Going the Distance

In Genesis chapter 20 or 32, I'd like for you to turn there. It's one of those remarkable stories from the Old Testament, from the book of Genesis, that sometimes leaves more questions than it gives answers, but it's always been an interesting one for me to look at.

It's where Jacob wrestled all night with an angel that we come to know by looking at it carefully. It must have been God, or the one who became Christ, as the account gives it. Jacob was on his way home after having been gone a number of years, living in the area of his uncle, Laban, in the subsequent story and the events there. He had to flee because of the trickery and chicanery that he pulled on his brother Esau.

Then he mixed up with Laban, who was even worse, and cheated him out of his wages. Finally, with the family, two wives, and all the kids, thirteen kids, Jacob decided it was time to go home. He was on his way back home. He's coming down through the area that is present-day Jordan, near the Jabach River, which is still easily identified there in Jordan. You can see to this day, somewhere along that river, he stopped for the night with his sons and wives, as it begins in verse 22. He took them over the brook and sent over what he had. While he was left alone, in verse 24, a man wrestled with him until the breaking of day.

When he saw that he did not prevail against him, he touched the socket of his hip. All of a sudden, he's got a wrestling match going on. That's why some of the questions remain about this story that you see. He automatically got himself into a match all night long. He touched the socket of his hip, and the socket of Jacob's hip was out of joint, as he wrestled with him. He said, Let me go, for the day breaks. But he said, I will not let you go, unless you bless me.

So he said to him, What is your name? And he said, Jacob. And he said, Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel. For you have struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed. And the name Israel means a prince of God, and he changed his name. So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, for I have seen God face to face.

And that leads us to how we know that this was not just an ordinary man or just an ordinary angel, but the one who became Christ, and some type of an appearance there. And we have to leave that for God to work out the details, which he's capable of doing. But Jacob said, My life is preserved. And just as he crossed over a pinuel, the sun rose on him, and he limped on his hip.

Therefore, to this day, the children of Israel do not eat the muscle that shrank, which is on the hip socket, because he touched the socket of Jacob's hip and the muscle that shrank. Here's an older and wiser Jacob, wrestling all night with God. And he comes to a point where he receives a blessing, and he says, You have struggled with man and God, and have prevailed.

What Jacob did was he went the distance. In boxing matches and wrestling terms like this, when the opponents go the distance, they go the full 15 rounds in a professional bout. It's called going the distance, to where there's no decision by knockout, and it has to be decided by the judges on points. Jacob went the distance here all night in this struggle with God. It becomes something far larger than just an encounter here on the side of a river. As we look at this, there are many lessons that we can draw, but perhaps for today, and the purposes of this sermon, let's look at just the human dimension of it with Jacob and what his life was like.

Here he was struggling with God in this sense, and typifying what life is all about in many ways, a struggle. Jacob's life truly was that. Jacob struggled all night with God. For you and I to be successful spiritually, it involves us struggling at times with God in a right sense.

Not that we're struggling in opposition, but although at times we do, don't we? Because of our nature, and some of the issues that we have to be brought to understand, or even our struggle with God, becomes just that. As Jacob here did this, ultimately success in our struggle spiritually with God is when we submit to God, and we yield to God. Jacob's life was one that was defined by struggle with people, even from the womb.

If you remember his story, he grabbed his brother's heel as he was coming out of his mother's womb, and that's how he got his name, Jacob. And it's changed here after decades.

Jacob was probably in his mid-fifties or more, older. We think of him perhaps in middle age, but now he was beyond that. He was probably in his fifties at this point in his life. So he had, as I said, 13 children, 2 wives, and 2 concubines by which all this took place. And if you look at his life, he struggled with his brother, he had struggled with his father, he struggled with his uncle Laban, and he struggled with his sons. When you look at the whole story of Jacob, and he also struggled with God, because he had lessons to learn.

When it came to God, it took him a long time, a long journey, to face God and to submit to the will of God and to the power of God. And this is, in a sense, a culminating aspect of it, even though he had other struggles. He is a different man. He's mellowed by the years and the experiences when he comes to this particular point in time. And it's a very good story for us to look at and to understand and to draw any number of lessons of our life.

