If you'll turn this morning to Colossians 2, you'll find the passage for this morning's sermon. You know the word sermon is just a Latin word that means word. Do you know that? That's all it is, so you'll find the word for the word. Some Latin translations of John chapter 1 in the prologue to the Gospel of John, you No, it says, in the beginning was the Word. It says, in the beginning was the sermon. And the sermon was with God, and the sermon was God. Somebody asked if I was going to do any church history this morning, and I said no, but I guess I lied. Colossians chapter 2, God's holy, inerrant, inspired, infallible, and unchanging word. For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you, and for those at Laodicea and all who have not seen me face to face, that their hearts may be encouraged being knit together in love to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments, for though I am absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the firmness of your faith in Christ. Therefore, as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk 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 by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. And you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in him. Therefore, let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. Let no one disqualify you insisting on asceticism and worship of angels and going on in detail about visions puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind and not holding fast to the head from whom the whole body nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God. If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to its regulations, do not handle, do not taste, do not touch, referring to things that all perish as they are used, according to human precepts and teachings? These indeed have an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism, and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. As far as the reading of God's word, may he bless this word and may he write it on our hearts. Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ, I had intended to preach a different part of Colossians 2, but as I was working through Colossians 2, I was really struck by verses 11 through 15, Again, as I have been many times, and so much so that I was convicted that I should better preach those verses, Colossians 2, 11-15, in a different sermon altogether than I had originally planned. Not that you're missing out on much. The title of this morning's message is, The Old You is Really Dead. The old you is really dead. The old you is really dead. And unlike the planned message, which was very imperfect, had only two points, this one has a certain perfection, it has three points. So I have more confirmation that this is the one. Paul writes to the congregation at Colossae in Western Asia Minor, so think of Turkey, basically modern day Turkey, probably the western and central parts of Turkey, around 60, between 60 and 62 AD. So he has not very many years yet to live. And he's writing to the Colossians about a particular problem that is difficult for us to understand fully, but we can put together most of the pieces. We can put together the pieces and get a picture. Have you ever built or put together a puzzle, and you've got all the various pieces, and then one of the kids or the grandkids comes through the room and hits the card table and everything goes flying. Of course, you probably don't have card tables, being godly people, but where I grew up, we had card tables. I forget. You don't have televisions either, right? They're all, when the Domini comes, you put them in the closet. Well, where I grew up, we had card tables. And we used to sometimes, when you were snowed in for weeks on end, or so it seemed, anyway, we'd put together a puzzle and then some kid, likely myself or someone else, comes through and hits the card table and everything goes flying. And then you pick it up and a bunch of pieces are missing. Well, that's sort of what we're doing here with Colossians. We're piecing together things, but some of the pieces are missing. But you can kind of tell it was a train, you know, you can see, even though some of the pieces are missing. Well, that's sort of what we're faced with here in Colossians. There were some Jews, some of whom perhaps believed in Jesus or said they believed in Jesus, but were seeking to put the Colossians under a law, a particular law. They were seeking to take them back to the ceremonial laws, and we know that from Colossians 2. Just towards the end, you can see they want to put them back under the food laws and the calendar, right, when it says the new moons and Sabbaths in verse 16. He's not talking about the weekly Sabbath there. If you trace out that expression, new moons and Sabbaths, you'll see that's a reference to the lunar Sabbath in the Jewish religious calendar. So that's a big clue. Trying to put them back under the Jewish religious calendar. Trying to put them back under the Jewish religious laws. There were three kinds of laws that God gave to the Israelites under Moses. There were ceremonial laws, religious laws, washing, hand-washing laws, and sacrificial laws, and so forth, purity laws. You can see those in Leviticus and other places. And then there were civil laws, right? break the Sabbath, which is in the sense of breaking a ceremonial law, but the civil consequences of breaking the Sabbath were to be killed, commit adultery, you'd be put to death, or you're supposed to be tried and, if you were found guilty, put to death. Well, all of those