All right, everybody. If I could get your attention up here, we'll take a moment to pray for God to bless our time in the Word, and then we'll take about 30 minutes to go over the passage. Let's pray together. All right, God, we want to thank you again. Lord, we believe that your Word is true.

And what's more, God, we believe your Word is powerful. And I know that all of us have experienced just the sweetness of seeing your truth, having our eyes be opened, and having your Word shed light onto our path. God, we are regularly absolutely challenged by your Word. And Lord, it is our desire that it would cause us, Lord, to live this life in wisdom, and Father God, to live this life in adherence to your truth.

Lord, truthfully, that is where it is most difficult. A lot of these things, God, we've probably heard in other passages and other sermons. But Lord, we do really eagerly pray that your Spirit would cause, every time your Word is open to us, your Spirit would cause conviction. Your Spirit would cause us to remember.

And what's more, God, to effectively evaluate and desire to change so that, God, we would be all the more in conformity to your Son, Jesus Christ. We thank you and pray for your blessing upon our time of study tonight. It's in Christ's name, amen. Okay. So as we normally do, let's take a moment to read through the passage together.

I'll read for us. Just please follow along. And Apostle Paul says, in Philippians here, verse 21, "For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. But if I am to live on in the flesh, this will mean fruitful labor for me. And I do not know which one to choose, but I am hard-pressed from both directions, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better.

Yet to remain on in the flesh is more necessary for your sake. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy in the faith, so that your proud confidence in me may abound in Christ Jesus through my coming to you again.

Only conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or remain absent, I will hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind, striving together for the faith of the gospel, in no way alarmed by your opponents, which is a sign of destruction for them, but of salvation for you, and that too from God.

For to you it has been granted for Christ's sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake, experiencing the same conflict which you saw in me, and now hear to be in me." Okay. As you read this passage, this is an epic one. Epic because when you read a verse like, "For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain," that is such a powerful statement, right?

It is one of those all-life-encompassing, even death-encompassing, right? Almost like majestic statement that summarizes so much. And so we've got to ask, how does Apostle Paul come to this statement? How does Apostle Paul get here? Meaning how does he lead up to say something like that? And so one of the things that we typically do in Bible study is to ask, how does this thought even connect with what he said before, right?

What was in his mind, what was he saying previously that he would say something like this? So we take a moment to go back in our Bibles to a previous passage, and I'm just going to read from verse 18 through 20. And Apostle Paul said this, "What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed.

And in this I rejoice, yes, I will rejoice. For I know that this will turn out for my deliverance through your prayers and the provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, according to my earnest expectation and hope, that I will not be put to shame in anything, but that in all boldness, Christ will even now, as always, be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death." And then he says, "For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain." I want to make mention of the fact that clearly his thought from this verse 18 where he says, "If Christ is proclaimed, I rejoice.

This is my desire, it's what I'm looking for." That thought is carried through all the way to verse 20 where he says, "Whether by life or by death, my expectation and my hope is that Christ would be exalted." That thought is carried in verse 21, "For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain." These section headings are not inspired and what you can tell is that actually the paragraph continues to run.

There isn't actually a break there. It's a continuing thought. So going back to our verse then, oh no, oh it's that one. Okay. Going back to our verse then, we can summarize previously Apostle Paul is saying that he is so committed, his number one passion, the desire, you can say the treasure, the goal that he has set in his heart is to see Christ proclaimed and his Savior exalted in his life.

And no matter what happens to him, that's what's going to be the measure by which he can say, "And all is fine." Right? No matter what the circumstances are, he has found a way to make sense of his imprisonment, of the beatings he received, of his privileges taken away.

There is a way for him to make sense of it all and that making sense of it all is his commitment to see Christ exalted. So what's interesting here is right now all I'm doing is making much of this idea that he says, "For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain," and all I'm saying to you is there is a flow here.

And my question now then is, what's the connection? Is he just reiterating the same thing or is he saying more? And what I like to think is, well, he's actually giving us a because statement. And the reason why I say it is saying, "Okay, I have as my number one desire the exaltation of Christ," and then he says, "For to me," and when he says that, all he's saying is, "Because for me to live is Christ and to die is gain." This number one eager desire, this passion and hope, this is what is causing him now to not only evaluate this time of suffering or the time in prison, what he's doing is he's evaluating everything, right?

