What I'm going to do is read Philippians 3 starting from verse 7, okay? Just so that we review the previous passage and portion, and also because reading it in its kind of like broader context will help us get a better feel of the tone, okay? Because I realize sometimes, you know, when I read the passage, I've got this very kind of monotone voice.

It's all boring. But, you know, you guys know this passage is so powerful, right? There's so much oomph behind it. So here I go. I'm going to do my best, okay? Alright, starting from verse 7. 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 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.

Not that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His suffering being conformed to His death, nor that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was hold of by Christ Jesus.

Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet. One thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, have this attitude, and if anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also to you.

However, let us keep living by that same standard to which we have attained. Brethren, join in following my example and observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us. For many walk of whom I often told you, and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose God is their appetite, and whose glory is their shame, who set their minds on earthly things.

For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly await for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.

Let's take a moment to pray. Lord, we want to thank you, God, so much for the exhortation in your scripture, and we also hear just the encouragement that we find from God for people to have confidence in you, for us to have great trust in your power, and just to know, Father God, that you have caused us to be something entirely different than we were before.

God, we want to thank you and pray that knowing these things would not be intellectual truths, but rather, God, that they would be things that we carry both in our minds and in our hearts, affecting, Father God, even our attitudes, affecting our decisions in every way that we respond to this life.

God, we want to thank you for this study, and pray, God, that you'd be with us. It's in Christ's name, amen. Okay, so I wanted to give some various introductory remarks, okay? And number one is that this is a very strong exhortation to follow His example, and part of the reason why I read the whole section was because the whole tone just before was like I press on, right?

I lay aside everything, forgetting what is behind. I'm straining towards the upward call that He's given me, and then He says, "Follow me," right? So to say that this is a strong exhortation is kind of an understatement. I mean, man, if there was ever kind of an epic speech, so to speak, right?

If there was ever a coach's like monologue, this would be one of those, yeah? This would be one of those moments, and what He gives is this strong, strong exhortation for everything that He's set up in terms of His mentality, everything that He's set up in terms of His perspective on life, the faith that He practices, and He says, "Join me," right?

So there's a huge exhortational flavor to this entire passage. What's more, what I wanted to say is in verse 17 to 21, I'm sure one of the things that you guys saw was a massive comparison, right? Kind of literary structure is that He was comparing, and then in His comparison, there are the enemies of the cross, and He lists one, two, three, four, five different things.

And then He says, "But for us," and then He lists, "Da, da, da, da, da, these are true for us," right? And so whenever you do that, it's a great moment in your Bible study to say, "Okay, I need to understand this comparison in its whole, and then what is the thrust of that comparison to me?" If He's going to give this comparison, there's also a point to be made.

"See? You see this? You see this?" And so that's one of the introductory comments that I wanted to make. But one of the connection of that is if you review verses 1 through 16, that comparison has already been going on, right? Even in the previous section, even before that.

But again, the literary structure-wise, there was a big comparison and contrast between concepts. Okay, what I'd like to do is give you a basic outline of the way that I divided up this section. And the way I did it was verse 17 was clear, a very obvious commandment to follow and observe, okay?

And then in verse 19 are the warnings about the enemies, and then in verse 20 and 21 is the contrast about us as citizens, okay, us as citizens. So that's just a brief outline that I've created there for you guys. Let's jump into that first section then, the command to follow, okay?

Because we had a nice short section this round, notice how I took some extra time to divide up even word by word, okay? And what I have here is He has the address brethren, which is just a sweet, again, He's kind of mentioned it multiple times to them, He called them brethren multiple times.

But the commands are very clear, there's two there, join in following my example and observe those, right? Now what I'm going to say to you is I believe both are very important, okay? I believe both are very important. But first, let's talk a little bit about how He is calling them to join in following His example.

And what's really interesting is in many other areas of the Scriptures, Paul has exhorted the church to imitate him, okay? I want to give you a couple of these passages. For example, in 1 Corinthians chapter 4, he says this, "I exhort you, be imitators of me. For this reason, I send to you Timothy, who is my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, and he will remind you of my ways which are in Christ, just as I teach everywhere in every church." Now what's really interesting then is Apostle Paul had a pattern church to church.

