I'll begin reading at verse one. I'll read the verse six, and we'll look into our study. Second Corinthians, chapter three, beginning at verse one, reading to verse six. The apostle Paul writes, do we begin again to commend ourselves, or do we need as some others epistles of commendation to you or letters of commendation from you? You are our epistle, written in our hearts, known and read by all men. Clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the spirit of the living God. Not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of flesh that is of the heart. And we have such trust through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant. Not of the letter, but of the spirit. For the letter kills, but the spirit gives life. And so as I've been mentioning to you here in the book of Second Corinthians, the apostle Paul is basically answering accusations that have been lodged against him. And there are a variety of accusations that we've been looking at. We'll be looking at a couple more as we go through this chapter. But Paul is defending himself against accusations. And he's been defending himself against a charge that he uses the gospel for personal gain, that he's profiting from the preaching of the message. We saw that in chapter two, verse 17, the last verse of chapter two. You might want to look at it because there Paul said this. He said, for we are not as so many peddling the word of God, but as of sincerity, but as from God, we speak in the sight of God in Christ. And so again, to know the context of this letter, false teachers said that Paul was giving a false gospel. They said that he was peddling it. The word peddling speaks of a hustler. There's a word we used to use in the old days. I don't know that they use it anymore.   He's a professional. He knows what he's doing, but he pretends as if he doesn't. And so we used to use the term he hustled you. So they're hustlers. So he's speaking concerning that and he's saying that the word peddling doesn't apply to him. It speaks of Paul changing the message in order that he might profit personally. So Paul is speaking here and Paul is making it clear that there are many infiltrators who have crept in, they're influencing the church. And because he loves these people, he clearly identifies them throughout the epistle. In chapter 11, you'll see this at verse 13 when he describes them this way. He says, for such are false apostles, deceitful workers transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. So he identifies them and he makes it clear. He's not one of them, but he also makes it clear that they're numerous because he spoke of so many who are peddling. So many teachers of his day would mix their teachings with current beliefs in order to appeal to people. But Paul is making it very clear that his teachings were inspired by the Holy Spirit and they're not enticing words that are used to entrap the hearer. You see the peddlers of false apostles were transforming the gospel. They were adding things to it to tickle the ears of the hearer to draw them away after themselves. And Paul said, we're not as that. And there's so many of them, he said, who have crept in so many infiltrators, but we are not one of those. We are the people who have been preaching gospel, he said, with sincerity. In verse 17 of chapter two again, he said, as of sincerity, as from God, we speak in the sight of God in Christ. So he speaks of sincerity as with sincerity. The word sincerity speaks of that, without mixture of error. Error, sincerity is a virtue of one who communicates and acts in accordance with their feelings, beliefs, thoughts, and desires. So he's saying, I communicated only God's pure word without mixing it with error. And did so knowing that God's eye is upon me, noting his every word. With this he's saying, with this in mind, he only gave the words that were given, approved of and blessed by Jesus. So we speak with sincerity without mixture, without error. The word sincerity is a combined word, sincerity comes from the Latin and the way you would pronounce it, I'm assuming in Latin it would be sincera. Sincera, without wax. That's what that means, sincera, without wax. Now why would he say we preach without wax? Because if I was going to a pottery shop and I was wanting to buy a piece of pottery, a vase of some sort, and I would look at it, it would appear to be beautiful and without a flaw. But if I lifted it and turned over the vase and looked at its base, I would be looking for something that would identify to me its quality. And if it says sincera without wax, I knew it was a genuine article and without any kind of defect. Because during that day, if you had a light colored piece of pottery, it may have a hairline crack in it. And so they would take melted wax and they would put the wax over that and they would buff it out so that when you were looking at it, it looked like it was perfect. If you took it up and put it against the sun though, you could see the hairline fracture to save people from having to do that, to show its quality, you would just have it sincera. So sincera spoke of the genuine article and it's where sincera, that's where sincerity comes from without a mixture of error because that word speaks in that way, we're not defrauding you, we're not taking advantage of you. And that's what Paul is saying. He was saying that he very clearly ministered the word of God, he said, as of sincerity. He said, but as from God, we speak in the sight of God in Christ. We are speaking to you in such a way that we can, with a clean conscience, share these things. So he's concerned because it only takes a small amount of error to infect the church. And it's always, this message is always one that appeals to the hearer, it promises to produce great results, but the problem is this add a mixture of truth and error deceives the believer, the one who believes in it and it undermines the work of God. So whenever somebody mixes error with the truth, it always dilutes and it can actually lead to some bad things. We had an invasion of ants in my house. All my ants showed up at one time. No, we had an invasion and there's a lot of them, I promise you. When my grandmother went home to be with the Lord in 1992, I was looking at the information on our family, how many children she had, she had 12 children, how many grandchildren she had. And when I saw the amount of great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren, now this is 28 years ago, I had 118 great, great, they were great-great-grandchildren. We had in my family over 200 blood relatives straight from my grandma who had 12 children. So I got a lot of ants. But anyway, I was talking about ants. When we had an invasion of ants in my house, not my church, in my house. So what did I do? I got some poison because I'm not a member of PETA and I got some poison and you put the poison down and it's sweet and what happens is the ants will take it and it has a sweet taste to it. They don't ingest it though, they take it to the queen and they give that poison to the queen and the queen takes of it and dies and there goes your problem with the ants. And that's how deception also works. There's a sweetness to it that makes you think it's pleasant. It makes sense to you, it draws you, it entices you, but the end is destruction. And the enemies creeping into the church bringing in poison and Paul is concerned about that. And he says, look, I preached the gospel to you with sincerity, without wax. I spoke to you as it truly should be. I told you the truth, but these others are entering in and they're being in a problem. And so he's saying, I want you to know that my ministry is one of integrity before God as well as before man. You see, Paul ministered to the Corinthians out of a clean conscience and he did so with the purest of motives. We saw in chapter one of 2 Corinthians verse 12 how he already had said, our boasting is this, the testimony of our conscience that we conducted ourselves in the world in simplicity and godly sincerity. Not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God and more abundantly toward you. So as a minister, Paul served the Lord in integrity of heart and he wanted them to know it. You