Grounded in Christ

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Wow, what a beautiful sight is this! We’re so thrilled that you’re here. Let me add my greeting to Dannah and Staci. Staci’s one of the newest additions to the Revive Our Hearts conferences; isn’t she precious? (applause) Dannah’s precious, too, but we’re kind of like old ladies together. (laughter)

It was eighteen months ago in Monterrey, Mexico that we did a Grounded conference, just as the pandemic was shutting down the world. As Mary and Dannah and Robert and I left that convention center in March of last year, they closed the doors behind us, and that was the last convention there for a very long time.

So, as our hearts were being prepared for this conference, we said, “What should we call it? What should be the theme?” As we sought the Lord, we said, “We still need to be grounded.” That conference was Arraigadas—I think that’s how they say it—that was in Spanish. It’s easier in English—Grounded: Standing Firm in a Shaking World.

What does it mean to be grounded?Well, you hear the word used in different ways. Sometimes you hear it as a punishment: “You’re grounded . . . ’til you’re twenty-three! You’ll never leave home again! Stay in your room!” It’s a punishment. It’s how a lot of people felt during the pandemic, right? We found ourselves grounded. We had to hunker down.

Then you remember we recently observed the twentieth anniversary of 9/11, when commercial planes were hijacked and crashed into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. At that time, all U.S. planes were what? Grounded! Every plane that was in the air at the time had to land at the closest airport, and any planes that were on the ground waiting to take off had to stay—what? Grounded! So millions of people (maybe you were one of them) were left stranded at airports, unable to get to their destination. It was a huge inconvenience when those planes were—what? Grounded.

Now, there are some positive uses for that word. It’s not always a punishment. Have you heard of electrical grounding? Some of you are nodding your heads. Here’s what the dictionary says: 

Electrical grounding is the process of removing excess charge on an object by transferring electrical charges from a short circuit between this object and another larger object. 

Did you get that? (laughter) My third-grade teacher wrote a note on my report card to my parents. She said, “Nancy seems overwhelmed by our study of electricity.” (laughter) So I am not going to try to explain electrical grounding. But here’s what I know about it: it’s a safety measure. It’s something that helps protect us. It’s a good thing.

Grounded can also mean to be mentally focused, not distracted. My friend Becky Ellerman is here. I hope she won’t mind me pointing her out, but a few weeks ago on a Saturday afternoon she sent me a text. She said, “I just have to tell you this: I’m an Aggie.” For those of you who don’t know . . . well, never mind. She said, “I’m an Aggie. I’m listening to a defensive player interview, and the player was just asked, ‘How are you going to be able to face Arkansas today?’ And the player said, ‘We have to stay grounded, focused on what is right before us. Not look ahead, focus on what we need to do today.’” Grounded. Don’t get distracted, don’t look too far out; get grounded.

We say someone is grounded, and we mean that in a good sense. We talk about someone who is mentally and emotionally stable. They’re not going to be easily cratered by tough circumstances or swayed by negative influences; they’re grounded.

This weekend we want to explore what it means to be spiritually grounded, to be rooted, grounded in our faith; and how we can stand firm in a shaking world.

Now, can you think of a time in your life when we have ever needed more to know how to be grounded? Talk about a shaking world. There are so many forces that are threatening to uproot us, to undermine our faith, to discourage us, to sway us. We have external threats, ways of thinking, philosophies that are counter to God’s ways, unrest and turmoil in our culture and in our world.

But it’s not just big, external stuff; it’s internal stuff. It’s personal pressures and problems that can really get us off-kilter. I got a text early this morning from a friend who was planning to be here today, but this week a teenage nephew took his life. Today she’s at the funeral, supporting the family of that young man.

I have another friend who was planning to be here. Three weeks ago her husband got COVID, and last week he was with the Lord. She never imagined these kinds of things would come to be.

I have another friend who’s watching the livestream from another country, and she recently shared with me about some deeply painful things that have been happening in her marriage, challenges in her marriage. How many moms and grandmoms are here today who are dealing with turbulent situations with grown children or grandchildren? It’s tough to stay grounded when your world is shaking. It’s tough to stay grounded when our world is shaking.