Here to the church in Corinth, and again, what we're studying in here in the book of Philippians, he has taught the Scriptures day in, day out. He has then modeled and said, "Follow me," and then he even sent other individuals to make sure that they're following through in the instruction.

Here's another passage for you, 2 Thessalonians 3. "For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example, because we did not act in an undisciplined manner among you, nor do we eat anyone's bread without paying for it, but with labor and hardship we kept working night and day so that we would not be a burden to any of you." So not only just the spiritual sacrifice of teaching gospel, Apostle Paul exemplified work ethic.

Verse 9, "Not because we do not have the right to do this, but in order to offer ourselves as a model for you so that you would follow our example." Here's another passage, 1 Peter 5. "Therefore, I exhort the elders among you as your fellow elder and witness of the sufferings of Christ and a partaker also of the glory that is to be revealed, shepherd the flock of God among you, exercising oversight not under compulsion, but voluntarily according to the will of God and not for sore gain, but with eagerness, nor yet as lording it over those allotted to your charge, but proving to be examples to the flock." Proving to be examples to the flock.

I just want to make a quick side comment there, which is, you know, whenever like I think about, oh yeah, you know, placing people in leadership, or whenever I think about even the general topic of leadership, there's a lot to say. I sometimes read articles that say, you know what leadership is?

It's influence. When you can speak, vision cast, let people see, all that kind of stuff, okay. You know what leadership is? It's that kind of drive. It's when you just keep going, like people have so many different definitions of leadership. Well here's one that is very clear from the Bible, right?

When an individual can model a pattern of faith, when an individual is exemplary, when an individual is already shown to look at the scriptures and apply, and they are setting forth then a kind of standard for Christian behavior, because what they're doing is they're following the Lord's instructions. That's a pretty simple definition of leadership, right?

And then here's my very, very free dating advice. A lot of times I get dating like questions about, you know, should I make a decision based on potential? Like that guy has a potential to be a decent leader. And I say, well, what did you see? What do you mean what did you see?

Listen, I got to see actual exemplary in action kind of behavior where I can say, oh, I already see a pattern of obedience. I already see a pattern of care. I already see a pattern of being considerate, a pattern of consistency, and a pattern of devotion to Christ. If everything is potential and not yet a pattern, then all we're going to say is, hmm, right?

There's my free dating advice to you guys, okay? All we're saying here is this. Apostle Paul sets forth a very interesting exhortation to follow his example, but in him doing that, he says, you've already seen the pattern, right? He's already modeled. Now what's really interesting is I asked you guys in your Bible study questions to take a moment to just kind of deeply meditate about that.

Because if you are thinking about it, then immediately you should be thinking like, whoa, right? Because this whole time remembering like Apostle Paul is saying, I am willing to count everything as loss, as a matter of fact, I've already experienced the loss of X, Y, and Z for the sake of Christ.

I want to so in such a devoted fashion pursue after Christ, I will forsake every earthly comfort. And then when he says, join me, immediately I'm thinking, but I don't want to be in jail, right? Like, I don't want to go where you are. That's why I asked the question, like if you just meditate upon that what Apostle Paul is saying, that is a incredibly high calling.

And there should be immediately in us kind of like, wow, am I willing to follow both the perspective, the willingness, the hard attitude? Am I willing to follow in the pattern that these apostles and the early saints have laid for us? That is actually a pretty incredible calling for us.

And by way of review, by way of review, we remember the calling of following example is not just, I want you to be gung-ho Christians that are radical. Get out there and sell all your stuff, right? Like that wasn't actually his call here. Because in the immediate context, the whole attitude was really at the core of what he was talking about, right?