laws, civil and the ceremonial, and then, of course, underneath all of them, the moral law, which is summarized in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5. So there's the three kinds of laws, or three aspects of God's holy law. Well, all of those were fulfilled and the civil and the ceremonial laws are done. The civil and the ceremonial laws are done. In the Westminster Confession, we say, Reformed and Presbyterian people say, that they expired. That's the old-fashioned way of saying they died. They died. They're done. They've been nullified. They've been abrogated. They're expired. They breathe their last. But the moral law, of course, is perpetual because it reflects the nature of God and it's fixed, it can't be changed. It's not like under Moses you had to work six days and rest the seventh, but now under the new covenant you can do whatever you want. It's not like under Moses you couldn't commit adultery, but now under Christ you can. Well, of course not, that's absurd. The moral law is the moral law. So it's different from the civil and the ceremonial. So these Jews are trying to put the Christians, both Jewish and Gentile, back under these old Mosaic ceremonial laws and back under the religious calendar. But they're doing more than that. They think they have some special insight. They've been influenced by some Greek philosophy. They've been influenced by some ways of looking at the world, and they've sort of tied that all together. They've tried to synthesize it, the scholars say. Some non-Christian ideas or unbiblical ideas with some old biblical ideas that had expired. And so they were really making a mess. But how many of you, like I, as I was reading through Colossians 2, thought, you know, that sounds strangely familiar. It sounds strangely familiar. People puffed up, people making things up, people claiming visions, people talking about angels. You'd think that the Apostle Paul had just walked into your local Christian bookstore and described what he'd seen on the shelves. I don't know if you do that, I don't, frankly, I don't recommend that you do it. Honestly, there's not much edifying in those places anymore. It's all a lot of nonsense. I'm not saying there aren't any good Christian books, I'm just saying what they're selling you in the Christian bookstores is mostly a lot of nonsense. Do you know you have a fantastic library back there, by the way? Thank you, David, for curating that. You have one of the best libraries here, just in your own building, in Escondido. There's another good one over there at 1725 Bear Valley Parkway. You're welcome to use that, too. But in case you don't make it over there, if you just go back there, there's a treasure trove of good stuff that's carefully chosen for you to read. So you don't have to go into the bookstore where they put together a lot of weird stuff. I just about got into trouble. So this is the kind of stuff that these folks are putting on these Christians in Colossa. putting them back under the law for acceptance with God. And you see that up in verse 8 when he says, see to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy. Now, he's not talking about Aristotle or Plato or that kind of philosophy. He's talking here about the law, really, nature. And nature is a law. So I'm going to make a point here that might seem a little difficult, but I think you can get it. Just hang with me. If you step off a curb without looking, you step off into traffic without looking, what's likely to happen? Children, what do your mom and dad tell you? Are you allowed to just walk into traffic without looking? Are you allowed to walk into traffic? No. First thing your mom would know, you laugh. Of course, that's silly. Who would do that? Well, why don't you step off into traffic without looking? Well, because there are certain laws at work. We call them broadly physics. And the laws of physics say that if you step off into traffic without looking, you're likely to get hit by a 2,000-pound vehicle. And the laws of physics being what they are, you being, let's say, you're 65 pounds and you get hit by a 2,000-pound vehicle, that's not going to go well. You're going to flop up over the hood, and while you're doing that, you're going to break bones, and you're going to start bleeding, and then things just go downhill from there. Well, that's why mom and dad tell you to look before you step out into the street. that is an elemental principle. I would tell my students, you know, because in college, a lot of my students are being taught that there's no such thing as nature. Right? There's no such thing as nature and that you're, they keep talking about gender and I keep telling them there's no such thing, human beings don't have gender, they belong to a sex, male and female. Gender is a grammatical category. It's artificial, but sex is natural and it's determined by God, in the providence of God, by your chromosomes and indicated by certain natural indicators that the doctor sees when you first come out. Oh, look, it's a boy, it's a girl. It's not really rocket science. But my students come to me from university, and they think, well, this is all a bunch of stuff that people have just made up. And I said, if you think the world is just made up, climb to the top of the clock tower and jump off, and then come back to me and tell me how it went. I mean, not really. I always tell them, it's a thought experiment. Please don't do this. But were you, hypothetically, to do this, right? I don't have to do it to tell you how it would go because I know the laws of physics well enough to