As you're being seated, I invite you to take your Bibles and open up with me to Paul's epistle to the Romans and chapter 6. We're going to be in verses 5 through 11 of chapter 6 in the book of Romans this morning. Our sermon is entitled, United with Christ in Life and Death. United with Christ in life and death as we continue to walk verse by verse Through the book of Romans in our sermon series God's righteousness revealed We've come to verse 5 and we'll go through verse 11 and chapter 6 this morning The text reads For if we have been united with Him in a death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His. We know that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now, if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him. We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again. Death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died, he died to sin once for all. But the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. This is the word of the Lord. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of the Lord, it will stand forever. In the book of Exodus, we find that there has arisen a Pharaoh that does not remember Joseph. And the Israelites, the Hebrews, are enslaved under Pharaoh and the Egyptians for 400 years. They are given straw to make mud bricks for the building projects of all of the Egyptians. And evil taskmasters are placed over the Hebrews as they work in slavery every day of the week. When God first sends Moses to Pharaoh to tell Pharaoh that God says, let my people go, you remember that Pharaoh was enraged at this. He hardened his heart, he would not let the people go, and he placed on them stricter regulations. He told them that they were now to make double the bricks that they used to, and now they would not be provided with any straw as before. Do you remember what God did in Egypt? how with a heavy hand and an outstretched arm, God inflicted Pharaoh and the Egyptians with 10 plagues, ending with the death of the firstborn, even the death of the firstborn in Pharaoh's own family. And how finally he relented and let the people of the Hebrews go from slavery. And that's what they did. They were packed and they were ready for God told them to be ready. Their neighbors, the Egyptians, had given them objects of gold and silver so that perhaps they might win favor with them from their God. And as the Hebrews left out of Egypt, they camped beside the Red Sea. And then looking back into the distance, they saw Pharaoh and the armies of Egypt hurtling towards them, horses and chariots by the thousands. Pharaoh realized that he had lost his slave labor. And he had hardened his heart and changed his mind about their leaving. So now he was coming after them. The Israelites found themselves hemmed in. Pharaoh and his armies were to the west. They couldn't go with the millions of women and children that they had either north or south and outrun the chariots of Pharaoh. And of course to the east lie the Red Sea. You know what happened though? God told Moses to dip his staff into the sea and the sea parted in two, heaping up on both sides so that the Hebrews were allowed to walk across the sea on dry land between the two walls of ocean on each side of them. As the Hebrews were coming to the other side, Pharaoh drove his horses and chariots in an act of insanity after them into the path that crossed between the two walls of the sea. And God brought down the walls of the sea upon Pharaoh and his chariots and his horsemen, drowning and killing and destroying them all. The enemy of Israel was defeated. God's people were free. In fact, just before God gave the Hebrews the Ten Commandments in the book of Exodus in chapter 20, to instruct them about how they were to live, He spoke to them saying, that I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. Now maybe you're asking, what does this story have to do with Romans 6 and what Paul is saying? Well, the question that I want to ask that I think is relevant for our discussion this morning is given the realities that we've just mentioned, given their exodus from Egypt to live in a new land, given their liberation from slavery to freedom, given what Paul in 1 Corinthians 10 calls their baptism in the Red Sea, given that their more powerful evil enemy has been defeated, and given that they have now been rescued into the service of God, do you think that the Hebrews should wake up the next morning and go back to making bricks? Now that they are freed by God, should they continue acting like slaves in Egypt? And if the absurdity of that suggestion is clear to you, then surely also you will realize the point that Paul is trying to make throughout our passage in Romans 6. He is saying to every Christian, given that Christ has made atonement for your sins by His death on the cross, paying their price in full, and that He is risen from the grave three days later. And given that Christ mortally defeated your enemies of sin, death, and Satan through these acts, and given that by faith you are no longer in Adam, but now in Christ, united to Him in His death and life, so you are no longer spiritually dead, but are now spiritually alive. and given that you've been transferred from the domain