doing it all wrong. I had it sitting up here rather than extended. I had the microphones out. Yeah, hopefully it'll sound better this week. But anyhow, good to have you all back. Good to have the kids in here with us. Hope you're ready to write, kids. You got some blanks to fill in. And you're gonna have some questions to answer as well. I'm ready for y'all. It's good to have a family integrated. They'll be with us all month. So anyway, and then of course, Beth and Naomi, they'll be ready to write some good answers down. You got some good answers for me, right girls? All right, we are in Philippians chapter one, verse 27. through Philippians chapter two, verse four. And when I first looked at this, I thought, wow, that's not really very many verses. And you'd be surprised how, when you're a little overwhelmed by the fact that you're supposed to teach for an hour, getting all that together out of just a few verses. But trust me, I think we're going to have plenty of content to discuss this evening. And I'm looking forward to your participation But since some of you haven't been with us, and it has been a couple weeks, we're going to do a little bit of review to give us some context. And so this is where we'll fill in some of the blanks here. Let's see. Jason, do you know who wrote the book of Philippians? Paul. Paul, excellent. So that's your first blank. For context, Paul wrote this epistle or what's another? So epistles, correct? Letter. Letter, okay, so either epistle or letter. And he wrote it to the, who, who was he writing to? The Church of Philippi. Okay, Church of Philippi to believers, okay, believers in the city of Philippi. Excellent, all right. And that's important to understand because you read some of the scriptures that's not written to believers so as you as you read through it's important to understand the audience it's important to understand the background of that audience so like if you read Was it out in the middle of nowhere? No, it was kind of a hub. It was kind of a hub. It was right along one of the main trade routes between Rome and through Asia Minor, which is now modern-day Turkey. So very important city. Also, we know that the retired military folks could retire there and didn't have to pay taxes. So there were several things that we learned that made that city important. And remember, it had been quite in the city of Philippi when he started that church. And now Paul is where? Does anybody know where Paul wrote this letter from? He wrote it from prison. So it's one of the prison epistles. We talked about that as well. So getting back to our blanks here. So in chapter one, verses one through two, we have Paul's greeting. Excellent, Matt. All right, his greeting. It wasn't, it was much more than that. He was very sincere in the fact that he was hoping that they would experience the grace and peace of God. And then we move on, and in verses three and four, Paul expresses his, somebody other than Matt. Joy. It's another G. in the gospel, and then in verse six, Paul's confidence that God will complete the? Good work. The good work, okay? So he will complete the good work that he started. So that's salvation and sanctification. So talking about the further, our continual growth in Christ. And then in verse seven, he speaks of the Philippians being partakers of, hey baby. Okay, being partakers of another G word. That N is not supposed to be there, grace. Okay, partakers of grace in the defense of the gospel, which is that other G there at the end of that sentence, defense of the gospel. And then he closes verses nine through 11, which is where we ended that week. telling them of his desire for them to grow in love, knowledge, and discernment. So I tried to make that one a little easy on you. The next one's not alliterated, so you're on your own on this one. So the last time we met, we saw where persecution resulted in, we had a discussion about this word. Anybody remember? Furtherance, there was an A word that started it. The advance of the gospel, okay? Advance the gospel, advancement of the gospel. And what? So we started in verse 12. So he talked about advancement of the gospel, and then he talked about the brothers having what? They were maybe not quite so bold or quite so confident because they had seen how they treated Paul and some others, I'm sure, when they preached the gospel. And so they might not have been quite as open about it. But he says that because of what's happened to him, those folks have gone out and so they have become more bold. Paul described the power of the gospel regardless of the Motivations, intentions. Motivations. Okay, good. Motivations, motives. Because we talked about, he writes about, he writes about two different groups of people, right? People who were preaching out of strife and trying to cause Paul more harm, or those who preached out of love. And so, good evening. Good to have you all here. And so regardless of the motives, and then Paul goes on to say that he becomes transparent He was transparent about that with them. And