know that it wouldn't go well for you. That's what Paul's talking about here. In a sense, nature and law become one thing. When he says elemental principles, he's saying nature and law. They become one thing. And these smarty pants are trying to put the Colossians back under the law, both sort of influenced by Greek philosophy to some degree, and the old ceremonial laws from Moses. That's why he says what he says in verse 8. And in contrast, he says, no, I want to talk to you about Christ, he says, in whom the whole fullness, or all the fullness of deity dwells bodily. If you're looking for wisdom, if you're looking for truth, if you're looking for reality, you find it in Jesus Christ. All of that stuff to which they're trying to put on you, or under which they're trying to put you, that all belongs to the old you. That was all part of the old you. That's not part of who you are now. You hear people say this now, I'm not that guy. Well, if you did it, you are that guy. But Paul's saying here, no, things have so fundamentally changed for you in Christ that it's really true. You're not that guy anymore. You're not that woman. You're not that person. You're not that child anymore. The old you really is dead. Have you ever been inside a prison? What are the scariest sounds? I wish I could make that sound right now, but I can hear it in my head. Have you ever been inside a prison, and when you go inside, and when they close that first big gate, because it's the last thing you go through, when you're on your way out, it makes a loud clanging noise. And it's a noise that you'll never forget. It's like if you ever heard a rattlesnake, that's a noise you won't forget. If you ever heard a jail door clang behind you, that's a noise you don't forget. I've been inside not as an occupant, but as a visitor, just to make that clear. Not that I shouldn't have, but I never got caught. Statutes of limitations have expired. And we're not in Nebraska anymore. So, and they weren't federal crime. So when you go in, I went in to do some ministry for a guy who was in, as they say, the hole. And they brought him up out of the hole in shackles with a guard standing next to him with a shotgun. And I got to sit, it was the second time I'd visit him and I got to sit down and talk to him for a little bit. That's a visit I won't probably forget. that sound that you hear when you go in, that clanging noise. That clanging noise signals the end of your ability to go where you want, do what you want, when you want, the way you want. And you don't, so long as you're on the wrong side of that door, you never breathe free air. Paul's saying to you this morning that in Jesus Christ, you've gone out that door, not in that door. You were before in the prison, now you're out of the prison, And these smarty pants folks, they're trying to put you back in jail. And you're not in jail anymore. You're free. Because Paul says in Galatians that the law was like a pedagogue, a taskmaster, an old-fashioned school teacher who beats you. We were imprisoned in the law, but now we're free. So now think of it the other way. So you thought about going in. Now think, your time is up, and out you go. And the last sound you hear as you leave is the clanging of that jail door. But now that door, that same sound, it signals freedom. Because the walls are behind you. The jail is behind you. Now you are breathing free air, freely. That's you in Jesus Christ. If you don't get anything else this morning from that, you need to know that you're on this side of the jail wall. You're on this side of the jail wall. and you're breathing free air as a free man, free woman, free child, if you are in Jesus Christ, if you are believing in Jesus, if you are trusting in Jesus. So you say, well, that's great. How did all that happen? Well, look at verse 11. I want you to keep your Bibles open because we're going to go through this very carefully. In Him, that Him is Christ, so just substitute Christ. In Christ, also, you were circumcised, he says, with a handless circumcision. That's what he says, literally. You were circumcised with a handless circumcision. What does that mean? That's an interesting expression. First of all, we have to establish some facts. And again, I understand this is a mixed audience. So, Mom and Dad, you can maybe explain some of this at home in more detail if you get questions. But the circumcision is a medical procedure that's still sometimes done, but fundamentally a religious procedure, the removal of the foreskin from the male anatomy, and it's a symbol of the putting off of death and corruption and sin and a cutting into a relationship, a visible relationship, with Yahweh. This is the sacrament that God instituted under Abraham. He said, this is my covenant, he says, in Genesis 17, 10 through 14. This is my covenant in your flesh. On the eighth day, you will apply this sign, the cutting away of the foreskin, which was a ritual death. And you remember, and I probably said this to you before. I've been around long enough here now. You remember poor old man Abraham with that flint rock, right? No surgical tools, no lasers, a flint rock. What are you doing, Abraham? I'm sharpening a flint rock. Two weeks later, what are you doing, Abraham? I'm sharpening a flint rock. Because I'm going to perform surgery on myself without anesthesia. And so take the sign of the covenant and be cut off from the surrounding world. So one day, Paul says, Abraham was a Gentile, Ur of the Chaldees, and the moment he was circumcised, he was a Jew. That's why Paul says Abraham believed God when he was