He's evaluating everything. And this is what I like to do. As I look at verse 22 and 23, is he not doing a evaluation, a pro and con, a kind of measure and balance? "You know, I have this," and what is this? "What you got here is option one.

In option one, I can live on in the flesh," meaning I could stay here, "and what this will mean is fruitful labor," okay? He says, "In this life, I can continue to bear fruit and keep on working the cause of Christ." But number two, he's hard-pressed. Why? Because he's got this also desire to depart, to be with Christ.

And we know what he means by that is to die. And he says, "This, however," and look at this, "is much better." If you're highlighting, I'm going to highlight two here, okay? You should highlight this. Why? Because when I see this, what I see is a flow of thought where in this first section, verses 1 through 26, he gives this pretty incredible statement.

"For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain," and then he involves us or at least exposes and reveals his kind of perspective, his thinking through what's good. And so, if you look at your handout, I've labeled this point number one, what's good, right? The perspective, the worldview, to be able to say, "Life and death, I've got a means to evaluate whether it's good or not." And what he says is, "Because for to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain," and he explains it by saying, "As I think about my life, I've got two options and they both have to do with Christ.

I'm going to be serving him or I could leave." And you know what's really interesting about this? He says, "As I think and as I reflect, my conclusion is this is much, much better." Take a moment to think about that. What I am saying to you is he's not only reiterating his desire and saying, "I want to see Christ exalted and I want to continue to suffer and to go to this and this and that." What he's saying is, "I am telling you my worldview, in my perspective, to have Christ is the good I'm seeking." Now I'd like to give you an example of this by using a really, really worldly example.

And the example I'd like to give is my love for minivans. Many of you guys who have talked to me, thank you, thumbs up to you, brother. Many of you guys who have talked to me before, you know that ever since I was in college, so this is when I was between the ages of like 18 and 19, I wanted a minivan and I told everyone.

Okay? I told every individual that I want a minivan and everybody was like, "Why?" And I'd give them this argument because the minivan is truly the most utility vehicle, even more than your sport utility vehicle. I mean, what other vehicle can you put like a queen-size mattress, all your books and your chair and have be fine in your mood, right?

What other vehicle can you just open all the doors and have people come in and come out and it's truly the most like versatile vehicle you can purchase. And for me as a family guy, I got my two kids, you can put grandpa, grandma in the back and a load of stuff and you're fine, right?

Now the other reason why I really like the minivans because there was this moment when I first became Christian as a senior in high school, it was strange but my pastor allowed me to drive the church minivan and it was a Toyota Sienna. We packed in all the youth group students and we went to Arizona for a mission trip.

It was the American, Navajo Indian Reservation and we took like a 26-hour drive. I drove the whole thing. Now while I was driving, all the students in the car, they get knocked out, they're sleeping and stuff like that. People were like they have food crumbs all over the place.

And as I was driving though, I wasn't thinking like this is the best utility vehicle. I was thinking, "Dude, this is awesome. We've got our brothers and sisters in the car. We're jam-packed in this thing. We're going to go do missions." And then I started thinking, "The Sienna is the most godly vehicle." It's the most humble vehicle for sure.

There's no flaunting this like monstrous thing. But it's like the godliest thing possible because we have everybody inside and then I was thinking like, you know, with the push of a button, I could open the door and like serving my people, right? Now I'm just giving you a funny example but think about this, right?

Why would an 18 or 19-year-old student want a minivan and look like a soccer mom? See because I had a moment where I had a picture and I thought this is so good, ever since then I've always wanted a minivan. Now why do I bring this up? The only reason why we want certain things is because you had a picture in your head this is cool, this is good, this is better.

And when you conclude that, that is where your desires rise. And to the degree that you think that really is good, it's going to match your intensity of desire, right? So for Apostle Paul, when he recognizes, "For to me, Christ is better," I want you to understand he's not saying that it's just, you know, it's just better than getting in trouble and all this kind of stuff.

He's actually saying it's better than life altogether. I mean I want you to think about that. There is an absolute method to his madness, meaning there's a rationale and reason as to why he would want this. Why would you want to walk this path that causes you to go to jail?

Why would you want to walk this path that causes you grief and hardship? Because he believes this is better. And yes, this is better than living a long life and growing old together with the love of your life. To him, this is better than living a long life and being able to see your grandkids, to live a long, full life where you can leave a legacy and see how, you know, the things that you have actually built up and the fortune that you've amassed, you can pass it down and you have this great joy in your heart that you can leave it for the next generations.