then he closed out with verses 25 and 26, where Paul informs them of his remaining on this earth will blank, progress, and joy in the faith. Furtherance. Furtherance. Sorry. Produce. Produce. All right, so produce, progress, and joy in the faith. And then, Verse 27, where we're going to pick up tonight, that's just a continuation of this. So remember, it's a letter. All the divisions and everything weren't there. And so in verse 27, he talks about, and we're going to go ahead and read that here. So would anybody like to read verses 27 through verse 4 of chapter 2? Anybody? I will. OK. Go ahead. And are you reading from? KJV. OK. Verse 27, only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ, that wherever I come and see you or else meet you, I may hear of your affairs, that ye stand fast in one spirit with one mind, striving together for the faith of the gospel, and in nothing terrified by your adversaries, which is to them an evident token of perdition, but to you of salvation and that of God. For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake, having the same conflict which you saw in me, now here to be in me. If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bounties and mercies fulfill your joy, that you be like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord and of one mind. Thank you. All right. If you have an ESV or a different translation, hopefully you caught some of the differences there in the use of words. And it is very interesting if you, I really want to encourage you to study different versions, whether you do that through Bluebird or Bible or some software, or if you just have different versions of the Bible in, translations of the Bible in your, help you to gain a better understanding. We're going to talk about some of those words that were slightly different. It's funny, when I read like the King James, which in my blue letter Bible I have KJV and ESV side by side so I can do that comparison. Sometimes I really like the word that the KJV uses, but other times I like the word that the ESV uses or another translation, not just those two. So having listened to, and hopefully you've studied, since I'm letting you know what we're gonna study the next week. Hopefully you're reading ahead and giving some thought to this. But what did you observe from these verses? What are some things you observed? What's that? Help each other? Okay, good. Anybody else? I'm not afraid for the recording to be a little quiet. Humility. Humility. OK. Good. Humility and encouragement. OK. Encouragement. Well, there's a promise of suffering, which none of us ever want to hear. We'll get to that in a little bit. Great point, Mike. All right, great. So I wrote down a couple, just so in case no one decided to speak, but thankfully y'all spoke up. One was the importance of unity around the gospel. And the other, I kind of summarized a lot of what's in the first few verses in chapter two by saying, faith shall produce, or should produce fruit. and you go, fruit, I didn't see that talked about in there. We'll get to that in a little bit. But really, as you read those verses, really allow yourself to kind of take in what's really being said here. Remember, we said that the Philippians would have been overjoyed, or I should say they would have been excited for that letter to arrive. But as we also said, there were a lot of letters that Paul wrote that they arrived at a church and that was not so good news, right? When we think of the Corinthians, right? So there may have been some trepidation at first. and then the more they heard, the more they got. All right, so I already asked what you observed. Something that stuck out to me also was the importance of remembering all that got, that should be that, not the, I type these notes out on my phone, which probably isn't the best, but I don't have a laptop, so, and I'm too stubborn to pull out my iPad, but the importance of remembering Mike put this one on the head, so does anything shock you from those verses? Notice there in verse 29, read verse 29 again to yourself there. Notice he says granted, right? I think the King James Version said given, right? So, He's given to us, granted to us, for the sake of Christ. You should not only believe in him, which we're good with the believing in him, right? Because that results in what? Salvation. But then there's that next, that word, but also suffered. give me that God I wanted the salvation but you can keep the suffering but that's that's not what that's not how how it was I saw God's plan God's plan is he understands that as we share the gospel that especially like in the early church days and I think if we were honest with ourselves and all those folks were doing, we would probably have some people persecuting us, right? Especially if we went to certain places in the world, right? I mean, Daniel McKeown just came back from some places where probably not overly excited to hear the gospel because they believe in false gods, all right? And we have that here in the US. So, um, but here he's