn't matter where he was you didn't start a conversation with him but that he turned the whole of it into an opportunity to tell people about Christ but the thing that motivated him was that he believed that Jesus died for everybody and there wasn't anyone who wasn't someone for whom Jesus died and he felt constrained if the Lord came into the world for the purpose of dying on the cross for this person then who was he to be silent and to miss the opportunity to tell them of it? Actually it is the same thing that motivates all of the Graham team because they have a thing about telling everybody do you know that God Jesus God loves you and they open up nearly all their sermons with God loves you and that's not something you can actually do if you only think that Jesus died for the elect because he hasn't chosen you you're the lost and that business about who is loved and who is lost is actually wrapped up in the Hebrew language when you read the Old Testament and my dad had an occasion where the people of my church where I asked him to come along and speak got Scotty at my dad because he spoke from the verse where it says Jacob have I loved but Esau have I hated and some of the old ladies came to me and said you know basically your dad's wrong about what they wanted to say because God doesn't hate anybody but what they're ignorant of and my dad was an expert in was in the Hebrew language the idea of love and hate had included in it the idea of choice and that's what God does and non-choice and the truth of the matter is that God loves even the people he may not have chosen and even the ones who end up in hell the scriptural picture of it is that God is sorrowing over people who are lost and go to hell he's not willing that any should perish and the actual word for willing is one that's not a strong word for willing but a word for giving of his sentiment of his desire, of his preference God is not really wanting anybody to be lost but I think he nonetheless has purposes and may well have a will of one being saved and one not and so what the old ladies didn't understand because they hadn't learned Hebrew was when it says Jacob have I loved it's saying Jacob is the chosen and Esau was not and you can believe in election I don't think you have a choice about that by the way because the Bible teaches it so strongly and so strongly that you can't believe it in so many places that God obviously elects people but it doesn't mean that he has turned his back on them it doesn't mean that he didn't die for their sins either and so if we did have passages that made that more clear as to whose sins for whom he died then we'd have answered that and there is a passage like so and it is 2 Peter 2 verse 1 2 Peter 2 verse 1 did I give you that one? I hope so, yeah it's about the parallel between the false prophets in the Old Testament and the false teachers in the new time of the new covenant the false prophets also arose amongst the people just as there will be false teachers amongst you who will secretly bring in destructive heresies even denying the master who bought them now this is about the false teachers who are going to be brought in who are going to end up in hell according to the passage they're going to end up bringing upon themselves swift destruction if you go on reading you'll see that they end up damned so these false teachers nonetheless part of what they've done that's false is denying the master who bought them he bought them as a ransom by how he shed his blood on the cross and yet they deny him such will then be the judgment on them but what a judgment on them is what a judgment on them but what a judgment on them is is that even though God can have election and even though it is the fact that God isn't going to be surprised by who gets into heaven God does elect that's the truth of scriptures which because he elects doesn't mean that you have to take on board what is called just a partial paying of on the cross of only the elect sins and not everybody else's that's sometimes called about the sacrifice of Jesus about his salvation about his paying of the crosses it's called a Jesus coming for only some of the people of the world and that I think is something that's not according to what that verse is talking about so it is possible to become someone who is a very enthusiastic person and we do have in the Bible Brisbane here today and I've got some friends I did have friends when I went and studied with them over in Dallas who were of that ilk who believed that Jesus only died for the elect and so I looked at them as brothers in Christ but yet the enthusiasm they had was a different sort of enthusiasm than what I discovered in the Graham team for example who always want to tell the audience every opportunity God loves you and mean by love what we mean by love that he doesn't want you to perish but he's wishing he's willing he's wanting that all should come to repentance and there's a different sort of enthusiasm that you'll have depending upon the accuracy of the thing that you're committed to and that's why it's very important to be people who find the precise gospel that the Bible has and have that to which you're committed because your enthusiasm will be slightly different I've actually I've actually I think I can spot though I couldn't prove it to other people and I wouldn't go down to be quoted for it because it would be hard to prove but depending on what denomination you're in and depending upon which style of church you have there is a subtle difference of the fellowship that you can discern test it out for yourselves when you're amongst different groups and depending upon what is the style of the fellowship so also there is a sense of the style of the enthusiasm that people have and in some churches for example the thing that's most important and the way they understand the gospel is to have a very large case of the miraculous happening all the time there are people who are always looking for the spectacle that's not surprising because it's a part of that which they believe is the gospel on the other hand there are people who don't actually believe in miracles happening today and consequently you'll have a fellowship with them which doesn't have the same regard for God stepping in in your life the same as if you actually