The Covenant of Works

Over the summer, they're studying how to study the Bible. The Bible is not just a rulebook, it's a storybook. The main point of the Bible is that God is redeeming the world through Christ. The Bible story is structured around covenants, which are promises with blessings and curses. The three overarching covenants are the covenant of redemption, the covenant of works, and the covenant of grace. The covenant of works is found in Genesis 2, where Adam is given a command not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This covenant is dependent on Adam's obedience, and if he succeeds, he and his descendants get eternal life. The main work of this covenant is obedience to God. The tree itself doesn't matter, it's about testing obedience. So, I guess I'll recap what we're studying over the summer. Over the summer, we're going over a series on how to study the Bible, and so far as long as we've done two lessons. The first one was sort of an introduction where we talked about some false notions that we often have approaching the Bible, thinking that the Bible is solely a rulebook, and it's not. It's a storybook. We think that the Bible is exhaustive, and when it's not, there are lots of things the Bible doesn't talk about that we have to kind of figure out using wisdom. But then we went into what's the proper foundation for understanding the Bible, and actually I'll just go straight into the recap here. So, first point, the Bible is the story of God redeeming the world through Christ. You have to have that in your mind when you're trying to study the Bible, because just like any other book, the Bible has a purpose, right? The Bible has a point. It's not just a book about everything, though it's the most important book, and it relates to everything in some way, but it's primarily a story. The Bible is not primarily a book of rules and laws and commandments. Those are there, and you have to listen to them, but that's not the main point of the Bible. The main point of the Bible is God is redeeming the world through Christ. Jesus is the main character, he's the center of the Bible. Everything points to him because he's the reason that we can be redeemed. You have to keep that in mind. The Bible is a story. Now how is that story structured? All stories are structured around something, whether it's a relationship, whether it's a murder mystery, whether it's a hunt for some object, right? Stories are structured around something. The Bible story is structured around covenants, okay? Covenants are essentially promises administered by God with blessings and curses attached to them. So there's usually two parties, usually God and someone else, and then there's something that has to be done to fulfill that covenant, and if it's done, then blessings are given. If it's failed, then curses are given, okay? The common covenant we see in our day and age is marriage, right? Marriage is a covenant, there are parties involved, there's the husband and the wife, and then God is the one who administers it. There's blessings for staying faithful to that covenant, and there's bad things that can happen if you don't stay faithful to that covenant, okay? So that's the most concrete example that we have in our day and age of covenants, because it's not really language that we use anymore, even regarding marriage. But covenants are all over Scripture, but the way that the Bible story is structured is structured around three overarching covenants, and those three covenants are the covenant of redemption, the covenant of works, and the covenant of grace. Now you may be saying, well, I don't remember reading those names in the Bible, right? These titles are not in the Bible explicitly, but what they are describing is in the Bible, right? Last week we talked about the covenant of redemption, or not last week, last lesson we talked about the covenant of redemption. The covenant of redemption is a promise between the Father, Son, and Spirit that they're going to create a world, they're going to allow that world to fall into sin, they're going to choose people to save, the Son will go and become one of them and die for them, and the Spirit will come and bring those people back to spiritual life, right? So it's a promise within the Godhead, and you can find that in Ephesians 1, that's the text we went over last lesson, right? Ephesians 1 spells this out, it says, God the Father elected us, God the Son died for us, God the Spirit seals us with the promise of eternal life, right? So that's in the Bible, even though it's not called the covenant of redemption, right? That's just a name that we give to it to describe what this is. So, these next two covenants are covenants between God and man, okay? And obviously, as you saw from the title, the one we're going over here is the covenant of works, and then next week we'll start the covenant of grace. Covenant of grace is going to take up most of our time in this series. Now, covenant of works, where is this found in Scripture? Well, first let me describe what the covenant of works, actually no, we'll go into where it is in Scripture. So, the covenant of works is found in Genesis 2, and then it's described later in Hosea 6, okay? So, in Genesis 2, we see God has just made Adam, okay? He's crafted him from the dirt, he's placed him in the Garden of Eden, and he says, you know, all the trees are yours, name the animals, right? Everything's under your domain. But then he comes down and he says, Lord God commanded the man, saying, you may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat, for in the day you eat of it, you shall surely die, all right? We're all familiar with this verse, we're all familiar with this, because it's what