But for the one that I want to look at here this morning, it just defines the struggle of life and the issues that we all deal with and have to come face to face with. And as I said, even at times, a struggle that is one with God, to obey God, to understand God. Why do we have to go through this? Or why is this happening to me? Or why does this bad thing happen to a good person? All the different questions that we might have as we struggle spiritually at times to try to understand what this life is all about.

Someone was saying to me, one of my friends in the ministry talking with someone in recent months, and this person, this couple in their congregation, was asking the question, What's this all about? These are two that had grown up in the church, been a part of the Church of God for 40 plus years, all their life, and been through all the permutations of the church experience in that period of time. And recently saying, what's this all about? Why this struggle at times that we have to replicate every so often? And that can be on a corporate level, that can be church-wide, that can certainly be individually, as we struggle with God, or as we struggle with issues in our life.

Jesus Christ knew that it would be that way among His followers, and that His followers, His disciples, and those who would come, would need the help, the encouragement along that journey to meet the challenges of life as part of the elect.

And Christ understood that, and He did not leave this orb, this realm of the physical existence, without promising to His disciples, and thus to us, to the church, the ability, the wherewithal, if you will, the power to deal with those struggles.

Turn, if you will, back to John 14. We read this on the night of the Passover. But it's not just a Scripture to read only on Passover. It is a Scripture that applies every day of the year. As Christ described to His disciples that night, what they would need and what they would have to carry on their lives. And in their particular case, as apostles, in taking the Gospel to the world and dealing with the issues that would come, that came in very, very importantly. And it comes into our lives as well, beginning in verse 15.

He said, If you love Me, keep My commandments, and I will pray the Father, and He will give you another helper, that He may abide with you forever, the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive. Because it neither sees Him nor knows Him, but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans. I will come. He gets very, very personal here. Christ says, I will come. And He says, I will not leave you as an orphan. And the Spirit of Truth.

Now, the Greek part of this, and how you understand why the Holy Spirit is described as a hymn, in this sense, and the gender aspect of it, is not for me to go into here today. That's easily understood in terms of how the Greek is constructed. That's not my focus here today.

What Christ is promising is that I will come to you. And He does get very, very specific. In chapter 16 and verse 14, as He speaks of the Spirit of Truth, verse 13, the Spirit of Truth has come and will guide you into all the truth. In verse 14, He will glorify me, for He will take of what is mine and declare it to you.

All things that the Father has are mine. Therefore, I say that He will take of mine and declare it. A little while and you will not see me. And again, a little while and you will see me, because I go to the Father.

The disciples wondered about this in their time. In chapter 15 and verse 26, another reference is made here. He says, When the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of Truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of me. And you will also bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning. So here He speaks of the Holy Spirit and aspects of the work, the effect of the Holy Spirit here. And these are not the only scriptures that define the work of the Holy Spirit. Many, many others do throughout the New Testament and the Old Testament as well.

And we understand that to be the power of God. We understand that to be Christ living His life within us. But as we look at this word and this promise from Christ, it's very important that we understand something here. I think as it applies to the Days of Unleavened Bread. And our struggle with sin, our struggle with life, and our struggle with all the various issues that come across, because Christ did not leave His people without power, without something very, very important in this whole process.

And it's understanding what He says here that is important to us. The word here, helper or the Spirit, comes from a Greek word, and this is the only Greek you'll have today. Parakletos. P-A-R-A-K-L-E-T-O-S. Parakletos. And I remember first learning about it, and I didn't get around to doing it. I probably should have pulled my college Bible off my shelf. I probably have in the margins written that this means comforter, or one who goes alongside to help, which is a common understanding that we've always used and explained within the Church when we read through these particular verses and explain the work of the Holy Spirit, a comforter.

And indeed, as you would look into any reference work, those are words that are used to describe the effect of the Spirit, the work of the Spirit, and they are helpful, but not completely so. As with any Greek or Hebrew word, and even English words, things change, meanings change and adapt over the years when you start really looking into the etymological derivation of various words, which in itself is a very interesting study. But in this one in particular, it's one that sometimes if we just look at comforter, or one who goes alongside to help, we don't get the full meaning of what this word is and what really Christ was telling us and how we should understand the impact of this discourse here on the 90 died, and again, it's meaning for us because that word does not tell us everything.