do believe that God does do miracles I believe that the scriptures teach that God does miracles that Jesus does miracles and the type of fellowship you have when you go on believing it is a different sort of fellowship you find it in places where there's someone that has a prayer ministry and one beach missionary that I used to attend when I was young had a young man who didn't seem to have other gifts he was our cook in this particular missions that we went to beach missions but he did have some touch with God that he could spot people to pray for and they seemed to get moved by his prayers and he'd be in the tent that had all the cooking gears there and then I was in charge of the young people's work and we had a tent where we had young people come in the night and I'd get him to come and stand well he actually wanted to do this and I was glad for him to do it he'd come and stand at the flap of the tent of all the teenagers inside and he'd just look and he'd go back to his place where he had all the pots and pans and he'd pray for someone that he saw and just had some gift of faith you know it was certainly supernatural and come back to see what happened and he had a gift of prayer and there are people other people they become intercessors because there is a specialty of being someone that God uses to answer prayer I think it is the gift of faith the Bible talks about amongst the list of the gifts of the Spirit and when you have a fellowship that includes a real heavy commitment to prayer and bringing everything to God in prayer in believing prayer it actually changes the quality of the enthusiasm and I think it's borne out in our church if you have churches that are committed to the gospel and they just love the gospel I think we're one to you how I can tell is when I just listen to the songs and the songs we sing sometimes they get doctored a bit but they're ones that capture a sense of the love of this message probably we overdo it it doesn't matter there's other songs we could sing as well the praise songs I wouldn't mind if we had a few more of those old praise songs but nonetheless we're one the ones our church chooses tells us something about the fellowship that there's a great joy there's a great sense of commitment and being an enthusiast for the message of the gospel because it keeps turning up in our worship and that's a wonderful thing well what I'm talking about here is where does the enthusiasm come from the enthusiasm comes from the fact that Jesus wasn't just someone who demonstrated love and therefore we are motivated to follow suit that's how I used to read the verse we're looking at now here in 2 Corinthians 5 verses 16 and 17 but it's actually talking about the motivation that comes when you realise his great love and the sacrifice he made for it if we could go back to that 2 Corinthians 5 and the verses there 14 and 15 and it goes on to speak therefore all have died now what it's saying is is that Jesus looks at everybody as someone who's died that he needed to come and die for that's the love of Christ that then gets a grip on you makes you an enthusiast the type I'm talking about but we could go further and he died for all that those who live that's us and anybody that comes to Christ might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised and when you realise that this Jesus who died for everybody has included you and you understand that you're a beloved 1 John chapter 4 talks about beloved and goes on to say how we should love others but it starts off the talk of our needing to get the love of God ourselves in us it says beloved and one of the things that makes you an enthusiast is when you're aware when you become deeply spiritually gripped by the fact that you are special to God that word beloved means absolutely that God is watching you and loving you you are the apple of his eye the Bible tells us that if you cry over something that he takes your tears and he puts them in his bottle which is what in the ancient days maybe people did when their children had tears that they collect the tears he loves us we are the beloved we are loved we are loved we are loved we are loved we are loved we are loved we are loved And it says, because you're beloved, then learn to love others. That's a fantastic connection. And to get the fellowship that really is the one that is what we're in our church aiming for having will happen when, first of all, we realise that God sees us as beloved. There's a different gait that you have walking along. There's a different smile on your face when you know you were just loved. Now, I watch mothers with little children. You can see it happening there. And watching each of our little ones come. Michelle is someone who really loved her babies. And mothers do, you know. But there's something about a child when the child is brought up with a tremendous sense of love. And that changes the personality and it changes the enthusiasm. It changes the enthusiasm for the family. We've had contacts and other people, friends of our kids at school or whatever, but sometimes, not all that often, but sometimes you meet families where you can pick up the greatest need those kids had would be for their parents to love them, like seeing them as beloved. There just is a difference that's made in the atmosphere of the home when the kids all know that they're beloved. They're beloved. And the love can go one to the other as well, from one child to another. And it's quite natural for children to have their arguments and quite not unusual for there to be children that fall out with family and fall out with other siblings. That's because of our sinful reactions. I'm not ruling out that possibility. But I want to tell you that when the parents have got this beloved idea for themselves, they know that God sees them as treasures. They're not cranky at what's been their lot. They're ones somehow who are aware that God loves you. When you know you're beloved, then somehow it's easy for the love of Christ to constrain you. And it says that those who might, that he died for all and those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who for their sake died and was raised. And right at the centre of the fellowship that we have, right at the heart of the enthusiasm that the New Testament is putting to