leads to the fall, okay? And then you can say, well, I don't see the word covenant anywhere. Right, it's not in this verse, but Hosea later says, but like Adam, they transgressed the covenant. So clearly this is a covenant, otherwise Adam couldn't have broken it, he couldn't have transgressed it. So even though the word covenant is not in here, this is still a covenant, right? It's still an agreement between God and man, where there's blessings if you obey, and there's curses if you disobey. And there's something that has to be done to get those blessings, okay? Now, let's dig into this, okay? So the success, okay, well, first off, look at Genesis 2, so it says, if you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you will die, okay? That means if he does not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, what will happen? He will not die, okay, he will live forever, okay? He's going to have life for himself and his descendants, okay? So essentially, the success or failure of this covenant is dependent upon Adam's work. That is why this is called the covenant of works, because it's dependent upon what does Adam do? How does he perform? Okay, that's why it's called covenant of works, it's dependent upon works, okay? So Adam here is what's called a federal head. A federal head is just someone who represents the members of a covenant, or the party of a covenant, right? So God's really making this covenant with all of mankind, but all of mankind doesn't exist yet. Only Adam exists, and then later he creates Eve, but Adam exists right now. So Adam is representing all of humanity, all of his future descendants he is representing at that moment, okay? That means his work, his success or failure will be passed on to his descendants, okay? If he fails, or sorry, if he succeeds, then him and his descendants get eternal life. If he fails, which he did, him and his descendants get death, okay? And you may say, well, that's not fair, and we'll get into why that's a bad argument, but this is just how covenants work, and we all acknowledge this in our day-to-day life, right? We all acknowledge that if the father of a family does something foolish, he makes a stupid decision, loses his job, something like that, the wife and children suffer because of that, right? Even though they weren't the ones that committed the fault, they are the beneficiaries of what he does. So if he fails, they receive bad things, right? Bad things happen to them. Same thing with a nation, right? If the leaders of a nation fail to do the right thing, and they make foolish decisions, the people suffer, okay? This is just how things work in the world, right? And it's how it works here. All of humanity is represented in Adam, okay? So the success of this covenant depends upon what Adam does, the work that Adam does. Primarily, is he going to eat of the tree, or is he going to not eat of the tree? That's the main work. But what does not eating of a tree have to do with eternal life? Like, why did God pick this commandment? Is there a reason why God picked this tree, this commandment at all? Is there any idea? So I'm not looking for anything specific. Well, he did know they were going to pick it, but is that dependent upon the tree, or is that just dependent upon how he wanted things to go? Right. I guess what I'm trying to say is, what I'm trying to say is, is there, like, why did God pick the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, right? Is there a reason why he picked that tree? Why is knowing stuff? We do like knowing stuff. So the question I first asked actually was, what does not eating of a tree have to do with eternal life? Because we all have grown up in the church, so we've just known this story from when we were little, and so we don't question this. But if you were talking to someone who'd never heard this before, they'd probably think it's very strange. That's like, wait, so what does not eating of this tree, how is that related to getting eternal life or receiving eternal death? It's a very strange thing. So yes, being obedient. So that's the heart of it. That is the heart of it. So the fact that this tree ultimately doesn't really matter, it does matter a little bit, and we'll get into why. But the point of it is, are you going to obey God or not? That's the heart of the covenant of worth is obedience. God could have said, you can eat of any tree, but you can't eat corn, right? He could have done that. Or he could have said, you can't walk into this little patch of land over here, right? He could have done anything like that, because ultimately the point was testing obedience. So how would Adam earn life? That's what his task is in this covenant, is to earn life for him and his descendants. So the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, it's clearly not evil in and of itself, because God created it and he called it good, right? It's not like this tree just sprouted up and God's like, oh, there's the evil tree, Adam, don't go near it. It's like in Lion King where he's like, don't go to that dark place, Simba, right? That's not what the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was like. The tree was, we know it was very visually appealing, and we know the fruit was visually appealing. It says that Eve, I forget the wording, but basically she thought that the fruit was beautiful, right? So it's a very visually beautiful tree. And clearly, like I said, it wasn't evil. So I already asked this question, but why did God forbid Adam from eating it? So first, what this tells us, it tells us about in what state Adam existed in, in the garden. Adam existed in what's called a state of innocence, right? And this meant that he actually didn't know good or