Born Again, Baseball & Nicodemus: Any Questions? ~ John 3:1-17

3 Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. ² He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.” ³ Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born from above.”

          1.      My first encouragement to you from John’s Gospel is to “ask a question.”

Nicodemus was a rabbi, a teacher of some fame. In vs. 10, Jesus affirms him as “the” teacher [not a teacher] of Israel.” He was distinguished in the community. But he comes to Jesus at night – maybe he’s worried about his reputation, concerned about the view of temple authorities who might consider him a collaborator. Now “night” in John’s Gospel is more than a time but also a deep theological symbol that expresses Nicodemus’ relationship to the truth. “Darkness” reflects the realm of untruth and unbelief. The only other person who appears at night, in John, is Judas Iscariot, who departs into the night to betray Jesus (13:30).

Yet, despite the darkness, Nicodemus has made a serious choice, a courageous choice, a profound choice: he has stepped out of the darkness and into the light to ask a few questions. This interests John who seems very fascinated by how Jesus treats those with questions. We’re going to see that the darkness of misunderstanding and the shadows of questions don’t frighten Jesus - he welcomes those who stumble about in it and speaks to them. In fact, our story reveals a deep patience on the part of Jesus, for the questioner. Hey, do you have questions? No worries. Bring them out into the open to Jesus – let Nicodemus be your patron saint.

Nicodemus’ first question, albeit implicit, is a straight-forward one. Who are you? What are your credentials and what is your vision? How do you hope to bring about God’s kingdom?

Jesus’ response is unexpected. Instead of answering Nicodemus by authenticating himself he forces the rabbi to move to another level of inquiry, a new vision of what God is doing, a better question.

“No one can see this kingdom, he says, unless that one is born “anothen.”  The problem is that in Greek anothen can mean either “above” or “again.” This reminds me of the scene from Monty Python’s Life of Brian where a person listening way on the outskirts of the crowd to Jesus’ sermon on the mount, asks “Did he just say, ‘Blessed are the cheesemakers?’” Illus. I had a unchurched friend who was asked on his first visit to church, “Have you been washed in the blood?” “When do they do that to you?,” my friend replied. Maybe you’ve had either of those experiences – you’ve heard something crazy: birth, blood – it doesn’t make sense. Maybe you’ve misheard (Jesus’ statement “Blessed are the peacemakers), maybe you misunderstood (washed in the blood, Rev. 7), but don’t give up by walking away. Ask more questions – it’s the only way to learn about something so important. Illus. The former chaplain at Duke University, Will Willimon (tell story) “I can’t teach you the game of baseball in 5 min. what makes you think that I can explain God’s plan for the universe in 5 min.” The Gospel demands patience and questions. If you have questions, let Nicodemus’ story empower you. It means that “Huh?” can be an important part of the spiritual life. Questions allow us to move slower, to help clarify difficult things, to address particular concerns. Questions help us to recognize the seriousness of a thing. 

Nicodemus thankfully has the courage to continue.

⁴ “How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!” ⁵ Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. ⁶ Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. ⁷ You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born from above.’ ⁸ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

          2.      The second encouragement from John’s Gospel is that “if you don’t understand, that’s okay, ask again.”

Nicodemus continues to misunderstand. “What does this mean? How does it work?” he questions.

Jesus declares, “no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit.” Jesus’ answer is a humbling one because he exposes Nicodemus’ and my own lack of understanding by implicitly pointing out that he doesn’t know the Scriptures well enough. In a variety of places in the OT “water and Spirit” form a uniform metaphor among the prophets to express God’s final work of transforming the earth and all who are in it. Isaiah, speaking for God, declares, “For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit on your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants. (Is. 44:3). So “water and Spirit” are joined as life giving gifts of God. This was the point of our reading from Ezekiel 36:25-27. This born from above or born again image in the end make the same point. It challenges our heroic image of self-transformation. You do not birth yourself in this life and you can’t make yourself a Christian no matter how many boot straps you have or how hard you pull. Being born from above is not some horizontal experience of doing religious things but a vertical one in which the entire person needs to be remade by God.

So salvation is not your work but the the work of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit and the  Spirit, like the wind, Jesus tell us, is unpredictable and incomprehensible. Likewise, Jesus says, so it with those who have been born by that same Spirit. They are also surprising and inconceivable, in other words, because no one would predict this motley lot of sinners and non-Jews being a part of God’s plan. They are like the baby girl parents receive when the technician promised that the sonogram revealed a baby boy. They are the existence of triplets when the doctor said twins.  They are well – you.