of darkness to His kingdom of light, and given that you're no longer enslaved to serve sin, but are now free to serve God, how then can we possibly live a life characterized by sin and rebellion against God? For going back to verse 2 in chapter 6, how can we who die to sin still live in it? All of this in answer to the question, are we to continue in sin so that grace may abound? Paul says, absolutely not, by no means. This is the argument that Paul continues explaining in verses 5-11. Highlighting the implications of our union with Jesus Christ. This union, you'll recall, is true of all believers who have believed in Jesus Christ. It is secured by faith in the Lord Jesus. Before we jump into these implications of our union with Christ, I want to lay a little groundwork from the text. Paul brings out the implications of our union with Christ by drawing from the realities of Christ's own death and resurrection. Paul is not arguing for Jesus' death and resurrection, but he is assuming their reality and pointing out certain features of His death and resurrection that are relevant to our discussion. So I want to talk first then about Jesus' death, and then secondly about Jesus' resurrection, and then finally about what that means for you and me as believers who have died and risen with Christ. So in order to bring out these points, I will not start in verse five, I will start in verse 10. And the first point is the realities of Jesus's death. From verse 10, the realities of Jesus's death. It says, for the death that he died, he died to sin. Once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God. Surely the fact that he died is in reference to Jesus Christ who has died for us. And from this verse we see two things that I want to bring out about the death of Jesus. The first is that He died to sin. That is what we're going to call the determination of His death. And secondly, that He died once and for all. That's what we're going to call the decisiveness of His death. Let's begin then with the fact that He died to sin and the dedication or determination of His death. Verse 10 again says that He died, He died to sin. The death that He died, He died to sin. I don't think that's probably the way that you and I would expect that to be said. We would say that we would expect Paul to say that Jesus died for sin. I don't think that we would expect to hear Paul say that he died to sin. Sounds a little unusual to say that Jesus died to sin. So we need to ask the question, what does it mean that Jesus died to sin? First, I want you to notice that the very same language that is used here of Jesus' death, that He died to sin, is also used of the believer's death, that you and I are dead to sin. Look back at verse 2. How can we who died to sin still live in it? And then down in verse 11, so you must also consider yourselves dead to sin. And that's important because Paul is drawing from Jesus' death and its effect on his relationship to sin and then applying it to the believer and his new relationship with sin. But we know that the relationship that Jesus had to sin before His death is different than ours is. Christ never sinned, was therefore never under sin's power. In that sense, unlike all of us, he never was enslaved to sin. Jesus didn't have a sinful nature. He never committed any sins. He never was ruled by sin. Though Jesus died, he was never guilty of death because he, in fact, had never sinned himself. But we know that Though Jesus died to bear the penalty for our sins, in fact, on the cross, our sins were charged to the account of Jesus so that He became sin. One popular preacher recently said, along with Paul, that the sting of death is sin, but on the cross, Jesus took all of the poison of that sting for us. Death, we know, is the wage of sin. It is the demand that sin makes. So by dying, Jesus, though he never sinned, submitted himself to the demands that sin make as a ruling power. So we need to see sin as a ruling concept, a powerful force. Even more, by dying, he has now been freed from this realm of sin and death. Jesus is no longer living in the realm where sin and death rules. He has died to sin. Douglas Moo previews for us what kind of impact Christ's death to sin will have on the believer that is united to Christ. He says, Justice Christ's death was his release from the realm of sin, death, and the law. So our death with him signals our release from the realm of sin, death, and the law. Having seen then the dedication of His death. Let's look at the decisiveness of His death. Not only did Jesus, the death He died, that He died to sin, but He died this once and for all. Jesus' death need not be repeated. It is irrevocable. It is final. It is definitive. As Jesus Himself stated when He was, just before He was to die on the cross, it is finished. Once again, this is possible because of only the sinlessness of the Lord Jesus Christ. This once and for all language is used throughout the book of Hebrews. Listen to the following passages. Hebrews 7, 26-27. We're told, it is indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest. holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens, he has no need like those high priests to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself. We