saying persecution should encourage the believer. That's what he's saying. So, uh, that's, that's an observation I made. And then we talked about some themes or, or when I said, what did you observe from that? Some themes were unity, encouragement, which Daniel said, and selfless service. And we're going to get to all that here. Uh, Let me ask this question. It's probably a little early if we could ask it toward the application part. But are you challenged by anything that Paul writes here? And if so, what? Jason? OK. Sorry. Jason? Only let your manner of life be worthy. OK. So that challenges you. Worthy of not just worthy, but I don't know if I want to be in the same conflict, Paul, again. I don't know if I want to be in prison. That actually kind of scares me. But yeah, I mean, he's not talking about simple suffering here. He's talking about the real thing, and none of us want to do that in life. None of us. So what does the Joel Osteen commentary on verse 29 and verse 30 say? I didn't study that in the past two weeks. I'm sorry. So, verse 30 where he says, engaged in the same conflict. I feel like that's, it's so easy to just be like, oh, I mean, I pray and I'm involved in my church. Am I really engaging in the conflict? Am I, whether I'm battling it out on my knees or doing everything I can to witness to my neighbors, I feel like I'm really engaged. It talks about, you know, you're engaged in a conflict. Up in verse 28, it says we're supposed to be of one mind, striving side by side. That word striving is as if in a battle. So you're of one mind, fighting side by side. So if you and I are engaged in a battle, I'm supposed to lean on you and you're supposed to be able to lean on me. I mean, we go, well, that's just a game. Well, OK, but still, if you're as competitive as I am, you don't have any intention of losing tug-of-war, right? And so, but you're not going to do well in tug-of-war if you're the only one pulling, right? Or if you're just letting everybody else pull, you're not pulling your own way. And so, you know, and there you are. analogies that you could come up with to kind of picture in your mind how important it is. And we're going to get into this in a little bit when we get into chapter two as well, those verses. But the thing that challenged me, knowing myself, and I'm sure I'm the only one in here, but I'm self-centered, right? I mean, I can say, well, I love others or this and that, but I'd rather, Some are more loving than others, but I'm pretty sure almost all of us still have a lot of room to grow there. And that's where we talked about in that first set of verses where he said for them to grow more and more or abound more and more in love. It wasn't by mistake that he picked love first. He could have picked a lot of other things, abound in your joy. Well, we like to be joyful, but when it comes to loving, That means I have to give of myself or give of my time or give of my talents. It costs me something, right? And so I need to fight that self-centeredness and focus on sharing the gospel regardless of how the person or persons receive it. That was my takeaway. just so I make sure I don't leave something unturned. I really wanted to try to bring to you all's attention some things that we can really work on and that we can really grow from. And so now let's get into our application, or excuse me, our meaning here. So Jason brought out the manner of life there in verse 27. So, In case anybody doesn't know, let's ask the question, what does he mean by manner of life? I think it said lecture conversation, right? That word conversation, if we looked it up in the Greek, it might make more sense to us, but just on face value in the English language. I'm not quite sure conversation does it justice, right? I'm just being honest with you. What you got? I have the CSV, right? Okay. It says, live your life worthy. Live your life worthy. I did look that up. I used the blue letter Bible and did the translation comparison thing. Okay, so live your life worthy. So you remember there's one word that I've been trying to kind of inject in different areas throughout the study so far. R starts with a T. Right? I talked about the testimony of Christ and the disciples. Our testimony. So our testimony isn't just what we think other people think of us. As a matter of fact, that's not our testimony at all. Our testimony as believers is how do other people see us? Okay? So how do other people But what does that mean? What are some ways in which our life would demonstrate to others that we're living a life worthy? Love for one another. Love for one another. OK. Love God with all your heart and soul. if you show up for church once a year. They are, but there's more. OK, there's more. I think it shows up more with people who do us wrong, like how we treat them when someone's slighted us, whether it's a terrible driver. Yeah, that's what I was starting to say, especially that guy that cuts you off in traffic. For no reason. I think we bring it home a little bit, because really, honestly, I