And so by way of review, we read it, but remember that it embodies everything from the attitude of valuing Christ, spiritually being able to see that Jesus is worth it all. That's one of the first things we should embody or model after, right? That we should follow. The desire, the desire to seek righteousness by faith and not of your flesh, to seek righteousness in the person of Christ and not just because you have accomplished something in your life, to be willing to take certain experiences of your life of suffering and persecution and respond in godliness and joy, model after that, right?

So again, this exhortation to model and follow after his example is so big and I think we should really, really meditate on that. Now one of the interesting things I kind of posed to you guys was, should we ever say that? Some of you guys are small group, every table has a small group leader.

Should you look at your table and say, "You follow me." Do what I say, right? Now the thing about it is some of you guys are like, "Oh, of course. All I'm saying is if I'm studying, then you study. If I'm like really serving, you serve." That's all I'm saying, right?

But I think some people in knee-jerk reaction have like an issue with that. It's like, "Isn't that kind of prideful, arrogant? How could we ever say that? We're like imperfect examples." As a matter of fact, I mean, if I put metrics on your performance and I started to survey people and I started to see, right, like exactly what you do in a given month, how many times did you sin, how many times did you not uphold a good example?

I mean, imagine if I did that and then I said, "Follow him," right? That'd be kind of weird. Now one of the things I wanted to highlight to you is very interestingly, I don't think Apostle Paul is saying, "You better listen to what I say because I'm the apostle," right?

Now his apostleship comes with a lot of authority, but you know that this is no arrogant vibe for you better follow me, right? This is more so Apostle Paul's desire, "You should observe and see the Christ-like pattern. You should observe and see the pattern that we've set for you." So he's not more so pointing the finger at himself.

What is he pointing the finger at? The belief, the faith, the principles of the Christian faith that we live by, right? Likewise for every single one of you, may I say all of you are older brothers and sisters to someone younger. All of you have a great potential to guide and direct.

You are going to be what God uses to edify and teach and lay the example. Don't be so afraid. Don't be so afraid like, "I'm an imperfect person." Yeah, there's something to be said about that, sure. But know that even the way that you react to your own imperfections, the way that you react to your fatigue, the way that you react to your struggle and frustration, "How come I'm not growing as fast as I would like to?" How you react to you having setbacks and major moments of suffering in your life.

Please understand that you are setting a pattern, right? We're all setting a pattern. The Apostle Paul is pointing to that pattern. His, you know, confidants and fellow laborers are setting a pattern. And you know that we too are setting a pattern as well. Okay. So that being said, let's move on to section two.

Verse 18 through 19. In section two is the warning about the enemies of the cross. Okay. The warnings about the enemies of the cross. It says here, "For many walk, of whom I often told you." Oh, whoa. What happened here? "And now tell you even weeping that they are enemies of the cross, whose end is destruction, whose God is their appetite, whose glory is in their shame, and who set their minds on earthly things." Okay.

I want to highlight a few observations for you guys and ask this question, right? It's very interesting that he kind of, I put it in parentheses because he's saying like, "Okay, there's many who walk." The many, he already is thinking about those enemies, right? But then he says like, "And I already told you a bunch of times and I'm telling you crying." Now that's pretty intense.

So we have to ask the question, why is he so intense? What's causing him to have this weeping emotion and this kind of urgency where it's frequent, it's like ongoing, right? Now there are a lot of things. I don't want to necessarily spend too much time on it, but there are a lot of things we can say, but this is one thing that I think, I think may answer that question.

Why is he weeping? Well, because one of the things is very clearly in the book of Philippians, a group of people that he had this frustration and yet very interesting kind of emotional reaction to were the Jews. The people who took confidence in the flesh, right? The people who took confidence in their rituals, the people who took confidence in Sabbath and all sorts of, all those kinds of things.

And what's really interesting is his general perspective towards them is revealed in Romans chapter nine. He says, "I'm telling the truth in Christ. I'm not lying. My conscience testifies with me in the Holy Spirit that I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart, for I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh." Wow.

