Secondly, member of Emmaus Bible College, I would be remiss if I didn't at least tell you what's going on with the school this year in answer to your prayers. We have the highest student enrollment in our fifty-two-year history this year. You have been praying, and it's turned around completely when I arrived there three years ago. Oh, not because I arrived, but due to your prayers. We were running one-fifty, one-forty, even into the one-thirties this year. It's two-eighteen for our enrollment. For our dormitories, we have one dorm room left for the women, six dorm rooms left for the men, and about twenty students living off campus, a tremendously full school and operating at full bore. We are very pleased with the blessing that God has given us this year, and we thank you for praying for us. You've heard much about the gymnasium through the years. Well, the gymnasium is being built as we speak. The foundations are poured, the steel beams are up in the air, and we're excited to take occupancy in the gymnasium this winter. Rather than having no place to play indoors, it'll be very nice to have the gym available during the cold winters. And I can still speak of cold winters with relish because I was reared in Southern California, and I do consider these Iowa winters to be rather cold. Someone was asking me, do I have any right to live in Iowa? Well, yeah, sort of. My mom was born in Vinton and my grandparents met at the University of Iowa. So I have some claim for being able to move back here to Iowa and take up residence here and have something to do with the farmers here in Iowa and many of the other very lovely folk who have welcomed us to their state. I ask you to continue to pray for us. We are very pleased with a very spiritually minded student body this year. Why, we're coming to class rather sleepy-eyed these days, but not from having stayed up late talking or goofing off, but having stayed up late praying and having Bible studies in the dormitories. We as faculty aren't sure what exactly to do about all this. We want them to be awake for class and we want them to write their papers and study with us. But you can't be against prayer and Bible study. And so it is a rather interesting project. Last weekend, they had spontaneously, sixty of them that went out witnessing door to door in the neighborhood. And even this afternoon, as you might remember to pray for them, Dubuque is in the midst of a river fest that's going on with dragon boat racing out in the river. And we have most of the school down at the river evangelizing, talking to people about Jesus. What a wonderful experience is going on at Emmaus Bible College this year. We also have a new program just begun called ETEP, Elementary Teacher Education Program. Perhaps you've been a bit concerned recently about the way in which our public schools are going. Even in Dubuque, our schools are headed into new age kind of thinking. And we are concerned at Emmaus to train up Christian teachers. And we have that available to us now with a four-year degree from Emmaus. You can be fully equipped to teach in Axie-accredited Christian schools. Even those that are interested in the homeschool movement would appreciate the teaching that they can receive at Emmaus. So consider us. Send your young people to us and continue to pray for us. We also have the journal published by Emmaus, which is a study in biblical or biblically related topics. I'm the book review editor and I have many books to recommend to you. And we have a fine bookstore back here that I'd encourage you to look at. But these are absolutely free. The newest issue is just now out, and I'd encourage you to subscribe. In fact, there's probably even a card in the front of one of these for you to subscribe to the journal. But back issues, we've brought many of them for you to pick up for your own personal use and to bring back to your assemblies and pass around. And we'd encourage you to be involved in studying the Word of God through the ministries of Emmaus. Well, enough of a commercial. You need these commercials every once in a while to break your train of thought. And now back to the most important part, which is the exposition of the Word. We are going through a study of Philippians in my portion of the ministry this weekend. And I'd like you again to open your minds and your hearts to what God would share with us from His Word in Philippians chapter three. Two years ago, out of duty, we took a family vacation. to visit my wife's relatives. Now, you know how it is on vacations. Normally, you want to do something purely recreational and fun. Visiting the family relatives is not really the first choice of anyone as they're thinking of something they'll do on a vacation. But this did have something particularly redeeming. They lived on a lake and they had a water ski boat. Now, you're unaware, I'm sure. that I was reared on water skis. Why, as a little tyke before I even went to kindergarten, my parents sawed off water skis and the bindings didn't come in small enough sizes so they bought little rubber booties and screwed them onto these sawed off water skis and had me up water skiing before I could even go to school. I loved to water ski and it was going to be so much fun to go to my wife's aunt's house and live right on a lake and water ski. When we got up there in Seattle, Washington, right there on the lake, and it was gorgeous. They had this wonderful home, better than anything I could ever imagine, right on the lake with a grassy slope going out to the lake, their own private dock, their