see, without God's strength and without a hard exercise towards God he wouldn't have been able to do it. And that's why he asked in chapter two, verse 16 who is sufficient for these things? You see, this question was intended to set him apart from the false teachers because Paul's ministry was sincere. It was from God. It was performed in the sight of God. Paul was a man who guarded his own heart and Paul was a man who ministered with a clean conscience. When he was writing to the Thessalonians, for example in 1 Thessalonians two verses three and four, he said this, he said, the appeal we make does not spring from error or impure motives nor are we trying to trick you. On the contrary, we speak as men approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel. We are not trying to please men but God who tests our hearts. So he says, we're not putting anything on for you. We are basically just, we're real, we're sincere. We've been appointed by God. And that's what he's dealing with as he begins chapter three. So in chapter three, he begins at verse one by addressing a ninth charge that has been leveled against him. The ninth charge is that he has no proper ministry credential. He has no letter of commendation. So he begins in verse one by saying, do we begin again to commend ourselves? Or do we need, as some others, epistles of commendation to you or letters of commendation from you? So that's what he's dealing with right now. They're saying, these infiltrators are saying, he has no proper ministry credential. He has no letter of recommendation. The question they're actually saying or asking is, who gave him the authority to speak in the way that he does? The question of authority is a common question. It's something that Jesus himself had to deal with. In Mark chapter 11, 27, and 28, it says they came again to Jerusalem. And as he was walking in the temple, the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders came to him and they said to him, by what authority are you doing these things? And who gave you this authority to do these things? Jesus himself was questioned concerning his authority. Look at all the way back into the Old Testament. Moses was questioned concerning his authority. His own sister and brother rebelled against his authority. The children of Israel rebelled against his authority. Authority is something people rebelled against. They rebelled against Moses. They rebelled against Jesus Christ. They're rebelling against Paul. You see, Paul was teaching many things and the false teachers were rejecting what God had to say through him. And that led them to question his right to teach the things he's teaching. It may be that the infiltrators had come with an impressive letter of recommendation. Now, if they needed letters of recommendation, they would say, why doesn't Paul have one? Why doesn't he have a letter of recommendation? Now, letters of recommendation are something that were in the early church. Let me share something with you. It falls into the context of this as an explanation for those who may not know. In the early church, there were many people who would go from place to place and they would want to bring their message. John in third John had to tell the church not to welcome these false teachers in. There needed to be a way to know whether or not the people were bringing the truth or not. And one of the ways that the church could be safeguarded was through letters of commendation or letters of recommendation. Notice how in verse one it says, do we need some others epistles of commendation? Now, you read the word epistle and you may think, well, wait, the word epistle isn't that usually used to speak of the letters of Paul? The epistles of Paul? Well, that's the whole thing. The word epistle simply means letter. And the word commendation is simply the word recommendation. So what he's talking about are letters of recommendation. And so the question is, do we need some others letters of recommendation? Now, the answer to that question obviously is no. You see, letters of recommendation were issued during that day to safeguard the early church against deceivers. And Paul was well aware of that. As a matter of fact, he actually wrote them himself. He wrote a letter of commendation in Romans, for example, chapter 16, verses one through three. He said, I commend to you Phoebe, our sister. That's a recommendation. I commend to you Phoebe, our sister, who's a servant of the church in St. Crea that you may receive her in the Lord in a manner worthy of the saints and assist her in whatever business she has need of you. For indeed, she has been a helper of many and of myself also. That's called a letter of recommendation. In 1 Corinthians 16, verse three, he writes, when I come, whomever you approve by your letters, again, letter of recommendation, I will send to bear your gift to Jerusalem. So again, letters of recommendation were intended to safeguard the church from predators. Paul had already gone through the proving process. He was already commended. It happened at the beginning of his coming to faith in Christ. If you look in the book of Acts in chapter nine, you see this in verses 26 and 27. It says, when Saul or Paul arrived in Jerusalem, he tried to meet with the believers, but they were all afraid of him. They did not believe he had truly become a believer. Some of you have gone through things like that too, haven't you? He says, you kidding me? He's a believer. No, I don't believe that. Well, that's how they felt about Paul. They did not believe he had truly become a believer. Barnabas brought him to the apostles and told them how Saul had seen the Lord on the way to Damascus and how the Lord had spoken to Saul. He also told them that Saul had preached boldly in the name of Jesus in Damascus. That was a commendation. So Paul made it clear that he was a commended individual. In Galatians chapter two, in verse nine, it reads, in fact, James, Peter, and John, who were known as pillars of the church, recognized the gift God had given me. They accepted Barnabas and me as their co-workers. They encouraged us to keep preaching to the Gentiles while they continued their work with the Jews. The pillars of the church have commended me, is what he's saying. He's already received his commendation, but they're asking, why doesn't Paul carry a letter of recommendation? And now he gives the answer, in verse two and three, you are our epistle written in our hearts. Known in red by all men, clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart. Here's his answer. You are our epistle written in our hearts, read by all men. You are our letters of commendation and they're written in our hearts. My accusers are asking for proof of my calling and my ministry. The fact that you've been saved and that a church exists should be proof enough. Your changed lives reveals the power of God's word and your changed lives establishes our credibility. He says in verse three, clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us and written not with ink. You are clearly believers in Jesus. Now that's something he said in his first letter in 1 Corinthians one, five through eight, this is what he said to the church. He said, you were enriched in everything by him in all utterance and all knowledge, even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you so that you come short in no gift, eagerly waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will also confirm you to the end that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. Your changed lives, your changed lives should be clear evidence of your true faith. And this genuine faith occurred through my ministry to you.  The fact that as I have taught you and you have embraced the teaching, your lives have changed. That should be all the evidence that we need because that would prove that I'm a genuine minister. Notice how he says in verse three, the spirit has engraved God's message of grace on tablets of your heart. The 10 commandments, when you look in the Old Testament, were written on stone, but grace is engraved on the heart. In Ezekiel in the Old Testament, Ezekiel 36 verses 26 and 27, God said this, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you. I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. I will write on the tablet of your heart. The law is on stone, but God's grace is on my heart. There are a lot of laws that we are familiar with.  