We use the word comfort today. It means it can mean something completely different from the way it was even first used in the early English translations of the Bible, and the word comfort was used to translate parikletos into the earliest of the English translations, John Wycliffe being one.

He used that word, comfort, but it doesn't today mean the same thing that it did even in Wycliffe's time in the 15th or 16th century. Today, comfort has a different meaning for us in the way we use it in English. We tend to think of the word comfort by meaning sympathy. We extend sympathy or comfort someone in a time of distress or a time of loss. That's how we define or use the word comfort or help or soul us in a time of sorrow or distress. That's the way the usage is in English today, but applying it to the word parikletos or parikletos, I have to get my Greek right here, parikletos, it's different.

Understanding what this is talking about opens up a whole other world today because if we talk just about something that comforts or consoles, a bowl of soup can do that. Good is what Campbell said. But the Holy Spirit is not chicken soup for the soul. Understand that. It is not chicken soup for the soul. The word parikletos in the Greek has to do with power and courage. The power and the courage to cope with daily life is really what it means and what it is bringing out. Looking at the word is having the effect of helping us to stay on our feet.

It brings us really closer to the meaning that Christ wanted to convey that night to his disciples. Life is always full of challenges, as we know. Ready to just knock us off our feet. Twists and turns, things coming out of left field, people, challenges, just like Laban had, sometimes self-generated, sometimes brought on us by circumstances beyond our control.

But life is full of challenges. And the trick, as we all know, is to stay on our feet. Keep moving forward. Stay in the game. Go the distance. Stay in the fight. And that's what Christ himself was showing. After all, he was going off into the greatest battle of his life, his short life, in the period of suffering and then leading up to his death. And he knew it would not get any better for his disciples. He knew what life was like. He had experienced suffering already. He had seen firsthand what life was like. And he experienced it and understood it now from the physical human perspective when he came in the flesh.

And he was ensuring that his disciples knew that they would not be left orphans. You know, when my mother died 16 years ago now, we were standing at her casket, my sister and I, and she turned and she said, now we're orphans. I hadn't thought of it that way. My father died four or five years earlier. And she turned and she said, now we're orphans. And that's true. When your last parent dies, you're orphaned, even if you're 60 years old.

And, you know, you have to deal with that thought and work through it. Christ said, you will not be left as orphans. I will come to you and I will be with you. Christ wants us to stay on our feet so we can win, so we can experience success. And it is a fight. Life is that engagement. You know, we've all seen the movie Rocky. Remember Rocky I when it came out in the mid-70s, I guess? Now, since then, there's been Rocky II, III, X, XV. But Rocky I was the best, just like most movies when they try to make 15 sequels out of them.

They get kind of thin. Rocky I was the best. And you remember the fight scene? Toward the end of the movie when he finally got into the ring with Apollo Creed. And as that fight, they staged it and went along. They were just pummeling each other, right and left, both of them. Neither one would give up. Finally, Apollo Creed landed a punch to Rocky Balboa and decked him. And he was on the corner, in the corner of his ring, bloody, nose broken, beaten, stuffings out of him.

And Apollo Creed goes back to his corner. Rocky's right there in front of his trainer. His trainer says, don't get up! Don't get up! He knew he was just beaten. And what does Rocky do? He got up. And Apollo Creed Turner couldn't believe it. Well, I think you remember the story. Rocky lost the match on a decision, but he won everybody's heart. Most importantly, Adrian's.

What we really like about Rocky Balboa was that he kept getting up. And that he got up. He would not be defeated. He could not be kept down.

And the Holy Spirit really is like that. Far beyond just that image of a fight. But life is like a fight. And the Holy Spirit, the paracletus that Christ was talking about here, is that constant, illuminating, strengthening, enabling presence of Christ in us. To help us keep getting up. To help us meet the challenges. And to help us succeed. It is Christ in us through the Holy Spirit that exhorts us to the highest of noble deeds.

And the ability to overcome sin. And to put it out.

