Welcome to the Susquehanna Valley Baptist Pulpit, preaching a life worth living, abundant life in Christ. And now the message. This theme for this year, as we know, is Above and Beyond for Christ. And if you are going to live, if you desire to live above and beyond for Christ, it starts with setting a right priority. And we talked about one of the things that we need to set as a priority this morning, and that is the priority of seeking wisdom. We looked at how that needs to be an important, needs to be the principle, the foundational thing in our lives, should be the principle pursuit of our lives even as young people. But in addition to that, if you want to live and go above and beyond living and seeking Jesus Christ with your life, there's something else you must do and that is you must count the cost for living for Him. You must count the cost. And that's what we're gonna look at. Our theme verse, I know you're in chapter three, but if you look in chapter two, it's probably on the same page there, verse 21, right? It says, for all seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ. Why is it, now we looked at that, that is not something that ought to be the theme of our life, not seeking our own. We should be seeking that which is Christ, but why is it that even Christians will live like that? They will seek their own and not the things which are Jesus Christ. I believe one of the reasons is because Christians, believers, many of us, have not counted the cost. We have not counted the cost of what it means to seek Christ, to follow after the Lord. In the very next chapter, chapter number 3, Paul says that there are those that seek their own, or after he says there are those that seek their own and not the things which are of Christ, he tells us in the very next chapter what he did and what he counted as he began to follow Christ. Look at verse number 7. We're in Philippians 3 verse number 7. Paul is going to tell us some things that he had to lose in order to follow Christ. And if we truly again want to live above and beyond for Christ, seeking Christ, there are some things that we need to lose as well. as young people, as adults. I don't like to use the word loss or lose because if we're honest with ourselves you really don't lose anything by seeking Christ. There's only things to gain by seeking Christ. There is nothing that this world offers that is better than seeking Christ. And so I don't like to use the word loss but Paul uses the word loss in this passage of Scripture and so I think it's appropriate. Verse 7, read along with me, it says, But what things were gained to me, those I counted loss for Christ? Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in Him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith. that I may know Him, who's that? It's talking about Christ, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His suffering being made conformable unto His death. You know, when a person gets saved, and I don't know everybody's salvation testimony, I don't know if there's anybody here this morning or this afternoon that's been here today that doesn't know Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior. I certainly would encourage you to get that settled before you leave today. But when a person gets saved, when a person puts their faith and trust in Christ, something happens. Their heart changes. And we are a new man, a new creature, a new heart is created within each one of us. And along with that new heart, that new man that is created, our perspectives change, our view on things changes, our view of life changes. You know, no one's view of life changed more, I don't believe, in the Bible, especially in the New Testament, than the apostle Paul. After Paul got saved, the things that he hated, The things that he despised, the things that he wanted to persecute and kill and destroy were now the things that he loved, the things that he sacrificed for. And the things that he loved are the things now he hated. The things that he had no value for or were worthless to him all of a sudden have now become the most valuable things in his life. And this is exactly what happens when a person puts their faith and trust in Jesus Christ as their Savior in salvation. God again creates in them a new heart and a great change takes place in their life. I told you I got saved later in life. I didn't mean too much later in life. I got saved around the same age as many of you are here today. And that's the age of 15. I got saved when I was 15. Again, I told you I grew up in an unsaved family. My parents were lost. My sister was lost. Both my parents and my sister are still lost today. But I will say this, that the moment I got saved, my parents and my sister knew. They knew the exact time I got saved. Not necessarily because I told them, which I did, I'm going to get into that in just a moment, which I did, but they knew that I got saved because they saw something different in my life. Something had changed. in my life. My perspective on life changed. My view on things changed. The things that weren't important to me all of a sudden became important to me. And the things that I valued were no longer as valuable as they once were. And I remember my parents telling me when I got saved, they said, something's different about you, Mike. Something's different. What happened to you is what they said. What happened to you? I didn't realize it at the time, but that was an evidence of my salvation, a changed life. This is the same evidence we see in the New Testament of people getting saved. They are transformed from darkness to light. Anyone that's been born again will have fruit in their life of a change and a repentant heart. Since I got saved, there are now many in my family that will claim to be saved as well. They make a profession. of faith. And I put that in quotes because I've witnessed to many folks in my family since I've been saved. But many of them, I wouldn't say all of them, but many of the folks, many of my family members that claim to be saved now show no evidence of salvation in their life. Meaning they'll say they're saved, they'll say I believe the same thing you believe. I believe Jesus was God. I believe Jesus died on the cross. They'll say those things, but they're still part of the same false religion they've been in. There's