I'll let that sink for a minute. Then the yellow light where you're driving, that isn't some kind of contest to see how many people can get through before it turns red. Those things are laws that are written, if you will, on stone. They're outside of you. They're not internalized within you because sometimes people think that they're suggestions and those are the small things. It says 55, it says 65. That's a suggestion. I don't see a black and white. It's just me, it's four o'clock in the morning, nobody notices. And that's how we think. I remember when I was a kid, we went to the movies. I was 12 years old, 13 years old, and two friends and I went to the movies. My parents let us go out to see a movie. Shouldn't have, it was Psycho, a movie called Psycho. So we went and saw Psycho in a theater in Downey and we're on our way home walking down Firestone Boulevard. And there was no traffic because we went to a late show. It was like 11 o'clock at night. And then at that time, the traffic was already, there was no traffic at 11 o'clock.  But anyway, and he gets, I'll never forget this. He gets out of the squad car and he says, what are you guys doing? I said, nothing, we're just playing. And he says, you're playing in the street. And I spoke up and I said, there's no cars. There's no cars. It's like I was talking to my mom. There's no cars. And I'll never forget this cop looking at me. What's cars got to do with the law? And he lectured me and I thought, man, are you kidding me? What's wrong with you? He was right. Law has nothing to do with anybody's watching you or not. The law doesn't, but guess what? The law's on the outside of you. What keeps you from breaking the law? It's what's inside of you. See, there's no law that can be passed. I don't care how many laws you pass that says you're supposed to love and not discriminate this and that. You can put it down on a tablet of stone, but unless the Holy Spirit writes it on my heart, I'll discriminate and I'll do everything else I want to do. I may not do it in front of other people. I might not even say it, but my heart is still rotten because my heart hasn't been changed. A law doesn't change your heart and that's why God said, I'm gonna take my law and write it on the tablets of your flesh. I'm gonna change it from the inside because those commandments that God gave the 10 commandments, you break every one of them because that's your nature to do.  I will write it on the tablet of your heart and it boils down to do basic things. Love God with all of your heart and love your neighbor as yourself. And if you do that, you'll keep all the laws in the commandment. Why? Because the greatest law is the law of love and that comes through the grace of God. It doesn't come through tablets of stone. It comes through God's mighty finger writing on your heart saying, love your neighbor. Love him for Jesus' sake. And that's how it works. And that's what Paul is saying. Paul is simply saying that to us. It's something to know and to understand. He's saying, you exist as a church because God led me to teach you about Jesus Christ. And these false teachers that are entering in, questioning my authority, all they need to do is look at you and see that in Corinth the church exists and people who love God are present in that church. That's how it's demonstrated.  In 1 Corinthians 9 verse two, Paul said it like this to the church. He said, even though I may not be an apostle to others, surely I am to you for you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord. You are a letter of God's love and grace and you are engraved on my heart. Notice verse two, you are our epistle written in our heart, known and read by all men.  Written not with ink but by the spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh that is of the heart. And we have such trust through Christ toward God. And we have such trust. You are very dear to us. I am confident that your love for Jesus proves my ministry's real. I have a strong confidence that you are truly believers in Jesus. That's what he means in verse four. We have such trust through Christ toward God. I trust that Christ has done his work in you who truly believe in him.  And this is something you need to examine your own hearts about whether or not you have been. You see later on in 2 Corinthians in chapter 13, verse five he says this, examine yourselves to see whether you are in the flesh. Test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you? Unless of course you fail the test. Have you been influenced by the false teachers? Has your heart been taken to a false message? Test your own hearts. Clearly he says you are an epistle. And then in verse four, and we have such trust through Christ toward God. God has done this work. He moves on into verse five. Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves. Our sufficiency is from God. Who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant. Not of the letter, but of the spirit. For the letter kills. But the spirit gives life. And so in verse five, not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as being of ourselves. That brings us to the 10th accusation. The 10th accusation they've made against him is that Paul is self-righteous and Paul is self-sufficient. That he labors in the energy of his flesh. Now Paul knew that he was not adequate in and of himself. He did not forget what he was before he came to faith in Jesus Christ. Have you forgotten what you were before Jesus came into your life? Have you forgotten? You know what, if you remember where you came in, it saves you from becoming proud and arrogant. And sometimes people forget what they were before Jesus saved them. Sometimes, because we've been walking maybe with the Lord for maybe a few years, five years, 10 years, 15 years. And we look at our old life and we look at the past and the things that we did and the things that took pleasure in. And then we see somebody who's entrapped by those same things, we at one time were entrapped by. And we think to ourselves, I don't know how they could be like that. Why don't you just, and we forget, that's what we were until Christ's grace broke through. I've never forgotten where I came from. I don't wanna ever go back to it, but I haven't forgotten. I haven't forgotten what I was. Listen, every one of us has what is called a testimony and we bear witness of what God has done. You have your real testimony and you have the one that is open to others. The one that's open to others is usually crafted if you've said it more than once, you know how to fill it in, you know how to say certain things. If people respond, especially if you're an open speaker, a public speaker, you learn that some things will cause people to really cheer. I've given my testimony in other places and I'll say certain things and then certain places somebody may respond and I realize that must have impacted them and I'll remember that if I give it again some place that's what your flesh does. You remember these things. You have a testimony and the testimony you have over the years sometimes eliminates some of the things that you did or perhaps you don't remember anymore and then you have your real testimony and that is the one that you and God know. That's the one that you don't tell anybody. You don't tell anybody what you really did. You don't tell anybody what you really thought. You don't tell anybody what your life really was about. Why, because that's private and embarrassing. It's humiliating and you don't want people to know these things. There are things about me that I tell nobody. Marie knows nothing about and never will. It's between me and God. Not that I'm ashamed of it. To tell my wife, I'll tell my wife anything she needs to know but there are some things in my life that it's just God and me and that's what causes humility in my heart because I know what I was. I know what he did. I know the depth of his forgiveness and that's what's created in me a heart of humility for God's sake because God, I know what I was. Thank you for what you've done to change me and that's your testimony. That's the real deal.  