Today's reading is just one verse, one single verse we're going to be looking at. 1 Peter 4, verse 1. But what an amazing verse this is. See, this verse answers the question, how do we conquer sin? How do we put sin to death? How do we get off this endless cycle that we read about in the book of Judges of rebellion and sin? And remember the context of where we are here in 1 Peter. In this section, Peter's addressing the Christian who is facing unjust suffering, suffering not because they did something wrong, not because they were rebellious, but rather suffering because of righteousness sake, suffering for the gospel. And some of the suffering was due to persecution, persecution that could have been relieved if they would just compromise their faith. but some of us was just due to the effects living in the fallen world, effects that all of us face, again, living in the fallen world. But the important thing to note that in either case, either case, the persecution or just the effects of the fallen world, these were, they were enduring the consequences of a choice, a choice to remain faithful, a choice to remain faithful to Christ, to remain faithful to the gospel. And as we've been seeing, these are words meant to encourage the original audience, and these words encourage us as well as we read them, especially as we go through our battle with sin. And this message is for each one of us, each one of us here, no matter what we have going on in this life is a battle, and we're not yet in the promised land. So each of us need this encouragement. So brothers and sisters, hear now the word of the Lord. 1 Peter 4, verse one. Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin. Please pray with me. Lord God, we know that we need your spirit. Lord, your word is truth, but we are dull, we are, We are distracted by our many cares of this world. So Father, for this time that we are now looking at your word, I pray for your spirit to be with us, that you will clear our minds from all the distractions and have us focus on you and that you will speak to us. Lord, I pray your Holy Spirit will use me and speak through me that these will be your words and be your truth. And Lord, we pray that we will be changed. Lord, as we hear and we have an encounter with the living word of the living God, we cannot remain the same. And Lord, I pray that you will use this word to conform each and every one of us more into the image of your son, more into his image and for his glory. And we pray in his name. Amen. One of the most impactful events that I had in my professional career as a young engineer, I remember when I first graduated from college and I'm looking at how I can have an impact, how I can distinguish myself from all the other engineers and I was working in a corporate environment. And I got a set of tapes, tapes from Stephen Covey, and it was on Stephen Covey's seven habits of highly effective people. And these tapes had a profound impact on both my career as well as my life. And I remember one specific lesson, one of these lessons, Covey was telling the story of Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl. And Frenkel in his book, Man's Search for Meaning, he recounts a discovery that he made during these grueling and humane conditions in the Nazi death camps. And listen to what Frenkel says. He said, everything can be taken from a man but one thing, the last of human freedoms, the ability to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way. See, Frankl realized that even though all his physical liberty had been removed, any comfort that he had was gone, as he is in this concentration camp and in these just horrendous conditions. Even though he was worked to the physical limits of his human endurance, what he realized is he still had freedom. He had the freedom over his own attitude. He had the freedom to choose his own response to the situation that he was in. In a sense, Frankl actually had more liberty than his Nazi captives had at the time. And this discovery by Frankel, this became the founding principle, really, of all of Stephen Covey's work. It became the basis of his Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. And the way Covey articulated it, he said, between stimulus and response, there's a space. And in this space is our power, our power of response. And in our response lies our growth and our freedom. See, this realization changed both Frankl and Covey's lives. And it was really that became the basis of each man's life work that he had. So the idea is that we are not determined by our circumstances. We're not victims of our circumstances. But rather in every single situation that we're in, we have power. Power as a human being to choose based on our values. in response to our circumstances. And this idea is really huge, if you think about it. It had a tremendous impact on my own effectiveness, as well as millions of others who have internalized this principle. That again, you're not a victim of your circumstances, you have the ability to choose your response. Now to my knowledge, neither Covey nor Frankel were born again believers when they left this world. And as powerful as this discovery of theirs is for this life, really apart from an ultimate grounding in the work, in person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, sadly it's really of no eternal value. But this verse that we're looking at today, this first 1 Peter 4.1, for the Christian, this is every bit as life-changing as Frankl's discovery in the concentration camp. But even beyond that, for the Christian, it is eternally changing. It will go beyond our life here. It will affect us for all eternity. So this verse, this verse is crucial really for all of us in our battle against sin. It's crucial in our sanctification process. And this is a battle from which no Christian is exempt. Each and every one of us, every single one of us is in this lifelong battle, this