⁹ “How can this be?” Nicodemus asked. ¹⁰ “You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things? ¹¹ Very truly I tell you, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. ¹² I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? ¹³ No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man. ¹⁴ Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, ¹⁵ that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.” ¹⁶ For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁷ For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
 

          3.      The third encouragement for you from John’s Gospel is that if you still don’t get what Jesus is saying “remember who He is and ask one of us.”

Unfortunately, Nicodemus moves from misunderstanding to bafflement, “how can this be?.” His commitment and obedience to Torah, to prayer and sacrifice, his understanding of Israel’s election are being overturned. Jesus’ explanation doesn’t allay his concerns but heightens them in a more poignant way. He still doesn’t understand, he says, which causes Jesus to yell, “Get out of here and quit bothering me, you idiot!” It doesn’t say that in your version? 

Now Jesus offers his credentials– those things which allow him to bill himself as a trustworthy heavenly obstetrician. The first credential is simple enough. He can speak about heavenly things because he’s been there. It’s a claim of sole authority – not one among many but the exclusive claim of “no one” but myself has come down. Many are embarrassed about such an astonishing claim or believe it to be too exclusive. It’s only exclusive if he practices his spiritual obstetrics on a select group, a particular community, one kind of patient. He is claiming that only he has what we need and if that’s so – the most offensive thing would be to say nothing, to remain quiet, to allow for people to suffer and die when you hold the cure. Jonas Salk would not have been inappropriate, or exclusive, or intolerant to say that no one else could cure polio. He invented the vaccine. He would be those things if he refused to share it. Jesus’ claim is even more important for our world – he is not simply some teacher, saying nice things, to make us better people. He is saying, “I am revealing God’s work, giving God’s truth, making known God’s plan – He succinctly states, later in John’s Gospel, “I and the father are one.”

It’s Jesus next credential, however, that shows he isn’t some insensitive, narrow minded individual. He describes his own message and mission using a story from Numbers 21, in which Moses built a serpent of bronze and elevated it among the Israelites so that whoever gazed on it would be healed from the snakes that bit them in the desert. Jesus’ credentials are his willingness to be lifted up – to suffer and die on the cross. He will be that One who heals our world by giving his life and rising again – all we have to do is look up.

In the end, however, despite Nicodemus’ concerns about birth and truth, salvation and election, it’s not his questions but Jesus’ “we” that bothers me. It’s the “we” in vs. 11 that sticks in my gut. “We’s” are like that. When Jesus says “we” in vs. 11 he means “us.” It may be Jesus’ work on behalf of God by the power of the Spirit that saves us. But we must also “speak of what we know” and “testify to what we have seen.”

This is why beginning in vs. 3:16 we are challenged by a startling reality – these following words SHOULD NOT BE IN RED – Jesus most likely didn’t say them, for example John 3:16 describes Jesus’ death in the past “so loved . . . gave”. We are now reading John’s “we” - his explanation, his witness to what Jesus has done. This is John taking his place beside Jesus as part of those “who testify to what they know and have seen.” He is becoming one of the witnesses, the explainers of what God has done on our behalf. And his witness is one of the most powerful and pithy descriptions of the Christian message.

All this happened, John writes, because God so loved the world. This is a critical verse that many misunderstand because we don’t get John’s use of the “the world” [kosmos]. For John, the world is not a reference to the natural world of trees, animals, and plants – a world defended by the Sierra Club and rightly understood as God’s beautiful creation. For John, kosmos is used 78 times in this Gospel to represent humanity in opposition to God. I think of that statement from the sixties, “That’s just the man trying to keep us down.”  - a statement so easily misunderstood. John 3:16 is better understood as “For God so loved his enemies, that he gave his one and only son.” Jesus came to earth not in order to change God’s mind and we are to be witnesses of that. Still don’t get it? That’s okay, ask again. Then again, maybe you do finally get it.

Song “Here am I, Lord”

“What shall I do?” that’s the hardest question we can ask. For some it’s continuing to ask your questions and for others it’s to quit stalling and give your answer.

"We don't speak sky": Why we need the Bible to Help us Know God

 This sermon was for our Noah's Sunday - the end of our week long Vacation Bible School. Because our church remains intentionally inter-generational, we are committed to involving our youth and children as worshiping partners rather than merely younger guests. To this end, each of the passages of Scripture were read by children in our church.

Psalm 19:1-6

¹ The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

² Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge.

³ They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them.

⁴ Yet their voice goes out into all the earth; their words to the ends of the world. In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun.

⁵ It is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, like a champion rejoicing to run his course.

⁶ It rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other; nothing is deprived of its blazing heat.