Because think about Apostle Paul. What did he have to his name that he could leave for his children? But in my mind, I feel like that's what most people in this generation, that's what they're thinking. Just save, save, save, save, save, and you glory in your retirement days. What you want is to have the privilege to then also leave a legacy for your kids.

But think about all that. Can you by conviction conclude with Apostle Paul, no. All of life here combined is not even comparable to me being with Christ. His conclusion, and look at this, his conviction, what is he convinced about? What is he so convinced about is his worldview and perspective.

And he is able to discern and judge and conclude this is much better than he's able to commit. Then he's able to commit to them, he's able to commit to work, he's able to commit to labor. That is the motivating force, right? This to him is his motivation for the rest of his ministry, for his confidence that he's going to be able to have fruitful ministry.

And so when we look at this and we see this weird contrast, we have to recognize Apostle Paul's worldview. But let's take a moment to think about this just even a little bit deeper because there is a weirdness to it. So here, when you take a look at option one versus option two, we think, okay, Apostle Paul's still dedicated to this cause of seeing Jesus exalted.

He wants to either live so he can be fruitful in labor or he wants to go. But the reason why I want to take a moment and cause us to think about it is because, man, what a challenge, right? What a challenge. Because if I put myself in Apostle Paul's shoes and I imagine that I hit a wall and people were persecuting me, there are people willing to pick up stones and stone me or people willing to beat me up, right?

My struggle would more so be should I keep working or should I quit, right? Like my struggle would be should I just close my mouth or should I just keep talking, right? But the strangeness of it all is Apostle Paul was literally in a situation where he is in a life or death situation.

Because even being in prison, it's not like our prison, before being put in prison, he was beaten, right? What Apostle Paul's wrestling was with, you know, I could actually just keep going, maybe even more bombastically preach to the guards, preach to the, you know, the higher officials. And what he knows is not so much that like, you know what, I'm just going to kill myself.

No, he's not thinking about suicide. He's thinking about pressing the envelope even more, right? Because what he knows is that when he is dedicated to ministry and in this current circumstance, if he goes more, he could literally face death. And that to me is quite wild. To think you literally have these choices and you're willing, like you have that realistic possibility and it's not off the table, right?

What a challenge. Why? Because truthfully speaking, certain things, it's not even on the table for me, right? If it means suffering, discomfort, if it means foregoing certain opportunities, foregoing certain privileges, sometimes it's not even option one or option two. It's immediately, well, I guess I only have option one, right?

Like that's not even an option. This is what I'm saying is as we take a moment to observe Apostle Paul even wrestling with this, before if you just do a cursory glance over this, you're just like, "Huh, that's kind of funny." You know, maybe he knows he's near his deathbed.

He just wants it to be over with. I don't think so. I don't think so. Okay. So, for the sake of time, I know there's probably a lot of questions here. Like, what does he mean by your proud confidence? Confidence in who? How does it abound in Christ? And why would they have this kind of confidence in Apostle Paul?

Hope you guys can keep talking about that stuff and dig into that, okay? But for the sake of time, we're going to move over to point two and take a look at the command. Okay? So right here, in my eyes, there were two clear sections of our passage. The first connected to the previous passage where he says, basically, "In my life or whether by death, Christ needs to be exalted because for me, Christ is my gain.

He is to me better. Being with him is better than all of life." Right? Summary. So now, after explaining all that, Apostle Paul gives this powerful command. He says, "Only conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ." Now, whenever I see this, this idea of, I hope this shows up here, manner worthy of the gospel.

Does that show up? Kind of, but not really. I'll go back to orange, okay? That shows up. This idea here of manner worthy of the gospel, that is like such a high, huge, incredible calling, right? And I want to ask you, like, when you hear that, do you just glance over?

Do you stop and you're just kind of like, "Whoa." Right? You see the magnitude of that. Worthy of the gospel? Like, you mean, here is the Lord who was in the beginning, who was the sustainer, who like everything came into being through him and he humbled himself and died and you want me to be worthy of that?

This is crazy, right? Well, what's really interesting about this is you will see that in other passages, you will see that a lot of times the concept here is not so much that, "Oh my gosh, you're of such amazing stature. You deserve it, man." Right? You deserve, that's not what it's saying, right?