own boat. Why, I was filled with envy. We were sitting out there on the deck one day, just totally filled with those fleshly desires of why can't we live this way. And as we were sitting out on the dock, Carol and I were gazing across the shoreline at all these various homes. And as sometimes you'll do, you'll say to yourself like, well, if you could choose any of these homes, which one would you choose? You know, and we're thinking, oh, well, that one looks nice. No, this one over here looks nice too. But I was particularly admiring the house next door. You know, the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. This house next door looks particularly interesting because... It was huge. And beside, he had the right kind of boat out in front of it there. It looked like it was perfect for skiing. He had a very nice ski boat for when the water was glassy, and then he had a sailboat for when the water is rough. It seemed like he knew how to adjust his lifestyle to the proper kinds of atmospheric conditions. So I thought this guy had it all together. And I found out for my aunt that I was going to get to tour the house because he was on vacation, and she needed help. carrying some frozen things out of his freezer that she had borrowed his freezer while he was away. She was looking after the house and she was a caterer and she'd stuffed a bunch of stuff in the freezer and wanted my help carrying it. So she says, I'll give you a tour of the house. It's really something. And I said, can I? Can I? This is going to be great. The house that I lusted after I'm actually going to get to see. So as we're walking over there, she said, now first thing you ought to notice is half the house is old and half the house is new. It used to be a big house. Now it's a humongous house. He doubled the size of the house one year just so he'd have more room. And I said, yeah, my kind of guy doubled the size of the house. Real nice. We walked around to the front that I'd never been before. He had five cars in the driveway. Ferrari for when he felt like going fast. Mercedes for when he felt like looking rich. Two other antique cars that I can't even name. They just looked old and pretty. And a station wagon for the family. It looked like he had just about everything he needed. As we went in the house, my aunt pointed out to me that the entire house was decorated in antiques. Old furniture, but for some people it's considered really nice stuff. And as I was looking around, I was saying, yeah, okay, yeah, it looks nice and everything. But when we went down into the basement where the freezer was, I found the room. You see, this was a huge recreational room, and it was filled with every toy of my heart's desire. I looked over against the wall and he had a whole rack of water skis. And I went up and looked at him and these weren't any of those chintzy little water skis. These were double booted water skis of all the best brands. And I said, this guy knows what he's doing. I said, did he ski much? She said, no, he's kind of spoiled. He only goes out when the water is glassy. And I said, yeah, he knows what's up. He's a smart guy. I said, where is he anyway? How come he's not home? And she said, well, he likes to sail a lot you probably saw that sailboat out there and I said yes and she said he's on his way to Hawaii right now he bought himself a yacht and he doesn't know how to sail it very well so he hired himself a crew and they're sailing over to Hawaii and I said this guy is unbelievable he has everything a man could want as you look around the room he had this huge stereo with monster speakers he had one of those widescreen televisions he had all kinds of electronic equipment which again is one of those things that is easy for me to lust after I love electronic equipment and I was just thinking Why is it that somebody has everything that I ever wanted, all in one place on a beautiful lake where he can ski all the time? This is great. But you know how it is when you're a Christian. You have the Holy Spirit inside. And you can't go very long with this kind of thinking, just lusting after all that this man had. Because with the Holy Spirit inside, you begin to realize that your attitude entirely stinks. Or in my wife's vernacular, a DRA, a dirty, rotten attitude. I began to become convicted concerning my level of lust for material things. I said, is this guy a believer? I thought she'd say no, but he said yes. She said, yes, he's a believer. and I said, see, you can have it both ways. You can be a believer and exhibit conspicuous consumption and buy everything your heart desires. Well, next time I went to visit my aunt, I said, how's he doing? And she said, he's divorced. You know, it doesn't always work out exactly the way you want it. It doesn't. As I examine my heart, I watched my fleshly nature run wild there for an afternoon, craving things that I thought would satisfy. You ever done that? You ever just imagined all the things that might somehow fill what you seem to see as a void in your life that you said, if I had this, then I could be happy. Unfortunately, things Don't bring happiness. And in fact, we are so often confused with our values. Growing up in America, where we have so many things available to us, nearly all of us are rich according to international standards, and so often we allow what we own to own us. We've really bought into this modern philosophy where the man who dies with the most toys wins. We actually think that somehow we will be more happy if we have more things. Why, we think that we ought to