us that we should have, is this awareness of our being the beloved. If that's not something that you've cultivated or been aware of or you've not really been able to harness, go home tonight and ask the Lord to show you how much you are the apple of his eye. Ask him to let it break in on you, just how beloved you are. It actually changes your personality. It's one of the greatest helps for young people who've been in difficult scenarios and often there've been reasons why, whether it be from the family or be from the society, but something has happened and they just have, I was going to say a chip on the shoulder, but it doesn't have to be a negative thing, just the absence of the positive of knowing that you're beloved changes your personality. But when you come to Christ and you know you're beloved, and you let him minister to you and you realise that he actually has you as an individual in mind, one of the beauties of that verse in Revelation 3.20 about Christ standing at the door and not, is the door of the church, but the call that he gives is for an individual. He says, if any person, any individual hears my voice and will get up and come and open the door, I will come on in and up to that one and fellowship with him or her and they with me. And though the call is for an individual, the call comes to everybody in the church that you could let Jesus into the fellowship more. Jesus actually is listening to the individuals and you can be an individual who recognizes that Jesus considers relation with you as something to be very special. Just like the disciples that Jesus called to belong to him and called to be with him. And so to rehearse to yourself, Jesus actually saved me, not just because, I'm going to serve him and live for him and give to him, but in the first instance, he saved me because he wanted me. I am the beloved. My beloved, I am his and he is mine. The Song of Solomon pictures that parallel between, anyway, between the human love that we can have and Jesus' love. And that's where the source of the enthusiasm comes from. It's where the power comes to somehow flavour the love. The personality and to make us people who can stand in for Christ. For the love of Christ controls us and I read it not just because what we conclude is that he's died for all and therefore we better do something about it because it was an expensive thing that he did, dying for all, but because it includes us. That those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. Can you hear that? Can you hear the throb of the verse? And when you understand Jesus, he's had a heartache for you from before the ages began. He's had a desire that you might come to that place of knowing that you are his beloved and he is yours and that will change everything and the enthusiasm you have is an enthusiasm that is Christ's love controlling you. Now, there is a lot of enthusiasm and there is one further way you can take the verse and I have to alert you to the fact that this is harder to prove to people. It is interpretive and it could be that I've gone a step too far in my interpretations. But when it says for those they might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised, I think it's not only talking about the historical fact of his death back in the cross and Calvary and his resurrection moment on the Easter Sunday. I think it's talking about something that Galatians 2 in verse 20, we'll put it up on the screen, is also getting at. There is a sense in which Jesus, when he died, we died with him. This is a bit more mysterious and I can't go too far in demanding it be what you read into this verse. But it's there nonetheless as a possibility when it says in the life I now live, oh, this is Galatians 2, I've been crucified with Christ, Paul speaking, it's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the connection that we have with Christ, which is a part of becoming a Christian, the connection whereby we are joined to Christ, the theologians call it union with Christ. It's a certain doctrine by which you explain our justification. Some people step back from it and say, oh no, we're justified because he did it as a penal sacrifice and he died for us. So we're justified because he took the penalty. They're not wrong. But I think it also includes the fact that we're justified because we become united with the one that God the Father accepted. And a part of what happened when Jesus rose from the dead is that when God the Father reached down and took him out of the tomb, he had done with our sins. On the cross he'd taken our sin. And if you take the verse that we've been looking at, not the one that's there now, but the one we've been looking at, the one for whom Jesus died and rose again, to mean that not only is it the truth that he died historically on the cross for our sins, but when we came to Christ and we came and got union with Christ and we were united to him at that moment, we were connected to his dying and we died with him in Christ. We sometimes highlight this one. We say, and we explain the communion, that one, the being baptised event of a part of the picture of the reason why we push them over backwards and lie them flat in the water. You don't have to. You could push them down this way or you could just sprinkle them as some do. As long as the water gets all over them, it really does keep the wording all right. But nonetheless, to push them down under the water and then raise them up is to evoke the picture of the fact that in your coming to Christ, not the actual water event doing it, that would make you a wet church of Christ, which is the ones that believe you've got to be baptised in water for it to really make you a Christian, but not because the water does it to you, but because you're coming to Christ. That somehow in the mystery of that moment of your coming to Jesus, for you becoming connected to Jesus, for you becoming someone that has come to Christ and he has come to you and he does it for you. And he takes you into his death and you die with him to all the rest, all the sin and the flesh in its pull. It may still have its go at you, but somehow you're going to have a great weapon to be able to say and answer, I have died to that in Jesus. And that is a way to explain Galatians 2.20, I have been crucified with