think a lot of times we don't do a good job of loving each other. Jennifer too, good. And so our life, and it's in all aspects, so it's easy to talk about when we're driving, but how do you treat your coworkers? We had an event happen at our work today, and a lot of us aren't happy about what transpired. So we can either have a really lousy attitude, and if I have a lousy attitude, just like everybody else in the building, How am I any different? But if I say, hey, look, guys, this is gonna work out all right. Let's stay positive. This didn't happen by accident. Let me tell you, Christ, God knows that this was gonna happen. They'll probably look at me like I'm crazy, but it's an opportunity. It's an opportunity to show them that you're different. Okay, so he goes on to, let me ask this, is this exhortation to live a life manner, in a manner that's worthy of the gospel? By the way, that word worthy, I was like, how do you know it's, what do you mean worthy of the gospel? That word is also used in Ephesians four, chapter one, chapter four, verse one, it says, I therefore a prisoner of the Lord urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called. Now, when I looked it up in the Greek, it's axios, I think is what it was. And it was super not helpful. It means suitable. which I think is a little weak, okay? But I think there's much more behind it than that. I mean, when you say living a life worthy of the gospel, I think the gospel is the center focus. In other words, people should see the way you live and you are a walking testimony for the gospel. I have a footnote in mind that says, only behave as citizens worthy. That's awesome. I don't know who taught this section before, but that I, and only let your manner of life, like your citizenship, so thank you. It was probably Pastor Sean. It was probably. So if you're a citizen, you should all be saying all the same. Like, if you're a citizen of Korea, this is the way they act. Or if you're a citizen of different areas, This is how you behave, and these are your tendencies and things. It should be Christ-like. Korea has some customs, don't they? You have some traditions, some customs, very polite. We learned this when we hosted some of our, I gotta watch my time, by the way, some of our Korean students is, you can say annyeonghaseyo, and that's hello, but that's not appropriate depending on who you're talking to. So kids talking to an older Korean, no, that's not the right greeting. So, you know, if you just went around greeting everybody with annyeonghaseyo, and they're like, you don't talk to me like that. Right? That would be a manner not worthy of your citizenship of Korea. That's a great way to put it, Sarah. I'm sorry. A great way to put it there is what I meant to say. Is this exhortation personal or corporate? Yes. That's correct. It is. The church should be known, but also that can't happen if the people aren't known for their citizenship. Absolutely. All right. You guys are doing very well this evening. What does Paul list as expectations of a manner of life worthy of the gospel? So we see there he says to do that. He says standing firm in one spirit of being one accord. Okay, now notice spirit there is lowercase and that's correct. It's not talking about standing firm in the Holy Spirit, it's standing, in other words, No, it's just that spirit. It's a spirit? Okay. K-J-B-N-E-S-V. Okay. Well, we know what spirit is. So, you know, in working together, same goal, one spirit, okay? We don't have strife. We're not fighting against one another. And then he also says, you know, the striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, which once again, I mean, I love reading Paul's writing. I know he wrote it in Greek, but still, the translation into the English language here, it says that, not frightened in anything by your opponents, or you said adversaries in the King James there, okay? you know, kill your dog, all that stuff. Don't worry about any of that. Because if you show fear, then they're not gonna be amazed. But if they do all that to you and you don't show any fear, that's a clear sign to them, the adversaries, the opponents to the gospel, clear sign to them of their destruction, but of your salvation. and that from God. I'm sure you've probably heard stories of missionaries in Africa, way back in the bush somewhere, and people are coming to kill them. And then all of a sudden, they just go away. And nothing happened. And then later on, when they're asked, they said, well, we saw white people in white apparel or whatever. A good, you know, we're not leaving, we're here, we're gonna share the gospel. If we die, we die. A lot like Jim Elliot, right? And the group that went down to South America. They knew the type of people they were trying to reach. And they died for that. But because of them not being fearful, what resulted? Salvation. Salvation to many, right? I mean, changed the way that those people lived. Just amazing. So, it's true what Paul's writing here. It's hard for us to execute. Okay? What's neat about