marry rich, marry into the right kinds of families. We think that we ought to choose our occupations based on how well they pay. We think that we really ought to somehow please ourselves with material things. And our values are entirely wrong at that point. True happiness does not come from circumstances, as we've determined earlier in the book, nor does it come from misplaced values, as we're going to see in this particular chapter. True happiness comes from knowing our God and living for Him. We're going to discover that in whatever we place our hope, we have misplaced it unless it's focused entirely on Jesus Christ. We must reorient our value system to the person of Christ. Look with me then at Philippians chapter three and read with me this first paragraph. Paul opens by saying, finally, that shows he's a good preacher because he's only teasing, he's not even near the end of the book. Finally, my brethren, keep on rejoicing in the Lord. To write the same things again is no trouble to me, and it is a safeguard for you. 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. 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 Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews, as to the law of Pharisee, as to zeal, a persecutor of the church, as to righteousness which is in the law found blameless. But whatever things were gained to me, those things I've counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be lost and 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, in order that I may gain Christ. As Paul writes to them, he explains that they must continually rejoice just as he does. That's why he's in prison. Why shouldn't he rejoice, right? No, he rejoices not in his circumstances, but he rejoices that the gospel is being preached and he's rejoicing that his brothers and sisters at Philippi are continuing on for the Lord. And he admonishes them in spite of their circumstances to keep on rejoicing. And then before he finishes the epistle, he says he must again bring up a common problem. among the churches there in Asia in moving into Europe it's that the Judaizers have followed Paul's footsteps going to every church that he founded preaching a false gospel these Judaizers were Jews who thought they had converted to Christianity but were actually false teachers who had carried their Judaism into Christianity believing that They were helping people by causing them to turn to Judaism for salvation. They felt it wasn't enough to accept Christ by grace alone through faith, but that you had to become Jewish to be saved, that you needed to accept circumcision and begin to obey the Mosaic laws, including all the dietary restrictions. So whereas Paul founded his churches on the basis of grace, they went around imposing legalism in each of his churches. And Paul says, I've written to you about this situation before, and now that I'm writing again, I've got to mention again that you not fall into the same trap. So he says, Beware of those dogs. Well, that's kind of an ironic saying because that was the pet name that Jews used of Gentiles. They consider the Gentiles to be subhuman down around that mangy dog kind of level. It was their favorite term for referring to non-Jews, and Paul turns it around and calls these ultra-conservative Jewish so-called Christians, these Judaizers, dogs themselves. He beware of these dogs, he says, beware of these evil workers. Beware of the mutilation, more literally. This is a play on words. He takes the word for circumcision in the Greek. takes off the proper preposition, puts in a somewhat synonymous preposition that changes the word entirely, and rather than referring to a very precise, intricate kind of physical surgery, and I'm sure you realize how precise you need to be on that kind of surgery, he says, oh, you are just loose and free, and you're more talking about mutilation than you're talking about circumcision here, because you're not preaching the truth about circumcision. And so he kind of throws a funny little made-up word there in their face, referring to them as the people of the mutilation rather than people of the circumcision. He speaks saying, we are the true circumcision who worship God as the God of spirit, who glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh. See, that's our problem, brothers and sisters. That really is our problem. Even after we're saved, even after we have been liberated from the obligation to obey the flesh, we still so easily are tempted by our fleshly natures. He says we must learn not to put confidence in what we have accomplished, not to earn favor with God by what we do externally. but realize that our standing before God is completely spiritually based, not on performance, but on God's grace gift of salvation to us. And then Paul, as he continues to rib these Judaizers a bit more, he says, you know what they boast about? They boast about what great Jews they are and how much they've accomplished for God by being so strict in their Judaism. He says, let's start a little boasting contest here to see if I were to have confidence in my flesh, who would win? And so he says, let's start racking up points here and let's see who'd win if we were starting to boast about who's the best Jew among us. So he starts saying, although I myself might have confidence even in the flesh, if anyone has mind to have confidence in the flesh I far more verse five why I have confidence in a particular religious right I was circumcised on the eighth day precisely the appointed day according to Mosaic law do we ever slip into the