Here’s the thing: these are not new challenges that just started in 2020, 2021, or whatever 2022 brings. Believers of all eras have had to deal with hard things, with a shaking world, and they’ve had to learn how to stay grounded.

That leads me to say, I want you to open your Bible or scroll on your phone to the book of Colossians. I’ve been living in Colossians for the past several weeks. I wish we had all weekend to spend in Colossians. We won’t, but I want us to start there. So I want you to follow along.

The book of Colossians is to a church that was probably planted by a man named Epaphras, who shows up a couple of times in the book of Colossians. He was a friend and a disciple of Paul. Epaphras had visited Paul in Rome. He had told Paul about the faith, the hope, and the love of these believers in Colossae and the surrounding towns. But he’d also told Paul that there was some false, dangerous teaching that was creeping into the church and was catching these believers off guard.

Now, Paul wrote this letter to believers, most of whom he had never met personally. He didn’t know them, but he was concerned for their well-being. I’ve never met most of you (I wish I could), but I’m concerned. As I’ve been studying the book of Colossians, I’m concerned for our hearts, for our souls, for our spiritual well-being. I’m concerned for what Paul was concerned about for these believers, that they would remain steadfast and firm with the ground shaking around them. He wrote this letter to help them remain secure in the faith.

What did Paul do to encourage these believers whose world was shaking, in the church and outside the church? How did he encourage them? How did he protect them? I’ll tell you what he did: he pointed them to Christ. There are twenty-six direct references to Christ in these four chapters, and dozens more references if you include all the pronouns that refer to Christ—He and Him—dozens of references! I’d encourage you to go through your Bible, as I did again this morning, and just circle every reference to Christ or to Him and see how precious Christ is.

Listen to several of the descriptors of Christ that you’ll find as you go on that Christ hunt in the book of Colossians. I won’t give you the references, but I’m just going to start in chapter one and move through with a number of them.

Christ is: 

• The Son God loves, Paul tells us. He says in chapter 1, verse 14, “In Christ we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” 
• The image of the invisible God. Christ is God with a face, with a body. He’s the image of the invisible God. 
• He is the firstborn over all creation. We’ll talk about that in a little bit. 
• Everything was created by Him, through Him, and for Him, says Paul. He is before all things. 
• By Him all things hold together. 
• He is the head of the body, the Church. 
• He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead. 
• The goal of all things in heaven and on earth is that Christ might come to have first place in everything. 
• He reconciled us to God through making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

And that’s just the first twenty verses of the first chapter! It continues.

He says:

• Christ in you is the hope of glory. 
• In Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. 
• The entire fullness of God’s nature dwells bodily in Christ. 
• He is the head over every ruler and authority. 
• All the Old Testament Jewish religious festivals and practices were mere shadows of what was to come, and the substance to which they pointed was what? Christ. Not what, but who. 
• Christ is your life.
• Then chapter 3:11, Christ is all in all. Christ! 

Throughout the book of Colossians you see: 

• The uniqueness of Christ.
• The eternality of Christ. He always has been; He always will be. 
• The majesty and glory of Christ. 
• The exaltation of Christ. 
• The centrality of Christ. 
• The supremacy of Christ over every created thing. 
• The absolute reign and rule of Christ over every power in heaven and on earth. 
• The sufficiency of Christ. 
• The necessity of Christ. 
• The sacrificial death of Christ. 
• The redeeming grace and mercy of Christ. 

Paul says Christ is everything. He is all in all. He is our Creator; He is our Redeemer; He is our hope; He is our peace; He is our joy; He is our purpose. We have nothing and we are nothing apart from Christ. If we have Christ, we have everything we need for time and for eternity. You can never have too much of Christ.

I want to talk in this opening session, to lay a foundation for the rest of this conference, about what it means to be grounded in Christ and in the gospel of Christ.

Throughout the book of Colossians, Paul talks about the transforming power of the gospel of Christ. For example, if you look at chapter 1, verse 21, Paul says, “Once you were . . .” This is something he’ll do multiple times throughout the book. “Once you were . . . but now you are . . .” Verse 21: 

Once you were alienated and hostile in your minds, as expressed in your evil actions. But now He has reconciled you by his physical body through His death, to present you holy, faultless, and blameless before him. (1:21–22)

That is cause for worship, cause for celebration, cause for gratitude—which, by the way, is another theme in the book of Colossians: thanksgiving and gratitude all the way through. How could you not be grateful, how could you not be thankful if you are in this category? Once you were . . . but now you are reconciled. That’s cause for worship.