What's wrong with you?  The answer is yeah, you probably are. All of us are to some degree who's better than the next person, right? Paul never forgot, please never forget. Never forget. Did you need God's grace? Yes you did. Would you be saved without God's grace? No you wouldn't. Has God been good to you? Yes he has. Did he forgive all of your sins? Indeed he did. Why do you know that? Because he said, if I confess my sin he is faithful and just to forgive me my sin and to cleanse me from all unrighteousness is my God a truth telling God? Absolutely, am I forgiven? Yes, by what? By his grace. How do I know that? Through faith. That's called Christianity. And Paul never forgot where he came from. My sufficiency is from God. He knew that. My sufficiency is from God. When he gave his testimony to Timothy in 1st Timothy chapter one verses 12 through 15 he said, I thank Christ Jesus our Lord who has enabled me because he counted me faithful putting me into the ministry although I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, an insolent man. I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly and unbelief and the grace of our Lord was exceedingly abundant with faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. This is a faithful saying worthy of all acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief. Apostle Paul. I've met people who say I'm the worst of sinners Paul would differ with you and say no. Paul would say I am chief of sinners and God used Paul as an example of how far God's grace will go. Never forget that. You see every believer in Jesus has a personal responsibility to grow and to mature. We know that we've been made adequate to serve God by God himself but I have a responsibility to pray, to read my Bible, to attend fellowship, to fellowship of the believers, to serve, to give. I have these, these are responsibilities, these are called basic disciplines and they serve to strengthen it and develop us as believers but in the end it's God who strengthens, it's God who gifts, it's God who encourages us in our service to him and Paul makes it clear. He says our sufficiency is from God. He's saying my abilities are not natural ones. They're imparted to me by Jesus. The work of converting people and equipping them well that doesn't originate with Paul. You see whatever qualifications I have, whatever success I enjoy Paul is saying are all from God. In John 15 verse five Jesus said it like this. He said I am the vine and you are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him bears much fruit for without me you can do nothing. In Zechariah chapter four verse six this is the word of the Lord desirable. Not by might nor by power but by my spirit sayeth the Lord of hosts. You see that all comes from God.  After that the Holy Spirit has come upon you. You shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, in Judea, Siberia, unto the uttermost parts of the earth. God supplies the power. In Isaiah 40, 29 he gives power to the weak and to those who have no might he increases strength. It comes from him. So as a minister Paul knew that he had a high calling. He wasn't driven by a desire for fame. He wasn't driven for a desire to advance in influential circles or to grow rich. His was a life marked by repentance and a pursuit of greater personal purity. The task was beyond his ability to succeed. He acknowledged it. He made it clear that it takes God to make him adequate to serve faithfully. You see each one of us each believer must grow and must mature but the resources are completely available to us. Isaiah 41 10 says fear not for I'm with you. Be not dismayed for I am your God. I will strengthen you. Yes, I will help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. He went on to say in Isaiah 41 13 for I the Lord your God will hold your right hand saying to you fear not. I will help you. Take that to the bank. God will be with you. Do not be afraid. Do not be dismayed. You have a story. It's a book. Each one of your days of your life make up a portion of the chapters. You have chapters of joys and chapters of sorrow in your book of life that you have.  You have bright lights and dark nights. And one of the things that I've told people over the years that I've grown to understand is this. My book has not ended yet. It contains all these chapters of all these various things but my book has not been concluded yet because at the very end of the book I'm gonna look at the last page and it's gonna say and he lived happily forever after because God is the author of that book working in my life. It's a love book and it's gonna end with victory because in Jesus Christ I can do all things. I am more than a conqueror. I have my name in his book of life and I am victorious because of him. Even if I walk through the valleys even though you go through pain and disappointments and sorrows God is able to make you adequate. God is able to work in you. God will have his way in you. You just yield to him and watch what God can do through a yielded vessel. Don't forget that and Paul said it. My sufficiency is of God. My abilities are not natural ones. They have been given to me. Notice in verse six how he says it who also made us efficient as ministers of the new covenant not of the letter but of the spirit for the letter kills but the spirit gives life. Made us efficient and Jesus saved him and Jesus equipped him to serve. In 1 Peter 411 the apostle said if anyone speaks then them speak as the oracles of God. If anyone ministers let him do it with the ability which God supplies that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ to whom belong the glory and the dominion forever and ever amen. Again in 1 Timothy 1 12 Paul said I thank Christ Jesus our Lord who has given me strength that he considered me faithful appointing me to his service. You see verse six says we're ministers of the new covenant not of the letter but of the spirit. So he contrasts what has been called the old covenant with the new. The Old Testament, the old covenant was lifeless. It was a written code. It required perfect obedience. In Exodus 24 7 it says he took the book of the covenant, read it to the people and they responded we'll do everything the Lord has said we will obey but they didn't. In Deuteronomy 27 26 cursed it as the man who does not uphold the words of this law by carrying them out. You see it's through the law of Moses that people became aware of their own sinfulness. God's law identified sin made people realize that what they were doing was wrong. Paul speaks of that in Romans 7 when he says in verses 7 through 10. What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Certainly not. On the contrary I would not have known sin except through the law for I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said you shall not covet. But sin taken opportunity by the commandment produced in me all manner of evil desire for apart from the law sin was dead. I was alive once without the law but when the commandment came sin revived I died and the commandment which was to bring life I found to bring death. The things that I was feeling with I was feeling like covetousness is what Paul says I didn't realize that I coveted until I read the law and it defined what I was experiencing. So the law awakens you it opens your eyes to what you are it says thou shalt not and then you realize those are the things you want to do and so the law reveals sinfulness and awakens us to a need for help. It was used by God to reveal the need for a savior. In Galatians 3 23 3 26 Paul said it like this he said before this faith came we were held prisoners by the law locked up until faith should be revealed. So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. Now that faith has come we're no longer under the supervision of the law you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. So Jesus Christ was our tutor or headmaster he brought us the law brought us to Jesus Christ rather the law was our tutor it brought us to Christ it didn't teach us it awakened us Jesus taught us through his grace what it means to be free. So the law