a Gentile, and so he's the father of all who believe Gentiles, and he believed God when he was a Jew, and so he's the father of all Jewish Christians as well. So in him, in Christ, we were circumcised. So this is clearly not a literal circumcision, because I hazard that some of you aren't medically, you haven't had that medical procedure performed. We're not talking here about a medical procedure at the moment, but he assumes you know what this is. In Christ, you were also circumcised. Well, what kind of circumcision? Well, with a circumcision made well on hands, a handless circumcision. Well, how did that happen? By the putting off of the body of the flesh. Well, of course, that's literally what happened in the act of circumcision, was the putting off of the body of the flesh. And here flesh is used with its moral or its ethical connotation. He's not now talking about biology or medicine. He's talking in figurative terms. He's talking in moral terms. He's talking in spiritual terms, right? The old you, he's saying, has been cut off. The old you has been cut off. So how great is the difference between the you that is now in Christ and the you that you were before you were in Christ? The difference is illustrated by circumcision. You are as separated from the old you as the foreskin is from the male anatomy by circumcision. That's pretty definitive. It's pretty definitive. It's really happened. That's a big change. So you say, well, that's all very interesting. So Paul invokes this ritual, ceremonial death, because that's what it was. That's really important that you understand that. It's a ritual, ceremonial, sacramental death. By the way, so is baptism. We'll come to that. Circumcision is a ritual, ceremonial, sacramental death. You've been circumcised in Christ. That's the first point. You've been identified in circumcision. Everybody who was circumcised was outwardly identified with a death that was to come. They were ritually dead. Abraham was ritually dead. In battle, of course, you armor up so that you don't get hurt. In circumcision, you are completely, utterly vulnerable. You're a dead man. And all of this, Paul says, anticipated Christ. It was looking forward to Christ. It was a bloody sign and seal. It was a bloody sign and seal. It was a bloody illustration of a circumcision that was to come. A bloody sign of a circumcision that was to come. Now, it's very important that you understand, nobody in all the 2,000 years between Abraham and Jesus who was ever circumcised was saved by virtue of being circumcised. Nobody who was ever circumcised was saved by virtue of being circumcised. If you don't believe me, read the Minor Prophets. Yeah, you people have been circumcised, but none of you believe the prophets say. God's unhappy with you. Outward circumcision is not that big a deal. Now, it was a big deal insofar as God had instituted it, but it didn't save anyone, it didn't regenerate anyone's heart, it didn't give anyone true faith, and it didn't unite them to Christ. It was a sign and a seal of what is true of those who have new life and who are united to Christ by his favor alone through faith alone. And that was true for the 2,000 years between Abraham and Jesus. But the Jews had turned circumcision into a badge of pride. Well, I'm circumcised. And you are unclean. Well, which was true. It's not like you did anything. You were eight days old. It's not like it changed your heart. What are you boasting about? It's a testimony to the need that we all have to be cleansed and to be saved. It's not anything in which to boast. Not about myself, anyway. But they were boasting about it. And they referred to the Gentiles as the uncircumcised. Paul says, you were circumcised with a handled circumcision. By putting off the body of the flesh, okay, what does that mean? Look at that next clause in verse 11. By the circumcision of Christ. Now, it can mean one of three things. I don't think it can mean all three. this is possibly a reference to the day in which Jesus was circumcised. I think that's most unlikely. It's possibly a figurative way of talking about us. Somehow, that's a possibility. I think that's less likely. The third possibility is that this is a reference to the crucifixion of Jesus. And I think that's the most likely way of reading this. This is a reference to the crucifixion of Jesus. So he's talking to the Colossians about what it means to be sanctified, what it means to be wise, what it means to be in Christ, what it means to be free, what it means to be a Christian. And the most important thing he wants them to know first off is that you have been circumcised in Christ when he was circumcised, not when he was eight days old. Because, frankly, that circumcision merely qualified him. Paul's very little interested in that. But he's very interested in the cross, as you'll see as we go on through the passage. So it's almost certain that he's referring here to Christ's circumcision when he was cut off. You know, Hebrews says that Jesus was crucified for us outside the camp. What does that mean to say outside the camp? children. You remember your Bible stories and a little bit about the Old Testament, the laws that God's people lived under? The rabbis counted as 613 laws. What happened if you were unclean? Where did you have to go if you touched a dead body? Right? You were unclean. You had to go outside the camp because you were unclean. What's the foreskin? It's unclean. Jesus, Hebrews says, became unclean for us and he was crucified for us outside the camp. He became, I don't want to be too pointed about this, but