Alright God, we pray Lord that you would day to day grant to us your spiritual strength. God, I know that a lot of us Lord after a full day's work come in and try to do Bible study. We love it, at the same time Lord sometimes we're in fatigue.

And what's more, we absolutely need perseverance because God we want to not just simply do this week to week, but we want to apply what we're learning. To exercise our faith in the eternity you promise, to exercise our faith in preaching that the kingdom to come, to exercise our faith to fight our flesh, and what's more God to continue Lord to live according to what you've shown us.

And we recognize God that requires so much spiritual strength. And so we pray Lord that you would grant to us God your conviction, that you grant to us awareness of your spirit, and what's more you would grant to us just a recollection, a remembrance of your word that day to day God we might walk abiding by your truth.

And especially Lord as we have been walking through the book of Philippians, there's so much Father God that challenges our faith of how we view the entire world. And I pray for the exact same thing tonight, that as we study your word you would challenge our world view, our value system, how we assess and judge everything.

God we thank you it's in Christ name we pray, amen. Now, before we jump into just reading the passage and going forward, I want to do a quick introductory comment there. Remember that all that Apostle Paul is saying to some degree connects. Sometimes especially here he will transition and say, you know what finally this and then he'll move.

Sometimes you know in some of these epistles he'll give a large section of doctrinal teaching. You know this is the truth about eternity, this is the truth about gospel of Jesus, and then he'll move into exhortation and say therefore, right? With Philippians what's really clear is that his mentality, the faith as to which he is interpreting all of his life circumstances including his imprisonment, including the suffering is evident through his teaching.

And recall that in chapter one Apostle Paul had this hope, this faith, and he said this is his inner desire, sorry, earnest expectation and hope that I will not be put to shame in anything but that with all boldness Christ will even now as always be exalted in my body whether by life or by death.

For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain. Now as we think about what he says there, he says this particular privilege to have Christ be modeled, to have Christ be shown, to have Christ be the explanation of all that we're going through, that's to him his great joy.

And what he says is I want you to have that joy with me, right? And he talked about how he wanted us to make his joy complete by being united yes, but also he said join my endeavor, rejoice with me, share my joy which meant actually do what he's doing, sacrifice to expend himself.

It was a euphemism almost to say endure the suffering with me for the sake of Christ and the exaltation of Christ, join with me in this amazing privilege of magnifying and glorifying Christ, right? And so what we saw last week were two model examples of that in Timothy and in Paphroditus, right?

And then so that was the last week. Here he picks up the idea again and then now we're going to walk through the passage a little bit, okay? With the command a summary saying finally rejoice in the Lord. That is your main command in verses 1 through 11. So what that means is the rest of the passage that's talking about the bewares and the example even of his own potential bragging rights and then how he sees Christ, all of that is in the context of commanding you rejoice, right?

Rejoice with me. And it still then has the sentiment, it still has the residual sound of Apostle Paul saying do you understand where I'm placing my joy? It's upon Christ, not my circumstances, not an eager expectation that I'm going to be free from jail, not this great hope that all things give it time and will go right, but it's his desire that Christ would be exalted either in his body now or even in his death, right?

Okay. As we think about that, I'm going to walk through this passage together with you guys and then we'll take each section together. So what he says is finally my brethren rejoice in the Lord, to write the same thing again is no trouble for me and it is a safeguard to you.

What I want to say there is I put that in parentheses because Apostle Paul gives a bit of his own kind of parenthetical thought as to why he's repeating the same concept over and over again and what he's saying is this is to guard you, okay? And so he says beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of the false circumcision, for we are the true circumcision who worship in the spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh.

So what I'm saying is the command is rejoice in the Lord, he wants to safeguard you and so that rejoicing in the Lord is going to guard you from this, whatever the dogs, the evil workers, and the false circumcision are trying to do to you, right? And what he says is we're the true circumcision and so here I highlight for you the main command and what I show you is there is this contrast.

There is going to be these, the efforts of, I'm just going to say the evil doers, right? The evil doers who are trying to influence the community and Apostle Paul saying look, we have the spirit of God and the glory of Christ, we're the true circumcision. From here, the next passage is really him giving a rationale, right?

