The Gospel in 15 Words

Memorizing Scripture and the Value of Context

Well, I would invite you to take out your worksheet and your Bible, if you have it. Open your Bible to 2 Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 21. Now the last couple of years, on Wednesday night, we have made it our practice here at Sovereign to use this Wednesday night as an opportunity as somewhat of a mini-seminary.

We address subjects which often don't get addressed in churches. Things like church history and theology and subjects which often go without much knowledge at all. And so I've been very excited about the things that we've been able to do on our Wednesday nights and I look forward to this particular lesson, in particular, because I know just how important it is to memorize Scripture and to make it a part of our life.

Because when you are engaging with a person in regard to the gospel of Jesus Christ, whether they be a believer or an unbeliever, it's often not possible that you can immediately go and find a Bible and pull it out and open it up, unless you just happen to maybe carry your Bible with you wherever you go.

And now that we have cell phones, that might be a little bit more possible to pull out a Bible. But certainly, even if you pulled out a Bible, that's a very thick book. So you know, you might carry your Bible around with you, but if you don't know the relevant passages to go to, to deal with certain issues that you might run into with an individual, then having a Bible, I mean, unless you're going to start reading them Genesis 1 -1 and go all the way to Revelation 22, yeah, that might be a little bit of a read.

And obviously I'm being a little facetious. We have to know the texts and we have to know where they are. So what I've decided for this lesson, and I was thankful for last week, Aaron started the series with my being out, being sick.

And he started the series by teaching you what is commonly called the Romans Road, five verses in Romans, which are gospel-centered verses. And I'm kind of thankful that he did that, because some of those were ones that I was going to do, but I have decided now that since he went over those, that I'm going to move forward with some verses that you might not be used to, and ones that are good to memorize.

Because that's part of this, is not only do I want you to learn and memorize these verses, but I want to introduce you to verses that you may not already know by heart. You know, we're not going to spend a whole week on John 3 -16.

I think we probably have that one. But even though a lot of people don't understand John 3 -16, let me just put that out there, we could do a whole week on what the misunderstandings of John 3 -16 are.

But, for memorization's sake, we're going to be looking at ten verses which are not as common. They'll still be common ones, they'll still be ones you say, well, I remember that growing up, or I maybe memorized that when I was a young person, or maybe as an adult.

But they're going to be, sometimes we look at verses, you might say, well, I hadn't thought about memorizing this at all, and that's hopefully going to happen a few times. And then you'll, through the process of learning about the passage, understand why it is so vital that you memorize it.

Translation Choices: Literal, Dynamic Equivalent, and Paraphrase

So tonight we're going to begin with what I have entitled, The Gospel in Fifteen Words. The Gospel in Fifteen Words. Now you'll notice, if you read it, we have it in three English translations and then in the Greek.

You'll notice that none of the English translations are fifteen words. So where am I getting the fifteen words? From the Greek. It's actually, the Greek language, the Greek New Testament is much shorter than the English New Testament.

It doesn't take as many words in Greek to say the same thing that we would have to say with more words in English. So when I say it's the Gospel in Fifteen Words, I could have maybe added the word Greek.

It's the Gospel in Fifteen Greek Words. And we're going to learn tonight how those words work together, we're going to learn what this means. And I'm going to leave it to you as to which translation you decide to memorize.

Why did I give you the Greek? Not so that you'd memorize it in Greek, even though that would be awesome if you did. I gave you the Greek for this reason. I don't care what translation you choose as long as it is faithful to the original language.

Make sense? So I've given you the original language. If you decide that you prefer the NIV, I'm sorry. There are some times where the NIV is not really that bad. If you decide you want to memorize it in that particular translation, as long as it is faithful to the original language, then that's fine.

Can I say it in the Greek? I will when we get there. I'm going to read it out loud for you. But I will tell you this, from a personal, just personal like, I prefer King James memorization. Because the King James tends to read more poetically than the more modern translations.

And because of the poetic nature of the King James, I tend to memorize things better. But that doesn't mean you have to. And that doesn't mean that's the best way. I'm telling you for me. And then there are certain passages, like the one from tonight, that I sometimes will say differently because I have studied the original language and I know what the original language says.