That's pretty incredible stuff to say he has this unceasing grief in his heart. Could it be that he has such polar opposite emotions to one people? And the answer is yes. Very clearly because of their false doctrine, because they constantly try to attack and persecute the church, he's got this frustration and anger and he tells it like it is, "You're enemies of the cross," right?

But on the flip side, there is this deep anguish. "Oh, but I wish that they would be saved," right? Now other commentators have said, "Well, here is another thought. What's really interesting is he is talking to the church and very clearly the church people know who he's talking about because he's mentioned them frequently.

He warned about them multiple times." And so some commentators wonder, they just pose this thought, "Could it be that like many other churches, there are people who initially were close, perhaps they were involved in the building of the church initially, perhaps they were part of the action and part of the life of the participants of the life of the church and yet only later revealed themselves to be distant, to be false gospel preachers or just individuals in the church who are false?" Scripture does warn us many times.

For example, 2 Corinthians 11 verse 12 to 15, "What I am doing I will continue to do so that I may cut off opportunity from those who desire an opportunity to be regarded as just as we are in the matter about which they are boasting. For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ.

No wonder for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Therefore it is not surprising if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness, whose end will be according to their deeds." It's pretty similar, right? Really similar. Talking about their end, their nature, their character. All I want to do is take a moment to speak about this and say, "Man, it is such a grieving thing, right?" When Apostle Paul is pointing out enemies of the cross, that is a really emphatic statement and it is a statement of judgment to be an enemy of the cross.

But it's very interesting his attitude, right? It's not like, "That's right! I knew he was a heretic! I knew all along!" And if it ever so happens, because I'm guessing that even at a church where I feel like, "Man, we try to get to know every person who's becoming a member.

We interview them. We try to fellowship." And could it be that there's a sad state of affairs where even after years, people leave the flock saying, "You know what? Forget about this faith, right? I don't believe that stuff." Of course that can happen. Those are moments to grieve, yes?

Those are not moments to be bombastic. "I knew all along we should have kicked him out long time ago!" That's not the attitude, right? That we see here. I just wanted to make a brief mention of that. Now, here as we think about Apostle Paul's evaluation and judgment and the contrast and the comparisons, what I like to do sometimes when I study the Bible is if I start seeing a list, I like listing them all out this way.

And I just start numbering them. And what's really interesting is, man, how intense that kind of evaluation is, right? If it just so happened that there were people in the church that, let's say, denied certain truths. Let's say there were certain people in the church that denied the apostles' leadership, whatever it may be, right?

He calls them enemies of the cross. And there's such a kind of polarizing effect on that then. And all I want to say about that is, man, what you'll see is our enemy is going to use all sorts of different strategies. Is there clear, just like head-on persecution from the enemies?

Yes. Does it always have to be head-on persecution? No. As a matter of fact, we know that it's not going to be like burning crosses and burning churches and incarcerating Christians sometimes. But rather, it's going to be falsehood. It's going to be the falsehood of a flesh-based righteousness. It's going to be the falsehood of like an intellectual-based righteousness.

You know, feeling safe because I know some facts. I'm not involved. I have no desire to grow, but because I know this stuff, I'm good. Even that, even that can be very, very contrary to the cause of Christ. A couple of these things I'm going to mention, and a couple of them, for the sake of time, I'm going to go through.

Remember here that Apostle Paul, it's very important that he's going to call every Christian to remember the path, the faith and destiny of the people who are enemies of the cross. And he describes them, I'm going to move on to this next thing. He describes them as those whose God is their appetite, whose glory is their shame, and who sets their minds on earthly things.

And for your discussion, I don't have the question in there, but you should describe like what are some kind of, you know, common tendencies, tail signs of people who are false Christians or people who are against the gospel. Clearly we're supposed to be able to identify them. Clearly we're supposed to be warned about them.

But again, I want to share with you guys this idea that Scripture calls us to keep our eyes open. Romans chapter 16, verse 17 through 18 says this, "I urge you, brethren, keep your eye on those who cause dissensions and hindrances contrary to the teaching which you learn and turn away from them.