you can put the pieces together. He became uncleanness for us. All our filth, all our sins, all our corruption, it was all put on him and he was circumcised. He was cut off. He was put to death. That's what circumcision is. It's a death. He was put to death on the cross for you. For you. And when you are united to Christ by his favor alone, through faith alone, you have been cut off with him. You were circumcised with him. All of us, male and female. Female circumcision is female genital mutilation. It's an abominable practice of the Muslims. Christians don't do that sort of thing. But now, here, in Christ, there's no male, no female in Christ. And we've all benefited. We're all a part of that. It's all for us. It's all for us. Circumcised in Christ. The old you is really dead. You've been circumcised in Christ. But it gets better. It gets better. Not only have you been circumcised in Christ by the circumcision of Christ, look at verse 12, having been buried with him in baptism. By the way, notice how Paul thinks. Paul says, look, this is sanctification, and the first part of sanctification is death. Heidelberg Catechism, 88, 89, and 90. Dying of the old man, making alive of the new. You want to know, what is the Christian life? Heidelberg, 88, 89, and 90. Dying of the old man, making alive of the new. True sanctification is being cut off, is being circumcised. So he thinks of circumcision, and then he thinks of the cross, and then he thinks of baptism. What does that imply? In Paul's mind, death can be manifested in circumcision, It can be manifested in baptism and they're both united by the cross. Death is manifested in circumcision and in baptism and they both point to the cross. Circumcision pointed forward to the cross, baptism points back to the cross because the cross is the act of death. But do you notice how Paul moves so easily from circumcision to the cross to baptism? It's because Paul was reformed, to put it anachronistically. Paul, I'll put it even more pointedly, Paul's not a Baptist. A Baptist can't write these verses. I love my Baptist brothers and sisters, but they can't write these verses. Because in Paul's mind, these are the same thing in essence. Death looking forward, the actual death, and then a ritual death looking backwards. They're all connected. Are you with me? And so when you were baptized, this doesn't mean that you were actually put to death, but you were identified with Christ's death. And if you have received Christ and his benefits by grace alone through faith alone, then this is true of you. If you have received Christ, then this is true of you. If you haven't received Christ, then this death still waits for you. You're going to have to pay this penalty that this all symbolizes. But it gets even better. In whom, or in which, you were raised also with him. You were put to death in Christ, figuratively, and you've been raised with him. You've been circumcised with Christ, and you've been raised with Christ. You say, well, that's great. How did that happen? Well, look at verse 12. Look at this little phrase here. Through faith by, it should say, literally, through faith by the powerful working of God. Through faith. Through faith. The Colossian heretics were saying to the Christians, it's through law. It's through the elemental principles. It's through secret knowledge, arcane knowledge. It's through revelations, it's through angels, it's through all kinds of things. And Paul says, no, no, it's through faith. Faith unites you to Jesus, who was crucified for you, in whom then by faith you have also been crucified, in whom then by faith you've also been raised. The old you is really dead, and the corollary to that is the new you is really alive. You've been made alive with Christ. You ever seen, now with YouTube, you know, you can see everything. Not everything you should see, but you can see everything. And I'm sure if you go to YouTube, you can see video of somebody doing chest compressions, right? CPR. Right? And then suddenly, they start breathing again. That's you. You were dead. Right? Boom. God, the Holy Spirit, raised you from the dead. You were dead in sins and trespasses. You weren't moving. You weren't breathing. There was no pulse. There was no respiration. There was no brain activity. You were dead. God, the Holy Spirit, invaded your heart, soul, mind. And he made you alive. And he united you to Christ. You've been raised with him. That's why you can't do what you used to do. You can't do it. That was then, this is now. It's been cut off, it's been circumcised. That was the old you. The old you was really dead, the new you was really alive. By grace, not from anything you were done, not because you were baptized. Baptism is a sign of that, it's a seal of that, it's an illustration of that reality. It doesn't create the reality. If baptism created the reality that we should never have left Rome, if baptism creates the reality then we made a mistake in leaving Rome in the 16th century but we didn't make see here comes the churches but we didn't make a mistake when we left Rome because Rome said that baptism creates the reality and the truth is the gospel creates the reality God the Holy Spirit operates through the preaching of the Holy Gospel that's what we say in Heidelberg 65 and that's what Paul's saying here in Colossians 2.12 through faith by the powerful working of God, not by your cleverness or anything else, who raised him, that is Jesus, from the dead, and you, so the old who's really dead, the new you was really alive, circumcised in Christ, raised with Christ, and now