So sometimes I'll translate as I am talking. But that's not something I'm expecting you to do. I'm just saying that I know what the gist of the heart of this verse is. So if I say it to someone, they'll, well, which translation is that?

I'm not, well, it's mine. I'm just telling you what it says. And that's, I remember last, at the Herald Society conference, Dr. White was preaching. And he was preaching from the Greek New Testament. But he was translating as he went.

And none of us could follow him. Because he wasn't reading from any New Testament that any of us had. Some had ESV, some had NASV, some had KJV. But he was up there translating on the fly, which is his to do, because I certainly can't do that like he does.

But he was translating on the fly, and as he was, it wasn't reading like any of ours. So my point in all this is simply to say, as we're going through this, each week I'm going to give you three English translations.

And the reason why, let me just kind of give you a quick overview. I didn't mean to spend this much time on this, but it is important. There are different ways that the Bible can be translated. And I've taught on this some in the past, but I know some of you are fairly new to us.

And we have sort of a sliding scale, if you will. You have what is called the EL translations. You have the DE translations. And then you have the P translations. EL means essentially literal. Essentially literal.

DE means dynamic equivalent. The P means paraphrase. So an example would be the ESV, the NASV, and the KJV are all essentially literal. You might say, why is it essentially literal? Because there's no literal translation because the Greek and the English don't read the same.

You have to make some translational changes. And that's why you'll see that the ESV makes some changes where the NASV makes some different changes. And that's why there is no absolutely literal. People say, well, the NASV is the closest.

And I wouldn't argue. The NASV is one of the closest literal translations you're going to get. But it reads clunky at times in English because of their attempted literality. The ESV tried to solve that by making it read a little smoother, but at certain points doesn't translate as well as the NASV.

So all that's part of what you get when you're trying to get an essentially literal translation that can still be read. Make sense? A dynamic equivalent is a Bible which is not intended to be a word-for-word translation, but instead is a thought-for-thought translation.

The NIV and the NLT, New Living Translation, are both dynamic equivalent. They do not attempt to be literal. They attempt to translate thought. For instance, and I'll have to get my friend from Germany to help.

In Germany, there is a phrase, morning hours have gold in their mouths, right? What's that phrase in German? Do you say it in German? Go ahead, I'm listening. Okay, I can't say that. But that phrase translated into English is, morning hours have gold in their mouths.

Does anybody know what that means? It means the early bird catches the worm. That's the dynamic equivalent of that phrase. That's what they're saying. Get up in the morning, that's the best hours of the day to work, blah, blah, blah.

Morning hours have gold in their mouths. It's the same as us saying the early bird catches the worm. Now, you can see how that would benefit, but you can also see how that could be dangerous. Because if you're translated in a dynamic equivalent, that's why I always say the NIV and the NLT are good for reading, but not always good for studying.

In fact, I don't like to study from them, because you never know when what you're reading is dynamic equivalent or actually what it said. Another good one. In King James Bible, Paul says, shall we continue in sin so that grace could abound?

God forbid, right? Is that what it says? It's not what it says in the Greek. The word theos is not there. It does not say God forbid. It says, may it never be or may it not exist. It's the strongest emphatic no in Greek.

No is the answer. Should we continue in sin? No. But the King James translator used a dynamic equivalent at that point and put in the phrase, God forbid, because that was the equivalent of the strongest no at that time.

Make sense? So to say no. OK, spent a lot more time on this than I thought I would. Paraphrase is the message Bible. What was that old living Bible? Remember the living Bible? Living Bible actually is not a bad paraphrase.

It's got a lot of good places, especially in some of the portions about reform theology, Romans 9, and some places you can tell whoever it was likely had a reform bent because he kind of translated it as that.

So there's some good parts in it, at least from our perspective. But I don't like paraphrases for anything other than, well, even reading them to your children can get you into a mess. So you have to be careful.

And the message Bible, I think, has something like toothbrush in it or something. It's like Jesus said, don't forget your toothbrush or something. You know, when Jesus talked about taking a staff or whatever, you know, they really get very loose.

And then you have really crazy ones like the word on the street, which is like a very modern street vernacular Bible and those kind of things. So there's all kinds of paraphrases. You can get really crazy.