lifelong conquest with our sin. And the question is, how do we have mastery over our sin? How do we keep from being like we read about in the book of Judges? Continuing cycle. God save us, we see God work in an amazing way, and then we forget about Him. And then we fall right back into our sin. Now, of course, none of us, none of us in this life will ever be sinless. but certainly we should strive to, and to some extent, we should sin less. We should sin less often, less seriously the sins that we are battling. We should see some improvement over time. And if we could just internalize the idea of this verse, it could have an amazing, amazing impact on our holiness, on our joy in the Lord, on our effectiveness. Not only our effectiveness for our worldly endeavors, like Stephen Covey is teaching, but it can have effectiveness in our service for Christ and bringing the gospel to people and being a blessing and bringing eternal life, the message of eternal life to our neighbors. Do we want to be like Lot? Think about Lot. He spent all this time living in Sodom and he couldn't even convert his own family. He was so ineffective. Do we want to be like that? Or do we want to be such salt and light that everyone who knows us sees the Holy Spirit oozing out of us and comes to know Christ? That is the biggest blessing that we can be. So just as Viktor Frankl discovered that as human beings, each of us has this freedom of choice, freedom of our own attitude, freedom for our own way, for Christians, for us, for born again believers, we have a freedom to choose obedience to Christ over slavery to sin. In short, as Christians, we have freedom not to sin. Isn't that an amazing thing? We have the freedom as Christians. We have been free from the slavery, this bondage to sin. So as we look at this verse today, we're going to look at two aspects of this. The first thing we're going to look at is the source of this freedom. We're going to look at the external reality. It's external to ourselves, which this freedom is based. That's the first thing we're going to look at. And second, we're going to look at how is it done? How do we look to responses? What is our responsibility? How do we actually just put this in practice? How does it go from being theory to being real? How do we actually sin less? How do we grow in our sanctification? So let's jump right in here. First, the source of this freedom. The source of this freedom is based solely on the person and work of Jesus Christ. Look at the first half of verse 1. It says, This is talking about Christ's suffering for us. He's suffering for our sin. See, God Himself, I'm just trying to comprehend what this is. I know we all have heard this many times, but just try to look at it with fresh eyes and look at the perspective of what this verse is saying. God Himself, in the person of Jesus Christ, He humbled Himself. He took on our human nature. He took on a physical body. He was subjected to all its limitations and its frailties. Again, this is the infinite God who created the universe. He is now subjected to the limitations and frailties of a human body. He lived in a fallen world. He lived among fallen people. And all this for the infinite God was suffering. But most of all, most of all, what this is talking about is He took our place. He suffered the punishment that we deserved, that God required of us. He suffered on the cross as our substitute. And in doing so, in doing that, he made an atonement for our sins, for our offenses that were against God. Christ, through his suffering, satisfied God's judgment. Look back a little bit at verse 318 that we looked at for the last two weeks. It makes it clear. It says, For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God. See, Christ, he is the righteous one I was talking about. He is the only righteous one. And he suffered in order to pay the penalty for our sins. And this was a debt owed to God. And it was a debt owed due to our rebellion, due to our constant sinning against him. And this is a debt that we could no way pay. Jesus gives a little hint of this when he gives the parable of the unmerciful servant. And you know the story. It's the servants who owed an unimaginable amount to the king. And he says, I'll try. You give me a little bit more time. And there was no way he could have paid it. And the king forgives in entirety. And then this servant goes out and sees another servant who owes him just a few months wages. And he has no mercy on him. He throws him in prison until he pays every last bit. And this is to show us. So in that, I remember looking through that parable, the difference between what the servant owed the king and what the other servant owed to the first servant was 600,000 times as much. So think about in today's dollars, the one servant owed $1,000 to the servant, but the one servant owed $600 million to the king. And even that is pale in comparison because we owe an infinite amount and we could not pay. God took the initiative. That's the good news. God solved the problem. See, in the great schema thing, God solved our only problem. Again, think of any problem that's on your mind. The only problem you really have as people, as human beings, the only problem we have is that we're on the wrong side of God. We are against God. We are his enemy. And moreover, there was nothing, nothing that we could do on our own to solve this problem. Only God could solve this problem. See, unless we understand this, unless this is, the reason why I'm going through this, again, I know all of you know this, but unless we truly understand this, the gospel will bore us. The gospel will really not be amazing. It will mean nothing to us. We will not be amazed by the grace. We can sing amazing grace, but we really won't be amazed. So we really need to see the situation that each and every single one of us, if we're not in Christ, is in. And on the cross, the sinless second person