And the way he gives this rationale is by doing a self-example because even for me, if I were to buy into the system of the evil doers, I have tons. He says in verse 4, although I myself might have confidence even in the flesh, if anyone else has a mind to put confidence in the flesh, I far more.

Circumcised the eighth day of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of the Benjamin, the Hebrew of Hebrews as to the law of Pharisee as to zeal of persecutor of the church as to righteousness which is in the law found blameless. But whatever things were gained to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ.

More than that, I count all things to be lost in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them but rubbish. And what he's doing there then is just as he just a moment ago contrasted false circumcision to circumcision, he's using himself as a self-example, flesh, false confidence, true confidence, Christ.

Okay? Now, from there, what I like to do is just the last portion of it then, Apostle Paul gives the goal or the purpose. And he says, "So that I may gain Christ and may be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith.

That I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his suffering being conformed to his death in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead." Okay. Now, I walk through the passage together with you guys because it's good to just review the chunk as a whole.

It is a little bit of a larger chunk. Eleven verses is quite a lot when you're doing inductive Bible study, right? But I want to walk through that with you and on your packet, I delineated it like that because in Apostle Paul's writing, sometimes it may feel like there is a disconnect.

Like, why in the world would he be like, "Look at, I love Timothy. I love Epaphroditus. They've been so good. You know they've been good. Beware of the dogs." Right? Like, it's just so disjointed. But actually what he's doing is, there is this thought of rejoicing in the Lord that explains everything.

Right? And if there were these two individuals he brought up, those two individuals were models because by faith, they had Christ's attitude. Right? They had Apostle Paul's attitude. They were rejoicing in future hope. They had the attitude of Christ. They saw what was truly valuable. And so he comes back and says, "In summary, finally, I'm telling you, rejoice.

Again, I'm telling you this." Why? Because yes, there are things, horrible things. They're in a situation where they're being persecuted. The whole church is being persecuted, not just Apostle Paul. Do they need to make sense of that? Absolutely. And so what Apostle Paul's going to do is going to give them this challenge again.

I'm trying to safeguard you, not just by telling you like, "Don't worry. Hang in there a little bit more. It's going to be all right." But he's actually trying to give them what is true encouragement. So this is, again, an outline that I've made. It doesn't always have to look like this.

But what I found was that there was a clear command that kind of directed the rest of the passage, which was rejoice in the Lord. And this, rejoicing in the Lord, is your safeguard. To all the hard scenarios you're experiencing, this is your safeguard. And then within that, he says, "Beware of the dogs who want you to glory in the flesh." People who do not have faith in the eternal, faith in the eternal God, are going to glory in whatever they have, and the totality of what they have is their flesh.

The totality of all you have is all you have, which is, for the unbeliever, all you have is this life. So you're going to eat, be merry, and then you're going to pass, right? In fighting that, verse 7 through 8 says, "All gain is rubbish compared to Christ." To rejoice in Christ is to see the value of Christ.

And that's what he's going to say. And then verse 9 through 11 is going to be, "The purpose of all this, then, is Christ all the way." All the experiences, the power of his resurrection, future glory, resurrection, all of that, all Christ, okay? All right. So that's the outline, an overview for you.

Because it's a longer passage, we're going to break it down into four sections and cover it now. Okay. So here, in section 1, I call it, "This is your safeguard," right? This is your safeguard. And the reason why I did this is because I found it really interesting that, yes, Apostle Paul is coming back to this idea, and then he's exhorting them through way of command, and then he's giving a rationale for it.

And previously, he gave examples for it. So I mean, to say that the book of Philippians is about you rejoicing in Christ is like an understatement, right? It's such a main, emphatic theme. But to appreciate that, I was thinking of that question that I asked you, how is causing somebody to be rejoicing in Christ an actual safeguard for them?

In what way is it going to be an actual encouragement, a bolstering, a strengthening to say, "You know, you got to rejoice in Christ." I mean, sometimes I worry, when you say lofty statements like that, let's say someone's having a hard day, they come and they pour out their heart to you, and it's like, "You don't know what happened today." And then they start to, you know, be vulnerable and reveal everything, and then you're like, "You know, you just really got to rejoice in Christ," right?