If we are ever to be successful in overcoming sin, and putting out the spiritual leaven, that is the true and most important leaven and lesson from this day, it will be when we put on the life of God, the life of Christ within us. To push out. The old analogy still is very, very valid. You've got a glass pail full of dirty water. The best way to get that dirty water out is to pour clean water in. And keep pouring it in. Pouring in the clean water until it pushes out all the dirt. And the water clears up. That's not how overcoming sin, putting off the bad habits, is like. To the degree we put on Christ and His Spirit within us, that pericletos, that power, that ennobling, enabling force, we then are able to overcome. That is what Christ was talking about here. This is how the Word was to be understood in His day and really for us today, if we really want to understand the fullest meaning. William Barclay and his work on New Testament words has a very good chapter on this subject. Obviously, it's the basis for part of this discussion on the Greek word here. I would just like to read a few things that he brings out in his commentary on his book, The New Testament Words, on this word, pericletos. He says, and Barclay is always very good at bringing in the references in ancient Greek literature as to how various words that wound up in the Bible, New Testament, were originally used to convey the meaning that we should understand as Christians. But he talks about this word being in its original use a word that was a rallying call. It was a rally call. It was a word that meant to encourage and call us to battle, to call people to engage in life. He says, as it was used in various Greek works, it was used to urge people on, forward. Pericletos is the word used of words which send fearful and timorous and hesitant soldiers and sailors courageously into battle. Pericletos is therefore an encourager, one who puts courage into the faint-hearted, one who nerves the feeble arm for fight, one who makes a very ordinary man cope gallantly with a perilous and dangerous situation. That's what pericletos means. To put it in modern language, the Holy Spirit makes men able to cope with life. The Holy Spirit is, in fact, the fulfillment of the promise in Matthew 28, 20, Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Pericletos, he says, is the helper of men. It is the comfort, and that is also a part of the meaning, which enables a man to pass the breaking point and not to break.

When we describe the glorified Christ as our pericletos, we mean that he is there to speak for us before God, as our advocate. The word is the word for exhorting men to noble deeds and high thoughts. It is especially the word of courage before battle. Life is always calling us into battle, and the one who makes us able to stand up to the opposing forces to cope with life and to conquer life is the pericletos. The Holy Spirit, who is none other than the presence and the power of the risen Jesus Christ. I think he gets that very, very well in understanding how this was to be used and applied as Christ used it here. Time and time again, it is used to describe a speech that is given to soldiers about to go into battle, urging them to accept its risks and have the courage to move forward. If you want another movie analogy that always seems to help us, quite frankly, in our modern life, understand some of these things, and that is why they are so successful, some of the better ones. Think of the movie Braveheart, William Wallace, played by Mel Gibson. I forget all of his other antics.

On his horse, the Battle of Sterling, riding back and forth in front of the lines of the Scots, encouraging them against the English lined up on the other side of the hill. And that stirring speech, which indeed you can't listen to that speech and not be moved. If you haven't seen it for a while, you can find it on YouTube real quick. But it's in the same vein as the speech at Agincourt from Shakespeare's Henry V. Of a man encouraging people into battle to not be fearful, to not go home, but to be able to realize that years from this point, you will be able to say you were here, you did the job, you did what needed to be done. This is how Mel Gibson on that horse, or Kenneth Branagh before the English troops in another time and place, urging them to go into battle against the French, or wherever it may be, is the same meaning and effect of the word that Christ was using here, pericletos, to encourage us to keep moving forward, to have the courage to engage in life and its challenges. And not get depressed, not get discouraged, and not give up. It is a power that ennobles us to good, strong, high deeds of sacrifice, of service, of Christlike conduct, and Christlike relationships. This is what Jesus is talking about. This is the power to stand up to the challenges of life and to cope with life, conquer, and succeed. And it is what these days are all about. The presence and the power of Jesus Christ in us to help us overcome sin. Because, as we all know, we cannot do it ourselves, and should never be eaten up with the guilt that comes every year when we find ourselves staring ourselves face to face with the same issues. It is when the people of God, when you and I finally come to the point where we understand that we cannot do it ourselves, and that we need to turn to the risen Christ, and use that power that is within us by the Holy Spirit, His life, and we submit to that, and we yield to it, and we get ourselves out of the way. We get our ambition. We get our idiocy, our stubbornness, out of the way of our relationship with God, our relationship with one another. And we begin more to struggle with that, and we recognize that very power that is within us, that we can begin to truly understand the meaning of these festivals, these days of unleavened bread, in a spiritual sense, which is the most important. And we understand that as we put out the leaven, the only way we can put in unleavened bread of sincerity and truth is by submitting ourselves in the struggle of life to Christ. And finally, in a sense, asking for that blessing. We come to recognize it, just like Jacob did. Jacob came to a defining moment in his life there. You want to use it as that time there where he struggled all night, went the distance with the man, and then asked for a blessing and got it, and it was signified by the change of his name. That truly would be a defining moment for any of us, to have our name changed to something like that. When we come to that, and we stop trying to do it the way we've always done it, then we can begin to make some progress. Then the work of God can really be done in us, changing and converting us. And collectively, the people of God can be the work that Ephesians 2 says we should be, called to good works, through whom that power, that ennobling and enabling spirit can be done. The same power, the same spirit, by which Christ was raised from the dead. Ephesians chapter 2.