of the Trinity, God the Son, he suffered the wrath of God. The wrath of God's holy justice required that we deserved, that was deserved by us, by our rebellion. And he suffered, basically he suffered the equivalent of an eternity in hell, in the torments of hell. I mean, just again, try to get your minds on this. Of every single person who would come to believe in him, who would be a Christian, if you took an eternity's worth of suffering, and you could somehow quantify that, and then you took it all and you summed it up, and then you squished it all together, and you implied that whole thing for about three hours when Jesus was on the cross, that is what he suffered. I mean, our minds, our finite minds can't even get around that. But that is what we're talking about. That is what the gospel is. And not only did Christ suffer what we deserve to pay this debt to God, Christ also achieved what we could not achieve. That is, we could not achieve God's perfect standard. Christ did that. Christ reached God's perfect standard, and He gives this to us. See, just paying our debt would get us back to ground zero. We would be back like Adam started. And as soon as we sinned, we're back in trouble again. So that would last us, what, maybe 10 seconds or so? We would last. But what Christ actually did is He gave the perfect righteousness. So when God looks at us, He sees the righteousness of His Son. I mean, this is amazing. He sees the perfection. We are perfect in God's sight. And this, my friends, is the good news of a gospel. And I tell you, I never get tired of this. And you may say, man, John, you preach the same thing every week. Yes, I do. And I will continue until I die, preach the same thing. Because there is nothing more amazing than that. We once were lost, we are now found. That is the gospel, that is the amazing news, the amazing grace that we sing about. But the good news becomes ours. Only one way. It has to be perfectly, personally applied to us. Again, only one way. And that is by faith. Faith alone is how it becomes ours. It's generally, you can't say it's out there, but until we take it and make it our own, it does us no good whatsoever. And that's why there's a whole world out there that we have to give this message to. Because until they make it their own, they are heading to eternity away from God. Ephesians 2, 8 and 9 says, For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing. It is a gift of God, not the results of works, so that no one may boast. See, this transaction, this gospel becomes ours through faith. And we receive this gift simply, simply by trusting God, simply by taking God's word at it. That's really all it is. We're saying, God, I believe what you said. Here's a silly analogy. Say someone gave you a check, a check for a million dollars, and you said, oh, that guy doesn't have a million dollars, and you rip it up. You don't get it. But what if he really is a millionaire? What if you trust this man? And he says, yes, he is a millionaire, and he's going to give that to you. You take that check, you sign the back of it, and you're a millionaire. You have to believe it. And that's the same thing. God is offering us eternal life. Or you can say, I don't need it. Oh, thanks. Yeah, but I'm okay. I don't need your million dollars to keep it. We think we're okay. As we said, we have a debt we cannot pay, so we're not okay. And we have to trust that God actually can do what he says, that God will do what he says. That's all faith is. That's all this is. We come to the Bible, when this happens, when we take God and his word, what happens? What the scripture says, we become a new creation. We are set, we are different. We're eternally different than what we were. 2 Corinthians 5, 17 and 18 says, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come. And all this from God, who through Christ Jesus reconciled us to himself. and has new creations in Christ, we now, not before, but now, we actually have the power to be free from sin. We're actually free from sin's bondage. And that means as a new creation, we have the ability, the ability to choose God over sin. We didn't have this before. The average person who does not know Christ, he can only sin. That is all he can do. But as a believer, we have a choice. Now, sadly, as believers, we often sin just as much as we did beforehand, but we have the power, we have the freedom from sin. We have the freedom, we have been set free from the bondage of sin. Romans 6, 6 tells us, we know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. See, the non-believer can only choose sin. He cannot please God. He really wants nothing of God. That is the non-believer. But when you're born again, when we are born again, when we are a new creation, then, and only then, we desire to obey God. We desire to please God. Then, and only then, we actually have true freedom. The work of Christ is the source. This is the only source of our freedom from sin, our freedom to choose God. And the problem with any secular philosophy, even those based on biblical principles such as the work of Stephen Covey or Viktor Frankl, is that the source of the power ultimately resides in us. It is limited to us. It rests on us. It rests on what we can do. And it's completely ineffective to solve our real problem. And that real problem is that we are rebels against God. God is our enemy. And as I said before, as we've seen before, it is completely ineffective for that problem. And what's even more is these secular philosophies do not even recognize that this is a problem. See, they're completely oblivious of this perilous state that we are in with respect to God. And all the while, what they're doing is they're focusing on this relatively inconsequential aspects when compared to the horrors of facing the wrath of the living God. See, it really doesn't matter if you are effective in your career, if you're successful in your career. It