Don't you sometimes fear saying that because you fear sounding cliche? You almost fear the response of like, "Sure, of course," right? Throwing that, you know, cliche terms around again. But Apostle Paul is absolutely convinced that is their safeguard, even to a specific scenario where clearly there are either false teachers, bad influences, distractions, maybe even an entire culture that is trying to dissuade them, yes?

To that, Apostle Paul's answer is, "You know what you guys need? Let me give you a plan." Apostle Paul's actual encouragement to them is, safeguard to them, "You need to be so centered on Christ," right? "You're rejoicing in Christ is to be your safeguard." And I started thinking, what kind of example can I give to this?

And I started thinking about grandparents. You know, when I see grandparents dealing with little kids, it's pretty hilarious. For example, you know, we had a little family gathering, and then there's this -- I have a little niece, she's like the cutest little thing. She's Kaylee, she's like two years old.

And you know when little babies, like, they don't get what they want, immediately they cry and they go, "Bah!" You know? Now, parents were sitting there like, "Oh my gosh, what a drama baby," you know? And when they see that, they're like, "Who did it?" Right? Like, "Was it him?

Was it Appa?" And then they start like, "Mama," right? And have you ever seen grandparents do that? They'll actually discipline somebody to make baby feel better. Or like baby cries because they didn't get a sweet treat or whatever, and it's just like, "Oh, what do you want?" They just literally shove everything the parents are like trying to, you know, control, they like shove it in their mouth, it's like, "No, eat this, eat this, eat this." And people are sitting there like, "Oh my goodness, you're going to spoil this baby," right?

And I bring this example up is because what's really interesting about all that philosophy is to say, "You know what? Because this baby is crying, the world is wrong. Someone is fault. They don't have enough food." You see what I'm saying? And that's not so far from adults. When we have difficulties, our immediate thing typically is like, "This world is messed up and that person is to blame," right?

Like we do this. And what's more, we will very readily complain, "I don't have this, I don't have that," and we find our solutions in the circumstance. Whereas Apostle Paul now is going to say, "No, I want to build you up in the inner man, in the inner person, in the inner faith.

Your happiness and joy is never going to come from just all your circumstances being rectified, but rather there is going to be an immovable joy that I will give to you, rejoicing Christ," right? That's what Apostle Paul is trying to do. And so when he says, "This is to your safeguard," there is an immediate challenge to you.

Pastor Peter on Sunday, this past Sunday, man, very emphatically he asked this question to the church. Your circumstances are going to readily change to your life. You know this. Every season, whenever you go through graduations, you go through major life changes, even certain moves. There is going to be a question within those things, very few of your preferences are going to be met.

The question was, "Is Christ enough?" Do you have this immovable joy? Because no matter the circumstance, you have plenty. Beyond plenty, you have what can produce in your heart incredible, satisfactory joy. And that should be Christ to us. Amen? So that's where Apostle Paul is going. And then he says, okay, then in section two, along with that, "Then beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of the false circumcision." Now I asked you this question, okay?

So as we think about the safeguard, there's more to think about that there is, yes, negative, dangerous influences that potentially can come our way. I mean, he says it in a kind of a very interesting way, "Beware of dogs." It's pretty emphatic. So whenever you see that, you should take note of, one, there's a list, yes?

And our group had a great discussion. We had some questions floating out there. Do dogs, evil workers, and false circumcision, do they represent like different categories of people and bad influences? Are they like one group of people that are just really, really heinous? Stuff like that. And I'm not going to get to all that now, but clearly there are these individuals who are false, contrast to the true believers.

Now, the question I asked you was, who are we supposed to be aware of? Who are we supposed to look out for and make sure that we are in a sober, sober sight of their dangerous influences? And one of the things I asked was, you definitely have to look at the context.

So in chapter two, I'm sorry, starting from verse two, there are several indicators that can show us what type of people that we're talking about. And we are talking about, yes, very first giveaway is the term false circumcision. If you compare different translations, another translation will say mutilator of the flesh, right?

Because the Greek term there is actually literally mutilation, self-harm, okay? And when we think about that, we go on and say, in contrast, we are the true circumcision who worship the spirit of God versus, let's say, external, right? We're worshiping in the spirit versus whatever they're influencing is an external.