evil, but it also meant that he had the potential to either do good or evil, right? So when I say he didn't know good or evil, it's almost like, like the best analogy is like a child. Now, Adam wasn't a child physically or mentally, but in the sense of knowing good or evil, he was like a child, right? Young children especially don't really have a sense of good or evil. They know some certain things feel good, certain things feel bad. They know certain things mom and dad like, certain things mom and dad don't like, but they're not really able to grasp good and evil, okay? And that's kind of the state Adam is in, right? He has the mind of an adult, he has the body of an adult, but he doesn't really understand good and evil like adults understand good and evil, okay? So in that sense, he's in a state of innocence. That means he doesn't know good or evil, but that means he could also commit good or evil, right? So in this state, Adam actually does have probably a freer will than anyone else has. Because now our wills are enslaved to sin until Christ redeems us. But Adam wasn't enslaved to anything, right? He truly did have a free will. So the reason God chose the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is because God wanted Adam to obey Him even without knowing good or evil, right? You may say, well, if he doesn't know good or evil, how is he supposed to resist the temptation of the serpent? Like, that's the point, right? He's supposed to just say, God told us not to do this, so we're not going to do it, right? He doesn't have to have this complex philosophical understanding of good and evil and the powers at hand. It's just, God said not to do it, so I'm not going to do it, right? God wants Adam to have that very innocent love of God, right? This is why Jesus highlights the children. He says, you have to become like these to enter the kingdom of God. Because children, they don't have to think very deeply through their love for their parents or whoever. It's just, they're my mom and dad. I'm going to do what they say. I'm going to believe what they tell me to believe, right? That's how God wanted Adam to perform here. Because he's in that state of innocence, right? He didn't need to have this debate with Satan. He just needed to be like, no, God told us not to do it, so we're not going to do it, Mr. Serpent. Thank you very much. Please be on your way. That's what he wanted him to do. Now, yes, God obviously knew that wasn't going to happen. God foreordained that the fall would happen, of course. But we're talking in terms of emotionally pleasing to God. It would have been emotionally pleasing to God for Adam to do this. But was Adam meant to live forever without knowing good or evil? No. Yeah, I don't think so. And I don't think so either, which is why most, again, this is not explicitly spelled out in Scripture, but I think most theologians throughout history have agreed that this commandment was likely meant to be temporary, right? It's not like Adam was supposed to just avoid this tree, at infinitum, like forever. Because I always wonder, like, what if one of his descendants ate the tree? Like, what would happen then? Would just that one descendant die, or would they somehow affect us? Because the reason it affects all of us is because Adam's our federal head. But if it's like Adam's great, great, great, great, great grandson, well, he's not the federal head of all of humanity. But I think this solves that problem. Because if the commandment's meant to be temporary, then they wouldn't have had to worry about it for generations to go on. So if Adam had successfully resisted Satan, right, if he said, no, Eve, we're not going to eat the fruit, because Adam was right there when it happened, right? The servant tempts Eve, but Adam is right there. So if he said, no, we're not going to do that, then God would have said, well done, good and faithful servant, you are not going to eat the fruit, you are not going to do that. Then God would have said, well done, good and faithful servant, you have earned eternal life for you and your descendants, you can eat of this tree now. And then he'd be able to eat of the tree. And after he had done this, he would have existed in a state of righteousness, right? No longer just this innocent, childlike understanding of morality. Now it is a mature adult understanding of good and evil, because he has passed the test that God put him in. So after he did that, he could have eaten of the tree of life, and that would have allowed him to live in a state of righteousness forever. And we know this is possible because in Genesis 3, 22-23, God kicks Adam and Eve out of the garden because he says, I don't want them to eat the tree of life in the state they're in now, because then they're just going to live in this sinful state forever. Right? I'll read the verse. It says, the Lord God said, behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also the tree of life and eat and live forever, therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. So kicking him out of the garden was not just God being angry with him, though he was in a sense. He was also saving them from essentially trapping themselves into this eternal state of sin. Right? Because while they were still in a state of sin, there was a potential they could be redeemed. And of course they were, because they did have faith in God. But this is how Adam could have earned eternal life for us. If he had resisted Satan, he could have eaten at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, afterwards eaten at the tree of life. And then we live eternal, righteous lives forever. But of course that didn't happen. That didn't happen. And so we all get the covenant curses. And