really doesn't matter if you have a good marriage, if you raise healthy children, if you're a relatively decent person. That does not matter. None of this matters if you do not know Christ. None of this matters if when we close our eyes in this life, we open them in the torments of hell. Hell, which is eternal. Last week we had a visitor coming here to church from the Anchorage who Nathan had picked up. And he sat right there in the back. And I remember Nathan had mentioned afterwards, he said that when he picked him up at the Anchorage, this man had gone to a church service at another church in town here. And he was disgusted with it. He said at that church that the pastor was preaching that hell is not eternal. He would say it's not eternal. And when he was asking what Scripture was his basis for this, the man responded, well, buy my book, you'll find out. He was so frustrated with that. And he said he felt like it was just a promotion. It was all marketing just to get him to buy this book. Well, let me tell you, you don't have to buy any book. You don't have to buy any book. Hell is eternal, because it's in God's book. Revelation 20.15 says, and if anyone's name is not found written in the book of life, that means anyone's not a Christian, he will be thrown into the lake of fire. Now, just in case that doesn't say it enough, this lake of fire in Revelation 20.10 tells of those in the lake of fire, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever. That sounds like it's eternal to me. Day and night, ever and ever. And it also seems like a place I don't want to go, or anyone that I know, I don't want them to go. Again, that is why we are proclaiming this message. Because we don't want anyone going there. So none of this, none of these things, having a good marriage, having a successful career, none of these really matter if it does not address our primary problem. That is our problem with God. That is our sin problem. It's like the famous illustration of straightening the deck chairs on the Titanic while it's sinking. That's what it looks like. Or a man coming into the emergency room with a gunshot wound to the head and a nurse checking his cholesterol and being concerned about his cholesterol levels. It makes no sense. Jesus himself said, what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul? We've heard the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. The rich man had every single thing you could think of. He had purple clothing and scrumptious meals and everyone thought well of him. And then there was Lazarus. No one even paid attention to him. He was lower than the dogs. But Lazarus was a believer and the rich man was not. And then eternity they were switched. Lazarus was in the comforts and the joy of heaven while the rich man was in the torments of hell. There are those who will tell you, preachers who say you can have your best life now. You know what's really sad about that? The sad thing about that, if you're not a Christian, that is the truth. This is your best life that you're gonna have. This is the best eternity you're gonna have, because if you don't know Christ, it's gonna be infinitely worse. And Stephen Covey, he himself had an analogy about the man who spent his entire life climbing the ladder of success, and when he finally got to the top, he realized he was leaning against the wrong wall. And the saddest thing, I think, about this is that this analogy may describe Covey himself. See, Stephen Covey was a huge success, a best-selling author, founder and runner of a profitable company. He was probably the biggest name in his field. He was, and this was not just financial. He had a large loving family. I think he had nine children, multiple grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Respected, he was a leader in his church, the Mormon church. Well thought of and liked by everyone who met him. I mean, this man literally had everything. But if he left this world without Christ, and only the Lord knows the state of his soul, but if he left this world without Christ, what is all of this ultimately worth? I read Viktor Frankl's book, Man's Search for Meaning, which I would recommend. It's a good book. It's not that thick. And it's inspiring, especially how he endured the time in the concentration camp. And there was one section in this book where Frankl is talking about being on this forced march early in the morning to a work site, and it's in the bitter cold. And many of the prisoners had no shoes, had no coats, no gloves, no hats, and they were They were desperately weak, they were malnourished, and they were constantly being beaten because they weren't walking fast enough. And heaven help the one who fall or stumbled, because they would be shot on the spot. And during this time, during this misery, Frankl retreated into his mind. He retreated into his imagination. So he imagined his wife. He imagined talking with her, walking with her, laughing together, going on walks, asking questions of each other. They would have this conversation. And this inner life gave a temporary break from this harsh reality that Franco was experiencing. It was retreating into his imagination. It enabled him really to endure the brutality of the concentration camp. And it was, he credits it, it was the reason why he survived. And he noticed, and he writes in the book, he noticed that this apparent contradiction, a paradox. He said that those prisoners who were less hardy, who seemed a little weaker, they seemed to survive better than the stronger ones, the more robust ones. And what he found out is that those prisoners with the ability to retreat into an inner life, kind of use a modern expression, to go to your happy place, they were able to go to their happy place. This was the deciding factor. This was more important to surviving the camps than physical strength. And while this strategy enabled Frankl to survive the camp, it was ultimately based on an illusion. See, Frankl's wife was not there with him. Actually, Frankl's wife didn't even survive the camps. They were separated and she was probably most likely already dead when he was doing this. This technique was a mirage. Yes, it was useful. Yes, it was comforting. It allowed him to endure and to survive, but it was a mirage still the same. It was all pretend, all in his imagination. It was not founded on objective reality. And this stands in stark contrast to the source of the Christian's freedom. The source of the Christian's freedom is not based on an illusion, but it is based on Christ. It is based on Christ's atonement on the cross. It is founded upon an historical event, an historical event that happened in space and time, an event that really has more historical evidence in support of it than any other event that happened in the ancient world. 