        1.      First, we learn that the heavens tell of a powerful God but none of us really speak sky.– vss. 1-6

The heavens speak of God’s glory, the Psalmist tells us; the sky his handiwork. We look up and we can’t help but be awed and amazed. And science has not come close to scratching that itch or explaining it away but simply fuels our amazement – the heavens get bigger and bigger, filled with more stuff, than we ever imagined: giant meteors, billions of stars and galaxies, new, far off planets. So the Psalmist was more right than he could know that they are a constant flow of knowledge for us witnessing to God’s glory, power, and grandeur.

But the question arises – what do the heavens actually tell us? Vs. 3 changes tone abruptly and says “they have no speech, they use no words.” They are a language that we simply don’t know – you may speak whale but you don’t speak sky, in other words. Illus. Marianne speaking Psalm 19 in French – Okay, that was my wife speaking French not sky – you heard her speaking but I imagine many of you couldn’t even make out specific words. Her speaking bears witness to her presence, that she’s here – but it doesn’t tell you anything about her because you don’t understand. She could have been saying some pretty nasty stuff about you. So the heavens bear witness to God but they don’t answer the more important questions like, “Who is this God? Is this God good? What does this God want from us or for us?”

I love the storm paintings by Michelle Manley.

She uses vivid colors to create landscapes filled with dark clouds swirling together into distant and powerful storms. The clouds seem to take on a life of their own. Upon quick glance, you might notice that the lines and shapes subtly take on the form of surreal creatures overpowering the sky. Seeing this kind of heavy storm approaching would cause any of us to run for cover and thunderstorms remind us how small we really are in this world. Storms in the sky are awe inspiring – many call them acts of God  - but they don’t speak to us in a meaningful way, don’t address our lives directly.  We may see the power of God in them but actually may shudder at who such a God appears to be – a surreal, menacing being.

Like Manley’s paintings, David is describing an ancient astronomy filled with awe about God’s power. God created the sun and set a tent for it, explaining night. He set it on its course. God did all of that. It’s beautiful like a groom, magnificent like an athlete. Yet, nothing, he declares, escapes its blazing heat. 

The Psalmist point is simple – the heavens are amazing and awesome, the sun –mindblowing, massive, scary, beautiful and intensely hot. The burning sun testifies to God’s glory – His presence and power, but on its own leaves us asking, “Who is this God?” “What are we to make of this blazing heat?”

19:7-10

⁷ The law of the Lord is perfect,
    refreshing the soul. The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple.

⁸ The precepts of the Lord are right,
    giving joy to the heart. The commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes.

⁹ The fear of the Lord is pure,
    enduring forever. The decrees of the Lord are firm, and all of them are righteous.

¹⁰ They are more precious than gold,
    than much pure gold; they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the honeycomb.

      2.      Second, we learn that this God loves us sweetly and richly by giving us His Word. – vss. 7-10

So the Psalmist looks no further to the heavens but points us to God’s Word to understand who this God truly is and what he wants for us. It’s interesting that though God made the heavens, and the earth, there is a personal stress in this section on the Scriptures by repeating the phrase – “of the LORD” as if the Psalmist wants us to know that this is the created thing whereby one truly encounters God. And what does God’s word reveal about what he wants for us? The Psalmist gives 6 experiences, 6 results of what the Scriptures should do for us: “refreshing the soul”; “making wise”; “giving joy to the heart”; “giving light to the eyes”; “more precious than gold”; “sweeter than honey.”

These phrases show what God wants for us, what should happen when we read the Bible and what we should be to others. So the measure that we understand the Bible – get what God is after will be measured by how we as a church community reflect these realities. What good is reading a cook book if you can’t or won’t cook? And the measure that we are refreshment for our world, a place of wisdom, a community of joy, will directly relate to our commitment to what God has said in this book.

The sky doesn’t begin to tell you that God loves everyone without first hearing it from Scripture– “The Lord is good to everyone. He showers compassion on all his creation.” Psalm 145:9. Jesus understood this reality of Scriptures’ purpose in Matthew 22 which quotes from Deut. and Leviticus making God’s love the centerpiece of Scripture’s intent and power. The sky won't teach you that God is good to everyone, or to love your enemies, His Word does that. And why would God give us treasure and sweets if He didn’t love us in the first place? 

19:11-14

¹¹ By them your servant is warned; in keeping them there is great reward.

¹² But who can discern their own errors? Forgive my hidden faults.

¹³ Keep your servant also from willful sins;
    may they not rule over me. Then I will be blameless, innocent of great transgression.

¹⁴ May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.

