He Gave Himself For Me

Well, good morning. Open your Bible to Galatians 2. We're going to read verses 15 down to 21. The focus of today is going to be on verses 20 and 21. But to give context, we're going to read beginning at verse 15.

Galatians 2 .15. We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners. Yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ. So also we have believed in Jesus Christ in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law.

Because by the works of the law, no one will be justified. But if in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we too were found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not. For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor.

For through the law, I died to the law so that I might live to God. I've been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

I do not nullify the grace of God. For if justification were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose. Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. We come to you this morning in Jesus' name, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

And we know, Lord, that in the name of Jesus Christ, every knee should bow in heaven, on earth and under the earth, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

Father, as we examine this text today, one of the most compelling, one of the most beautiful, one of the most striking and heart-wrenching passages in Scripture, I pray that you would keep me from error.

I pray that you would open the hearts of these men to the truth. And I pray, Lord, that they would understand the depth of sin and the necessity of Christ. For, Lord, we know that Jesus Christ did not die in vain.

And it's in his name we pray. Amen. Amen. I look out and see a lot of you who I don't remember seeing necessarily last week. So, I know work blessings take you away and sometimes you miss class. So, sometimes it is hard preaching verse by verse because you miss so much.

Whether you're working or what, or whether you're maybe new here. And so, I almost feel compelled every time I come to give an overview of what we have talked about. Because I don't want anyone to be left behind.

Justification by Faith Alone in Galatians

So, I'm going to very briefly bring you up to speed as to where we are. I'm a verse by verse expositor. That means my main job is to preach the Word of God one line at a time. Literally one verse at a time.

If you come on Sunday mornings to my church, some of you do. We've been in Genesis for two months. No, longer. And I've only got through the first five verses. Yeah, we're still in the first paragraph.

Because there's so much. It's my job to explain it. It's my job to teach it. And it's the same way with this. This is our 19th sermon in Galatians. And we're just now to the end of chapter 2. Yeah. So, it's been a little while.

But let me remind you very briefly as to what we've learned so far. Number one, Paul is writing Galatians because he is upset that the church has departed from the gospel that he gave them. We see this in chapter 1, verses 1 -10.

Specifically, verses 6 -9. Where Paul says, I am astounded that you have so quickly departed from the faith that was once delivered to you. He's upset that they have departed from the gospel and gone after another gospel.

And he says, but there's not another gospel. There's only one gospel. And if anyone comes to you preaching a gospel different than the gospel I gave to you, let him be accursed. Even if an angel from heaven preaches a gospel to you different than the one that I have given you, let him be...

The word is anathema in the Greek. And it means to be damned. Let him be damned. Interesting side note. If you are familiar at all with the history of Mormonism, the leader of Mormonism, Joseph Smith, believes that he received his revelation from an angel.

So too does the leader of Islam. Muhammad believes that the angel Jibril gave him the Koran in a cave. Therefore, both of those religions were started by someone who believes they were given their information by an angel.

What does Paul say? Even if an angel teaches you something different than the gospel I have given you, let him be damned. Let him be accursed. But Paul is not writing this in a vacuum. He's writing it in a situation where there's a reason for it.

The reason for it is there are men who have infiltrated the churches that he started and they are preaching a false gospel. These men are what we call Judaizers. They taught a very simple but false message.

And it was this. Unless you keep the ceremonial precepts of the laws of Moses, you cannot be saved. Therefore, faith in Jesus is not enough. You must add to faith either circumcision, which was the entrance into the Jewish community, the dietary laws, which was the way that the Jewish community was known for how they ate differently, and the keeping of the Sabbath, which was how they worked differently.

And unless you kept the circumcision law, unless you kept the dietary restriction, and unless you kept the Sabbath law, you cannot be saved. This was the teachings of the Judaizers. And Paul said, no, we are not saved by keeping the law.

We are saved by faith in Jesus Christ. And that is the argument that Paul is making in the whole book. That's the thesis of Galatians. That you are not saved by keeping the law. You are saved by faith alone in Christ alone.

He defends his authority in chapter 1, verses 11 -24. He confirms his message is in accord with the other apostles in chapter 2, verses 1 -10. And he confronts Peter for Peter's betrayal of the Gentiles in chapter 2, verses 11 -14.