no desire in their life for prayer. No desire to read the Bible. No desire to be with God's people. There's no desire to abstain from sin. They still cuss. They still drink. They still party. They still are immoral in their lives. Now we know as believers that we don't all of a sudden become super spiritual the moment we get saved, right? There's this thing called sanctification in our lives where it takes time for people to get victory over certain sins for us to grow in our Christian life. But if there is no change at all in a person's life, there's no spiritual fruit in their life, if their perspective or their life or their desires have changed, have not changed whatsoever, what evidence or hope is there that salvation has happened? And sadly, the answer to that is there isn't. You know what one of the greatest evidences in Scripture is of a person getting saved? The greatest evidence we see in the Bible is their desire to tell others about their salvation. It's their desire to tell others about Jesus Christ. Whenever we see anybody in Scripture getting saved in the Bible, the very first thing that is normally recorded of them after they have trusted Christ is they go tell others about it. They tell others about their changed life. Again, I remember the night that I got saved. I was invited to a youth meeting, very similar to what many of you are here today. It was a Wednesday night youth meeting at one of my friend's churches that I went to school with. I'd never heard the gospel before, never heard that I was a sinner and that I deserved to go to hell because of my sin. I had never heard that Jesus Christ paid that penalty for me. on the cross and that all I needed to do was put my faith and trust in His work, not in any works that I have done, but in Him. Put my faith in Him for salvation and I remember the very first time I heard that message, the very first time I got saved. I got saved. I remember coming home that night sitting on the floor of my living room with my parents and my sister sitting right there. And I shared with my parents, I shared with my sister what had happened to me. I shared with them the message that I heard for the very first time. And I thought if it was the first time I heard that maybe they haven't heard it either. They need to hear it as well. And I remember sitting there begging my mom and my dad and my sister to put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ. And I also remember them mocking me and laughing at me. I remember sitting on my living room floor weeping and pleading with them to receive Christ. As a 15-year-old young man that just got saved, I could not understand why anyone would want to reject the free gift of salvation. I didn't understand it. It didn't make sense to me. And again, I didn't know at that time, but what I was doing was one of the greatest evidences we see in the Bible about genuine salvation, sharing with others the message of Jesus Christ. You know what else happened to me? My life began to change. Now, I didn't immediately stop doing everything wrong that I was doing, but my desires changed. I no longer just wanted to live my life to please myself. I also now wanted to live my life to please my Savior. I had a desire to please the God, the Christ that died for me. And this is exactly what we see in Paul's life. We don't have time to look at it now, but right before these verses here in Philippians chapter three, Paul tells us what his life was like. He lays out a description of what his life was like before he came to Christ in verses four through six. And he talks about all the things that he had confidence in, all the things that he was trusting in. Again, in verses four through six, he put his confidence in being circumcised. What's that? That's religious activity. He put confidence in being of the stock of Israel. What is that? His heritage, his godly heritage. He put confidence in the fact that he was from the tribe of Benjamin, that he was a Hebrew of Hebrews, that he kept the law perfectly is what he said, that he was blameless concerning the law. In all points of the law, he said, I was obedient in it. He said, I was full of zeal. But something happened to Paul on the road to Damascus in Acts chapter 9. when he met Christ for the first time that made him realize that none of those things that he listed there in those verses mattered. None of it mattered. When Paul met Christ, he realized how empty all of those things were and how sinful he actually was. And it was only at that time, only when he came to that place, and by the way, that is the place every person must come to in order to be saved, understanding who you are, understanding that all of our righteousness is what? As filthy rags. There is nothing we can offer God in and of ourselves. And once Paul saw how sinful he was and how holy and righteous God was, a great transformation took place in his life. Paul lost some things in his life when he put his faith in Christ, but he gained so much more. I want to spend just the next few moments looking at those things that he lost, but also the wonderful things that he gained. Let's look first of all, number one, at Paul's losses. Verse number seven, Philippians three, he says again, You know, Paul had a, and had a reputation of being a very religious person. He, again, kept the law on all the points. He was a Pharisee of Pharisees. He was a Hebrew of Hebrews. Paul was proud of his Jewish heritage. He was proud of his religious achievements. The problem is he was trusting in those things for his salvation. He was trusting in those things for his righteousness. And there may be somebody in here today that may be trusting in the same things. Maybe you're trusting in the heritage that your parents are saved. Maybe you're trusting in the fact that I grew up in a Christian home. Maybe you're trusting in the fact that you go to a good Bible-believing, Bible-preaching church, and all of those things are wonderful. You ought to thank the Lord for all of those things, but none of those things save you. Paul couldn't work his way to heaven, and if Paul couldn't work his way to heaven, none of us can. Again, I'm thankful everyone is here today, but again, just because you come to a youth rally, just because you belong to a good church, just because you may have Christian parents, those