What he's talking about is in accordance or appropriateness. So I'm just going to, rather than take too much time to it, in accordance and appropriateness, right? For example, another passage that's really common is Ephesians chapter four, verse one. He says, "So I urge you, brethren, walk in a manner worthy of the gospel," and what he talks about is, "I just told you about grace and love." So guess what?

You need to be gracious and loving. You need to be the most humble people ever because the truth of the matter is you don't deserve this, right? So what we're talking about is a kind of, you know, correspondence to the truth of the gospel. You know Jesus is on high.

You know he deserves respect. You know you deserve nothing. So why in the world are you walking around pomp and prideful and conceited, right? That's typically the kind of exhortation that you see in other books of the Bible where it talks about you need to walk in a manner worthy of the gospel.

So as we think about this, though, we recognize that, man, this is pretty emphatic here because what's really interesting is in chapter one, Apostle Paul used the word "only" to introduce a concept. And what was that concept? He was like, "Oh my gosh, what are we to do? I'm in prison.

There are a bunch of these bad guys out there preaching out of conceit, and they're like, you know, pretty much selfish, and they're trying to take this opportunity to even hurt me. What should I say then? Should I be like, 'Oh, goodness me,' you know? Woe is me." So he says, "Only this, that Christ is proclaimed." Synonymously, I want you guys to understand, when he says to walk in a manner worthy of the gospel, I'm asking you to think about these other synonyms.

Are you living in a manner where it is synonymous to only that Christ is proclaimed? You're living in a manner that's pointing to the gospel. You're living in a manner upholding the gospel. You're living in a manner thankful for the gospel. You're living in a manner that is, again, appropriate to what the Lord has done for you.

One of the things that's so convicting was this past weekend we were at a retreat, and I talked about like, you know, if your identity is in Christ, you would be a thankful person. And yet I was so convicted because, do you know how often complaints come out of my mouth?

It's like, "Why is it so hot in here? Why am I so da-da-da-da-da? Why is it so?" And I just feel like we live in a generation where it's almost fun to rant, right? Everybody's like a professional critic. And the more like, you know, sharp and more brazen you can get at criticizing something, you get more likes or something like that, right?

And then you realize like, "Oh my goodness, that is not worthy of the gospel. It is not even appropriate for an individual to have received such grace, and yet their heart be filled with such complaint," right? That's what we're talking about. Now, as we think about this then, here is an interesting connection here, okay?

And so again, whenever you guys do observations, I broke it down into these outlines for you guys, but the way I do these outlines is always simply by observing these transitions of thought. So earlier, if I saw a "for," then I was like, "Okay, this is a new paragraph." Or if I saw "but," then I realized, "Okay, he's contrasting two thoughts." And then over here, when he says, "So that," I got to ask myself the question, "Is this purpose?

Is this just simply an effect that he wants to see? What is this?" Right? And this is really interesting, and he says, "I want you to walk in this manner appropriate to the gospel, worthy of the gospel, so that I can see and I can hear this. Whether I actually come out or whether I don't come out, I want to see and hear this in you." What does Apostle Paul want to see?

And whenever you're doing your study and you see a laundry list of stuff, then you want to make sure you highlight that and you count it. First, he says, "I want to make sure that you're standing firm in one spirit, with one mind, striving together for the gospel." And as we see that, the things that Apostle Paul wants to see, is there any pattern?

Is there any kind of emphasis here? And of course we see that. We see the term, this kind of military term. Yes, you're supposed to be strong, you're supposed to stand against these opponents, and you're supposed to hold your ground, but you're supposed to do that in one spirit, right?

You're supposed to have one mind. This term literally means soul, okay? One mind, and what you're supposed to be doing with one mind is striving together, that you're actually laboring. You're trying and you're putting forth that effort, pursuing what? Greater faith in the gospel, okay? Greater faith in the gospel.

But I want you guys to think about that for a moment. What Apostle Paul desires to see is an incredible unity. Apostle Paul desires to see an incredible oneness in the church. And if you guys know what's coming up, he's going to extrapolate that out to a greater emphasis in chapter two.

And he's going to say, "This is so important for all of you, that you actually have this unity, not based upon, 'You know what guys, we need to sit down together and just spend some quality time, and we're going to do this week by week, because the more you stay together, the more unified we'll be.'" It's not based on quantity of time, is it?