Yes, the same Peter who walked with Jesus. Go ahead brother, you want to say something.

The Jews that keep the old laws and stuff, you know, you see them with the helmets on their heads and stuff like that. Even though they got faith in God and they keep doing the Old Testament dietary laws and stuff.

Unless they don't have Jesus, they are out of gas, huh? Absolutely.

And I say that not on my own authority or my own interpretation. I say that because that's what Paul says in Romans chapter 9. Paul tells us in Romans chapter 9, I wish myself that I could be accursed, if it meant the salvation of my brethren according to the flesh, that is the Jews.

So if they are saved by virtue of being Jewish, Paul wouldn't have had to say that. But he said I wish I could be accursed and they could be saved. I'd give myself if it meant their salvation. You see the problem is their understanding of God is flawed.

They understand God as the Old Testament God, which is the true God. The problem is they reject God's Son, Jesus Christ. And if you reject the Son, you reject the Father, Jesus said that. He who has seen me has seen the Father.

It says in John chapter 1, Jesus came unto his own, that's the Jewish people. And his own received him not. But to as many as received him, he gave them the power to become children of God. That's how you become a child of God, through faith in Jesus Christ.

Now I know you agree, I'm just saying that's it. A person who tries to win their salvation by works of the law will fail inevitably. Because we are all condemned by the law. The law is no savior. The law is only able to damn.

In fact, I wrote in my notes, right here. It says in my notes, the Galatians in a nutshell is this. The law is no savior. The Jewish people hold to the law as if it can save. But the Bible says the law cannot save, it can only condemn.

The law cannot save you, it can only damn you. Jesus saves. The law damns. Alright. Well that's what this whole book says. Is that the law cannot save. In fact, if you look at the last verse we just read.

He says, if justification were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose. And we're going to explain that more in a minute, but that's essentially what he's saying. If you could be saved through the law, why would Jesus need to come?

If you could be saved by keeping the law, what purpose would Jesus die for nothing? Because you could have done it yourself. Yeah. If you could do it yourself, why sin Jesus? If you could save yourself, why provide a savior?

You just pick yourself up by your own bootstraps. What do I always say? I ain't got no boots. I ain't got no straps. I told you guys this story. The guy told me one time, he said, Pastor, you got to learn to pick yourself up by your own bootstraps.

Talking about salvation. I said, dude, when it comes to salvation, I ain't got no boots. I ain't got nothing. I can't save myself. All I can do is further my own condemnation. The Bible says, all my righteousnesses are as filthy rags.

So I can't make my own self righteous. And I can't cause the forgiveness of any sin by doing anything good. See, that's the problem again with Islam. Islam says your good will outweigh your bad, and that's how you're saved.

The first thing is, your good will never outweigh your bad. Because if I took all the thoughts in your mind and your heart, and I displayed them on a screen, and I showed them to all your family and friends, you tell me your good is going to outweigh your bad?

That's not even a question. But on the other hand, even if somehow, even if the weight of scales was so that your good did outweigh your bad, by some miracle, your good will never account for your bad.

You take a murderer, you put him in front of a judge, and the murderer says, yes judge, but I spent 39 years not murdering. That's got to count for something. And the judge is going to say, no, that one murderer has voided 39 years of no murder.

That one murderer means you're guilty. The idea that even if your good outweighs your bad, that it somehow pays for your bad. That ain't how it works. You can't stand before the judge and say, yeah judge, I know I'm a rapist, but I'm also a Boy Scout leader.

I also help old ladies across the street. I also give to the United Way. You keep listing things. You know what he's going to say at the end? Yeah, you're still a rapist. It don't work that way. Law condemns.

Cannot say. Can we buy our way in there? I'm going to throw my pen at you. No, you can't. And that was the problem. When you watch the video on Luther, they were trying to sell indulgences. That you could buy God's grace.

And what Luther, he took to his pulpit, he says, you cannot buy the grace of God. That's why it's called a gift. You cannot earn it. You cannot buy it. You can't even deserve it. That's right. The moment you think you deserve God's grace, you are no longer talking about grace.