says thou shalt not but it's written on stone but when Jesus Christ comes into your life that law is now written in your heart and the things that you do now are not because you're going to get caught it's because God has restricted you he's restrained you he's instructed you and he's empowered you and he's given to you the ability to see that this is something wrong. You when you got a little kid those of you who are parents or those of you who take care of small children you know this when you've got a small child two years old three years old they will obey you not necessarily from the heart you know how many three-year-olds have you ever seen at a church service coming forward and just kneeling crying oh god I'm a miserable sinner you just don't really see that because they don't realize that they are they're just doing things that are expedient I mean if you've got a four-year-old and he's picking on a three-year-old and you talk to the four-year-old and you say why are you doing that they'll look at you and say duh because they're smaller than me it just makes sense to pick on a small person I wouldn't pick up pick on a six-year-old I'm only four so I'll beat up three-year-olds and they see the reasonableness of that why did you steal that steal I don't even know what that word means I wanted I took it was sitting there what's wrong with that that's how they think but you say but that's belong to somebody else the concept of belonging to somebody else and violating that kind of social contract is not in their mind I saw it I wanted it I took it get off my back that's kind of a three-year-old so try and reason with one those of you who have them three-year-old four-year-olds you'll see what I mean so what do you do you say I'm gonna have to put you in a timeout oh yeah that's real effective I'm gonna put you in the timeout or whatever you do and you need to think about it they already think it was okay so I don't have a problem sitting here in the corner thinking about how else I'm gonna go I'll get away with it next time because this is what and that's what they do they sit in the corner figuring out how to do it and get away with it but when you're older when you're 9, 10, 11 when you're 12 and 13 you start developing what is called a moral conscience you begin to know there's something right there's something wrong but it doesn't format three and four it's still we're just still basically growing we're just learning and so ultimately you have our stages of moral growth and there have been studies on this I'm not gonna take you through but there are seven stages that one guy came up with and basically you know there's a reward and punishment you know that's basically the beginning but ultimately they call it altruism where they do things because it's the right thing to do regardless of the cost for me they say that is a highly morally developed individual the one who does right for its own sake even if it costs me for doing it and this one author said and that is what the Christians he wasn't a Christian but that is what the Christians call a copy of love to do the right thing even when it isn't the easy thing because that's the best thing right and so it's easy for someone to oh I'll is a cop behind me it says 45 I'm going 44 you know there's a cop behind me he says stop I'll stop one two three then I'll go you know 10 o'clock two o'clock all of those things we learned right and the cops not there because we haven't developed the internal the internal watch and that's again what Paul was speaking about earlier and that's what he's reiterating here reminding us the letter kills but the spirit brings life the letter says thou shalt not on the pain of penalty whereas grace says no I'll do it because I'm alive through Jesus Christ and I do it for because of his grace you see the letter kills but the spirit gives life in Romans 7 24 Paul said wretched man that I am who will deliver me from this body of death but in John 6 63 Jesus said the spirit gives life the flesh counts for nothing the words I've spoken to you our spirit and they are life so the riches of the grace of God are revealed to us in Christ and that's intended to cause us to have joy you see his law is written on the tablets of our flesh of our heart and we obey him from the heart again Hebrews 8 10 says this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days sayeth the Lord I will put my laws in their mind write them on their hearts I will be their God they shall be my people you see verse 6 says the letter kills but the spirit gives life the law awakens people to sin but it also served to condemn them to judgment but the spirit of God gives life to the spiritually dead person through grace and by faith and that is why we need to be born again because the will is present the ability to perform that which I desire is not and that's why you've fallen your face before God and you say God be merciful to to me I'm a sinner in need of your help forgive me cleanse me Lord may I have a new life write your law on the tablet of my heart that I may do those things that please you I've hurt too many people I've broken too many things I just need you I still remember one prayer that I used to pray when I was a young young man before I got saved and it was simple I still remember the prayer just before I got saved I started praying I hadn't been praying I hadn't prayed for years but I prayed this I would say God help me there's something wrong with me that's what I would say that was my prayer God help me there's something wrong with me I don't know what it is but something's wrong help me help me help me and then one day my friends started sharing the gospel and that's when I realized that's what's wrong with me I don't know the Lord I'm rebellious I'm filled with hate and selfishness God help me and that's how I got saved but I realized that my heart was broken and messed up but that Jesus said I've come to heal the broken hearted and he healed me and he can heal you too if you open your heart to heal


Let's reconvene so we can maximize our time in discussion. Before I turn it over to Marie Walker, I just want to introduce everyone else who's on the dais with us in the order you see them. Professor Joseph P. Gahn is immediately to the left of Professor Tynes. Then Professor Manuela Barreto. Then Professor Jean Nick Ryder. Professor Daniel Eisenberg. And Professor Merrill Alper. Obviously you'll be hearing a lot more from all of them, but at least to welcome them officially to the conference. So at this point I will turn it over to my colleague Marie Walker. Okay. So those were both very fascinating, I'd say cutting edge talks on technology and mental health and discrimination as they would impact youth. I'm thinking that your colleagues might have some thoughts or questions or comments that you might have about the talks that you heard. Does anybody want to open up with some sort of question or comment? I can if the sound is working. Yes. Okay, Dr. Alper. Sure. Yeah, no, I found both talks incredibly interesting thinking about, you know, we can talk about technology as a cause or as a variable in mental health, but also for mental health assessments is really interesting. And I was really struck by Brindisha's talk. The TikToks that you had shown of the young women talking about the filters and the effects of, you know, sort of seeing other beauty standards imposed upon them by the technology. I've recently been looking at TikTok as a space of understanding how young people are coping with the world. And so one thing that struck me was thinking about how there might be a positive, you know, mental health effect of being able to look at somebody or see or interact with somebody through the comments, potentially, who's having a shared experience with you. So there being potentially a short term, maybe positive effect, but then also you could watch a video and that could also make you feel bad about yourself, even if you feel good, but because you're identifying with something, you might then be negatively affected by knowing, oh, there's filters in the world that reify a beauty standard I don't fit into, and that could make you feel bad too. And I'm wondering to what extent