Now we come to the next verse, verse 23, which is our theme verse this weekend. “If indeed you remain grounded and steadfast in the faith, not shifted away” some of your translations say “you are not moved away” “. . . from the hope of the gospel that you heard.”

That verse has multiple angles, all of which are precious. 

First, it’s a word of assurance. You say, “How’s that an assurance?” It says, “If you remain grounded.” Well, what he’s saying is those who have been reconciled to God through faith in Christ (v. 22) will stay grounded, rooted, steadfast in Christ—not because we’re faithful to God, but because He is faithful. Christ holds fast to us. That’s why we will be faithful and we will hold fast to Him all the way to the end. That’s a word of assurance. If you’re in Christ, He will be faithful to keep you grounded.

But it’s also a word of warning. It’s possible to be familiar with the gospel, to profess to be a Christian, to hang out with others who believe the gospel, and whose lives have been transformed by it. It’s possible to look to everyone around you as if you are in the faith, but then to shift or move away from that gospel you once heard.

We’re hearing about many today who have grown up in the church. They have professed to be believers in Christ, and some of them now very publicly have shifted away from the hope of the gospel. They call it deconstructing the Christian faith. You look and you say, “That man was a pastor! That man was a Christian leader! And now he says, ‘I don’t believe any of this anymore’? He has moved away from the faith.” This is a word of warning.

One, that person may never have been in the faith; it just looked like it. But even for those of us who are truly believers this is a warning we need to hear, because the greatest danger in our lives is not a secular culture that denies Christ. The greatest danger for us as believers is not government overreach, serious as that can be. Our greatest danger is that we who have heard the truth, who have said “yes” to Christ, “yes” to the gospel, would shift, move away from Christ and from the hope of the gospel.

Think about it this way. What would you do if you were the enemy of God and you wanted to sabotage His people, you wanted to steal their joy, if you wanted to keep them worried and anxious, if you wanted to keep them defeated by sin? What would you do? I’ll tell you, you’d do exactly what the enemy of our souls does: you would seek to draw God’s people away from Christ and away from the simplicity and the purity and the magnificence of the gospel. How would you do that? 

Well, here’s one way you’d do it: you would distract them. Get them preoccupied with insignificant things, turn their attention toward anything other than Jesus. You’d get them to look to things and people other than Christ to satisfy them. You’d make people think that they need Christ plus—Christ plus other things, even good things. You’d get them giddy with delights other than Christ. You’d get them drinking at wells of pleasure that promise happiness, entertaining themselves to death, scrolling mindlessly and endlessly through their social media feeds, to distract them from Christ.

Then you would seek to diminish Christ—not that you can diminish Christ. He is great; He is magnificent; nothing will ever diminish Him. But He can be diminished in our eyes and in our thinking. 

• You would trivialize Christ to His people. 
• You would make Jesus appear to be smaller than their problems, less important than the cultural issues of our day. 
• You would make God’s people think that true power rests in the hands of political parties and political leaders and media commentators and influencers. 
• You’d get Christians arguing about masks, about vaccines. 
• You’d cause them to lose sight of Christ. 

You’d distract them, you would seek to diminish Christ, and then you would deceive them about Christ.

There was a study done last year on the state of American theology, and among those who were defined as evangelicals by belief, 65 percent affirmed the ancient heresy that “Jesus is the first and greatest being created by God.” Sixty-five percent of people, what they said identified their beliefs as being gospel beliefs.

Three in ten of those who claim gospel evangelical beliefs said that Jesus was a great teacher, but He was not God. That’s not 30 percent of the whole population, that’s 30 percent of the people sitting in our churches! They said that Jesus was a great teacher, but not God.

See, the devil is deceiving people about who Christ is. So people are now asking within our Christian churches, within our Christian publishing industry, within Christian websites and social media sites, “Is Christ really the only way to God? Are those who believe other religions truly eternally lost? Is God’s Word true about everything, including sexuality and other controversial issues?” They’re seeking to deceive us about Christ.