1 Corinthians 15 tells us that the resurrected Christ appeared to more than 500 people at one time. And many of them were still alive at the time that this letter was written, meaning that they could check with him to find out if this was true. And what's more important than that is many of these 500 suffered a martyr's death for what they had testified to. My friends, many people may die for a mistake that they believe, but no one is gonna die for a lie if they specifically know It is a lie. So our Christian faith is based not on imagination. It's not based on wishful thinking. It is based on historic, objective reality of a historic event in time and space. This is fact. This is reality. And in this reality, we have true freedom. So for the Christians, for the believer, the reality of the atonement in Jesus Christ, this is the source of our freedom. This is the source of our hope. This is the source of our power. So how do we apply it? What is our part in this? That's the second thing we want to look at. So we looked at the source, which is all of God, but there's also a command here. This is our part. See, we have a responsibility in this verse, and this is how we obtain this freedom, how we apply this sin for the Christian. Again, it's all of grace, but this freedom from sin that was purchased by Christ, how do we put it into practice? Well, again, let's look at the verse 4.1 again. Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking. For whoever suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin." So the command for us here is arm yourself with the same way of thinking. OK, what's that mean? It's a strange concept. Arm yourself with the same way of thinking. So to figure out what this means, let's take a step back here. To understand this, we need to look at the first part of this verse again. It says, since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh. What we need to understand is what this means, suffered in the flesh. And this can be confusing, especially if you're familiar with the teachings of Paul. Because what Peter means here, he's using this differently than the way Paul uses suffering in flesh. See, when Paul talks about the flesh, He's talking about our sinful nature as contrasted with our spiritual nature. So for example, in Romans 7.25, Paul says, Or Romans 8.4, he says, Or Galatians 5.17, And the desires of the spirit are against the flesh, for they are opposed to each other. So obviously Peter does not mean that. And why is that? Because he's applying it to Christ. How could, if it means the sinful nature, how could this apply to Christ, who had no sinful nature? Christ was perfect, he was sinless. But from the context of this passage, what we see is Peter means by suffering the flesh, he means suffering in this life. Suffering in his physical human body. So Christ suffered in the flesh in his earthly life. And why? Why did Christ suffer in the flesh? Why did Christ suffer in his earthly life? What motivated him to endure this horrendous suffering? Well, the answer is given to us in Hebrews 12, 2. It says, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross. The joy that was set before him. So what was this joy that was set before him? Was it saving us? Was it reconciling us to God? Saving us from the wrath of God? Well, certainly without Christ's suffering, we would be lost. But I think it's even more than that. It's not grounded in us. See, an even greater joy was set before Christ, and that joy was doing the Father's will. See, Christ's joy was showing obedience to his Heavenly Father. Jesus said in John 4.34, He said to them, So for us, when we are called to arm ourselves with the same way of thinking, what is this way of thinking? Well, this way of thinking is to make a top priority for our life, the will of God. Our food must be doing the will of God. That must be the most important thing for us above all else. Our number one motivation is to be obedient to God as revealed through his word. And here's the key point here, the key point of this one verse. this same way of thinking. See, the same way of thinking is making the will of God, doing the will of God such a priority in life that we will do it even if it means suffering, suffering in this life. And in this way, when we do that, when we put the will of God, it becomes so important that we will do it even if it means suffering in this life, we make Christ our example. Christ becomes our example. Now, some of you, when you hear me say Christ, making Christ our example, you may get a little nervous at that, and rightfully so, because we see liberal churches have often talked about Christ being a good example, an example for us to follow, that we should be following Him, and that's the purpose of the Christian life. But what they mean there is that Christ is only an example, and nothing more. What they mean is that He's not God in the flesh, that He's not a Savior who died as a substitution for our sins. Not that we are sinners, that we even need a substitute, but also he's just