things mean nothing when it comes to your salvation. Your salvation depends on what you do, what you believe about Jesus Christ, not about what your brother or sister or your parents or your pastor. What do you believe about Jesus Christ? If you don't have your salvation settled today, I would encourage you, don't leave today without getting it settled. That is the most important decision anyone will make in their life, what you do with Christ. Paul had many things to boast about, many things to be proud of. But when he measured all of those things, and again, he went through that list. When he took inventory of his life and looked at all of those things that he could boast in and compared it to Jesus Christ, he said, all of it was dung. All of it I could count for loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ. Now those things might have brought Paul glory, but they didn't bring Christ glory. His desires now changed. Now that he was saved, now that he was born again, his life changed. His desires changed. All the things that he counted as gain, all the things that he sought for in his life, he said, I'm going to count for loss. I'm willing to throw them away. They weren't valuable to him anymore. Paul describes a person that is lost in 1 Corinthians 6. Keep your place here and turn to 1 Corinthians 6. Verse number 11, 1 Corinthians 6. In 1 Corinthians 6, before we even get to verse 11, Paul is describing those that were lost, those that did not know Christ as their Savior, those that were saved and part of the church of Corinth here, he called them fornicators, he said some of you were fornicators, you were thieves, you were covetous, you were drunkards, you were revilers, you were extortioners, but as Pastor Starnes mentioned today and with our theme verse, the very next word in verse number 22 is what? But, look what it says in verse number 11, and such were some of you But, that's one of the wonderful words in scripture. But, but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus. Paul said those things that used to describe your life, those things that you lived after, those things that you desired, he said those things were descriptions of your life before you were saved, but now that you are saved, they ought not to be a description of your life. Why? Because there's a change that's taking place. You don't know this about me, except maybe my wife might be the only one, I know she knows this about me, but might be the only one in here that knows this about me. Before I got saved, music was a huge part of my life. And when I say huge, I mean huge. I grew up playing musical instruments. I excelled specifically in drums and percussion. From the age of four, I studied percussion under one of the most world-renowned percussion instructors in the world. Today, she is the Chief Warrant Officer Sheila Klotz and is the commander of the 257th Army National Band. She was the first woman in U.S. military history with that honor. Every waking hour of every day, all I did was practice. I practiced. I practiced and practiced. I trained for years in drums and percussion, rudimental percussion mostly. At the age of 15, I won my first world championship. At the age of 16, I won my second world championship again. I've been on national TV. I've played in the Macy's Day Parade. I played for the President of the United States. I played in Disney World. I played professionally for Drum and Bugle Corps. I've been on the cover of worldwide Drum Corps magazines. I've had sponsors. In percussion, I'm on 10 different CD albums. Music, and I say all this to say this, not to pat myself on the back. I say this to say this. Music was a huge part of my life. Huge part of my life. It was my life. Every waking moment of my life, it was my life. But you know what? I rarely talk about it now. There's a few people that actually know these things about me. Many people close to me, again, don't even know these things about me. And you want to know why? Because God changed my life. God changed my life. And I'm not better than anyone else, but the things that used to be valuable to me, the things that I would live my life for every moment of my day were not valuable anymore. I count those things as loss. To do what? To know the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ. You know, almost every time I get together with my family, even today, you can ask my wife, we get together with my extended family, someone normally brings it up, And they always say, Mike, I really miss watching you play drums. And they always ask me, don't you miss it? Why don't you play anymore? And they'll say, how could you devote so much time of your life to something like that and give it all up? Don't you miss it? And you know what my answer to them always is? I have something far better and far greater I'm devoting my life to now. Far greater. You know, after I surrendered to preach when I was 19, I went to Bible College, and I remember sitting, it was my freshman year, I was in the dorm, and I got a phone call. Outside my dorm room, we had pay phones. Does anybody know what a pay phone is? You probably don't know what a pay phone is. There was a pay phone outside of my dorm, and I got a call, and someone said, Mike, there's someone on the phone for you. I picked up the phone, and it was my old drum instructor. And he was now instructing the Bluecoats of North Canton, Ohio, one of the professional drum and bugle corps, a very prominent one even today. And he called me and he said, Mike, I want you to come play for me. He was recruiting me. And I told him, I said, I said, I'm in Bible college. I said, I want you to know his name was Dan. I said, Dan, God's changed my life. I said, I'm not studying drums anymore. I'm studying to be a preacher. I said, God's called me to a much higher calling than that. And you know what he told me? He said, look, I don't want you to stop your calling. I don't want you to stop from doing that. He said, but couldn't you put it off for just one more year? Couldn't you put it off for just one more year and come play for me? This is your last year of eligibility. Come play for me. You know what? I was being tempted. I was being tempted with something that I had dedicated my entire life to previously, that I had put all of my love and effort to, to put my previous love