What's more, for us, we put our confidence in the glory of Christ and put no confidence in the flesh. And then even when he's giving the example of himself, he talks about the confidence of the flesh, circumcised the eighth day, nation of Israel, tribe of Benjamin, Hebrew of Hebrews, as to the law of Pharisees, zeal of persecutor of the church, and as to the righteousness which is in the law found blameless.

Now on that laundry list of accomplishments, who would that impress? Right? Right, the Judaizers, Jewish community. And what I'd like you to remember is within certain contexts, the pressure, the cultural pressure was so strong, right? You know what's really interesting is a long time ago back in college, I went to a mission trip to Romania.

The Orthodox Church has so much control over the society, you couldn't get married outside of the Orthodox Church. You couldn't bury a family member outside of the Orthodox Church. A lot of, if foreigners came and they had translations, do you know who would do the translations? It's typically the priests.

So not only in terms of family, not only in terms of certain important things, your whole kind of general life, it goes through the church. Now think about this in this kind of culture, the pressures. Whenever you had a baby, they had rituals for that, right? Whenever you had, they had annual ceremonies, your daily like, the commerce went through that.

So the merchants, who are controlling the like the merchandise, almost the economy within the temple grounds. So I want you to think about that because even as a corollary to us, if there are certain things that are social norms, high level social pressures, do we have any of that?

Of course, of course we do. When it comes to certain education, when it comes to wanting to live in a certain area, when it comes to certain family status, we have various things that we can point to as well. Now, just for the sake of time, I'm going to say, I'm going to highlight those things for you because it's important for us to know, yes, we're supposed to be aware and because of all these various points, clearly it is the Jewish influence, Judaizers, who are telling Christians you still have to do these things in order to be righteous and accepted by God.

But the importance of that, what's the content, what's the content that's actually dangerous for you, right? Is because we are so, so prone. I mean, it's like in eight winanas to always selfishly and pridefully establish our own, to defend ourselves and preserve ourselves. We are so prone to want to make sure that there is some kind of merit for me.

It's like innate in us. And that pressure is so high. You think about people struggle to be accepted. You think about people struggle to have self-worth, their own value in the society. I mean, it just goes without saying, we absolutely on a universal level struggle with this stuff. What I want to highlight too is not only who are we supposed to be aware of, what are they trying to influence us with, but let's observe the contrast and its severity.

Because as we study that passage, I mean, for Apostle Paul, who was a prime Jewish individual, he was like a model candidate, to look at that and say, "Evildoers." To look at that and say, "Mutilators and dogs." That's kind of wild, right? I mean, it almost sounds like, I guess someone's bitter, right?

That's the way you maybe think of it. Like, I guess you're really bitter about this, but that's not actually the case. He's actually using this to contrast two concepts. And the contrast that he's saying is, in comparison to what we do in the Spirit of God and what we have in the glory of Christ, yes, all of that which was previously seen as righteous acts, all of that which was previously seen as holy, sanctified living, Apostle Paul is saying, "No, those are evil.

Those are things that are completely false." And I'm just going to leave it there. We have to pay attention to the contrast because this passage has so much for us in terms of contrast between what we have in the Spirit of God versus what is only possible as a cap by our own flesh.

Okay. So to expand on that, let's turn to the rationale of the self-example. Okay? All right. The rationale of the self-example is this. He says, "Although I myself have confidence even in the flesh, if anyone else has a mind to put confidence in the flesh, I have far more circumcised the eighth day, the nation of Israel, the tribe of Benjamin, the Hebrew of Hebrews, as to the law of Pharisee, as to zeal of persecutor of the church, as to righteousness, which is in the law, found blameless." And so he says, "But whatever things were gained to me, those things I have counted as lost for the sake of Christ.

More than that, I count all things to be lost in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them but rubbish." What we have to see here is Apostle Paul's mentality, where he considers all things rubbish compared to Christ.

And what I've highlighted for you there is whenever there is repetition in the passage, you know it's so important. And what's really interesting is he highlights and does an all-inclusive statement, "Whatever things were gained to me, those things from before, even the things like blamelessness, zeal, status, excellence, heritage, tradition, all those things he counts as lost, right?