For such men are slaves, not of our Lord Christ, but of their own appetites. And by their smooth and flattering speech, they deceive the hearts of the unsuspecting." What's very interesting is the description of the enemies of Christ, he describes as those who do not have a control of their desires.

Whatever it is, their impulse, they do. Whatever it is they're set on, they're stubborn. Whatever it is they latch onto, they feel like they have to have it, right? A kind of uncontrolled desire. And what's more, there is this flattering, deceptive speech that comes upon them. Jude 4, "For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ." One thing I want to share with you guys, over the years of doing ministry and talking to people, what I found is it just comes back to a simple thing.

Whatever teaching you hear, don't feel like you have to know every single fact, you have to go take courses on different cults and religions. If you do, great, more power to you. But what you'll find is whatever religion it is, it'll always make Jesus the person obsolete. It'll establish human leaders, it'll establish, you know, if I just say this, I'm good.

It'll establish some kind of benchmark, if I just do this, I'm good. But it'll always make Christ the person obsolete. It'll neglect him, it'll diminish him. Anything that takes away from the significance of the person of Jesus, not just like, "Oh, you know, I claimed his name and that's it." But we're talking about the need to abide in Christ, okay?

All right. So in that section was the warnings about those who are enemies of the cross. In the next section, then here now is the big contrast. I asked you, "What is this flow of thought here?" And again, I wanted you to see that there is this big contrast.

Here and now, I kind of reflect on this, and I'm going to read it and say this. "For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself." The contrast.

For those who are enemies of the cross, you are going to quickly see that their worldview is this small. Let me repeat that, okay? When you try to evaluate individuals who are like enemies of the cross or this categorically bad, you will realize that their worldview is this small.

And therefore, even small setbacks are huge. Therefore, little offenses are not, "How dare you offend me?" Right? Everything is blown out of proportion in this life. Why? That's all they have. And so guess what? All the other things they value, the treasures of the world, it's huge. Why? Because their world is small.

When your world is small and you have a house and you have your career and you have a mansion, you have your bank account, whatever it is, now all of a sudden, all those things have incredible value. Why? Because to your small world, proportionately, it's massive. But when you have heaven, all of that becomes just a speck.

What Apostle Paul is doing is giving this contrast. The enemies of the cross, all they have in their mind is the world. I want you to have in your mind the kingdom. Your citizenship is in heaven. And from heaven, we eagerly await the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Okay?

The Lord Jesus Christ. Here there's so much to talk about this and I just want to present to you some questions for your discussion, okay? And then give you maybe like a more personal thought about this. Man, I definitely want you guys to discuss how is this idea of citizenship, having a certain right and privilege in a kingdom supposed to affect us, right?

And I'm just going to say, I mean, obviously there are various things that it should. How were the people who were originally listening to this, how would they have received it? And I understand a lot of them took pride in their Roman and citizenship. They understood the concept. How does that impact them?

And especially to a people who are being persecuted, in what way is it going to encourage them, right? Now, my personal reflection about this is this. As I read this passage, there's so much to say. I mean, I get it like this passage is supposed to wow me. Do you feel like that?

I mean, he's talking about your citizenship is in heaven, right? You belong there and your savior is going to come from there. And I started like envisioning like the way I should feel is like if I'm in prison in like Afghanistan or something and my country, like the seals are going to come and get me, right?

Like I should have that kind of like, yeah, don't worry, they're going to come. They're going to rappel down the helicopter. He's, you know, all that kind of stuff. Now, what I realized was there's so much more to that. This savior is going to come and he's going to transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of his glory.

So in your notes, I have these two major points. We should definitely understand what it means to have citizenship in heaven, how that's supposed to impact us. But there is this forward looking hope. God is going to transform me. And what's crazy about it is if I was in the pit of hell because of my sins and I was destined to decay in eternal damnation and he raised me from that, wow.

But then now he's saying he's going to conform me to the glorified body of Christ. Like I'm not even sure what that looks like, right? I mean, that's wild. He is going to transform me and perfect me in conformity to the perfections of Christ's body in his glory. Think about that for a while.