this, Paul is writing to these Christians about standing firm in persecution, not being fearful. This is a sign of your persecutor's destruction, but of your salvation. When Paul himself was the one doing this not too long ago, he was the one that was persecuting these people. fearless behavior, that's a speculation on my part. Did he ever witness this? Yeah. No, that's a great point. And then not only that, but now he's talking about, hey, I'm in that conflict, and you're in it with me, whether you want to be or not, right? It doesn't matter. If you're a believer, that's what you've been called to. You've been given it, as a matter of fact. You've been granted We would love to be granted all kinds of things that are really nice, but suffering is probably not on that list, right? And so, yeah, so in verse 28, I was just like, not showing fear of their persecutors is a clear sign of your salvation. I was like, that's probably easy to write, but very difficult to live out. And Paul had lived it out quite a few times, right? He'd been beaten, a whole bunch of other things, stone, left for dead, all that. And then when we get to that verse 29, the whole fact that we're granted suffering. But once again, it's point us to one thing. So the real question is, how serious are we about Christ in the gospel? That's really what it boils down to. Right? You will go through anything. Persecution. It's like the martyrs that are killed in the arena, or those that are burned at the stake, and people cannot understand how they just stood there. Yeah. It's beyond their power. It's beyond their power of understanding how a person could do that for their faith. It just blows unbelievers away. And that's what he's saying here. He wants us to stand firm. If you haven't ever read it, and there's not a lot of books that I've read, my wife will tell you, but Fox's Book of Martyrs is heartbreaking, encouraging, unbelievable. It is story after story after story of believers who have given their life to stand strong in their profession of their faith. What encouragement or consolation do we have in Christ? Look there in verse one. Okay. And we can do all things through him who strengthens us. Okay. He will never leave us or forsake us. Never leave us or forsake us. Well, there's one other thing that. He's overcome the world. Okay. He's overcome the world. Good, Jason. That word consolation. the same word. And that word is paraplesis. Paraplesis. Does that word sound similar to something else that you're aware John 14, 16, John 14, 26, John 15, 26, John 16, 7, he talks about another comforter. He was sending the comforter. Well, so that also is one of the encouragements or consolations that we have in Christ. He's bringing to their attention, not is there, like as in a question, but there is. There is encouragement in Christ. There is comfort from love. And notice he says, what did it have in the kingdom for the spirit? It says in the ESV, any participation. They're in verse one, yes ma'am. In fellowship with the spirit. Fellowship with the spirit or in the spirit, okay. So I thought that word participation was an interesting word to use there. But it's the same thing. So we have to really get in our minds. So we put our faith in Christ. The moment that happens, the Holy Spirit indwells us, okay. And then we are, Comforted, we are given understanding as we read the word of God. We are guided in our actions. You know, when we do something and we know it's wrong and it's eating away at you, like, I really shouldn't have done that. I shouldn't have said that to that person. I shouldn't have cut them off in traffic. Whatever it is, we, that's the Holy Spirit. that is the Holy Spirit convicting us of not living a life worthy of the gospel. Okay. And so we have that encouragement. We have comfort from love and we have the participation or the fellowship in the spirit. And then he says any affection and sympathy. So those are the But so, but one thing I want to point out, and I've got it on your note sheet, so I know you're kind of reading ahead probably, but in verse one, two of the three persons of the Trinity are listed there. Now, there are not a lot of books in the Bible that talk, that come right out and talk about the Trinity. Okay, now that doesn't use the word Trinity there, so don't look for the word Trinity, okay? Christ here listed in verse one, we have the Spirit, notice it's an uppercase S, so we know it's the Holy Spirit. Okay, so those two, and then God the Father is spoken of throughout the book as well. So if you ever have someone say, well, I don't know about this Trinity, what do you mean about this Trinity? That's speaking of God the Father. And then in some of the verses next week that you'll get into with Mike, it also talks about the form of God, equality with God. So obviously God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are all spoken of here, which, like I said, that's not necessarily a common occurrence in a lot of these books. So, also, this list, notice he says to implore, he implores