My recommendation has always been if you stick with an essentially literal translation, you're getting as close to the Greek as you're going to be able to get without studying Greek. Another benefit of the Internet now is that if you do want to know what the original language says, you can go and get free resources.

You can go to Bible Gateway, Bible Hub. There's several different sites that have free commentaries that are good commentaries. You got to be careful, though, because they also have some nutty ones. So you kind of got to know a little bit going in.

But if you want to know what the original says, it's possible to go and look and do a little bit of research, a little bit of investment and studying. You can figure it out. So but that being said, be careful, because as they say, a little Greek is a dangerous thing.

A little Greek can be dangerous because people make arguments from the Greek all the time which are unfounded because they don't understand the language. They understand something about the word. And so they make that word mean something that it doesn't.

The whole agape philo argument is often overplayed. You know, you've heard the word agape love versus phileo love. This means sacrificial love. This means friendship. No, they're used interchangeably all over the Bible, all over the New Testament.

Phileo does mean love. And people say it means brotherly love. No, phileo adelphos. Adelphos being brother means brotherly love. Yeah, the adelphos becomes brotherly love. So so my point is people make these assertions when they're not really necessarily founded.

So now I've gone way off. Let's get back to this week. The next thing I'm going to give you is I'm going to give you a tool. You want to memorize the text. Here's something you can do. And I didn't put this in your notes.

You might want to write it down. You want to memorize the text. Here's what you do. Write it ten times. Say it ten times. No, I'm sorry. Read it ten times. Say it ten times. Write it five times. That was what it is.

It's read it, write it, say it. Read it. Ah, I keep missing it. Read it ten times. Say it ten times. Write it five times. And you say it out loud. Yeah, say it out loud. You will you will be surprised how well you remember something if you say it, speaking it.

So read it to yourself. Then read it out loud and then write it. Once you do that, most likely you will internalize it to the point of recall. Now, here's the other part you want to consider. Memorize also where it is.

As I'll tell you, this is my biggest Achilles heel. Is I know a lot of scripture that I couldn't find without a concordance. Because I'll say a verse and I'll say, where's that verse? And I'll say, I got to look it up.

Because I spent, you know, so many years in seminary, I would hear professors say a verse and I would internalize that verse because I would think about it. But I wouldn't internalize where it came from, just what it said.

And I'm sure you've done that before. I'm sure I could start four or five verses and you could finish them. And if I said, you know, for the wages of sin is death. But the where is it? It's one of the Romans.

It's Romans 623. But that's the that's one of those verses that you could you could recite. But you don't know where it is or you might not know where it is. Knowing where it is is important because contextually it's important.

You might have to take somebody there. You might say the wages of sin is death. But the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord. And they'll say, well, what is that? What's the context of that?

And you say, oh, you know where it is. I know it says it. You know, if you know it's in the context of Romans chapter six and Paul discussing sanctification and those things in Romans, that helps you to be able to understand.

That's why we're going to go where we go tonight. Not just learn the verse, not just learn the location, but learn the surrounding context. Because that's important. All right. So the gospel in 15 words, ESV, for our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

In ASV, he made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf that we might become the righteousness of God in him. KJV, for he hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

And that's the one that I want to focus on. Not because it's the hardest one to read, but I want to focus on the words. So that you know why the English translators translated the way that they did. One of the things we know from Greek is this.

The original language, when I say original language, the Koine Greek did not look like this. Koine Greek was written in what was called unsealed text, meaning it was all capital letters, no spaces, no exclamation, no punctuation.

So it would be like if I said, what does that say? Yeah, it says I and Miss Ray are friends, right? That's what it says. It's I and Miss Ray are friends. Okay, but that's not easy to read, is it? It really isn't.

It's not easy to read. That's the way the original looked. It was in the, it was in the first half of the second millennia after Christ, I think that we went to minuscule. That's the term. I have to look that up.

I might be wrong on that, but the minuscule is when you have capital letters and lowercase letters and spaces and the punctuation will come later, but that's the changing it to readable text came much later in the development.

So that being said, when you, how do you in a language like that identify what's most important? Word order becomes very important. For instance, in Romans nine, we talked about this last night. We had a little impromptu dabs and dudes and I was talking about Romans nine and I said, Paul says, who are you, old man, to answer back to God, right?