Here’s another way the enemy deceives us about Christ and the gospel: he makes us think that the essence of Christianity is going to church, going to conferences like this one, reading Christian books, listening to Christian podcasts, giving money, doing good works. He makes us think that we can make a profession of faith and then go on living the same way as our life before Christ—the same habits, the same choices, the same language, the same values, the same priorities as when we were away from Christ. “Yes, you can just tag Christian on that. Now you’re a Christian. But you can keep sleeping with your boyfriend, you can keep—whatever.” There’s no transforming necessity. Paul says, “You once were . . . now you are.” But we get deceived, because we think we can be Christians and live like the devil, not live according to God’s Word.

Paul says in Colossians 2:4—scroll there if you’re following along— “I am saying this so that no one will deceive you with arguments that sound reasonable.”

You may think, Well, other people—yes. People who aren’t grounded, they get deceived, but that could never happen to me. But look at how Paul describes these people that he’s concerned about. Look at verse 5. “I rejoice to see how well-ordered you are and the strength of your faith in Christ.” Paul is writing this letter to people who know the truth and people who have strong faith. To them he says, “I’m saying this so no one will deceive you with arguments that sound reasonable.” 

Look at verse 8. He says to these same people, “Be careful! Beware! Be on your guard that no one takes you captive.” This can happen to you. You can be deceived. So he says, “Watch out! Be on your guard!”

How can you be taken captive? Look at the rest of verse 8 of chapter 2. 

Beware lest anyone take you captive through philosophy and empty deceit based on human tradition, based on the elements of the world, rather than Christ.

This way of thinking Paul is concerned about is hollow, it’s empty, it’s deceptive. It’s based on what’s natural.

How many times have we heard in the past two years: “Trust the science. Follow the science.” Think about that a moment. Science involves human inquiry, asking questions, trying to solve things you don’t understand. It’s the study of things that puzzle and mystify. 

So, humble scientists (there are a few) recognize that they have more questions than answers and that there are limits to their knowledge. Paul says those who make science their god will be deceived, because their thinking is based on the elements of this world rather than Christ. If your thinking, your life is based on anything or anyone other than Christ, you will not be able to stand firm in a shaking world. The antidote, the solution to being deceived, to being taken captive by the world’s thinking, is to be rooted and grounded in Christ.

Look at verse 3 of chapter 2:

“In [Christ] are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. . . . So then, just as you have received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to walk in him, being rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught.” (vv. 2, 6) 

The deeper the root, the stronger and more stable the plant will be, and the greater the ability to withstand storms and to discern and deal with deception. What you are rooted in will be revealed when the earth starts shaking around you, but don’t wait until you’re in a crisis to get grounded in Christ.

What does it mean, what does it look like to be rooted and grounded in Christ?

First of all, you have to be sure that you are in Christ, that you have been planted in Him. In chapter 1, verse 13, Paul says, “God has rescued us from the domain of darkness.” He picked us up out of that dark world, and He has transferred us into the kingdom of the Son He loves. You can’t be grounded in Christ if you’ve never been transferred into Christ. Have you been? Are you in Christ? Be sure you’re in Christ, that you’d been planted in Him.

Secondly, relentlessly draw nourishment from Christ. Roots draw nourishment from the soil in which they’re planted. So where are you planted, and where are you getting your nourishment for your mind and your soul? 

Paul talks about this in different ways throughout Colossians. Let me just point you to a few of them. In chapter 2, verse 6 he says, 

Continue to walk in Christ, being rooted and built up in Him.

We’ve been placed in Christ. We need now to put down the roots of our lives deep into the soil of His love, His grace, His Word, and He will provide as we live in Him all the nutrients, the nourishment that our souls need.

In chapter 2, verse 19 he says, 

Hold onto Christ, the head, from whom the whole body, nourished and held together, grows with a growth from God. 

You can’t grow spiritually if you’re not getting your nourishment from Christ. Don’t let go of Him. He says, “Hold fast to Him.” You can’t grow without Him. You will never, ever get past your need for Christ. There will never come a time when you can live the Christian life on autopilot.

Look at chapter 3, verse 1. This is, again, drawing our nourishment from Christ. He said, 

Seek the things above, where Christ is. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. (vv. 1–2) 

What are you seeking? What are you setting your mind on? Earthly things or Christ? We become what we behold. As we gaze steadfastly at Christ in His Word, we will be transformed into that likeness. What are you beholding? You have time for Facebook, but you don’t have time for His Book? What are you beholding? You become like what you behold.