        3.      Third, we learn that reading God’s Word humbly leads us to dust. –vs. 11-14

If this is who God is and what God wants for me, “What should I do?,” the Psalmists asks.  He squarely faces the challenges to the human condition – self-deceit, the need for forgiveness, and the struggle with sin – the forces that rule over our lives. What should Bible reading do? What should happen when we understand that this God desires joy and wisdom for us? It should help me embrace my humanity by leading me to my own dust. In Genesis the Bible speaks theologically of how fragile and precious we are by stating that humans were made of dust from the earth filled with God’s breath. The word for soil or ground in Latin is humus. And it is the root word for humble, humility, and human. God’s Word, in other words, bends us toward the ground showing us our need, showing us who we are. It helps us to pray. It doesn’t inform us so that we can do life by ourselves or judge the faults of others but transforms us first and foremost by showing us that we are not God but that we need help– that we need a Rock and Redeemer. We can’t be blameless, the Psalmist tells us, until God does something – until God helps us “discern” our own errors, “keeps” us from sins, set us free from things that rule our lives. We need God because we can’t!

And the more we become a people of God’s Word will not necessarily make us more a people of success but a people who find it easier to discern our own errors, to confess our own wrong doing and to accept forgiveness because the person who learns the Bible well knows that you spell the word “sinner”- “m – e.” Illus. of the Apostle Paul’s maturity on “sin” – He moves from claims to being the greatest apostle (Galatians), least of the apostles (1 Corinthians), least of all God’s people (Ephesians), to 1 Tim. 1:15 “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners – of whom I am the worst.” The Bible reminds us that we need to pray because to be a human is to be “in need” and therefore something that we will always be in this life. It is to acknowledge with the Psalmist that we cannot “keep” ourselves. What does the Word of God look like in action?

Illus. Story about Abba Moses the Black, 4^th century Egyptian monk reveals to us the humble-making reality of reading God’s Word- When a brother committed a fault, Moses was invited to a meeting to discuss an appropriate penance, but refused to attend. When he was again called to the meeting, Moses took a leaking jug filled with water and carried it on his shoulder. When he arrived, the others asked why he was carrying the jug. He replied, “My sins run out behind me and I do not see them, but today I am coming to judge the errors of another.” On hearing this, the assembled brothers forgave the erring monk.

Let the Word of God direct you today – to forgiveness, to forgiving, and to prayer.

In the flesh: the crazy idea of Christian truth ~ Colossians 2:6-15

As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ. For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have come to fullness in him, who is the head of every ruler and authority. In him also you were circumcised with a spiritual circumcision, by putting off the body of the flesh in the circumcision of Christ; when you were buried with him in baptism, you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead. And when you were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive together with him, when he forgave us all our trespasses, erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it. ~ Colossians 2:6-15

Colossians is a book about truth and knowledge. Paul is preoccupied with these things in the church. He says that he has a desire to extol the “word of truth” vs. 1:6; that he desires and prays that they would be “filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding,” vs. 1:9. He dismisses “plausible arguments” that deceive, vs. 2:4, and deceptive philosophies that take people captive, vs. 2:8.

But the most startling claim is the pronouncement in chapter two, verses two and three, that the “knowledge of God’s mystery . . . is Christ himself, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” In Christ, he declares, “all the fullness of deity dwells bodily.” Truth, the Apostle declares, is a person.

So this isn’t some claim of 2+2=4 or the capital of Texas is Austin. It’s truth understood as intimacy and relationship with the One who created “all things visible and invisible” (1:16).  How do we know this God? Story of Dr. Ray Anderson and the first day of theology class. 

The object to be known determines the method of knowing. How do you get to know a person or a way of life? How do we come to know this One in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, who is truth? What method do we use? What is the quality of this relationship of truth?

          1.      Truth is carried by a community that has received Christ.

Paul begins our section with the claim that the church in Colossae has “received Christ Jesus”– Today many evangelicals use this phrase to mean “to become a Christian.” Believers receive Christ by accepting him into their hearts. That’s a nice sentiment. I am not suggesting, either, that it’s entirely wrong but that that’s not what the Apostle Paul is saying. He’s not talking about some fuzzy warm feeling about Jesus but the verb here in 2:6 “receive”, is a technical term taken over from Judaism which refers to the transmission of teaching from one person or generation to another. This connects directly to vs. 7 where we have the clause “as you were taught.” It is about learning the gospel story, understanding what Jesus has done, who Jesus is, and what Jesus taught, so that we are rooted, built up, established, and abounding in thanksgiving – the ongoing response to a life changing gift. It’s about learning about Jesus from others – from those who saw and heard him on the dusty roads of first century Palestine and from those who carry that story into the present.