his recipients to complete Paul's joy. I thought we were to do it for, I thought we were to do it for Christ. Why does he say complete my joy? Christ's joy ought to be our joy. I think they're, in my opinion, and when I was reading it, to me, he is just letting them know that, you know, I wanna come back to you, and they have a very close bond, I think we can see as we read through the book. And he's already pointing them to Christ. But he wants them to know that what the things that I've taught you when I was there, these are the things that you need to keep doing. I'm sure he had already told them before, but now he's written them down. Here's what you need to be doing. And if you're doing these things, if you keep all these things in mind, you keep the encouragement of Christ. and you live a life worthy, you are going to complete my joy. We see that in our own children. When they grow up and live the Christian life, it makes us so happy. Yes. And that's what Paul is saying here. When I see you doing these things, it makes me so happy. in his spiritual offspring, right? And so then we come to six things, and you've got some blanks, I haven't forgotten, in verses two through four. Does anybody have questions so far? Let me see, I'm doing it on time. Oh yeah, we're good, all right. Does anybody have any questions about any of this stuff, or a comment, maybe? No? All right, so let's look at these six things in verses two through four. So he says, complete my joy by being of the same mind. So being is that first blank, being of the same mind. By the way, these are really easy things to do. So as we read them, you'll be like, oh, I'm there. I already told you my struggle, and I'll be transparent. Okay, so being of the same mind, having the same love, so that's your next blank. Having the same love. And then the next one's super simple. Being in full accord and of one mind. So we understand what that is, right? So, Laura and I, same mind, no difference. Me and Lou, same mind, no difference. Me, Laura, and Lou, all of them, same mind, no difference, right? We're resolved that there's one God and that that invisible God sent the visible God and he died on the cross for our sins, was buried, rose again the third day, and now he sent a form of the invisible God to dwell within us, to tabernacle, right, within us. We're resolved in that. That is the gospel. That is what we believe, right? And so when Daniel says this is what we believe, Okay, so it's very important, because if we can't agree in the church, what does that look like when we go outside? Right? If you get one answer from one person of Berean, and then you meet a different person, I mean, Clyde on the street, and say, hey, where do you go to church? Oh, I go to Berean. Well, what do you think about this? And I get a totally different answer. That's not a one-line, right? Well, that's basically what he said. So that's really funny. So then the next one is do nothing of selfish ambition. Nothing is your word for that blanket. Do nothing of selfish ambition or conceit. Now, maybe you're just that naturally loving, totally generous, don't care what you ask, you come over to my house and see the nicest thing that I own, and you want it, and I just say, here you go, it's yours. I don't know what that's like, okay? I'm just gonna tell you right now. I don't know what that's like. You know, if you call and say, hey, I need you to, I really need some help, could you come over right now? I might, and I might not, right? I mean, I'm gonna balance that off of, well, what are other things important to me right now? Okay, but I think all of us can kind of see where we might all be a little bit like that, right? So it's not something that comes natural to us. And then we continue there, in humility, what's he say? Count. Count others more significant than yourselves. We could spend the rest of our lives working on that. And we probably still won't get there. But we have the goal, right? We know what the goal is. We know what the expectation is if we are going to exhibit a life worthy of the gospel. And then besides looking to your own interest, also look to the interest of others, okay? So it's not saying you shouldn't have any interest. It's not what Paul's saying at all. and he lives right across the street from me. And I'm owed HR every other day. We want to know he's not going to leave his house to go far to help you. So I'm saying you need to move across the street from me if you want this to happen. But let's say every week I'm owed HR. that makes sense is for me to look at my yard and go, my yard needs mowed. Hey, honey, would you go get the mower and mower? No, the yard. I'm going to go mow Nate's yard. That wouldn't be good either, OK? Because now my own interests are going to be jeopardized. But no, he's just saying don't get to looking at yourself so much that you forget. Because like we said earlier, we're to love others. And sometimes others aren't so lovable. Is that the criteria? Love them when they're lovable? No, it's not. And