what are these covenant curses? So first one, the natural order is corrupted. Okay, this is just Genesis 3 stuff, right? Thorns, thistles, they'll come out of the ground, they'll make it hard to grow food. The earth will fight against you, Adam. That obviously includes like animals will hate you or try to kill you, natural disasters, right? Everything like that. The natural order is corrupted, but it also means the marriage unit itself is going to be disrupted by selfishness, right? When he talks about, or when he says to Eve, your desire will be for your husband, but he shall rule over you. There's different, somewhat different interpretations of that. The one I think makes the most sense is just the fact that Eve will dislike Adam's headship over her. And obviously that continues on throughout all marriages at some point, right? And then also women will face pain and death and even death in childbearing. Okay, so the thing that's supposed to bring life into this world is now also going to be a cause of great pain and even death. And then men will toil and work towards things that will fail. Okay, before the fall, if you had worked, it would have led to success. You would have thought it would work hard, but it would have led to success. Now you can work hard, pour your heart into something, and it will fail. And it won't lead to anything. Right? If you don't, go read the book of Ecclesiastes. That's what that's all about. It's why do we keep toiling under the sun if it all just rots away and we die and that's it. And that's a very good question. And that's reflecting what's happening here. This is the covenant curse. But also, all of humanity now inherits the sin nature. Okay, Romans 5, 12 says, therefore, just as death spread through one man. I forget the verse by heart, but essentially it's saying death spread to all men because of Adam's disobedience and sin spread to all men and they all died because they all sinned. So, I mean, Adam and Eve, when they sinned, they made themselves unclean. Okay, they are now spiritually unclean. And Job 14 says, who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean thing? There is no one. So, because Adam and Eve are the only two people alive at this time and they're both unclean, every human being is now going to be unclean because they're the only ones that they can come from. That's why all of us inherit a sin nature. Okay? Our first parents, as they're called, were sinners and it became a part of their nature and now they pass that on to us. Which is why we don't need to be taught to sin, right? You don't have to teach a child to sin. You could teach them more creative ways to sin, but you don't have to put that desire in them to be selfish or to lie or to hit people or to whatever, right? That's naturally there. If anything, it needs to be taught the other way to not do that, right? This is because this is pre-programmed into us. We all share in this sin nature and we all share in the wages of sin, which is death. Now, some may think, well, if the covenant's already broken, then we're not held to it anymore, right? Wrong. We are still under this covenant because we know God's commandments. Romans 2 says that when the Gentiles do the works of the law, they show that they have the law written on their hearts, right? The Gentiles weren't given the Ten Commandments, but they naturally know murder's wrong, adultery's wrong, lying's wrong, blasphemy's wrong. They know that deep down. Now, they still do those things, but they know deep down they're wrong, and that's because all of humanity has the law of God written on their conscience, right? We know it's wrong. We know that certain things are right and wrong, okay? And because we know that they're right and wrong, we have an obligation to follow them, but we don't because, see, point two, we're all sinners. So that's why we have this internal turmoil in us, okay? That's why in this passage it even says that their conflicting thoughts will accuse or even excuse them, right? So he's acknowledging that there's confliction or conflict inside of every person because we have this law of God written on our hearts, and yet we're also sinners, and it's just this constant war throughout our whole life. So, put simply, the covenant of works is a mess. Adam failed. We don't get eternal life. We get death. We get destruction. We get misery. All the bad stuff of life is because Adam failed his covenant. It doesn't excuse you of your moral failings. It doesn't excuse me of my moral failings. But this is the ultimate reason, is because he failed, and we suffer the consequences of it. So, how do we get out of this? So, how do we get out of this? There's only one way to get out of this. We need a new covenant, which means we need a new federal head. We need a new representative. We need someone who is going to come in, take the place of Adam, and do it right this time. And of course, we all know who that is. That's Christ. Christ the second, or the Bible calls him the last Adam, okay? And when Scripture calls Christ the last Adam, it's telling us that he was given the same task as Adam. In fact, in Romans 5, it even says, Adam was a type of the one to come, right? That's the thing about the Greek term called type and anti-type. So, you have the type, which is an image of something, then the anti-type is the thing. So, for example, if someone took a picture of you, that picture of you is a type of you, right? It's got your image on it, but it's not you. Like, that picture isn't you. If someone destroyed that picture, you wouldn't die, okay? So, that picture is the type. You are the anti-type. You are the real you. You're the real thing, okay? If someone destroyed you, then you would