Chapter 3, verse 16, 

Let the Word of Christ dwell richly among you, teaching one another, singing . . . 

Here’s the question: what do we talk about when we’re together? If people were to scroll through our social media feeds, what would they say matters most to us? Politics? Fashion? Food? Or Christ?

You see, to draw our nourishment from Christ means intentional, continual effort and choices to live in Christ, to hold onto Christ, to seek Christ, to let the word of Christ dwell richly in and among us.

Thirdly, and I’ll just mention this, ruthlessly deal with the weeds that threaten to choke out your faith in Christ. You have to draw your nourishment from Christ. Some of you are gardeners; you get all this stuff. You have to deal with the weeds that are never ending. 

Well, in heaven we won’t have any more weeds, praise God. But chapter 3, verse 5,

Put to death whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desire, and greed, which is idolatry. . . . Put away [everything that is not of Christ]: anger, wrath, malice, slander, filthy language, lying. (vv. 5, 8)

These are weeds! Paul says, “Don’t be content to live in a bed of weeds! Draw your nourishment from Christ, and then put to death everything that is not of Christ.”

I love watching sunsets. I have thousands of pictures of sunsets on my phone. Let me show you a recent one. This was outside our home one evening just a few weeks ago. Isn’t that amazing? Just a little phone camera. Listen, the sun makes for beautiful photos. But here’s another thing: the sun is also essential for life, and it’s central to our solar system. Without the sun at the center, the earth—our planet—would speed off into the universe aimlessly. As the temperature dropped, the most we could survive—depending on what source you look at—it might be several days, maybe a few weeks, but we would soon freeze to death. The sun has to be at the center to sustain and preserve life.

Now, for many years mankind, including scientists, thought that the earth was the center of the universe. That philosophy was called geocentricity—earth, geo; centricity, at the center. Then in 1543, a Polish astronomer named Nicolas Copernicus published a major work in which he proposed a radically new concept. Scientists refer to it as heliocentricity. What does helio mean? The sun! It means that the earth and other planets revolve around the sun. The earth is not the center; the sun is the center.

Now, that view, which he published in the last year of his life, would not be widely received for more than a century. In fact, many religious leaders in that era were vehemently opposed to this concept. They condemned it as heresy. Copernicus was right about the sun.

Scripture asserts that Christ is the center of the entire universe. We cannot live without Him. Without Him, our world, our lives are left to spin out of control. Yet we foolishly think and live as if we were the center of our universe.

At the beginning of the fifth century, a young man who was about sixteen years of age was captured by Irish pirates and taken from his home in Britain to Ireland, where he was sold into slavery and assigned to tend sheep. During that time—he was lonely, he was desolate—he turned to God for comfort and eventually placed his faith in Christ. 

After six years of slavery he escaped, returned home to Britain to his family.But God kept a burden in his heart to see Ireland rescued from paganism that was engulfing the whole nation in that day. So eventually, he returned to Ireland as a missionary. His name was Patrick. Today, many know him as St. Patrick of Ireland.

Now, from Patrick’s writing, we learn that at times he was tormented by temptation. He also was tormented with guilt and shame from an apparent moral failure in his youth. He was haunted by the idea of being eternally condemned by God for his past sin.

Even as I say that, I know there are many women listening to me today who are haunted and tormented by similar thoughts.

Patrick’s efforts to bring Christ to the remotest parts of Ireland that had never been before reached with the gospel, were not met with great reception. They were frequently opposed. Many numbers of times he was imprisoned for months at a time for preaching the gospel. So he had this internal turmoil, fears, doubts, shame, guilt, and then he had this external opposition and adversity.

Through it all, whether dealing with his own sin and weakness or dealing with opposition from without, he learned to fix his eyes on Christ.

There’s a familiar prayer that’s been attributed to Patrick, and here’s just a portion of that prayer. 

“Christ with me,

Christ before me,

Christ behind me,

Christ in me,

Christ beneath me,

Christ above me,

Christ on my right,

Christ on my left,

Christ when I lie down,

Christ when I sit down,

Christ when I arise,

Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,

Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks of me,

Christ in every eye that sees me,

Christ in every ear that hears me.”