Because if you think you deserve it, then somehow you missed the point of it. Grace, the definition by the simplest of terms, is grace is unmerited favor. Unmerited means undeserved. Means not by your works.

Not by your anything, yeah. You didn't do anything to deserve it. Yeah, that's right. The only thing you did for your salvation was provide the sin that made it necessary. And you've been good at that.

So have I. I am really good at making myself needing a Savior. To this very day, I need a Savior. From the moment I woke up this morning, I have needed a Savior. You've been in my sleep. Yeah. So last week I gave an illustration.

Yes, sir, go ahead.

You can't buy and wait. Yep, yep. Acts 8, 14 through 23, he talks about how Simon said to Offred, I would buy the Holy Spirit with money. Yeah, that's Simon. He hit the god with money.

And what's interesting, that later historically, a term would come into use called simony. Simony, not sodomy. That's different. No, I'm serious. Some of you all giggled. No, it's not that. Simony is the act of trying to purchase position in the church with money.

Because that's what Simon was actually asking. He was saying, if I give you money, would you give me the power of the Spirit so I can do what you do? And that would later become, because especially within the Middle Ages, to be part of the clergy was actually to be in a higher part of society.

And so men who had lots of money would purchase positions for their sons so they could have a position in the church. And that was called simony, the purchasing of positions. And it's ungodly and it's wrong, but that's where that term comes from, is from that situation with Simon the magician.

Can I ask you a question? Yes, sir. It's kind of a little bit off topic,.

But just saying what he was talking about in Acts was that was Acts part of the book, the canon, whenever the 95 theses were written. So that pretty much tells you right there that you're selling indulgences.

You know what I'm saying? It's further back.

Remember this, though. When the 95 theses were written...

Right, only the higher reps had the Word of God.

Yeah, the Word of God was not available to the common person. You live in a very unique point of history. You live at a point in history where if you want a Bible, all you've got to do is go to County Fair.

You go to Callahan Fair, the very first thing when you walk in, there's a group of Gideons that are standing there with a whole truckload of Bibles, handing one to everybody who walks in. You live in a time period where you can purchase a Bible of any translation you want, probably multiple Bibles.

500 years ago, that was not so. 500 years ago, it was illegal to have the Bible in it. Well, about 700 years ago, it was illegal to have the Bible in English. John Wycliffe was the first to translate the Bible into English, and he was condemned for it.

William Tyndale, about 100 years later, translated the Bible into English. He was condemned for it. It wasn't until about 100 years after that that the idea that the Bible would be translated into English and it would be accepted was normal.

And then, even then, for normal people to have the money to purchase a Bible, it was an expensive commodity. It wasn't something you just... You couldn't just be given one. You had to purchase it. It was a luxury, absolutely.

Yes, sir. There's a dude sitting down there right across the door named Robbie Robinson Ford. And when you buy a car, or a used car, he puts the Bible in the flip box. Does he really? I remember Ronnie Robinson.

I remember growing up hearing his commercials. Yeah, Robbie Robinson Ford was on anything. Oh, okay. But not Robbie Robinson Ford. But anyway, if you buy a car, he don't even ask you. He just puts one in the flip box.

It's a pocket Bible, but you know. Oh, sure, but he's trying to be... promote the Gospel. That's good. You know, you go to hotel rooms, and the Gideons put the Bible in the hotel room. And that's what they're...

They're trying to promote the Gospel. That's good. Yes, sir. When you say these men were condemned, on what farm were they condemned? John Wycliffe was condemned at the Council of Constance after his death.

He had died of a stroke while preaching. They dug up his bones, burned his bones. Are you crazy? That's crazy. He said, are you crazy? I'm not crazy. I didn't do it. One of the men who succeeded him was named John Hus.

He was burned at the stake. Martin Luther was condemned, but never killed. Martin Luther was protected by his city where he lived. He had the magistrates behind him, so he had protection. He translated the Bible into German because he was a German man.

And then William Tyndale, sometimes referred to as God's outlaw, William Tyndale translated the Bible into English, and he was burned at the stake. His last words that we are aware of when he was being burned, he said...

He prayed. God opened the king of England's eyes. And it was less than 100 years later that we had the translation in the King James Bible was translated.

Was it a balance of government and church?