freed, that's the last thing that he says here, and now freed with Christ. We touched on this so I can be brief. And you who were dead, verse 13. Look at your Bible, verse 13. And you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, now, speaking metaphorically, he doesn't really care. Paul doesn't actually care whether you're actually physically, medically circumcised. It's completely indifferent now. Please understand that. If the doctor says do it, do it. If he says don't do it, don't do it, it doesn't matter. whatever you want to do, total matter of freedom. We're talking about figures of speech here. This is a metaphor. You who were dead, were dead, not now. If you're in Christ, you're not dead in your trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your flesh. God, look at this, God made alive together with him. How? Well, you already said that, Paul. What does it mean here? Well, he goes on to say, watch this. After having forgiven us all our trespasses. Now we're back to the jail. You're not out on parole. When you get out on parole, you have to check in with your... First thing you have to do is go see your PO, your parole officer. You've got to check in every 30 days. And you're on parole until your parole expires. You're not on parole. And some of you live like you're on parole. I don't know. Yeah, I know he died. I know he was raised. Yeah, I believe, but I just feel like he's punishing me because I did this. You didn't get cancer because you did something bad. You got cancer because it's a fallen world. You didn't lose a loved one because you did something bad. You lost a loved one because it's a fallen world. You're not on probation. You're free. God loves you. Christ accepts you. It's not a test. Probation is when you're in class, right? You're taking a course. Well, you've got to pass the midterm. You're still on probation, right? You've got to pass the final. You've got to finish your term paper. You're still on probation. It's a covenant of works. You're kind of in, but not really, until you finish the work. It's all done. There's no probation. There's no covenant of works. It's a covenant of grace. You're freely received. The old you is really dead. The new you is really alive. The old you has been crucified. The new you has been raised. And the trespasses are all forgiven. You say, well, how do I know they're forgiven? And this is just so glorious. Have you ever looked at this? Look at verse 14. How do I know? You keep telling me I'm forgiven. I don't feel very forgiven. By canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. Christ canceled it because he paid for it. He paid your penalty. He did your time. He was in the chair so that you don't have to be if you're in Christ. If you're not in Christ, old Sparky's still waiting for you. And one day they're going to light that bad boy up and all the lights in town are going to dim when they throw the switch. when they did Charlie Starkweather in 1959 or 1960 in my hometown. It was an early spree killer. The lights around the Nebraska State Penitentiary dimmed when they threw the switch, and they cried old Charlie Starkweather. But if you're in Jesus, it's all done. It's all been canceled, and you're free. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. You don't feel forgiven? I understand that, because we still have sin, we're still corrupted, and we don't feel sometimes like we're forgiven. It's been nailed to the cross. And when you feel that way, then you say to yourself, when you say to the evil one, you say to your conscience, maybe your conscience is really worse than the evil one. The evil one, he's actually, you know what, get out. Get out of here. That's kind of big and kind of obvious, and you just say, I belong to Jesus, I've been washed with his blood, I've been baptized, I believe, we're united. But your conscience, your conscience is around you a lot more than the evil one is. I always told the girls, look, he's only one guy, he can only be at one place at one time, he's not God, but your conscience is with you all the time. And to your conscience you say, it's been nailed to the cross. I don't care what my feelings say, I don't care what my conscience says, it's been nailed to the cross. And look, he goes on, last thing. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and he put them to open shame by triumphing over them in him. God put all of whatever is against you, Paul says. It's all been done. It's all been canceled. It's all been conquered in Christ. When? On the cross. On the cross. Whatever you need, beloved, it's in Christ. Whatever wisdom you need, it's in Christ. The freedom that you need is in Christ. The salvation that you need is in Christ. Freedom from the old life is in Christ. The freedom of the new life is in Christ. And he earned it for you on the cross. Today, give thanks for the circumcision that Christ accomplished for you. and that he applied to you, and the baptism that he accomplished for you. He was baptized on the cross. The flood of judgment was poured out on him as the confession says, he is our Red Sea. We've gone through the judgment in Christ. It's all in Christ, and it's all yours, freely, through faith. Let's pray. We give you thanks this morning. Lord Jesus, for that terrible circumcision you experienced for us outside the camp at Golgotha. And we bless you and praise you. Renew us this morning by your Holy Spirit in that glorious and wonderful truth that we may live in it, not in order to be accepted, but because we have been accepted. Hear our prayer, for your name's sake. Amen.