The most important word there is old man, because it's identifying our creatureliness. So in the Greek that comes first. It actually reads, old man, who are you? But we say, who are you, old man? Because that's an English, the more appropriate way to identify how that works.

But they, so in this phrase, that's why we, you know, all of this, I wanted you to see the Greek to kind of give you an idea of what the most important parts of this are and how it flows as a sentence.

Ton me gananta hemartion. Who no sin knew or who no new sin is the opening phrase of this. Who no new sin. Now, if you want to take a little circle, put around the word ton or who there and make a line all the way around to the very last word in the Greek, not that line, but the very last word alto.

You see the alto? It looks like a regular A and a U and a T and then a W. But that's actually the omega. So it's alto. See that at the very end? That's the who. The who is identified at the beginning because it's Jesus.

Who no new sin would later be identified as him. In him. That's who we become righteous in. Okay? Who no new sin. For us sin made. Now that sounds funny and this is why, you know, I'm not reading it exactly.

I'm just giving you the meanings of the words. Hemartion. Hemartion. Have you heard me say that before? Hemartia. Sometimes hemartia, hemartiology is the study of sin. Hemartia is the Greek word for sin.

It means to miss the mark. It is a, an archery term. If you were to shoot an arrow for a bullseye and you were to fall short of the bullseye, you would say hemartion or you've fallen short. Make sense?

So when we talk about hemartion or hemartia, what is hemartia? What is, what is it? It's, it's God's standard. God's law. And here's the thing. Who no new hemartion. Who no new missing that standard. I know this doesn't sound like good English, but I'm trying to help you here.

The one who never missed that standard, who never knew what it was like to miss that standard. Who's that? Jesus. He's the only one that qualifies for that first little section. He's the only one who knows what it's like to not miss the standard.

For us, hemartion epoieson, sin he was made. And then it goes on. Ena, in order that we become righteousness of God. And the word theou there, those of you young people who've done the Greek class with me, so I've taught you the letters, the letter that looks like this.

Always be on the lookout for that. That is the theta. If it ever begins like that, you'll see the theta and the epsilon there. You'll see those two together. That's normally you'll see. And then the omicron sigma.

That's the theos for God. You'll see also theou, which is putting the epsilon there at the end. That makes it of God. So it becomes it becomes a ownership. It's God's righteousness becomes God's right.

The righteousness of God in him. OK, so that's where we're seeing this in the sentence. It says so. Ultimately, what it says is the one who knew no sin for us became sin. In order that we could become God's righteousness in him.

OK, that would be my translation of this text. Very simple, right? Not perfect and certainly choppy, much more choppy than 40 different translators coming together with the ESV or whatever. I'm not saying I'm on their stand on their level at all.

I'm saying that's just a simple translation. So now that I know what it means, I can find a translation that is appropriate. And I can memorize that one that maybe flows a little better than my own. But now you've got the the whole understanding of what it says, but you don't yet know what it means.

You just know what it says. Now, let's talk about interpretation, because all we've done so far is the linguistics. We've learned what it says. Now, what does it mean? And this is an important because MacArthur makes a very astute observation.

The meaning of Scripture is Scripture. If you read the Scripture and get the wrong meaning, you didn't get the Scripture. So the meaning of the Scripture is the Scripture. That's hugely important. How do we come up with the meaning?

What's the three C's of Bible interpretation? Oh, come on. Context, context, context. That's how you know what it means. Context, context and context. So that's why we have the whole context here. Context for verse 21 begins in verse 18 and really further up.

But you can get the context going at verse 18 because it says all this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation that is in Christ. God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.

Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. By the way, before we even go to verse 21, is there a word that's repeating?

It's been used four times already. Reconciled, right? Anytime you see a word that's repeating in the text that indicates to you value and importance and you should look at why it's repeating. The reason why it's repeating is because that's the theme of this particular section.

Reconciliation is the theme. How is a person reconciled to God? Verse 21. For our sake, he who never sinned became sin for us. He didn't become a sinner. That's important too. He became sin. How did he become sin?