come to chapter 9 of Hebrews in verse 12. It says that Jesus entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves, but by means of his own blood, thus securing an internal redemption. Down to verse 28. So Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for Him. And then Hebrews 10.10. And by that, we will have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. You see, the blood of bulls and goats could never take away sins. And these sacrifices had to be made repeatedly, again and again, hour by hour, day by day, month by month, year by year, thousands upon thousands of animals dying and spilling their blood. These sacrifices were made by sinful priests. men who were themselves sinners and had to make sacrifices to consecrate them from their sins before they could go in and enter and make sacrifices on behalf of the people. But Jesus died once and for all. His death was decisive and final. It was full and a complete death, irreversible, irrevocable, conclusive, and unrepeatable. Once again, Doug Moo is going to give us a preview about what this will mean for the relationship of the believer to sin. He says the believer who is crucified with Christ is as definitely and finally dead as a result of action as was Christ himself after the crucifixion. So now let's turn from the realities of Jesus's death to the resurrection then of Jesus from the dead, the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. And here we will go to verse nine, which states, we know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again. Death no longer has dominion over him. From this verse again, I want to observe two truths. One is that Christ is free from the penalty of death. And secondly, that Christ is free from the power of death. First, let's look at the fact that Christ is free from the penalty of death. Christ's freedom from death's penalty for the text states that because Jesus has been raised from the dead, he will, what, never die again. As we mentioned earlier, it was a once and for all, never to happen again sort of death. That's in contrast to someone like Lazarus. You'll remember that Jesus resurrected his friend Lazarus, even though he'd been dead and in the grave for four days. Jesus called Lazarus forth from the grave. But in reality, this is not a resurrection proper, but a resuscitation. Lazarus would die again one day. But that's not true of Jesus. Jesus' resurrection was no mere resuscitation. It was final. Jesus is now alive even today. for He could never die again. That's because Jesus' resurrection serves as His own justification and vindication of His substitutionary death and sacrifice for our sins. Death, again, is the penalty for sin, but even though Jesus died, He Himself was not a sinner. The resurrection then means that God has agreed with Jesus' perfection. That God has affirmed that Jesus was not Himself a sinner worthy of death. That God has accepted Jesus' death for the sins of others. And so in vindication of Jesus' sacrifice, God raised Him from the dead, thus declaring that Jesus was righteous in all that He did, that all of His Word was true, all that He said about Himself was accurate. And just as Jesus' righteous life and atoning death is the grounds of our declaration of righteousness, so also Jesus' resurrection is the grounds of our hope of physical life in the future. In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul relates Jesus' resurrection to the yearly harvest and calls it the first fruits. Verse 23 of chapter 15 of 1 Corinthians. But each in his order, Christ, the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. This means that as the firstfruits, the resurrection of Jesus assures a great harvest that is coming after him. Believers will be resurrected with him as well. Christ being raised from the dead will never die again and neither will we who are raised with Him. Our physical resurrection with Christ will be permanent, lasting forever. But not only is Christ free from the penalty of death, Christ is also free from the power of death. In verse 9 we're told that death no longer has dominion over Christ. Death, we may also translate it, no longer rules over Him. The implication then is that death did in fact rule over Jesus and we see that by the fact that He did really and truly die. Murray says, because he was vicariously identified with sin, he was likewise identified with the wages of sin, which is death. And so he was subject to the power of death temporarily. This means that when Jesus willingly agreed to become a mortal man, be sent to earth on a mission to die for the sins of the world, He therefore agreed to subject Himself temporarily to the dominion of death. So then through Jesus' incarnation, through His becoming human, Christ surrendered Himself to the lordship of death. But because then of His resurrection, Christ is no longer subject to death, death's lordship over Him. Death no longer has dominion over Him. When Jesus was raised from the dead, He won a great victory over death. Jesus has broken death and its power holds no sway over Him. There is now a decisive break with death and the power of sin because Jesus has once and for all been raised from the dead. And through Jesus' resurrection and His ascension to the right hand of the Father, Jesus now reigns. And in 1 Corinthians 15, 25 and 26, they tell us that He must reign until He puts all His enemies under His feet, and that the last enemy to be destroyed is death. Not only has death been defeated even now, not only will death one day be destroyed as the last enemy, but we can even say that one day death itself will die. Revelation 20, 14. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. Do you see that death is thrown into the fiery hell, the lake of fire. It is so true that death no longer has any dominion over Jesus that we see in verse 10 that the life He lives, He lives to God. That doesn't mean that in some way prior to His death that Jesus didn't live to God or for His glory. We know that He did so and He did so perfectly. But Murray helps us understand what is meant by this, that he now lives to God. He says, since he made an end of sin in his death, his resurrection life is in no way conditioned by what is antithetical to God. No factor enters into that life that is alien to perfection and glory of God. Since Paul's primary focus is to show how Jesus' Life and death serves as a parallel to our life and death with Jesus. It is helpful to show that because of Jesus' resurrection, life working in him, that the believer can now live in service to God as never before. which then leads to our final major point. Having mentioned the reality of Jesus' death and the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, let us now look at the ramifications of Jesus' union with all believers. The ramifications of Jesus' union with all believers. The first thing that I want you to observe is all the language in our text about our union with Jesus Christ. This is a union only enjoyed by believers in Jesus Christ. We see in verse 5, twice, we see that we are united with Him, both in a death like His and in a resurrection like His. where the word united literally means to be grown together with Christ, like intertwined trees. In verse 6, we're told that we are crucified with Him. In verse 8, it says that we have died with Christ and that we also live with Christ. And then finally in verse 11, we see Paul's favorite phrase of in Christ Jesus. All of these point to our union with the Lord Jesus Christ. The fact that by faith in Jesus, the believer is inseparably connected to Jesus. Faith glues us to Jesus. Notice something. Notice there is no progressive process going on here. This is positional language. You are not being united with Jesus or becoming united with Jesus. But you are already united to Jesus such that you are in Christ now and already. Again, Doug Moose says the language is positional. By God's act, we have been placed in a new position. This position is real, for what exists in God's sight is surely ultimately real, and it carries definite consequences for our day-to-day living. And it's that day-to-day living, the consequences, the implications, what we're calling the ramifications of our union with Christ, that I want to elaborate on now. Three, in fact, three ramifications stemming from our union with Christ. The first of those is that our union with Christ secures our resurrection with Him. Our union with Christ secures our resurrection with Him. In verse 5, it says, if we have been united with Him in a death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His. You see, this is one of those if-then clauses. If this is true, then this is also true. If this is true, then logically and certainly and assuredly, this also is true. It provides us a certainty and an assurance. Our connection with Christ in death assures our participation in His resurrection. Notice the confident assurance that we see comes from faith down in verse 8 that is similar to verse 5. Verse 8 says, now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him. And I'm here to say that our believing is not in vain. We're not believing a lie. The truth of this is never in doubt. God will always prove trustworthy. And so I want you to see that Paul is talking about in this passage two inseparable connections. The first of all, inseparable connection is the inseparable connection of Christ's death to His resurrection. You can't separate that. Christ who died also was raised and both are true and can't be separated. And our hope is in the fact not only that He died, but also that He was raised. But the other inseparable connection is in our connection with Jesus Christ. Christ was assuredly died and risen again, and you and I by faith are assuredly connected to Christ who died and rose again. And by that we are then dead and risen again. What does He mean, securing our resurrection with Him? Well, He means we have spiritual life now in the already, and will be granted physical life later in the resurrection. There is an already and a not yet to this resurrection. We experience some of it now and others of it in the future. One of the glories for us as believers is that we not have to wait until after we die to begin to enjoy the resurrected life with Christ. There is this already but not yet aspect to the believer's resurrection. You're spiritually alive forever now and you will be