Because clearly Apostle Paul doesn't have quantity of time with these people. It's not talking about kind of like the solidarity that comes from, "You know, we all happen to be Jewish people. We all happen to be X people," whatever it may be. "We all happen to be people with the same experiences.

We all happen to be people with the same kind of educational," you know, whatever, demographics and all that kind of stuff. No. There has to be a oneness in spirit and a oneness of striving together for the faith of the gospel. Why? What's really interesting, he says, "I want to make sure," and I'm going to highlight this in red, "that you not be alarmed," because it's kind of a negative way of saying a very similar thing.

That doesn't show up. All right. We're just going to squiggle that. To not be alarmed. So I want you guys to kind of imagine this, right? The whole scenario is Apostle Paul is experiencing persecution. And remember his intent was, "I want to basically encourage you but also prepare you by explaining to you how I'm doing and how I'm making sense of this whole scenario, which perhaps you could be really discouraged by," right?

Because why? Because Apostle Paul wants to make sure that the church is ready. You guys are going to experience the same stuff. And we need to continue, just like I already am, to strive for the cause of the advancement of the gospel. The only reason why we are here and not up there is because we need to continue to do the work that God has called us to.

Okay. So with that in mind, think about this, right? If you were like in the military, or actually, let me use another example. Okay. Think about two different basketball players. All right. Hold on. Am I getting mixed up in the -- oh, man, I am getting mixed up. Sorry.

Give me a second. Oh, no. I should have numbered my pages. All right. Okay. Well, let me think for a moment. Okay, okay. Think about a military scenario, right? As an example, think about a military scenario, and imagine you are the captain. And you know you have got to lead this platoon.

You have got to march these guys over the hill. And you have got to basically overtake a fortified little machine gun or whatever it may be. And you are trying to get these guys ready. I want you guys to be sober. I want you guys to be alert. I want you guys to understand what is happening.

I know we have already been marching for days, and we are tired, but remember, we need to win this battle. We are in this, right? Now you would be so encouraged if everyone was like, that's right, I signed up for this, you know. But on the flip side, you turn over, and these two bozos are like pointing the gun at each other.

It is like, man, knock it off, or I will shoot you, you know. Or these two guys are completely like surprised, like, oh, they have machine guns, right? Like, they are just shocked. They have guns, right? Can you imagine? There is no way. And then everyone is like, you know what, forget it.

We are going home, right? Like, there is no way you would continue to advance anything. Why do I bring that silly example up? Because you recognize how important unity is. You recognize how important unity is for any cause, especially a cause so weighty and important as the cause of Christ, to exalt His name, to display His glory.

It is incredible, right? And so Apostle Paul makes of such kind of importance that he desires to see this church unified in the Spirit and striving together. Okay, moving to the last section here. Moving towards the last section, I am going to label this point three, which is point three, verse 29 through 30.

This is to us, then, an incredible high calling, a privilege, and a great cause, right? I think I left the blank for you there. This is our incredible high calling, our privilege, and great cause. Why do I say this? Well, here what you have is verse 27 to 28.

This is a long sentence all tied together that Apostle Paul desires to see them basically ready and prepared, unalarmed by the opponents, right? And what's really interesting about this is he says, by motivation, he says, "For to you it has been granted for Christ's sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake, experiencing the same conflict which you saw in me and now here to be in me." So what you notice there is this.

First, as he thinks about this whole section right here that is a command, and he says, "I want you to conduct yourself like this, and what I want to see in you is this unity, and I want you to be prepared in such a way where your eyes are wide open and you're not surprised by the opponents who are coming at you.

You're not surprised by the suffering that's coming at you," right? That's what he's saying. Here likewise again, he says, "Because of this, it has been granted to you," okay? To not only believe, but to suffer for Christ's sake. What's really interesting about this is that goes pretty contrary to our instinctual, instinctual reaction to suffering.

I believe for a lot of people, whenever they're faced with suffering, there is actually a process of trying to make sense of it all. Why? Why is this suffering happening, right? And then typically, even if you can't make sense of it, and you're trying to exercise trust in Christ, then you say something like, "You know what?

I don't get it. I don't know why, but I'm pretty sure that God's going to carry me through it. He's going to lead me out of it, and sooner or later, He's going to have an open door," meaning He's going to deliver me from all this, right? But then think about the kind of perception, think about the kind of perspective Apostle Paul has when he considers that suffering for the sake of Christ is not something that Christ is going to try to take you out of, but He has actually graced you with.