He became the sin bearer. He took our sin on himself. So that's how he became sin. He didn't become the sin doer. He became the sin bearer. Okay. He made him who never sinned become sin for us or on our behalf.

So that in order that we become, and this is one of those times where the word might sometimes in English can have a weird, because you think might, maybe is like a maybe. I like, this is actually one of the times where I think that N-E-T, which is an essentially literal translation, but I didn't mention it earlier.

It says would become, not might become. I think the might can add the idea of maybe or doubt. There's no intention in the Greek here of doubt. The word might is included in the English so that we understand that one had to happen so the other could happen.

We couldn't become the righteousness of God without the righteousness of Christ. But because of the righteousness of Christ, now we can. So it's intended to indicate the necessary first step before the second step.

We couldn't have done it outside of Christ. So it goes on to say we're becoming the righteousness of God in him. And then I included the next couple of verses from chapter six. And the reason why I did that is because I think chapter demarcations can sometimes really confuse people because there are parts to the next chapter, which you remember when Paul wrote this, this was not written in such a way that there were chapter and verses.

So these chapters and verses are placed in there very later. And so we ought to look at what comes after. And if we come to a verse that's at the end of a chapter, that doesn't mean that thought's completed.

And right here's a good example because it goes on to say in verse one of chapter six, working together with him, then who is the him? Well, you could argue that the antecedent of him could be God because it's the righteousness of God.

But if you look in the Greek, the last word is not God. The last word is auto. And that's referring back to Jesus. Remember, I pointed that out to you earlier. So the six one him is Jesus. So, yes, the answer is Jesus working together with him.

Then we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain, for he says in a favorable time. I listen to you. This is a quote from Scripture. And in a day of salvation, I've helped you. Behold, now is the favorable time.

Behold, now is the day of salvation. Why did I bring that verse out? Well, this whole idea is reconciliation, right? That's the context reconciliation. He's told us how to be reconciled. Now it's when when should we be reconciled today?

When is the day that we should be reconciled? Should we look forward to a future day? Should we look forward to another day that is to come? No, be reconciled today. Now is the time of salvation. Today is the day.

This brings about the urgency of the message. Our message is simple. Be reconciled to God. How is someone reconciled to God? They're reconciled to God by this. He who knew no sin became sin on our behalf so that we could become the righteousness of God in him.

So what do we do? We respond to him today. That's how this all flows together very simply. I'm being very basic, but that's the basic context of where this passage falls in. So knowing that, let's fill in our three blanks.

Number one, according to this passage, we have been entrusted with the ministry of what? Reconciliation. Reconciliation is the answer there. We have been entrusted with the ministry of reconciliation.

As a result of this trust, we've been given a title. What is it? Ambassador for Christ. So before we get to verse three, let me just kind of unpack those two because they go together. We've been entrusted with the ministry of reconciliation.

Who are the two warring parties that we're trying to reconcile? God and man, right? God and the sinner. Who has already done all the work of bringing reconciliation? Christ. So we then become not the reconciler, but the ambassador of the reconciler.

We are representing he who has already brought the reconciliation. We're representing the one that already did the work. We are not the reconciler ourself. We are the representative of the reconciler.

We come in his stead. We come in his place to say to the sinner, you are a sinner. God and you are at enmity with one another, or you and God are at enmity with one another. And because of that enmity, be reconciled to God through Christ, for there is no other way to be reconciled to him.

You see now how this is the gospel. I said it's the gospel in 15 words. It is the gospel. You're a sinner. Christ is not a sinner, was never a sinner, never sinned once. But for our sake, he became the sin bearer so that in him, we could become the righteousness of God.

That's again, I've quoted it now two or three different ways, but you understand the gist of what it's saying and how you would use this in a conversation with someone who doesn't know Christ. If we, you know, you go back to what we learned in the way of the master.

What was the big focal point of the way of the master? By the way, one of these weeks, we are going to learn all 10 commandments in order. And you will learn, huh? Are you a good person? That was the basic question.

But what was the basic point that he was trying to push people to the law, right? He was trying to get them to answer questions about the law. Why was it that he wanted to point people to the law? Go ahead.

Yeah, it shows them their sin. And that's the thing is once you have shown someone their sin, and once and this is the part that I think as much as I love Ray Comfort, I love the program that we did. I think, you know, there are times when these scriptures could come to bear.