risen physically later. The true Christian has a sense and an assurance of their resurrection in the here and now. John MacArthur says, the context suggests that Paul means not only that believers will live in the presence of Christ for eternity, but also all who have died with Christ, which is all true believers, will live a life here that is fully consistent with His holiness. We see this in Ephesians 2, verses 5-6. It says, even when we were dead in our trespasses, God made us alive together with Christ. By grace you've been saved. He raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. You've been made alive already. Colossians 2.13 And you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with Him, having forgiven us of all of our trespasses. So that doesn't mean that the resurrection that we now experience is all of the resurrection that we're ever going to experience. We must not believe as some did in 2 Timothy 2.18 that the resurrection has already occurred. No, we do await a real physical resurrection. The futurity of our resurrection, Moose says, reminds us that the complete victory over sin will be won only in that day. Until then, we live under the imperative of making the life of Jesus manifest in the way that you and I live. Listen to these verses that lend support to this future physical resurrection. 2 Corinthians 4.14, knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence. Philippians 3.21, he will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself. 1 Thessalonians 4, 17. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. And then 2 Timothy 2, 11. The saying is truthworthy. If we have died with Him, we will also live with Him. The point then is that we are spiritually alive in Christ now, in the present, so that we can feel secure about our future physical life in Christ and the future beyond our death. Is Jesus alive today? Yes! Then just as surely the believer in Jesus is also alive already. Can Jesus' resurrection be reversed? No! then neither can the believer's resurrection with him. Now, as a devoted Mississippi State Bulldog fan, I am all too familiar with crushing defeats, heart-wrenching losses, and choking defeat from the Jaws victory. After many years of this, I have a certain PTSD and pessimism to having a lead late in the game. I really don't know what the score would have to be and how much time would need to be left on the clock for me to feel comfortable enough to assure myself, okay, we've won, and begin celebrating the victory before the time is actually expired and the game be officially over. But life for the Christian is not the same as life for the MSU fan. We can be certain who has won and that we are part of that and we are already celebrating the final victory. Already celebrating. The second ramification of our union with Christ is that it sets us free from sin. It not only secures our resurrection with Him, but it sets us free from sin. We know that our old self in Romans 6, 6. We know that our old self was crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. It is not simply we who have been crucified with Christ, but it is described as our old self, which literally means our old man. Galatians 2.20, Paul says, I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. Galatians 5.24, again Paul says, And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. And not that we're not being or becoming crucified with Christ, but we already have been crucified with Christ. Christ's crucifixion has already taken place, and as believers, so has our crucifixion. By old man or old self, it means we and who we were before our conversion. Who we were in Adam. Old man, literally, in Adam. Old is not referred to that which has a lot of years on it, but that which is worn out and that which has become useless. D.A. Carson says, the old man is a way of describing humans in their natural state, represented by Adam, the old man, and therefore dominated by sin and death. But you and I are new creations in Jesus Christ. So in other passages, when Paul talks about the new man or the new self, then he's talking about who we are now in Jesus Christ. Colossians 3, 9 through 10. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Occasionally you'll hear preachers talk about the old and new man as if they were two competing natures that lived within the believer. You've probably heard the illustration at one point in your life of the two dogs that get into a fight. One of the dogs is the old man and one of the dogs is the new man. Which dog wins at the end, the preacher says. And then he says, it is the one that you feed that day is the dog that wins. Now, what's good about that illustration is that it points to the reality that you and I must fight to live holy lives. That we must nourish our souls on the ordinary means of grace like the Word of God and prayer and corporate worship and not the trash of worldly entertainment. But where it goes wrong is acting like there are two warring factions within you. You don't have two natures, you have one nature. You are no longer both represented in Adam and in Christ at the same time. You are either in Adam or in Christ. And if you're a believer, you are now in Christ. And no longer in