Paul believed that the historical traditions about Jesus – that he himself received, c.f. 1 Cor. 15:3, what Jesus said and did, provided the foundation and the guidelines for the Colossians’ life as they must continue to do for us. He is the truth. It means to be rooted in the knowledge of a story that happened in time and space - that can be investigated, that welcomes all the tools of historical inquiry. It also means that the story of God is a historical vision that counters and challenges other stories, other philosophies. It means that what we know isn’t simply entrusted to experience but vigorous historical study and that knowledge isn’t simply about pastors but the whole church passing it on. For Paul, Jesus is the center of Christian doctrine and the Christian life. When we consider the wide variety of doctrinal issues and convictions, our beliefs and understandings must begin and take their shape from the life and teachings of Jesus as well as his death, burial and resurrection. It is no accident that in creeds, like the Apostles’ creed, the sections dealing with Christ are always the longest parts. Our beliefs and vision of Jesus provide meaning and content to all the other doctrines. He is, the whole NT declares, the self-disclosure of God in whom all the fullness of the God-head dwelled (Col. 1:19). All the doctrines of the Christian faith are related to Christ as spokes to the hub of a wheel. Paul makes the radical claim that we simply cannot talk about who God is, how we know God, what God is like, and what God wants with us without talking about God’s self-disclosure in Jesus Christ. So he doesn’t just show us the truth. He is the truth. How do I know who God is, what God thinks of me, what God wants from – I look at and listen to Jesus – this one talked about and shared by others.

It means bringing and knowing your Bible is an act of devotion not simply an acquisition of knowledge. It means that we need to unite together to teach our youth about Jesus because our faith is always something that we receive.

          2.      Truth is about a community that embodies the fullness of God

Knowing Jesus, then, is not simply a solitary, objective, dispassionate, investigation into the life of a Jewish man living in first century Palestine. It is interesting that Paul suggests that such truth is understood not so much by “plausible arguments” (2:4) but by a community of love, read vs. 2:2 – the community is “united in love so that they may have all the riches of assured understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, that is, Christ himself”. Truth, ingh the Christian sense, ties intimately to our commitment of fidelity to one another and our knowledge of Jesus ties not so much to personal devotion per se but to the commitment we have toward living it together. That’s why it’s important to remember that the “you” in our passage is not you singular but “you” plural referring to the church. Truth comes from the old English word troth – which finds its way in our word betrothal. That’s a vision of the kind of truth Paul is talking about. Parker Palmer puts it this way: “To know something or someone in truth is to enter troth with the known . . . to become betrothed, to engage the known with one’s whole self, an engagement one enters with attentiveness, care, and good will toward others. Christian truth, therefore, is both received and expressed corporately. It is incarnate in "his body" the church.

Greg Whitesides question – “Prove to me that God exists.” I told him that the claim of Christianity was far crazier than that and that the reality of God demanded a different way of knowing – “come to church with me,” I said. Paul makes the startling claim that not only is Jesus the fullness of God but that the church has also come to fullness in him. Moreover, he says, God made you alive. The truth of Jesus Christ – the fullness of God should be incarnated into a community which acts out the knowledge it has received toward one another and all of creation. It’sabout a people who are freed from the powers that seek to rule our lives, who act out the reality of what Jesus has done on their behalf.

Let’s be honest. Why do people leave the faith? They tend to abandon not because of intellectual problems with the Bible but because faith seems so irrelevant, judgmental, lacking in compassion or community. Because the community fails to reflect the startling claim that it has come to fullness in him, who is the head. What matters is not so much the “do nots” of religion, the power we might hold over society, but the astounding reality that God has made us alive together with him. 

Conclusion: truth is a community for Onesimus 

Paul has been arguing that the truth has been made known in Jesus Christ. He is the TRUTH – unapologetically, in its totality, and that he fills the church that faithfully roots itself in him. The truth, that is Christ, then incarnates, enfleshes in new relationships and exciting possibilities of forgiveness, love, acceptance, even challenge to the prevailing social order. It is the community that functions as God’s witness to the truth. And this truth challenges other philosophies, religious traditions even social and cultural practices. Nothing makes this more clear than Paul’s greeting and closing instructions. Go to 4:9: Onesimus, a runaway slave, has the honor of bringing Paul’s letter to the church and is commended as a “faithful and beloved brother.” The slave is now your brother. If Jesus forgives us, if the creator came into a world and dwelt among us, and died for our sins, then the slave is your brother. Paul writing to Onesimus’ former master writes in the book Philemon:

For this is perhaps why he was parted from you for a while, that you might have him back forever, no longer as a slave, as a beloved brother—especially to me, but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord. (Phil. 1:16). Let the word of Christ be “in the flesh” in your life today. Amen.