This prayer has sometimes been called Patrick’s Lorica. That’s a Latin word that means “breastplate.” In the midst of opposition, temptation, and failure, this was Patrick’s strong, sure defense—not a rote prayer, but Christ, my breastplate of righteousness. Christ was his strong, sure defense, and Christ is our strong, sure defense. Christ, Christ, Christ—only Christ, always Christ!

So Paul said to the Colossians, “Remember what you were, remember the gospel, and remember Christ.” Remember what He has done for you, remember who He is—in you and for you today. Remember that your sin estranged you from God, but Christ has reconciled you to God by His death. Remember that you were once an enemy of God, but Christ has made you a friend of God. Remember that you were once under the wrath and the judgment of God, but Christ took that wrath on Himself so you could live in the blessing and grace of God.

If you’re plagued with shame, with guilt, remember that Christ bore that shame and guilt in your place on the cross. 

If you perhaps have grown up in the church, in a religious or Christian family, and you’re tempted to rely on your own goodness, remember that your only righteousness is found in Christ. 

When you feel the weight of trying to perform to please Christ, remember that you live only by faith in Christ, who is the only one who could ever please God. You don’t have to perform to please Him. 

If you’re being defeated by sinful patterns and responses, remember that Christ lives in you, and His resurrection power is able to overcome every sin that tempts you. 

If your heart is dry and thirsty, remember that Christ is the living water that satisfies. 

If you’re feeling anxious or discouraged, remember that Christ is your peace and hope.

If you’re feeling whiplash with this world in upheaval, in turmoil, remember that Paul says in Colossians 1 that “all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and by Him all things hold together.”

How many things does He hold together? All things! Beyond what we can see and imagine—the planets, our solar system, the furthest-flung galaxies, the entire universe is held together by Christ and His Word. And He holds together the things that are smaller than we can imagine—every molecule, every atom, every proton, every neutron, every electron, and things that we can’t even imagine what they are. Who holds them all together? Christ. 

He holds all things together—the economy, the environment, the government. He holds you together when it feels that your world is spinning out of control—your marriage, your children, your job, your health. He holds you together. There’s not a single atom, not a single cancer cell, not a single tragedy, not a single concern on your heart that is outside of His control. He has the whole world in His hands.

There’s a simple song we sometimes sing that has a profound message. It reminds us of our constant need for Christ. 

In the morning, when I rise,
Give me Jesus.
When I am alone,
Give me Jesus.
And when I come to die,

Give me Jesus.
Give me Jesus!
Give me Jesus!
You can have all this world,
But give me Jesus.

Is that the cry of your heart? Is that the way you live? Or would you say it this way? “In the morning when I rise, give me coffee! Give me my phone! Give me a job I love! Give me better health! Give me more money in my checking account! Give me my therapist! Give me a break from these kids! And when I am alone, give me a good friend! Give me a husband! Give me a child! Give me someone I can talk to! Give me grandkids who call and check in on me!”

Listen, there’s nothing wrong with these things. But if you spend your life pursuing those things, then when you come to die, that’s all you’ll have. If you want to be assured of the presence and the peace of Christ, both now, in the morning, and when you are alone, and when you come to die, then in the morning when you rise (and let me say, young women, in the morning of your life), and when you are alone, and when you’re with family and with friends and with strangers, all day, every day, as Paul said, “Continue to walk in Christ, being rooted and built up in Him, and established in the faith.”

Would you pray with me?

Oh Lord, our world is shaking, and many of our personal worlds are shaking. Some of us think our world is not shaking, but by the time we get home, or next week, or next month, we’re going to find ourselves in a world that is upside-down from anything we ever dreamed would be the case.

At our best, Lord, we are weak. We are vulnerable. We cannot stand firm on our own. So God, may we be rooted and grounded in Christ, and as we put our roots down deep into the soil of His love, His Word, His gospel. May we find in Christ and Christ alone all that our hearts need and long for. 

Oh Father, may our lives as women testify to our world of the beauty of Christ, the supremacy of Christ, the sufficiency of Christ, and the glory of Christ. Amen.

All Scripture is taken from the CSB.