At that time, there was no real distinction. I mean, the church and the government were distinguished, but there was no separation between church and state like we have in the United States. Separation of church and state is not necessarily a bad thing.

Separation of church and state is good because you don't want the government telling the church how to operate. And you don't... Hold on just a second. You don't necessarily want the church telling the government how to operate, necessarily, depending on...

Because which church, right? Which church is going to have the authority? So in the United States, we have a distinguished separation between the church and the state. But in the time in history back then, the church and the state were often united.

And so the church would condemn someone, the state would execute them. If you were under the condemnation of the church, the state would carry out the execution. You were asking... I was going to say, King Henry VIII, he's the one who separated that man, right?

Well, that's a different scenario. King Henry, that's how the Church of England was formed. That's the Anglican Church. So was it before what we just mentioned? No, it would have been after the time of Luther.

I don't remember the actual year, though. I don't remember if that was before or after the King James Bible. I'll have to look that up. I can't think of it off the top of my head. But no, King Henry wanted to have a divorce.

The church wouldn't grant it. He said, I'm the king. I can do what I want. And so he essentially established... There's a lot more to the story, but he essentially established the Anglican Church as a result of saying that he believed the king had more authority than the pope or should have the authority over the church.

And so he rejected the authority of the pope. And so did the Protestants. So there was a time in England where whether or not you were Anglican, meant to be Protestant or not, would go back and forth because some wanted to connect back to Rome, like Mary wanted to connect back to Rome.

And so she executed the Protestants, leaders. And many people... You've heard of Bloody Mary. Many of them died as a result of her wanting to reconform to Rome. So we've kind of gone off topic. Sorry.

No, it is what it is. I love to talk about history, but quickly though, I want to dive back into Galatians here because this is what I came to talk about today. Last week we talked about two mountains.

We said there's a mountain called Law and then there's the mountain of Grace. The difference is people try to climb the mountain of Law and you can't do it. You will never reach the top of Mount Law because even if you try, you've already broken the Law.

You don't even really get past the foothills. Grace is different. The Bible says in Ephesians 2, God saved us by grace and He seated us in heavenly places with Christ, meaning He actually did the work of putting us there.

He didn't say climb this mountain. He placed us on the mountain and that's the difference between Grace and Law. Law says do, do, do, and you'll never do enough. Grace says done and that's it. And it's not done by you.

It's done by Christ. There's two types of religion in the world. The only two that exist. Do and done. And I don't care whether you're a Mormon, Jehovah Witness, a Muslim, a Buddhist. I don't care what it is.

It will always be do, do, do, do, do. The only other one is Christ, done. That's it. And that's the point of this whole section, verses 15 -21. You are not saved by what you do. You are only saved by what Christ has done.

Therefore, we get to verse 20. And as I said last week, this is one of the most beautiful, in my opinion, one of the most beautiful verses in the Bible. Paul says, I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.

In the life I live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. I want you to notice right away a couple of things. We start our Bible study with observation. We look at the text and we observe just simply what's there.

Not interpreting, just looking. The first thing you'll notice if you have an ESV is that he says I four times. If you have a King James, I think there's an additional I in there. He says, I have been crucified with Christ.

It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. In the life I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God. You say, well, what's the significance of the I? Well, the point is, Paul is at this point making his salvation and the understanding of salvation a personal matter.

Salvation is not corporate. Salvation is individual. Let me explain that a little further. When you die, you die alone. Even if you die in a group, you die alone in this sense. You die, and it's you who die.

When you get saved, it's you who get saved, not you in the group. Even if other people get saved, it's you. You say, why does this matter? Because if you're in a group of people who get saved and everybody else gets saved and you don't, you ain't saved.

You don't get saved because of the group. Just like if you were in a group of people who died and you didn't. You see what I mean by when I say it's individual? If you're in a group of people who died and you didn't, you didn't die.

You survived. If you're in a group of people who get saved and you didn't, you didn't get saved. Salvation is personal. I try to tell my children this a lot. I have five kids. My son is not yet a Christian.

My oldest son. My daughter is. But I try to help my son understand. Son, you will never enter the gates of heaven because your daddy is a pastor. You will never enter the gates of heaven because your daddy believes in Jesus.