Adam. So we're no longer united to Adam in sin, death, and condemnation. We're united to Christ. Moose says, what we were in Adam is no more, but until heaven, the temptation to live in Adam always remains. That's what he's talking about. There is still, even though we're in Christ, a temptation to live like we did when we were in Adam. Believer has ceased to be that old man and has become the new man. Nevertheless, the powers that characterize that old age continue to exert their influence on the believer such that the believer must continue to struggle against them and to mount a resistance. John Stott says, What was crucified with Christ was not a part of me called my old nature. but the whole of me as I was before I was converted. Next, we're told that this old man was crucified with Christ in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing. The body of sin here is myself and all my sin-prone faculties. That's the body of sin that is brought to nothing, that is rendered powerless, that is rendered inoperative, that it is now impotent. This means that our crucifixion with Christ resulted in our no longer being under the power and lordship of sin. We were born sinners. Therefore, we were ruled by sin. Natural men, as Slaves to sin are ruled by sin. We were enslaved to sin. Sinning was our job and we loved our job. But the text says that the believer is no longer enslaved to sin. We have been set free from sin. We no longer love sin as we did before. Our desires and our affections have changed. Literally, we've been justified from sin, meaning that we've been released from the power of sin over our lives. Just as Jesus has been freed both from the penalty of sin and the power of sin, we too have been freed from both. It says in Romans 6-7, for one who has died has been set free from sin. It's kind of a general maxim, a general truth that he's saying, which basically means that death severs the hold of sin on a person. Death severs the hold of sin on a person. really tell you if they arrest someone and put that person in jail and they've got fines and and service to pay. If that person dies, then there's no longer any fines or service to pay. their release from what they've done. That's what he's saying in this case. You're free from that. The one who has died has been set free from the penalty of sin in that case. If you're a believer then, you're now dead to sin. You might even say that you and sin are divorced. You've called it quits. There's no longer any need to continue the intimacy of living together as if you're still married. It doesn't mean that we no longer sin at all, but it's that we've been freed from the tyranny and the oppression and the dominion of sin. The last ramification then is our union with Christ serves our sanctification. Our union with Christ serves our sanctification. Look at verse 11. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. You're commanded here to consider, to reckon yourself, to adopt this attitude that you're dead to sin and alive to God. To orient or reorient your mind to think this way so that you're dead to sin and you're alive to God. Affirm this new reality that you are in Christ, are dead to sin and alive to God. Felix says the imperative The command does not refer to the dying. Over this we have no control. Since Jesus Christ has died for us and we only receive the gift of his dying and are drawn into it, the object of the imperative to consider this is that we should take this death into account, take it seriously, and thus make the gift become a gift in which we can participate. In Christ you are already dead to sin and alive to God. So consider yourself as such, is what he's saying. How does this serve our sanctification? It serves it this way. It encourages us to live holy lives. We believe that Jesus died and rose again, never to be affected by death again. We are assured of our union with Jesus Christ by faith. We are certain in the knowledge that we will be resurrected in death. We know then that we have been freed from the penalty and power of sin. So now, in light of that, we must live like it. Paul says in Ephesians 4, 20-24, that is not the way you learn Christ. Assuming that you have heard about Him and were taught in Him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life, and is corrupt through deceitful desires and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. Sanctification is this process of taking off all that's left of the way we live like the old man and putting on all that is true in the new man. Again, MacArthur says, we've been removed from the unregenerate self's presence and control, so we should not follow the remaining memories of its old sinful ways as if we were still under its evil influence. What's Paul saying? He's saying, why would you obey sin if sin is no longer your master? Just as it's absurd for Egyptians that have been, I mean, Hebrews that have been brought across the Red Sea and freed by the mighty hand of God. for them to go on making bricks. It's equally absurd for the believer who has been transferred from Adam to Christ and been forgiven and been freed to go on continue sinning as we did before, to live as we once did. Let's go to the Lord in prayer.