Chapter 1, I'm sorry. Ephesians 1 and verse 19. I read this to the congregation here on the Sabbath, but I'll read it again for all of us assembled here. As Paul references the power by which Christ was raised from the dead on that morning, three days and three nights after his death. And what is the exceeding greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he worked in Christ, when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places. It is that power by which the Father raised Christ from the dead that we have within us today, with baptism, with repentance, with the laying on of hands. That is the same power that we have. And our success depends on our using it. So we come to the last day of a period of reflection and a period of examination that God gives to us every year. And for seven days, this time tomorrow, we'll be gobbling up those donuts or bagels or whatever it might be legitimately and moving on. But the lesson, I hope, will not be lost on us because the lesson of this period is for every day of the year. It is a lesson of the power of God that is available to us. Let's go back to a scripture that we began with a few weeks ago in whatever form or fashion that may have been presented in a sermonette or a sermon in 2 Corinthians 13.

2 Corinthians 13.

Verses 4 and 5, verse 5 especially, where Paul says to the church, Examine yourselves as to whether you're in the faith. I know it was read here in Indianapolis. Those of you in Lafayette or out in Terre Haute, I think it was read in Fort Wayne as well as part of an exhortation to examination, which fits. I've kept coming back to this verse and actually verses 4 and 5 over this period of time personally and a few times I've referenced them already. I keep coming back to this section because initially when I started thinking about my messages for the Holy Days, I thought I'd go through Corinthians or somehow give two messages that were based in Corinthians and then I gave that up and decided to take a different approach.

The thought was inspired by my reading of this verse 4 from the J.B. Phillips translation of the scriptures. Just thinking about the message of the book, because I went back and read some of the chapters leading up to what Paul said. One of the principles we all know about Bible study is to look at the context. Look at the context of a verse or a word or a situation. There's always meaning there and understanding. In this case, the context of this verse or this admonition to examine ourselves is in really two whole books, 1 and 2 Corinthians. Paul uses that word to come down to this whole thing. When he says, examine yourselves, what he's really saying to the church at Corinth, he's really making a very strong pointed challenge to them. He's saying, examine yourselves is really what he's saying because they have been examining him. When you read 2 Corinthians, it's replete with his defense of himself as an apostle, as a minister in his ministry. 2 Corinthians came up as a result of a very corrective 1 Corinthians, where he had to chase in them and deal with them because they had a problem with morality in their midst. They had heresy. Some didn't believe in the resurrection. They had the Passover turned around and it was more of a festive meal than a solemn occasion. He had to deal with some very strict issues. He even got into the bedroom with them and dealt with some matters of their sexual relationship in 1 Corinthians. It's always a fascinating book to study. Then he writes 2 Corinthians to follow up to make sure that the relationship is still okay there. But feedback that he got, and feedback today, we really get feedback today in today's society. That's a buzzword in business and in the church. We all like to give feedback.