You will never enter the kingdom of heaven because your daddy and your mama prayed for you. You will only enter the kingdom of heaven if you repent of your sins and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ for yourself.

I cannot believe for you. I cannot change your heart. You are not saved because you're a fasci. That's my name if you don't know. You're not saved because you're in this family. You're not saved because you're a member of the church.

You're saved because God by His mercy and grace opened up your heart, broke you under the weight of your own sin and you came to Christ individually. So why does that matter? Because I think a lot of people think they're saved by proxy.

They're saved by community. Every time I go out and I witness and I'm talking to people, people say, I grew up in the church. I don't care. You grew up in the church. What does that matter? I mean, it's a blessing.

Your parents cared enough about you to take you to church. It's a blessing that your parents cared enough to take you to Sunday school. You learned the Bible and you grew up in church. You don't understand the blessing you have if that's you.

And if your parents didn't do that for you, that's a difficult thing because you didn't have that all growing up. It doesn't mean, though, you can't be saved. It doesn't have anything to do with where you are now.

But the point is, if you did have that, what a blessing that you had that. But, it don't save you. Paul says, I have been crucified with Christ. What does that mean? Paul is identifying himself with the crucifixion of Jesus because it is in the crucifixion of Jesus that we find our salvation as believers.

The Bible says this, Jesus Christ went to the cross and He bore the wrath that I deserved. So, here's what should have happened. Keith Foskey should have been drugged before a Roman tribunal. Keith Foskey should have been beaten with a scourge, which was a whip that had pieces of metal sewn and stuck to it so that those pieces of metal would flog the skin and tear away the flesh.

Keith Foskey should have had a crown of thorns wrapped around his head and beat into his skull so that the blood would drip down into his eyes and down into his throat. Keith Foskey should have been clubbed.

Keith Foskey should have been forced to carry a Roman cross down a dirty, rocky Roman road barefoot and naked. Keith Foskey should have been laid on a wooden cross and had his hands impaled with spikes.

Keith Foskey should have been hung between heaven and earth to die by asphyxiation, which means to die by the lungs closing off under the weight of your own body pulling the lungs closed. Every time you breathe out, the lungs wouldn't be able to re-expand.

And it's a horrible, grotesque, very long way to die. It's the very definition of cruel and unusual punishment. And that's what I deserve. If I look at my life and my sin, I could say I deserve nothing better than that.

And that's what Christ took. Let me finish, please. That's what Christ took. And when He did it, it's as if I was receiving it because He was receiving it for me. That's why Paul can say, I have been crucified with Christ.

Because Christ took what Paul deserved. Now you may ask your question. If you're talking about being born again, we're going to talk about that in a minute. Is that what you're referring to? Yeah. Yeah, that's a little bit of a stretch.

The breath leaving the body is death. You know, the last breath you take, that kind of thing. But careful how we conflate different things. It's not necessarily wrong. I think we're just trying to make too much of an analogy there.

Death is the breath leaving the body for sure. We breathe and we live. If we don't breathe, we die. So yeah, I think there's a connection there. But ultimately, Jesus dying by asphyxiation was just the way you died on a cross.

The lungs would collapse under the weight of the body and you would run out of air. Sort of like getting crushed by your own chest. Yes sir?

I'm trying to learn and embrace this all at the same time. God called for a perfect sacrifice. Yep. And it's something that I don't qualify to be. That's right. So that the free gift to God is the fact that well not the fact, I don't mean to state it like that.

The fact that God went ahead of me even before the foundation of the earth and knew that I was never going to be good enough to be up on that cross. But in His love for who we are as His children just to be able to slow down and embrace the fact that as badly as my walk today I want to say for where I'm qualified I'd get up on that cross for you.

In the end, whenever that kind of state of martyrdom would come upon me would I truly be surrendered to lay my life down for the Lord and that's what I was talking about yesterday. I'm not saying that I want to I'm trying not to go ahead of God and say oh I'm that man that would go out to some country where people are persecuted and all that.

But really God is maturing my heart to be in a position to be that man to where no matter what ever happens to me it don't even matter because I know that when I die when death comes upon me that I'm saved because of the perfect sacrifice the blood of the land that's washed over my ability to be anything good.