you might think the utility of studying these things in the short term and the long term and what those, in what way social media in that way might be a mixed bag of being able to identify with somebody, but at the same time being reminded of that, you know, discriminatory experience can also just make you feel bad, especially if you consume a lot of content and the algorithm keeps feeding you more of that content too. Can anybody hear me? Okay, so we're finding that being able to ask people about these experiences and the particularly the positive experiences that people have, the fact that we did not find that they were associated with mental negative mental health outcomes has us questioning whether maybe the positive experiences will be a buffer. And, you know, we think that the benefits will sort of outweigh any sort of negatives that might be associated with being reminded of your experiences. And so, yeah, I mean, we can have more of a conversation about it, but and we're definitely going to be analyzing in the future like whether the positive experiences are a buffer. And I'll keep you posted. Yeah, I was thinking also about British's presentation, although I really like Priscilla's too. Thank you very much for both of you. About the fact that, you know, some, you know, devil's advocate might say being exposed to that kind of contact would be harmful to anyone. So irrespective of your racial background, seeing such horrendous contact is shocking. It's it makes you think that the world is a really hostile place. I think I know what the answer is to my question, but I wanted to know whether you have looked at that in more detail in other studies, perhaps without a methods, but how the differential harm that it makes when you are part of that group or you're not part of that group. It's a really good question. We haven't looked at the differences. And I am actually interested if interested in finding out if white people actually feel, you know, feel bad.  And so maybe future work will look at those differences. So there is some work that would suggest that indeed they do. But of course, the extent to which you feel bad really depends on your own personal involvement with that group because clearly it is a possible future for you. It's not a possible future for someone else. Right. So so there is some work that would suggest that but not not really looking at the exact kind of stimulus you're looking at, which is really sort of the impact of it is that it's daily and it's relentless and continuous. And I think it would be really important to make that point. And I also think sort of identifying with the police and sort of, you know, revering these people who are committing this terror may also play a role as well. Daniel has a comment. Oh, Daniel. Okay. Sorry. I'm an awesome moderator, aren't I? Thank you. Yeah. I wanted to ask Priscilla if I could. I thought the virtual reality technique was a fascinating way of understanding something. And just wanted to hear a little bit more about what is that like for the participants today? Like how real does it really feel to them? And is that something you can also kind of manipulate? Can you make it feel more real by like having them think or maybe actually having like other subjects being the ones speaking for the avatar? Or do they think that it's just kind of a role play that's coming from, you know, like the research team? It's interesting that you got stress levels even when probably some of them understood that it was just role play, right? It wasn't like a real interaction in a sense or not. I don't know. Yeah. So several things I think there's some individual differences in terms of how real they think or how immersed they are in it. So several factors that affect what we call presence in virtual reality research is kind of how realistic the avatars might be, the artifacts in the environment. But also what's important is we tell participants what to anticipate in the situation. We tell them this could be stressful and then you are at a party. And so that increases their sense of immersion and their presence. And we do actually have data about their ratings of immersion and realism of the virtual reality environments. And then also they kind of tell us, did you participate in this scenario as you wouldn't realize? So on average, our participants say it's, you know, on a scale of one to five, five being the highest level of immersion realism. They say it's about three and three to four. So they also understand from their qualitative response, they know this is not real life. They are going through some kind of role play and simulation. They do know they're talking to a person. Sometimes they think it's AI or sometimes they're like, is this an actual person I'm talking to? So, but then like regardless they are showing genuine responses. So it kind of depends like also maybe people who have more experience previously with virtual reality, they're going to rate it a little bit less realistic just because they're like, oh, this guy is kind of creepy. It does not really look like a real human being. But nevertheless, the experience can be quite similar to what they experienced in real life. So Priscilla and I have been having a conversation about this and I've been telling her that my blood pressure is still up after watching those VR experiences. I just sort of felt for the participants and I find it extremely unethical to willingly expose people to discrimination that is so realistic. And I mean you see their stress levels rise and that I think is harmful. Like with the amount of discrimination that black people experience every day to willingly expose them in the name of science, I find just particularly egregious. So can you just, can you talk about the ethics involved and how you get over like doing this study, expelling people in the name of science? Yeah, I think that's a great question. That's why we're here at a conference that speaks to both science and ethics. So I think several things prior to the study, we have kind of built up to this particular study where we've involved focus groups and asking participants about their lived experiences using observational methods that I was talking about. And then they kind of rate some of the, including our research team that's including diverse kind of groups of color, research assistants and other consultants with expertise in the content. So we have chosen some of those scenarios that are not the most blatant, very exceedingly harmful scenarios. And at the same time, I think there are several issues to consider in terms of scientific advancements. I think for us to understand something, it's oftentimes a tradeoff between sort of what, you know, sort of the gain from the study for the general public, the masses as much as possible, so that we have the tools to not only advocate and kind of understand the lived experiences and help other people also understand the lived experiences and also find ways that can actually mitigate the negative impacts. So part of the draw of virtual reality as our research participants told us is you can actually use this to train people to adapt to these incidences and also train bystanders and allies to disarm discrimination experiences. So it has multiple benefits. And here we're talking about sort of basic understanding of the causal effects and mechanisms. And we do have safeguards in place as with, you know, ethical research is we consult heavily with our human subjects protection boards and we have consent and we consent process and debriefing process. So each step of the way we ask, well, one, we tell them if any part of the study is uncomfortable, you don't want to continue. You can leave and there's no penalty. You can still get your compensation as promised. And we also tell them as part of the study, you can experience stress or discomfort. And according to our consultation with the human subjects protection board, it is they consider we consider is no more than sort of experiences that are out of the ordinary for people of color. So, you know, as you mentioned, people experience discrimination and stress on a daily basis. And this will be consistent and similar to some of the experiences. And we have safeguards in place that people get resources. If they do experience or maybe are triggered or traumatized or in some ways experienced mental health problems, we have resources available to them.  