Everything he could possibly have. If there was anything that could be potentially even a bragging right, Apostle Paul says, "No, I count that as rubbish." Let's take a moment to think about that a little bit. As I show you this list of the various things that Apostle Paul could potentially brag about, do you see any corollary in your life?

Are you one of those people where you're like, "You know, by personality I'm a perfectionist." I want to give you a warning. It could be your personality, it could be your pride that you want to brag about it. Could be, right? Could it be those of you who really pride yourself on being a moral individual?

I play by the rules, right? Play by the book. I'm a good person. Could it be certain status that you're searching for? You want to be in a certain title. You could be doing the exact same work at your office, but you just want that title. You sometimes say like, "I don't know why it's so important to me." It just is.

We know why. Because we all struggle with wanting some level of confidence in my flesh. I want to feel secure in my own skin. I want to be accepted the way I am. Do we wrestle with any of these things? Is there any corollary in our modern day? I would say probably yes.

Right? Probably yes. But let's take a moment to think about that a little bit. What does he mean when he says, "These are a loss?" You know what's really interesting is not only does he repeat the term loss several times, so he says, "All things are a loss. I counted these things a loss.

All these gains to me is a loss." He says, "I count all things rubbish." I'm sure if you guys have heard sermons about this passage, you guys have heard this Greek term, "Skubalon," right? And you guys have probably heard, "It means excrement," right? That's what it means. It literally means trash.

It means the stuff that's supposed to be discarded. It was regularly used to reference poop. The whole idea is this is utterly trash, right? But then here's the struggle, because if we're honest, here's the struggle that we have. Apostle Paul is revealing to us a value system where he puts all these things, and we should count it.

We should count it as a loss. As a matter of fact, some of you guys in here, when you do a lateral comparison, meaning like, let's say we just took a survey, and then we started surveying how successful you are, you guys are really up there. And that's not to shame you, and it's not to put you up on a pedestal, but you can objectively say when I compare somebody to myself, you could be better than me.

You could be better than me at basketball. You could be smarter than me. Better memory, better intellect, better looks. More accomplished through the however many years of your life. Those can be objective realities, yes? But to those things, the question is how do you currently judge that in value?

Meaning this. Let me give you an example, okay? I think that sometimes we get into this weird situation in life where we look at some of the things that we've accomplished, and we could look at some of the things that we have. And when we compare that to Christ, we're supposed to say, "Wow, look at the chasm," right?

This is here, and Christ is so large, so great, he's way over there, and trying to compare the two, it is a feeble task. It shouldn't even be on the same table. But in actuality, a lot of times our struggle is we compare the two, and then we do one of these things where it's like, "Well, gosh, I don't know." Have you guys ever been there?

In an ideal situation, both are good. And if I had it my way, I would just have both, right? When you do a compare and contrast, the challenge here is not to simply see these things as mutually or like both good kind of things. He's saying one is actually detrimental.

When he says something is a loss, it's not to say that, "Oh, gosh, it's just pale as in comparison." He actually means this is detrimental to me. It's hurtful. It's non-salvageable. It's trash. And so that's what I meant earlier when I said, "Do you notice and see the intensity of the comparison?" When things are compared to Christ, they don't become, "Oh, yeah, nice things that I could carry along with me." They become weight and baggage.

Especially in this specific context, Apostle Paul is saying, "You know, if I actually held on to my Hebrew of Hebrew stature, can you imagine if I actually held on to some of those things that I bragged about and saw it like some kind of badge of honor?" No, those aren't two good things.

Those are actually two competing things. And sometimes we have to recognize that. And so this passage to us is a massive paradigm shift, massive paradigm shift, right? It's how you are valuing and how are you judging. When you see things in your life that is competing with Christ, those things in your life that you feel like you just can't let go, once you realize that, how are you judging them?

Are you sitting there saying, "You know, I just got to learn to live with... All I need is just a little bit more discipline." How are you judging and assessing where you are when you have things competing in your heart with Christ? That is at the core of what he's trying to show us is a value system.

In order to press this home a little bit more, I started thinking about what are the various things that we do hold on to? You know, for guys, there's lust. For everybody, there's a lust for success. There's a lust for acceptance. There's a lust for wanting to be reputable.