that's what makes us different. But if we get our focus off of Christ, and we stop listening to the Holy Spirit, we won't look any different than the rest of the world. So let's talk about So our testimony, our manner of life, our conversation, our, what was the other one? Conduct. Our conduct needs to be worthy of the gospel of Christ. Must be, right? Not needs to be. A needs to be is good. Shouldn't say should be. Should be leaves an option. It must be worthy of the gospel of Christ. We are to be ambassadors of Christ. And we can't be an ambassador if we're not willing to show that we're a citizen. The citizens of heaven look a certain way. They act a certain way. They talk a certain way. I'm the first one to tell you, I'm terrible at this, and I need to get so much better at it. Because I do weather for a living, right? I'll talk the weather to you all day long. And if it's football season, I will talk to you about the best NFL team in the NFL that can't see Chiefs all day long, right, Nate? Okay. But, you know, how often do I mention Christ? How often do I do something that really just, I'll tell you one thing that I make sure people know of and everybody in my office knows it. We will go to functions and they all drink alcohol and I never touch it. very good. And to this day, whenever we have a function, they're like, hey Darren, are you going to come out and have a root beer? And then they all laugh. It's not really persecution, but it's a form of heckling, right? And I could get all bent out of shape about it, but I'm like, oh yeah, sure. I'll come have a root beer. Because they all know that I've made the choice that I'm not going to do it. And they know that for me, crazy and do something that is not going to look like the manner worthy of the gospel. And that's not a plug to say you shouldn't ring up. That is between you and the Holy Spirit. I'm just saying that is one way in which I am able to have testimony to the people I work with, to them that so I used to pimp for business, and lots of dinners, and I actually had some guy say, why don't you drink? And it gave me a wonderful opportunity to witness. Yes, it is definitely a door opener for sure. Number two, we the believers in Christ, the body of Christ, the bride of Christ, need to be standing firm in one, that's be one, not on, one spirit, So first of all, it's get in your mind, I'm a believer in Christ. I am a believer in Christ. If you are, if you're not, become one, okay? Two, we're given so many great examples in the word of God. Whether we're a bride of Christ, right? Or whether we're the body of Christ. So I was thinking about this as we were driving in. How does the body function, right? Like, I enjoy running. probably because I would be falling down. All the parts of the body, they're all connected and they need to work together in a certain fashion. If I want to pick up my phone in unity, they have to work in unison to do a particular function, okay? And so that is what Paul is telling us, we need to be striving side by side for the gospel. And then the last one is, because we have been given blessings beyond our comprehension, verse one, chapter two, encouragement in Christ, comfort in love, all of those things, We should always be unified in mind. So you said to have that same mind, right? Love would be loving and humility. Super simple, right? Nate's got it. So see him after class if you really want to know how it's done. Do not come see me. Hopefully that is, it has really been just, eating away at being, I mean, just just speaking to my heart the last three weeks. Yes, sir. In the chapter one, he tells you what you're supposed to do. But then in the start of chapter two, he says, oh, and by the way, if you don't do this, you're not going to when he talked about at the end of chapter one. So he put what you're supposed to do, and everybody's sitting there, oh yeah, I can do that, and all of a sudden, but you're not gonna be able to do it if you don't do this. And that's where we all get nailed all the time, especially in the church, is unity, love, steadfastness, discernment, putting up with each other, and loving, I'm just saying, that's where the road comes How many people he talked to about, and could they look at him and say, how can you really talk to us about that, from where you come from? I mean, these people were being attacked by him. And now you're telling me I'm supposed to love, instead of that. week, how often do we let something from our past hold us back from sharing the gospel? Oh, I can't do that. I was a bad person when I did this or that or the other. Or, oh, I still have a problem and I need to work that out. No, no, no, no, no. You're sharing the gospel. And Paul didn't let it take action. So, yeah. So, anyway, with that, we'll close. I appreciate everyone being here this week, and if you have more thoughts or whatever, bring them next week and share them with Mike, and he can, but, and then I'll be back in two weeks. So, anyway, have a good evening. Kids, you did a great job. Way to be.