The term for granted is the same word, the verb form of charis, which is grace. God has gifted it to you that you would believe upon the name of Jesus, but also that you'd be able to suffer for His name. Okay? Now I think this is where I wanted to use the basketball analogy, okay?

I want you to think about this because I think as I was praying for this passage, I realized, you know, the umph, the conviction of this passage, I'm going to receive it differently based upon who I am and what I want. I want you to imagine a basketball team, and you have two players, right?

The coach, he's got decisions to make. Why? Because it's the second overtime of the game, it's already gone forever, the last 30 seconds of the game, and he's got one play to make. He's got to make sure he's got the guys in there who know how to make the play and they're clutch.

He looks at his team, and one of the guys, let's call him Mighty Mark, okay? He's sitting there and he's eager, he's like, "Put me in, coach!" He's just ready to go. And so the coach says, "Mark, get in there, man! No reserve, all out on the court, don't save anything, do it, man!" He's like, "Yes!

I've been waiting for this! All the training, all the sweat, all the tears, all that money, I'm ready!" And he jumps in there, right? But then this other dude, we'll call him Scaredy Sam, right? He's sitting there like, "Oh my gosh, I hope he doesn't call on me." He pretends like he's about to have a cramp, so he's starting to massage his calf, and I was like, "I don't know!" You know?

And the coach comes over and starts walking, and as soon as he starts walking, Scaredy Sam is like, "You know, that guy's got a pretty good jump shot! He's tall!" Right? Because I'm going to be honest, I think when it comes to Christian life, sometimes there is not this eager anticipation where we have this excitement like, "Put me in the game!

Because I wanted to serve you! I've been looking for opportunities!" Right? I know the whole package of serving you means some discomfort, means burden, typically means some kind of pain, right? Whether it be frustrations, discomfort, or sometimes even physical like this. But I'll take it. I signed up for this.

Right? As opposed to wondering and sitting back and thinking, "You know, I signed up, I love watching, but man, this is like a high, intense, stressful moment!" Right? That guy can do it. Not me, but that guy. But I realize as a kind of personal conviction as I read this, I realized, "You know what?

Based on the condition of my heart, I will read verse 29 really differently." Right? I will read verse 29 really differently. And I want to leave then, you guys, with that kind of comment, which is, so far, there hasn't been a lot of direct commands. It begins in this passage here with verse 27, "Conduct yourself in a manner worthy of the gospel." You know there's more direct commands to come.

But typically what Apostle Paul does is he inspires us with a perspective. And I challenge you, as we pray over this passage, do we have, like Apostle Paul, a kind of worldview, an ability to judge the various circumstances, to make sense of it all and say, "You know what?

I'm not going to judge like the world and say, 'You know what? To live is always gain and to die just sucks.'" Right? What a tragedy. No. But we can actually judge through spiritual eyes. No, no, no, no. This looks bad, but this is good. Christ is exalted. Do we have, with spiritual eyes, verse 29, where we can see the various things in our lives, like, "You know what?

This is a fat privilege for me." Why? Because it's right in line with my cause. It's right in line with my passion. When we all have that kind of worldview, we're going to have unity. We're going to have likeness of mind. We're going to have likeness of interpretation. We're going to have likeness of perspective, and we're going to have likeness of what is the striving and solution.

So as a way to just kind of challenge us, by way of conclusion, this specific paragraph, this portion, was a challenge to have the kind of worldview that really is in likeness of one who is serving the Lord. Let's pray. Lord, we do want to thank you again for challenging us.

We do recognize, God, that perhaps sometimes we're confused by the circumstances of our lives, and then, Lord, sometimes we're confused by the desires of our heart. Lord, sometimes we just don't know what we want. But we thank you so much because your Word guides us to want the things that are weighty, to want the things that matter to your heart.

And I pray, Father Lord, that we would not be so confused and feel like everything is so nebulous, but, God, we would have such a clarity. We want to live with such clearness of conscience, clarity of vision, of purpose, and what's more, a clarity of what's right. And I ask God that he would challenge us then to wash away whatever is the muck of the world and God to continue to buy into what you tell us is the right path.

Lord, we want to thank you again. It's in Christ's name we pray. Amen. Amen.