And from the debriefing and also we have follow-up ethics study that we ask, we contacted these participants in the virtual reality study several weeks and up to, you know, seven months after and kind of ask them, hey, remember the study that you participated in? How much distress? How much harmful maybe alcohol use have you engaged the day of or after the study? And do you think the study actually was ethical? Do you think the researchers treated you with respect? Do you think the study allowed you to make informed decision to participate? And did you experience harm? And what degree of harm did you experience as part of the study? And our research participants rated that the study was highly ethical, that the researchers treated them with care. They did not feel like they experienced harm on a scale of one to seven. The average is one point something. So they also felt like they had the agency to decide to participate or not. So nobody had terminated the study prematurely. Nobody had asked, actually like wanted to take the mental health resources. And this is at debriefing after the studies, even when we recontacted them. So I do think there are issues sort of any research studies have ethical issues and potential, you know, sort of ethical concerns. And we do take it very seriously. So, you know, as some of the technologies and more research tools and methods are made available to scientists, I think it's important that we ask the folks that we conduct research with and want to serve, kind of ask them about their perspectives. So, yeah. Being Dr. Tynes, I know that you are very much an advocate for digital media literacy. And I've heard you speak or write about how do we equip young people of color to deal with microaggressions. And I wonder, is this a possible method or is, you know, and I also do know that your research trajectory is going from correlational research, saying how microaggressions are tied into mental health issues and trying to create an experimental paradigm, right? So I just wonder if there's any, I don't know, middle ground or teaching ground with this sort of research. So we just proposed, we submitted a proposal to NIH to use VR to train people to cope with the experiences that they have online. But we are not going to expose them to discrimination. We're going to have them imagine an experience that they've already had and teach them the coping skills they need and then have them practice. But we're not going to create a VR experience where people are harmed. Okay. Yes, please, Dr. Gunn. I really appreciate this exchange. It raises a question I hadn't thought about and the ethics of it. And I think it's important to think it through. A few thoughts come to mind in response. One I think is that, you know, in this work we often proceed together in collective fashion to try to counter the kinds of racism that it does in American society today. And yet I think that all racism are not created equal in America. And so I think part of what might be important to introduce is the recognition that different groups have different experiences of racism in America and have that in different domains and different ways. And I think that anti-black racism is especially pernicious and has been for a very, very long time. To me, it matters whether your group has been allowed or not in American history to marry into whiteness or not. And American Indian people, I'm American Indian. We have been allowed to marry into whiteness. It means that a lot of American Indian people today have mixed ancestry. And we just don't have the concerted campaign that has carried on for so, so long, even though we continue to experience racism and discrimination in all kinds of instances. So I think that's one subtlety to track here. A second thing is I'm struck by the relationship of the outcomes we're talking about. So we talk about stress. We talk about symptoms. We talk maybe about distress. We talk about harm.  And of course, those are not all the same thing. You know, it's a spectrum between stress, which is everyone has stress every day, I think. All the way to disorder, which is more the exception rather than the norm. And so harm and how we imagine and conceive of harm takes on an important role, maybe definitionally, in terms of what we consider and conceive to be harms. So I think that these are two things that have raised in my mind as we have this conversation, just in terms of parsing out some of this. The third thing that really strikes me here, I'll just put on the table as well, is, you know, here we are outside of the Twin Cities in Minnesota, pretty rural Minnesota. I look at our in-person audience. I don't know who I was on here. But, you know, I suspect that racism for a lot of you in our audience might feel like an exotic, like maybe that happens down south or in the big city, but not around here. And I just wonder, I probably, there's some engagement with our audience about assumptions and expectations and orientations to what racism is. You know, we talked about microaggressions this morning. Microaggressions are interesting because, at least as originally conceived, they were defined as, you know, somewhat ambiguous. But if it's ambiguous, then that means we don't really know if it was intending to be discriminatory or not.  You know what it is, you know what to do, and you react however you react to that. If someone microaggresses you in a way that's ambiguous, I just wonder how long do you spend sitting there turning over in your mind? What did that really mean? What did that person try to convey? Did they mean it? Are they ignorant? You know, just try to get around it. So those are different dynamics as well that I think are worth introducing to this conversation. If I can add to that too, the question of not only is it a person, but is it a bot? Like, am I even being engaged by an actual person with these views? Or has this been manufactured to surround me? And that itself is another kind of stress as well. And so thinking about the uncertainties that young people are engaging with online because it is one thing to know who you're encountering, but you don't necessarily know if whose avatar or profile picture it is online is that person or not. And so I think that, and especially when you consider how cheap and easy and fast and quick it can be to mobilize this kind of hate online. Yeah, that part of like, who's doing this to me becomes this bigger question mark. Thinking about Russian interference and Facebook and, you know, who do I trust, right? Can I trust the person I'm talking to online or can I not? I mean, I imagine for young people especially, it's very isolating. And I'm sure this will come up again. So I do want to engage our audience to and ask them some questions here or ask some of the questions that they have put forth. And so one of them is, I'll just read this, obviously anxiety and mental illness issues are more prevalent than ever and the solutions are complicated. Have society's values and motivations changed over time to the point of causing this mental health crisis? For example, the economy is growth-driven, which does not seem sustainable. Has this consumption-based growth mindset contributed to widespread mental illness? And what about other societal pressures? So over time, how has the mental health crisis been impacted by things that are going on in society right now? Big question. But any thoughts on that? Our economist, Daniel Eisenberg. My answer has nothing to do with economics, but I just would point people to one piece of research by Jean Twenge and colleagues. They published this in 2010 around there. It's an interesting study looking at the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Disorder, MMPI, that goes back to the 1930s and they kind of collected every piece of data they could on young people taking the MMPI, which has some questions about depressive symptoms and other aspects of mental health. And they found that there's actually a steady rise in apparent depression