And oftentimes he would be going through and he would talk about the judge and the jury and the rapist and all these different things. He would use a lot of good illustrations. But we also need to use good scripture.

You know, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word. We need to have the scripture. I once but let me just back that up by saying this. I heard a guy recently who was a King James only advocate who said that you can't be saved unless you be saved with the King James.

That's foolishness. He was very adamant. Unless unless somebody used a verse from the King James in witnessing to you, you have not been saved. That's utter foolishness. But I do think this. It is the word of God which brings the truth of God.

And faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word. So we do need to bring the word. I just don't think it has to be a 17th century Anglican translation. I don't think that's necessary. But I do think the word is part of what we should have in our conversations with the lost.

Like I said, I have a friend. All she does is she takes Bible verses. She hand writes them. And as she meets people, she has these Bible verses and she's talking to them. And instead of giving them the gospel tracks like we might normally hand out, she gives them these handwritten Bible verses that she's written down for them to think about.

And oftentimes it's verses just like this. Verses that encapsulate the gospel in a very simple way just to give them something to have to look at. That's God's word whenever they go away from their conversation.

And so that's again using the word in our interactions is very important. Because the word is what's going to ultimately bring conviction in the heart of the sinner. And that's again learning the law, which we'll do later in this series.

We'll actually learn the commandments and learn. Because that's part of the word. That's Leviticus 20. Or Exodus 20, I'm sorry. You can learn the Ten Commandments and memorize that text. So knowing these two things, we've been entrusted with the ministry of reconciliation.

We're trying to bring reconciliation between God and a person. Not that we are doing the reconciliation, but we represent the one who did. That's what we say. Our ministry is a ministry of reconciliation, but we're not the reconciler.

We're the ambassador of the reconciler. Thirdly, the message that we have rests on the foundation of substitution. Substitution, substitutionary atonement or substitutionary sacrifice is the very heart of the Christian faith.

And you've heard me explain this, most of you, many times. God's wrath was placed upon Christ on the cross because his wrath, which was due me, Christ willingly took as my substitute. So all of the wrath of God was poured out on Christ.

And at that moment, he became me on the cross in the sense of he became everything I deserved. He became my substitute. And then God imputed, that's what we call imputed, means to transfer to an account.

He imputed the righteousness that Christ had to me so that when I stand before God, I stand not having a righteousness that comes from the law that's my own, but the righteousness of Christ that's mine.

So that's the great transfer or the great, oh goodness, I just dropped my word, the transaction, the great transaction of the gospel. You have our sin is transferred to Christ. Christ's righteousness is transferred to us.

And this passage explains all of that in 15 Greek words. So it's the heart of the gospel in 15 Greek words. So there's so much here that we need to understand. And if we memorize this passage and put it in our heart and have it in our hearts, we know this, we may get tongue-tied.

We may be in conversations with people who have PhDs and CBDs and LSD, I don't know, not LSD, but all kinds of letters behind their name, MD, LFD. That's a licensed funeral director. They may have any kind of letters behind their name, but you know what?

Even in a conversation with somebody like that, if we can't tell them anything at all, we can say this, that God made him who knew no sin to become sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in.

And see that. In your recent trip that you said you were among a bunch of.

That was Earl Blackburn who had that situation. He shared it with me and I shared it with you guys. I wasn't the one who was in that. Earl Blackburn is a pastor who we also need to be praying for. He actually just had a heart attack, had to have a stent put in right after the conference that we went to.

So we need to add Earl to our list. But Pastor Blackburn from Louisiana, he was in the midst of a bunch of men, doctorate level, PhD, but these guys were PhDs, theology guys. And no one could give the Ten Commandments in order.

Substitutionary Atonement and the Great Exchange

Amazing. So I want to leave you with a thought to consider. We're coming close to the end of our time. And then I'll take any questions that you have. This is from C .H. Spurgeon. He was sort of an obscure pastor back in the 1800s.

You might have heard of him. By his great love for us and because of his willingness to save us, it's as if Christ says, Father, treat me as if I were a sinner. Treat the sinner as if he were me. That punishment that is reserved for them, lay it on me.