Like this like this. Or sometimes even more than that. That's fine. That's the way it is. We get lots of feedback. Paul was getting feedback. That's why 2 Corinthians. But he finally comes down and he says, you examine yourselves. You examine yourselves and not me. He says, examine yourselves individually and quit examining each other. That's really what he's saying here in verse 5. Because if you read it again in the Phillips translation, I'll read it again to you in 2 Corinthians 13 and verse 4. He says, I speak by the power of Christ. It will be, in fact, when he says, when he comes, a proof that I speak by the power of Christ. They thought he was a bit weak. Strong only in letters from a far distance, but weak when he came in person. He says, I will speak by the power of Christ. And then he said, the Phillips really gets it right, I think. The Christ you have to deal with is not a weak person outside you, but a tremendous power inside you. And then he goes on to say, you should be looking at yourselves to make sure that you are really Christ's. It is therefore, it is yourselves that you should be testing, not me, he says. You ought to know by this time that Christ is in you unless you're not real Christians at all. This is some of the most pointed language that a minister could say to a group in the church. You should know that Christ is in you or you are not Christians, he says. These are Paul's strong words, they're Christ's words really, to us all. Either we have that in us, that power, or we're not really Christian. And when you have applied your test, he says, I am confident that you will soon find that I myself am a genuine Christian. I pray, God, that you may find the right answer to your test. Not because I have any need of your approval, but because I earnestly want you to find the right answer. Even if that should make me no real Christian. For after all, we can make no progress against the truth, we can only work for the truth. That's the Phillips translation, verses 5 through 8. But again, read this section and read the context and understand that Paul is basically issuing them a very strong challenge. To examine yourselves. Quit examining me, he says. And quit examining one another in a wrong way, which is part of their problem too, and which is always a part of the problem among the people of God. Especially when you get too pharisaical, or legalism raises its ugly head among the people of God. And we start criticizing and judging one another, rather than examining ourselves. It's a very strong language that Paul is using here, but when he says, The Christ you have to deal with is not a weak person outside you, but a tremendous power inside you. That's the real lesson. That's what he wanted everyone in Corinth to focus on, and it's what you and I should focus on. Focus on the power of Christ within us, the paracletus. The power that encourages us to stand up, to get back up when we fall down, or we may be knocked down. When we're tired, when we're beaten, to get back up and to not stay down. To stay engaged in life, to stay engaged with Christianity, with godly conduct, with the life of the Spirit within us, with our unique special calling as the elect, to figure out what it is all about, and to come to a personal conclusion to understand why things happen, why me, why now, why am I calling at this time and place. And when we do, with God's help within us, as we remove ourselves from the picture and determine at some point, you know what? This year I'm going to try it differently.

I'm not going to retaliate the way I used to, or I'm going to really try to change the way my thought processes react.

When I'm offended, when I get angry, when I see a problem, or when something happens, I'll go to that person. I'll think of it differently. I'll first go to God. I'll get myself out of the way and I will let the power of Christ in me. That tremendous power encouraged me to a different reaction, to a different work. And instead of adding more dirty water to the pail, I'll add some clear water, the Spirit of God. That's what the struggle is all about. And it's an all-night struggle, just like Jacob's was, to get to the point where we prevail with God, where we can make a breakthrough, and even if we're into it, have our name changed.

Christ does say to some of the churches there in Revelation that, I will give you a new name, part of the promise to one of them. I'll give you a new name. Those who do prevail will have a new name. God will that is all of us, to submit to His rule in our lives, to submit in the struggle with Christ in us, and to get ourselves out of the way. A lot of us have come a long way, and brethren, a lot of you have made tremendous strides in progress over the years, at least in my tenure with you, those of you that I know. The fact that we're all still together, the fact that we are pushing forward, and from what I do know, and personal relationships of counseling and working with you, in 21 years, for some of you, and 28, 29 years for others of you, from the Fort Wayne area, I always say it's, for having been around so long, with some areas, that just the fact that you show up and sit is a success. You're not moving toward me. You're not throwing tomatoes or anything. But I can say that there has been that progress.

And, as we look around among ourselves, we can look and see more of that among ourselves, and see those. But then, let us all stop and think about ourselves, how much more could be done, if we'd get ourselves out of the way even more, and submit personally in that struggle with Christ.

To typify what Jacob did all night, and to use that power to be ennobled, to charge ahead, to get back up, to give it another try, to exercise a little bit more patience, a little less anger, a little bit more trust, even when trust may not be warranted. And to let Christ's work within us bring us to a nobler approach, it might work. It might work better than anything else that may be before us. That is the lesson. That's where we are. We can't put sin out by ourselves. It takes the life of Christ within us, pushing out the bad. And when we get out of the way, Christ can do His work. If we can get out of the way and go the distance with Christ, then the struggle will be worth it. And God will help us. And indeed, we will then be completely, spiritually, unleavened. Thank you.