and anxiety as well, I think, since the 1930s in the U.S., going through like 2005. And their best explanation was kind of sociological it had to do with a shift in society to more of an extrinsic motivations like popularity, success, money, fame, and less kind of more what would be considered intrinsic kind of self-fulfillment, more kind of intrinsic values. I think it's all very circumstantial evidence, but I found that compelling. Looking to wealth or fame as ways to gauge your success in the world would be something that's related to that increase in mental illness that we're seeing. Yeah, Dr. Godd. And sorry, you see us flapping around up here. There's a lot of flies. Yes. What's going on up here? I just want to say that I think there's a generational shift to in terms of how we think about racism, of course, and the threat that it poses for people. You know, when I grew up on primetime television was a sitcom called All in the Family. Some of you remember Archie Bunker, for example. And of course his bigotry was, he was a buffoon, essentially, but his bigotry was part of that buffoonery. But he said things on primetime TV that, of course, he would never say today by today's standards. You know, I felt like the lesson of Archie Bunker for me was, yeah, there are bigots in the world, but someone like Archie Bunker has no power. He was a forklift operator down at the plant, whatever plant that was.  So he was this buffoon probably because of his class background being working class who would say all this stuff. But Archie Bunker is not going to deny you a mortgage. He's not going to stop you from your promotion at work and those sorts of things. So the kind of structural elements of racism versus the kind of interpersonal bigotry you might encounter, to me are really different kinds of things. And in my own life, at least, I have felt like if a bigot says something ignorant to me, I used to hear growing up sticks and stones, you know, can break my bones, but names can never hurt me. That was our saying, right? And so there's a sense about how do you come to insulate yourself a little bit from people's ignorance, even as the structural stuff as well can stop you from having the life that you've been aiming for and some maybe foothold in the American dream that supposedly we've been promised in this society. So I think that that's a generational difference that might matter a little bit here, too. But what about if Archie Bunker calls the police on you, on a black person? Yeah, yeah, right. And I think there were probably episodes about that actually, so that's a great point. Dr. Helper. Yeah, I think when we're talking about mental health and we're talking about this present moment, it is helpful to look at the past. I think we have to, because we also have to reckon with how mental health has been measured and framed in our society in kind of the first place. So thinking about how the very diagnostic tools themselves have been developed in ways that were, like, not just subtly, but like expressly homophobic, like expressly transphobic, expressly racist, and they were kind of designed to be, like they were designed to pathologize people and designed to institutionalize people. So there's like a whole broad history of that in the U.S. around that's very eugenic.  And so when we talk about mental health and we talk about this very present moment, there's the historian in me that says we also have to recognize how the way we even define it, how we measure it, things that we maybe think of as sort of neutral objective, their numbers, the ways that those histories shape the legacies of, you know, whose care is deemed important and whose care would have been sort of offloaded a century ago to, you know, to being excluded from society altogether. Yeah, okay. I'm going to go back to our audience and ask for another question from them that they put forth and I believe, and I'm sorry we can't get to all the questions. I apologize to those in the audience who put them out there, but I'm going to ask this one. As technology advances, the tactics for cyberbullying and online discrimination will diversify. How can combatants for this bullying and discrimination match this progression in technology? Sorry, match the what? The progression in technology. So how can... So as the technology progresses and maybe cyberbullying and discrimination get, I don't know, more insidious I just think about what you talked about is that, you know, taking someone's images and creating something so it makes them look like they're doing or saying something that they haven't. So that sort of idea, how can we counteract this progression? What do we need to do? So I think the average person can advocate for people online. They can model for folks how you critique racism, how you stand up to somebody who is trolling or stand up to misogynoir. And you can educate yourself about America's history. Read all the banned books, every single one. And just be ready, like an army, to fight for justice in these online spaces. Okay, we have time for one more question.  And so this question is saying, people of color experience countless external factors from institutions, everyday interactions online, etc., that impact their mental health and well-being. The speakers have talked a lot about how these areas can be systematically improved via educators programs, etc. But how can we, as peers, which is kind of what you've said, minorities or not, support others via in-person or online interactions? And Dr. Tynes or Dr. Loy, or any of you on the panel, if you have something you want to say to that? I think knowledge helps. It's maybe one of the first steps. And certainly ability to advocate and disarm these vulnerabilities and risks for other people. So some of the work that we have done, particularly during the COVID pandemic, not only anti-Black racism but also anti-Asian hate, was we wanted to understand who are the people who are more likely to step in to help, like classic social psychology bystander effects. So I think several things like what are people needing to be able to become allies? So some of the things in terms of bystander actions have to do with just understanding, right?  And then kind of the circumstances surround, like we talked about mental health disparities and inequities, and as well as sort of actual tools that are available. So resources that people can draw from, which scientific information is one way to do so. And also kind of like some of the protective factors that we have for ourselves, like selective self-esteem, racial, private regard, and kind of being able to connect with our ethnic heritage. And that's very important. And then also sort of people who have privilege, who have the abilities, step in to also help. So I think it's a multi-prong approach can be empowering. So I think we have a lot of similarities in terms of our next step is after we understand some of the mechanisms, what are the protective factors and how do we actually use the tools that we have to train folks to actually use the tools, use the abilities to be able to disarm and support one another. Thank you. Thanks. I think in order in the interest of keeping us on schedule, we'll call this first panel to close and thank our presenters and all of the discussants. Just a reminder, there's a whole list of things you can do during this noon to hour period. The workshops are listed, the chapel. There is a forum in the forum that is the basketball part. There are interactive displays, mental health fair. You can tour Nobel Hall. You can now go inside of it. And there are art exhibitions and you get out into the Arboretum and just do some walking therapy for yourself. At 12.20, there is the dedication as we noted. Food choice information and other such things are found on page 27 of the program. Please know this is a tobacco free campus and please also know that we're trying to be zero waste. So to the extent that you can help us in those efforts, that would be great. And for those of you online, there's a whole slew of really wonderful videos about things. Please go stay with us and interviews as well. So thank you. We'll see you back here when the program says. I didn't write that down.