cease to exist. So, that's the thing here. Adam is, in a sense, an image of what Christ would later come and bring the fullness of. And there's a lot more of that throughout the rest of Scripture, which we'll get to when we get to that. But, unlike the first Adam, Christ actually succeeded in earning eternal life. But, we said we need a new federal head. So, how is that going to happen? Well, let's think through it. Okay, so we said, the covenant blessings and curses, they're passed down from fathers to sons. That's what we see with Adam. Adam is the covenant head. He breaks the rules. He gets the curses. Now, that's going to be passed down to all of his children. But, the reason I highlight sons is because sons then go on, they have families, and they pass down these curses. Okay, so this is called covenant succession, right? It's passed down from fathers to sons. So, the question is, where are you going to get a new federal head from? Okay, because he has to be human in order to represent humanity. But, all of humanity is descended from Adam, which means they're all going to get the covenant curse, okay? This means that whoever this new federal head is, he cannot have a human father. He can't. Because if he does, he inherits the covenant curse. And, this is why the virgin birth of Christ matters, right? It's not just, oh, it's a miracle. Of course, it's a miracle. It's a phenomenal miracle. But, it actually had to happen that way. Because if Jesus had had a human biological father, then Jesus would have inherited the covenant curse. Also, then he really wouldn't have been the son of God in a human sense as well as a divine sense. He would have been more like a demigod, which is something the ancient world already believed in. That would have messed up everything. But, he couldn't have had a human father. That's why the virgin birth had to happen, right? Because God is Jesus' biological father, he doesn't inherit those curses. That means he can be the new federal head. He can be the new covenant head. He can stand in for Adam now because he doesn't have any of those curses. And, he's also God in the flesh, so that helps too, okay? But, how does Jesus actually go about fulfilling this new covenant, okay? Christ's obedience. Like we said, obedience was the heart of the covenant of works. It's dependent upon do you obey or do you not? If you obey perfectly, you will receive life. If you fail to obey, you'll receive death. We already got death. Christ has to obey perfectly in order to give us life, in order to earn that eternal life for us. And, that's what he did. He had to obey God perfectly without flaw or error. And, this is called active obedience. Jesus is actively doing this. He's actively living for us. He's actively earning eternal life for us. And, Jesus did this in way harsher conditions than Adam did. Think of what Adam had. Adam had a paradise garden, all the food he could eat, beautiful life, literally a utopia. No problems at all, other than the serpent, okay? And, he failed in that condition. Which is why if you have the audacity to think, oh, I would do better than Adam did. No, you wouldn't. I wouldn't either. No one would, okay? Because if you were put in that situation with what they knew, you would make the same mistake. You would fail in the same way. You wouldn't, okay? That's just what would happen, right? So, it's not as though God just created like Adam. It was just the dunce of humanity. And, he's just stupid. No, Adam was probably far smarter than anyone who's ever lived outside of probably Jesus and maybe a couple of other people, right? He lived 900 years. He was probably a very intelligent man, okay? But, he was human like us. He fell to deception, just like we do. But, Christ lived under a pagan empire, corrupt Jewish leadership, in the most brutal life conditions you could imagine. Like, if you could travel back to that time and spend one day, you'd probably die. Not only just from all the diseases that would probably be going around, but also just because of the physical labor that is needed just to get through one day back then, okay? It's something we're not even, we can't even fathom. And yet, he was able to resist the devil in the wilderness with no food, no one to help him out. He was alone. And, he resisted Satan in that. And so, this is the active obedience of Christ. He is living on our behalf. He's doing this on our behalf. So, we always talk about Christ dying for us. We never talk about Christ living for us. But, Christ absolutely lived for us. He had to. But, he also did have to die for us, right? He had to pay the price for the sins of the world. So, he did what Adam didn't do. He worked his way up to getting the eternal life for us. But, all the people he's trying to save have sinned, and the wages of sin is death. So, he has to come and die for us now. And, this is called the passive obedience. So, you have active, and you have passive, right? Passive obedience means that Jesus just accepted the death that God was going to give to him, right? He didn't go seeking it out, right? He didn't do anything to harm himself towards death, right? He didn't kill himself. The Jewish leaders and the Romans killed him, right? But, he obediently went along with it. And so, the passive obedience of Christ is him dying for the sins of the world, okay? So, passive obedience is what pays for your sins. Active obedience is what gives you life and righteousness. So, he obeyed God perfectly. He died for our sins, but he couldn't just stop there. He could not just stop at dying for our sins, okay? He had to overcome death by his own power, which was done at the resurrection, okay? The resurrection literally overpowers the curse. Because, death was the chief curse for all mankind. But, the resurrection is literally the reversal of death, okay? So, the resurrection is the overpowering of the curse. It's the answer to the curse, right? How are you going to fight death? Resurrection. That's the only way. That's the only way. But, that's why Christ had to rise from the dead. Because, our sins didn't need to just be paid for. We needed to have life after death. We need to live forever after this sinful flesh is gone. And, it's on this point, the point of the resurrection, that Paul draws this contrast between Adam and Jesus. If you'll turn to 1 Corinthians 15, this is the passage that kind of summarizes the point of this lesson. 