same kinds of problems I know our problem today is not so much with Judaizers but I doubt that we are so different as they were. I think that our humanness is quite related to their historical situation. I ask myself, do any of us have confidence in religious rights? Religious services, religious ceremonies, and unfortunately far too many so-called believers have confidence in the religious services and ceremonies of which they have been apart. We must be careful to have confidence only in what Christ thinks of us, not external ceremonies. Secondly, he says, as he's boasting, he says, I am of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews. And here he speaks about his confidence in a race. He says, ethnically, I am not some convert to Judaism proselytizing into that religion. I was born a Hebrew. And I'm not just any old Hebrew. Why, I'm from one of the better tribes. I'm from the tribe of Benjamin. Now try that on for size and compare and see who's more Jewish. I wonder if some of us put too much confidence in our historical pedigrees. rather than having our confidence in Christ alone. Thirdly, he has confidence in religion. He says, as to the law, as to how well I keep the law's moral command, why, I was a Pharisee. Now the Pharisees were a political party among the Jews who were the ultra-conservatives. The Sadducees are sort of the liberals, the thinkers. The Pharisees were... More of the blue-collar conservatives who held tightly to the very precise keeping of the law. He says, you want to know how well I kept the law? Well, I was a Pharisee, meaning I never broke it my entire life as far as I was concerned. I wonder how many of us similarly would have confidence more in our religion than in the person of Christ. Well, how many times do you talk to someone about Jesus Christ and they say, Don't you know to whom you are speaking? Why, I've been an elder in such and such a denomination for the last twenty-one years. Because if somehow that gives them an automatic in with God, just their outward religiosity, why their belonging to that social club has made them religious. What I'm concerned about is their soul, their heart. Well, we can look even historically here how some people made everything so external that Paul makes life a circumcision and says, God's not so nearly concerned about some outward physical surgery as he is concerned about the condition of our hearts and whether we're spiritually circumcised. We must be careful of confidence in a mere religion. Verse six, as to zeal, why I was a persecutor of the church. Paul here is speaking about confidence in his record. You want to know how good a Jew he was? Why he hated those Christians who seemed to be polluting Judaism with some newfangled sort of twist to it, saying that the Messiah had come. And he used to go around finding Christians, even women and children, and throwing them in jail. He was so zealous to preserve proper Judaism. Wonder if some of us take too much pride in our records of service. are far more concerned with how many brownie points we've earned than how pleasing our hearts are to God. He says finally and fifthly that he had confidence in his own personal righteousness. He says as to righteousness which is in the law I was found blameless. Do we too sometimes have a holier-than-thou attitude and have confidence in how well we have performed externally and what people think of how blameless we are our reputations God is more concerned with our hearts than anything such as that do you see how Paul is shaking the foundation of our value system How he's pointing out that in our fleshly nature, we could so easily slip into the external kind of standards and values. And how once again we've got to focus ourselves back to that singular surpassing value of knowing Jesus Christ. He says in verse seven, but whatever things were gained to me, speaking of those things that he used to have such pride in, Everything that he used to be so proud about, he says, those things I have counted as lost for the sake of Christ. When you come to Jesus Christ, you don't come offering to him all that you have, because what you offer him is worthless. Why, he says, our own personal righteousness. is worth about as much as filthy rags, which in the Old Testament is a euphemism for menstrual clogs. He says, your personal righteousness in me is repugnant. You come to me only on the basis of grace. You receive the gift of salvation only by faith. You don't come to me offering to me how well you have performed to earn your way. You come counting everything else as loss. Paul goes on in verse eight saying, more than that, not just those things that I used to count as important, why I've come to the place in my life where I count all things to be lost in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. Brothers and sisters, each of us must come to this place in our Christian walk. Each of us must come to the place where we say, nothing else in life matters compared to the surpassing value of knowing Christ. Everything else in life pales in comparison to knowing Jesus Christ. My life is not filled with entertainment. My life is not filled with attainment. My life is filled with knowing Jesus Christ and pleasing Him. It is the beginning point of my life. It is the end point of my life. Nothing else is important. Now to drive this point home, Paul expresses himself in a very crass way. He does that from time to time for emphasis. Our translators, when they read what Paul says, kind of shudder a bit and sort of clean up the language and place