You know what I mean? So I'm just trying to like hear what you're saying and that's that. Mark was talking yesterday about the dreaded stains. I want to know more about that. I want to know the inner workings of that.

You know? It's just like when your cousin is deceased. I mean I have a lot of relationships with Eddie. Paul recognizes that it isn't him who lives today but it's the sacrifice of who Jesus is and the fact that he recognizes that he died with him and that he lives in that sacrifice and by faith you know he walks through the spirit.

I'm trying to figure it out. Not figure it out but be patient and let God reveal himself. I'm expounding on where my heart's moving.

Well it sounds like God's moving on your heart in a very positive and good way. I want to just have you think about one thing when you mention about being willing to die for Christ. That's a tremendous place to come to and that's where we should all want to come to.

But the focus here is what Christ has done for us not what we do for him. And I'm not saying what you're saying is bad. I'm just saying in this sense Paul's saying I've been crucified with Christ and as you said it's no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me.

And the life I now live I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. And the point that Paul is making in this passage is what Christ has done for him not what he has done for Christ.

And so the focus of this whole text is Paul... And I think it's almost like an exclamation point on the end of what he's already said because he's already gone through that we're not saved by works, we're not saved by the law we're saved by Christ, we're saved by faith by faith alone and he said all these things.

And now he says I've been crucified with Christ. Christ when He died, He was dying for me. Therefore, my life is totally different now. Because I see the Savior and the life I live in the flesh I live by faith in Him because He loved me and He gave Himself for me.

Paul is expressing and exaggerating the reality that Christ died for him. You know, people often say Christ died for sinners. That's true. But can you say Christ died for me? That's what Paul is saying.

Paul is saying Christ came and Christ died for me. In fact, Martin Luther said the phrase for me is the heart of the Gospel. Because I can say to you I don't have anything good that I have done. So when I go to heaven and God says why should I let you into heaven the only thing I can say is Christ died for me.

Christ gave Himself for me. Did He give Himself for other people? Yes. But in this moment, that's not Paul's point. In this moment, that's not Paul's focus. In this moment, in this text, Paul is not talking about the we, he's talking about the me.

And you say that's selfish. No, it's not selfish. He's showing us the personal nature of the cross. He's showing us the personal reality. I have been crucified with Christ. I should have been there. I should have been the one who died.

But Christ died for me. He loved me. And He gave Himself for me. It's all about what Christ has done for me. That's what this is about. Do you realize, as you just stated, do you realize what Christ has done for you?

Do you realize that what He has done cannot in any way be matched by what you do, be repaid by what you do. It cannot be in any way be owed to you by what you do. It can only be received as a gift. It cannot be earned.

It cannot be purchased. It was done by Him for you, not because you deserved it. This is the key. Now, there is the reality. And I want to kind of go back to a little bit of what you said. There is the reality that because of this, we have a changed life.

He says, I've been crucified with Christ. First of all, that means Christ died in my place, but also what it means is when I realized that and I came to Christ by faith, I died too. My old life died. Here you go, bro, come right this way.

My old life died. Now, I am not going to stand here for a minute and tell you that I don't still struggle with the flesh. But I will tell you this, when Christ saved me, my life changed. My pursuit in life changed.

My desires changed. My professor used to say, he got a new wanna. Because I used to wanna so many things and now I want to follow Christ. That's what Paul means. He says, I've been crucified with Christ.

It is not I who live. Christ now lives in me. Now, what's interesting about that, from a theological perspective, we always say the Spirit of God is the One who comes to live within us. But there is a sense in which there's unity between you and Christ if you're a believer and you are in Christ and Christ is in you.

In fact, I want to show you a passage because I have a lot more to say and time is quickly running out. But go with me to Colossians. Just two books over to the right. Three books actually. Go to Colossians 3.

I want to show you this. Because there's so many things that reference this same topic. Maybe we'll have to revisit it again next week because there's Romans 6 and Romans 7 both deal with this same thing.

But Colossians 2 and 3. But we're going to look at chapter 2, verse 11 -14. Chapter 2, verse 11. In Him you also were circumcised. Did you see it? Chapter 2, verse 11. Listen to this. 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.