1 Corinthians 15, and look at verses 20 through 22. Do you want to read? Okay. Okay, thank you. Yeah. So, there's the contrast, okay? Adam brought death because he failed. Christ brings life because he succeeded, okay? He brings resurrection from the dead. So, we're still going to die physically. But, spiritually, we are alive. And, even that physical death will only be temporary, right? It will only be until Christ returns, and you'll come back with him. And, you'll have a resurrected physical body that will never, you know, have wear and tear and age on it. Well, I don't know how age is going to work. But, it's going to be perfect. It's going to be glorified. It's going to be better than what Adam had in the garden. Because, Adam in the garden would have had a body like us, okay? But, we're going to have a better body than he did, okay? It's going to be eternally glorious. And then, last verse, Adam all died. So, also in Christ. So, all remain alive, okay? Christ did the work. That's the point I want to end on here. Christ did the work because you could not. He did it. Christ fulfilled the covenant of works, okay? Now, as Christians, we can often view works in a negative light. Because, we know that we cannot work up to our salvation. That is correct. That is very true. No single work we do gets us saved, gets us into heaven. But, in reality, we actually are saved by works. Just not our works. We're saved by the works of Christ, okay? God didn't, it's not like God tried out works with Adam. And then, when he failed, he's like, okay, well, I'm going to skip that. I'm going to do this new thing over here called grace. No, no, no. Works were always essential to eternal life. They always needed to be done to gain eternal life. There was no other way around it. But, the problem was that none of us could accomplish those works because we're all sinners. We all sin. We don't obey perfectly, which is what was needed to have eternal life. Someone else needed to do that work. So, works still needed to be done, but none of us could do it. Only Christ could do it. So, Christ fulfilled that covenant of works, right? It's all fulfilled in him. And he did it in order to bring us the covenant of grace, which we'll talk about next week and in several lessons to go. But he did the work. And this is important to remember, right? This goes beyond just studying the Bible. Because it's obviously important for studying the Bible because you see, you know, what Christ, that Christ's works actually matter, right? That Christ didn't just dilly-dally around for 33 years and then said, okay, it's time to die and then die and get risen to death. No, that was all necessary. He needed to actively live an obedient life on our behalf. But this is important to remember because Satan will always attack you with accusations. You're not doing enough for God. You're not working out your salvation enough. You're not as disciplined as you should be. You're not as faithful as this person or that person, right? Those are the accusations you will hear very frequently in your mind. And they sound very reasonable. And these thoughts and others just bog us down and cause us to look to ourselves. That's what Satan's trying to do here. He's trying to take your eyes off of Christ. And he's saying, point those eyes back at yourself. Look at your own heart. Look at your own mind. That's not good enough. You're not good enough. But when we remember that Christ already did all that was necessary for our eternal souls, we can respond to these thoughts by saying, you are absolutely correct. I am not good enough. I am not disciplined enough. I am not faithful enough. But Christ was. Christ was good enough for me. Now, that's not an excuse for me to sin. It's actually a reason for me not to sin. Because Christ did this work over here. He did all the work necessary. And now he's credited that to me. And he's given me his spirit. And he's made me alive in him. He's united me to him. Which means that sin is not going to be as appealing as it once was. Okay. But even though you know that, these thoughts will still come at you, right? It's the devil's favorite weapon. And they are effective. They will make you depressed. They will make you anxious. They will make you feel really awful about yourself. And the reason they do that is because they're often true. Because we do fail. We do mess up. We are not good enough. We are not faithful enough. But we cannot fight that by saying, well, I'll do better. Well, I'll do better. Yeah, you should try to do better. But that's not how you fight those thoughts. The way you fight those thoughts is by remembering Christ did the work. He did. It's done, right? He thought all the perfect thoughts on my behalf. He did all the perfect actions on my behalf. He resisted sin perfectly on my behalf. Right? That is set in stone. That is done. It cannot be undone. It cannot be changed. That's what you have to remember about Christ's work. Because it's only through that that you will actually gain freedom from sin.