it in euphemistic terms, replacing good words for taboo words. You know what a euphemism is, don't you? It's a good word that you use in place of something that is rather repugnant. But sometimes it is rather useful to speak the truth clearly. When we refer to a place that has a toilet, we use all kinds of euphemisms. Toilet's a taboo word. We will say such things as rest room, comfort station, water closet, powder room, little boy's room. One man went and told me briefly, he had to depart for a moment, he says, I didn't even understand this. He said, just a minute. I have to go see a man about a horse. I don't understand. But we like to place euphemisms in front of taboo words, but sometimes it's necessary to speak straight out. And Paul does that. He doesn't mince words here as he is speaking of the surpassing value of knowing Christ. He says, More than that, verse eight, I count all things to be lost in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I've suffered the loss of all things and count them but rubbish in order that I may gain Christ. Now, have you figured out yet which is the euphemistic word here? It's the word rubbish. Such a proper word, rubbish, that we place here to refer to something rather ugly. This word more literally refers to one particular place in town where they take that stuff too vile to mention. In Dubuque we have a huge slaughterhouse, slaughter hogs, four thousand hogs a day. They sneak them into town. I don't know where they all come from. I don't even know how they can find four thousand hogs, but they slaughter all four thousand. I'm really naive when it comes to all this, you understand. I was from the suburbs of Los Angeles as I was driving up into Iowa. recently to move here I saw these little white dog houses spread equidistant across across the fields and they each had their own little door they were in rows like they had their own streets and when I got up into Dubuque I very naively asked what are all those little white houses little just about the size of a big dog house you know spread all over the hills and I then learned that they were pig sties and I I would I felt so so foolish you know that that The pigs lived in them. And so I, you know, I really tried to venture out and see how well I understood this. I said, now, they're all in rows. Do they know where they live? And the person assured me, oh, yes, they do. Why? That sow, when she goes in her house, she won't let any other hog in that house. And I said, how does she know which one's hers? Does she like count, ten down, and then turn left and go the fourth one over? And he assured me, somehow pigs know these things. Anyway, back to the story. In Dubuque we slaughter four thousand hogs a day, and they use every piece of a hog you can imagine. They're very creative in what they stuff and the various things that are called pork products. But believe it or not, there's some stuff that's left over that has no use whatsoever, and it's so vile you can figure out why it has no use. They put in these tankers and they drive it outside of town and they open it up. And they just let all that vile stuff pour out. There's only one spot in town they do this. Well, good friends of mine were out there one day in the dump throwing off branches and stuff. And in came the famous truck dropping the hog slop. This stuff left over after the slaughterhouse was done with everything they could figure. They said the smell was beyond description. They described the most awful stuff. And of course, just for the fun of it since they were teenagers, they started throwing rocks. to watch the glop splash around. And unfortunately, they got someone to splatter on the truck driver who was dumping the stuff, and he wasn't at all pleased. But frankly, that's the kind of thing that Paul is referring to here when he uses this rather crass term. He says in verse eight that everything that used to seem so valuable to him, everything that used to seem so important to him, He is now assigned to a category that for our proper terms this afternoon we're just going to label rubbish. And He says, only Jesus Christ and knowing Him is left. Can you imagine what your life would be like if only Jesus Christ was left? Can you imagine if everything else that was so dear to you was put aside and only Jesus Christ was left. Our brother Eddie mentioned D.L. Moody in a story about him. I think I'll add to the folklore about Moody. Moody was a man that was quite a guy. Someone once challenged him that the world had yet to see what God could do through a man who was totally sold out to him. Moody said, I want to be that man. And if you want to see what the world is like after a man who's totally sold out to God can do, just read about the life of D.L. Moody. Why, one night, he was headed off to bed, started undressing, was almost all the way undressed, and then he suddenly realized the promise that he'd made to God that he said, I am never going to go through an entire day without talking to someone about Jesus Christ. He made this promise to God. And here he was undressed, ten o'clock at night, ready to turn in. He said, it's a promise. So he put his clothes back on, went out into the street and started searching for someone. Who are you going to find on the street at ten o'clock at night? Well, he is walking the street looking for someone so he can talk to him about Jesus, so he can get back to bed and on with his life. Who does he find for the person who genuinely needed to hear? And as Moody pulled him off to the side and said, Brother, I need to