an example. He allows us to get a little better. And this understanding, with this understanding, we should rightfully reject. See, first and foremost, Christ is our savior. And then, then by faith, when we accept this as true, when we are born again, then and only then does he become our example. And what a glorious example he is. See, Christ is an example of faithfulness. He is an example of obedience. He is literally an example of obedience to death. So the command to arm ourselves with the same way of thinking, it's a command for us to commit ourselves to Christ's way of thinking. For Christ's top priority of obedience to God, even if it may require suffering in the flesh, suffering in the earthly life, that is what we are called to be. And notice also here, it says arm yourselves. Again, this may make you think of taking up a weapon for a battle, and that's exactly what it's talking about here. The same way of thinking is taking Christ as a weapon, and it's a crucial weapon, and it's an effective weapon in this battle with sin, a weapon that we cannot neglect. And look at this last part of today's verse in 4.1. I mean, this is a provocative statement, isn't it? And rightfully, it gets our attention. But what does it mean? I mean, does it mean that the person who suffers in the flesh will no longer sin? Has this person become sinless? Is this teaching the doctrine of perfectionism, for those of you who know what that doctrine is? No, this is not teaching perfectionism. It's not saying that the person who suffers will never, ever sin. Rather, what it's saying is that the person following Christ's example, who chooses obedience to God, even if it causes suffering in this life, what it's saying is this suffering demonstrates the break of sin's power over the believer. It demonstrates it. It demonstrates our freedom. to follow Christ. See, this willingness to suffer, to suffer for righteousness sake, to suffer unjustly for Christ, this demonstrates that we have been freed from the grasp of sin. What an amazing reality. What an amazing reality. What an amazing promise that we have. See, we know that this break will never be perfect. Not while we are still in this life, still in our flesh, still in this worldly, earthly body. But it's a start. See, this is the start down the path to a victory over sin. And here we have a choice. And here's the application. Here we have a choice. A real choice is set before us. See, every Christian, every single one of us who's a Christian at some time in our lives will be in this situation. It may be at work. It may be in a relationship. It may be with respect to money or some irresistible craving that we have. And in this situation, we will face a choice. Will we be faithful to Christ, or will we give in? Will we be obedient to his commands, or will we compromise? Will we disobey the clear teaching of scripture, or will we be faithful? And the problem comes, and the real problem is that the choice to remain faithful will always have a cost. It may cost us just our pride. We may be embarrassed and not willing to admit that, our honor. It may cost us money. It may cost us, if we're honest in our dealings, it may cost us money in a business transaction. It may cost us our job. We may be required to do something that is gonna be dishonoring Christ, and we cannot do it, and we may lose our job. It may even cost us our lives, as it has been the case with many of the martyrs who went before us. But will we remain faithful? That is a question. And I don't know the challenges that each of you face today. I know you face them. Each one of us faces trials and challenges, and you may feel that there is just no way out, no way out of the situation. It may be a challenge that involves years of deception. You may say the cost is just too high for me to get out of. The fear is just too great. But remember these words of Viktor Frankl. Remember this discovery that he made 75 years ago in this Nazi death camp. He said, everything can be taken from a man but one thing, the last of human freedoms, to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way. And Frankl's insight, this is true for every single human being. But for the Christian, for the Christian it is even more glorious. See, not only for the Christian, not only do we have freedom to choose our attitude in any set of circumstances, not only can we choose our own way, but for the Christian, we have the supernatural freedom in any set of circumstances to have God's attitude and to choose God's way. And here, my friends, here lies the difference. Here lies the freedom that we have. Here lies the victory over our battle with sin. And I pray that each one of us, each one of us will take this verse to heart and apply it when we are in the situations. And when we have that stimulus and response, we have that space, We will choose to respond based on the gospel, based on the truth of who Jesus is, based on faithfulness to Him. That is the way we conquer sin. That is the way we overcome sin. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we repent of our sins. We repent that so often we are not faithful. So often we compromise. So often we are fearful. The cost is just too high. It's not that we don't know what to do. We just are unwilling to do it. Father, I pray for your grace. I pray for your grace on my brothers and sisters here. I pray for your grace on me to free us from that bondage and give us the courage, the boldness to trust your word, knowing that we can't outgive you. Whatever we give, whatever we lose for you will be given back to us a thousandfold. And there will be many people, that testimony will go out. And there will be many, many people who come to know you through what we suffer for righteousness sake. Father, give each of us a vision. Give each of us a commitment to be, that's the way we wanna live, to bring you glory. And we pray this all in Jesus' name, amen.