This passage, if you just read it cursory, I mean, you should force yourself to stop and ask how is this supposed to affect me? Because I think there's a train of thought here. And I have this line for you. He says that whole transformation is going to be amazing, but it's going to be accomplished by the exertion of his power, right?

The exertion of his power. The power that Jesus has, the authority that Christ has, where he is going to command in the moment's notice and all the world is going to lay at his feet. Whether Christian or non-Christian, even those who are going to be condemned to hell, they are going to recognize Jesus and fall.

That power that Jesus has, he's going to exert and he's going to change us. Think about that. I mean, that's just beyond wow. It's like, oh my goodness, we can just dwell on that for hours. And I want you to think, in the moments that the church is hearing this, I think there are times, there are in a time where they're going to feel powerless.

If you operate by your sight, they're going to feel like, oh my goodness, our beloved pastor is in prison. There are these wicked guys constantly trying to preach to us. There are people in our church who are jettisoning the faith and leaving. My own property is getting confiscated. We are very, very unsure about the government, if they're going to hate us, if they're going to give us our privileges or not.

What in the world is happening? And I feel like Apostle Paul is saying, look, do you see the power that your Savior is going to exert? Do you have this hope? And what I have for you in your notes is there is this amazing paradox that every Christian is supposed to live under.

You are supposed to have this reality that you see, you see in better eyes, the kind of depravity that exists in this world, right? You are supposed to see with better eyes the kind of finality of death that's coming. You're supposed to see with better eyes the reality that this world is doomed.

You know because God has told you, this earth cries out in groaning and everybody stands in an ominous position under God, right? But the paradox is, the theme of this book, you're supposed to find joy. Let me ask you a question. Have you ever met somebody who is just this like happy-go-lucky person, just happy and giddy all the time?

They have no reason to be, but they're just always like, "Ha ha, yeah, I'm good." You know like, and part of it is just like, that's so annoying, like it's irritating, right? Because you almost feel like, stop being fake. You don't have to laugh like that all the time, you know?

Now, you know that's just the judgmental side of me coming out, but the fact of the matter is actually when I see the world, the fallen world, try their best feeble attempt to find little joys and stuff, now that I've been, you know, now that we've been like digging into Scripture and I've been living the faith, I do get not just simply annoyed by that, I get sad.

Like look at them. They're trying to grab onto little pieces of hope and in silver linings, little pieces of hope and like, it's in the small things, man. Like you guys heard those cliche terms, right? Where for us, we have this incredible hope that the power of Christ is going to transform us, that there would be no sin in us.

There would be no more frustration of temptations and weakness. It's not so much that, "Oh, there's just not going to be any tears anymore." There's going to be no more sin. It's going to be the perfect presence of God and the perfect presence of Christ dwelling with us and we're going to be like Him.

What an amazing hope we have. We have so much more than just lighthearted, giddy, pithy statements. We have so much more than nice sunsets and trees. We're going to have the very presence of Christ exerting His power, conforming us to His image. That should motivate us, right? When I said this was one epic speech, I really believe it.

I always try to like imagine it if I'm sitting there hearing it, right? And I hope you guys sense it too. For us, our greatest motivation lies nowhere in this world. It is absolutely in heaven and Scripture calls us that if we have been raised with Christ, we should keep seeking the things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.

Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth, for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory. Let's take a moment to pray.

Heavenly Father, we thank you so much and pray, God, that you would grant to us deep conviction of your work, of your presence, and what's more, your plans for us for the future. God, help us to know and believe that there is so much more than what we see with our human eyes.

God, I pray that we would not operate by sight, but Lord, that we would live life by faith. All the things that we learn here, help it not to just pass by us as mystical and paradoxical statements, but God, I pray that you would cast for us a great vision of heaven.

And Lord, that would motivate us, that will help us to persevere through every single hurdle, every single hardship, and whatever hurtment and pain may come our way, I pray, God, that we would exercise our trust in the power of Christ. We thank you, it's in Christ's name we pray, amen.