talk to you. He shared Christ with him, and that person trusted Jesus Christ that night. And Moody said to himself, Never again will I wait so late at night to talk to someone about Jesus. He was that kind of person because everything else in life paled in comparison to the surpassing value of knowing Jesus Christ. I wonder what my life would be like if God was the most important person in my life and nothing else came close. Well, how would I use my time? You know, there's two things that I use to evaluate what's really important in my life. Money and time. I asked myself, and what do I spend my money? That really tells me where my heart is. Secondly, how do I spend my time? That really tells me where my heart is. And if you want a third one that's really trying, what do I dream about? What do I imagine? What do I fantasize? What do I fantasize about? You can examine where your heart is, taking those tests. And frankly, brothers and sisters, it ought to be about Christ. As we see here, the value of knowing Christ is far more important than anything else. But Paul continues. He says, I want to be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the law, because if we existed with God on the performance basis, none of us would match up. None of us could reach God in that way. But that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, He says, I don't want God to look at me on a performance basis. I want to receive my righteousness from Christ himself on the basis of faith. I want Christ's righteousness to close me and to protect me before God. Verse ten, that I may know him. And the word here for know is not in the ordinary word. It's a very strong word that speaks of knowing him deeply and experientially. He says, I want to know him more than anything else. And I want to know the power. that was able to raise him from the dead. I want the fellowship of his... What? Now, back up here a second. I like the first two. I like the part about knowing him. I like the part about power. Yeah, I'm happy to know Jesus. Yeah, I'm happy to receive more power to live. I'm happy to be a beneficiary of the power that raised him from the dead. But I didn't like the last part. It said something about the S-word. Sufferings. Paul is saying he wants to know of Christ's suffering, which comes from God. He wants to be conformed to the death of Christ. Few of us would ever say, let me stand up for Christ to the point of suffering for him. Few of us would say, I want to be so aligned with Jesus Christ that everyone who hates Christ will automatically hate me too. Which of us would wish that on ourselves? Turn for a moment, please, to a cross-reference where I think it would help us to understand what it means to follow after Him and His sufferings and to be conformed to His death. Look, please, at Second Corinthians, chapter four. verses ten through twelve second Corinthians four ten through twelve speaking here about being persecuted but not forsaken struck down but not destroyed he says in verse ten always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus' sake. That the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death works in us. Isn't it strange that the Christian life, which is a life oriented to God, will be a constant experience of dying as well. Dying to self. dying to our old way of life, that moment by moment we will constantly be killing off our old ways. I mentioned at the start of my talk this afternoon how fleshly I was sitting out on that dock, lusting over the wealth that is available to some. I've got to die to a craving. to have things in life because they won't satisfy. I've got to die to the craving for entertainment because it won't satisfy. I've got to die to my own pride of caring what other people think of me more than what God thinks of me. You make your own list. You decide for yourself what needs to be killed off. You need to align yourself with Jesus Christ so closely that you will suffer for Him because as the world hates Him, so they'll hate you. Why we're constantly ducking for fear that someone might think that we're Christian and hold us in contempt. We don't want to offend anyone. Why Paul has gotten himself thrown in jail for the cause of Christ. and I'm afraid to inconvenience someone by talking to them about Jesus Christ. I'm afraid of losing my own comfort, whereas Paul is concerned about the eternal destiny of those who need to hear. May we learn as Paul did, to live as he did. May we follow after him, as he says later on in the chapter, to imitate me. as I imitate Christ. When we truly learn the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death in order that each of us may attain to the resurrection from the dead, we want to receive that saying someday, good and faithful servants, Enter now into the rest that I have provided for you. What will God say when He sees us? What will God say when we stand before Him face to face? Will we be rewarded? Or will our heads hang in shame at the judgment seat of Christ when He reviews our entire life, when He reminds us how every thought will be held account. We must capture every thought. We must capture every motive. We must live for Him alone. May truly the love of Christ constrain us. Heavenly Father, it's to that end that we pray that the knowledge of Jesus Christ, the reception of His resurrection power, the willingness to suffer for Him, and be conformed to his death would be our ultimate goals. May we live for you purely and honestly. We pray these things in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.