Christ. Paul's speaking, this is not just a flight of theological fancy that some teachers might have, the idea of dying with Christ, at the moment of your coming to Christ, certainly wasn't happened to Paul before he got converted because he persecuted the church and he hated Christ and all the Christianity. But when Christ got him, he could then say, I have been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live and it's a recognition somehow or other that you've been equipped with something that's happened that made you a new creation. Now let's go back to our passage in 2 Corinthians, and just check up for a minute that this idea of being a new creation is not just a fancy I, as a theologian, have added into the verses. And let's read this through again. For the love of Christ controls us, his love, because we've concluded thus that one has died for all, therefore all were dead. So all the people that he died for have been dead in their sins. But he died for them all. And when he died for them all, he said that those who live will live for themselves, but for him who for their sake died and was raised. Now that's not just forensically, but also that in the act of coming and becoming united to Christ, you became one who has died and risen again to be a new creation. And let's go on to now, that's 14, 15, let's go on to verses 16 and 17, if that's possible. I didn't give them to Cameron earlier. Verses 16 and 17. And it's beautiful how this verse is right there, especially verse 17. A new creation, the old has, no, you've got it. Oh, I see, I've got to read the top. Therefore, verse 17 says, if anyone is in Christ, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, we've got to capture verse 17. Verse 17 is the, particularly the verse, well, let's, good, I'm glad you got verse 16. Verse 16 says, from now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh, meaning no one according to their human background alone. No longer is it such a big deal because they did this or didn't do that or they went to jail or didn't go to jail or because they've got a lot of training in being a car salesman, whatever it is that you know of them humanly. From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh, even though we once regarded, we regarded Christ according to the flesh. They looked at him according to his human background, according to what their eyes saw. They didn't understand spiritually him. We regard him thus no longer. And one of the things that really spices up the fellowship is when you ask God to give you a view of people different from what you might think of them because of human reasons. Now, Michelle won't mind my telling, but one of my good friends, who was a bit of a scallywag, teased her when I first brought her up to Brisbane and she went to college and did some courses there and she was very young. And so he publicly, when she was there amongst all the group, made a joke of how young she was and how much not really fitting into college and she was really upset. She was living with my parents. I wasn't there, but she was living with my parents and she went home with Dad, who was the principal of the college, and told him a long sob story of what this fellow had said about her publicly and she felt so bad. And he told her a lesson that she's never forgotten. And he said to her, you've got to think of that person, how Jesus sees him, and think of him in terms of how the Lord has a purpose for him and you've got to learn to pray for him. And if you pray for him, something will happen to you. Well, she did. She prayed for this particular fellow. He was a good friend of mine, but she was really annoyed at him, and when she prayed for him, all her emotions changed and now she loves him as one of my friends. And I've heard her tell him how much she appreciates him now. She regarded him thus no longer, the way he had been. And then verse 17, therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. That's how we are to regard others. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away, behold the new has come. And it's talking about something more mysterious, something more very subjective, something that is in the spiritual realm. That when people actually have Jesus die for them, he died, they died with him. And that's when they become Christians. They are dead to the things that they died to. They are a new person, a new creation, a new conceiver, every Christian as someone potentially such. And the lesson Michelle learned was to look at that person as he was going to become. He is actually a very charming person these days. And he's someone that we all need to learn about each other. Try and see if you can see the people as Jesus is wanting to make them in the new creation. The old has passed away, behold the new has come. And pray to that end to see what God will do with it. This is not an easy lesson and sometimes it's one you have to learn again and again. And I do. This is something that is about the mystery of the fellowship of the church that's influenced, is impacted by how we regard others as a new creation. The old has passed away, behold the new has come. And that's a part of this, that's the very 17th verse following the other ones we've just been looking at. It adds ammunition to how we should take it when it talks about the fact that Christ died for all, that all have been dead. And you can apply that to yourself. If he died for you, then he's taken your sin so that you can see yourself now as someone who is dead to it. It's a spiritual way of looking at yourself. Regard yourself, not as you were, but as Jesus now sees you to be in him. And I can't prove all of that quite as easily as the first part of what I told you tonight, but it's worth contemplating when you have that verse 17 and you put it next to Galatians 2.20 where Paul says, I have been crucified with Christ. That's the message for tonight and I'll have a prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you for the fact that we can be enthusiasts and the enthusiasm comes from Jesus. It's actually his enthusiasm that he was enthusiastic to come and die for all because all were dead. And he wants us to be new creations and to have a fellowship that is due to all our status in the new creation. We pray this in his name. Amen.