But there's more. Some of us have lust for material gain. Some of us have lust for honor and respect at home. Some of us have lust for pleasure and just being able to have leisure and peace in your life and some of us have lust for whatever it may be.

How in the world do you fight that? When your flesh is constant, when your mind is just so easily duped for those things, how do you fight that? That's what Paul is trying to teach us. You have to see the surpassing value of Christ. Tonight, I didn't want to talk about how everything in your life is just simply rubbish.

I wanted to make sure to highlight for you the point here is rejoice in Christ. The point here is see, experience, be humbled by the incredible value of the Lord Jesus who is perfect in righteousness and is desiring to give you that righteousness. Who is absolutely sacrificial in love, intimate in character, compassionate in heart and He wants to give you His affection.

Remember His prayer. He wanted the love of God which He had. He said, "God, the love which you had for me, give to them." Jesus wants to give that to you. That's perfect patience. All of that He wants you to have. I didn't know how else to make this even more emphatic so guess what?

I used a little bit of arrow and stars on my PowerPoint. If we're going to get something from this passage, it's the command, rejoice. Rejoice in the value of our Lord. And unless you see that, I'm not sure how you're going to fight. Unless you have the surpassing value of Christ, I don't know how you're going to fight these things.

Because by confession, how many of us have fallen? We've seen some of the idols in our heart. We've seen some of the things we hold on to. How many times have we fallen to the exact same thing? So when Apostle Paul says, "This is to you, your safeguard," I believe it.

Unless Christ is the overwhelming treasure, the greatest value, no little discipline, no little exercise of the mind, it's not going to work. And so, Apostle Paul says, "This then to him is his great comparison. This to him, having the glory of Christ, is everything." And therefore, he desires it all.

He desires that he will conclude, decisively conclude, that all things are rubbish. Why? So that he will go with Christ all the way. That he might gain Christ and be maybe found in him. That he might not have any righteousness of his own, but the righteousness that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.

And then he says, "That I might know him, that I might know the power of his resurrection, the fellowship of his suffering, being conformed to his death, in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead." We could camp out here and ask the question, "What does that mean, the power of his resurrection?

What does that mean, the fellowship of his suffering?" I hope you have time to reflect on that, but I want to say this. You should think of this as a collective whole. Starting from, "So that I may gain Christ," and all the way to the verse 11, "In order that I may attain to the resurrection of the dead." All of that belongs together, right?

Apostle Paul is saying, "I want to experience the full gamut, the goal and objective here. My purpose is to know Christ fully. And no, there is no skip-biddy-bop, like just bypassing all this stuff to get to glory. I want to know Christ in everything. I want to know Christ in his full character.

I want to know Christ in the power that he exercises. And so that's why I labeled this portion, "Christ All the Way." Again, I really pray that some of the things that we're learning about, I want to call it the lofty, right? That's major conceptual things. To have a rejoicing in Christ, a value system in Christ, all those conceptually are major worldview things.

But the question is going to be for you, very specifically, especially in the moments where your heart is getting pulled to want and desire certain things to be realized in your life, are you able to draw a chart? This clearly is rubbish compared to Christ, right? And unless you see the surpassing value of the Lord, this chart is always going to be muddy.

And so I pray that every time we're doing study, your own Bible reading, your own prayer, more and more we should be growing in an intimate, intimate knowledge of Christ. Let's take a moment to pray, and then you guys can jump into your discussion. Heavenly Father, we want to thank you, God, because Lord, you are maturing us as your children.

And we recognize, Father God, that you as our Father, you're not just simply doing minor tweaks in our lives, but God, you are fully in control, and yet in the midst of that, you're causing us to mature in our thought, in our understanding, and in our faith. And I hope, Lord, that every single one of us will be challenged to question, do we have a view of the great glory of Christ that we might understand who we have in the Lord?

And what's more, I pray that if any of us here have not experienced what it means to, yes, struggle and wrestle in this life, to suffer and go through hardship, but ultimately to find true joy in knowing and serving our Lord, I pray, Father God, that they would look to you.

And Father, we pray that even in the day-to-day, in the mundane, and even in, again, some of the fatigue, I do ask, Lord, that you would also grant to us this faith, God, that we would have surpassing joy in our Savior. We thank you, it's in Christ, and we pray.

Amen. Amen.