above now God's love, and God's will for my life, and God's calling. But you know what? My heart had changed. I would have given anything for that opportunity before I got saved. But now, being a believer, I was willing to consider it as done. that I might win Christ. Let me ask you, what about you today? Are there things in your life that maybe God wants you to give up? Are there things that maybe you keep holding on to that you know is not God's will for your life? Things that shouldn't have the same place in your life like they did once before? Maybe things that are inherently good, but they're stealing your affection, stealing your love away from God? Are there things like that in your life today? Maybe it's your music. Maybe it's a friend. Maybe it's a relationship you had before you were saved. Maybe it's some accomplishment or skill or ability you have. Maybe it's some fleshly desire that you know you shouldn't have anymore now that you're a believer. We must be willing like the Apostle Paul to count those things but loss for Christ. Not just some things, but all things. Paul said, I count all, all things. Now that doesn't mean we have to give up all things, but we must be willing to count it all for loss for Jesus Christ. Are you willing? Are you willing? The last thing I want to show you is not just what Paul lost. This is the most important thing, what Paul gained. What did Paul gain? Look at verse number eight. It says, Yea, doubtless, I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and I do count them but done that I may win Christ and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness, which is of God by faith, that I may know him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, be made conformable unto His death, if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead." Paul lists some things here, things that he gained by knowing Christ. Now Jim Elliot, many of you may know who Jim Elliot is, he was a missionary, a wonderful missionary. He famously said, he is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain which he cannot lose. And I hope that will be our testimony of each one of our lives here today. This is what happened to Paul. He lost his religion, he lost his reputation, but he gained so much more. So much more. The first thing that Paul said he gained, number one, is the knowledge of Christ. Verse number eight, yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss. I'm going to count all of those things for loss. For what purpose? For the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord. Now this knowledge is more than just knowing about Christ. Everyone in here knows about Christ. You'll be hard pressed to even talk to somebody on the streets knocking on doors and say, have you ever heard of Jesus Christ? Mostly everybody in this country, and that's not true about everybody around the world, but in this country mostly everybody knows about Christ. Paul already had that kind of historical knowledge before he was saved. This, what he's talking about here, has to do with personally knowing Him. You know, one of the great gains after getting saved is the opportunity to keep growing in your knowledge of your Savior. We don't often look at it that way as a gain, as a blessing, but one of the great privileges of being a believer is that we can grow in our knowledge of Jesus Christ. You know one of the great blessings, I know there's a few of you in here today, of course the young people not yet, I'm sure it's on your list of things to do, but one of the great blessings of being married is growing in knowledge of your spouse. Spending time with them, getting to really know them. You know I know my wife far better today after, she's not in here so if I get this wrong, 24 years, I don't know if she's in here. I know her far better today after 24 years of marriage than I did when I first married her. You know, that's one of the blessings of marriage is growing in your knowledge of your spouse. My knowledge for her has grown every day that we're together. Before, she hates when I tell this story, before I thought it was a good idea to buy her a George Foreman grill for her anniversary. I know better now that that's not a good thing to do. All right, my knowledge of her is growing. And if you wanna know the details of that story, I'll let you know later. My knowledge for her has grown. Is there loss when a person gets married? Is there loss? There is, right? What is a person, what's the principle that Christ says? When a man and woman come together, they do what? They leave something. What do they do? They leave their mother and father. There is loss when something gets married, but is there gain? Absolutely. They might lose that close relationship there or that father-parental relationship there with their parents, but they get to now cleave to their wife or to their husband. They get to grow in the knowledge of them. There is loss, but there is a great gain that nothing can be compared to. And this is the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ our Lord. Growing in our knowledge of Christ personally is such a greater gain than anything this world can ever offer. Anything. And one of the ways to do that is what I talked about this morning, making wisdom your number one priority. You know what's going to help you grow in your wisdom and knowledge of Jesus Christ, the Word of God? Spending time with it and with Him on a daily basis. Not only did he gain knowledge of Christ, he also gained the righteousness of Christ, number two. Look at verse number nine. It says, and be found in him not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith. You know, this is probably the greatest blessing we have is that when we get saved, we are no longer standing before God in our own righteousness. We are standing because of Christ's righteousness. You know, righteousness was the great goal of Paul as a Pharisee, right? That's what he strived for. But that righteousness was a self-righteousness. It was a righteousness of works. It was a righteousness of religion. But when Paul was born again, he lost all of his own righteousness and he gained something far greater, the righteousness of Christ. You know, sadly, there are many. many people, and there may be some in this room this morning, or this evening, this afternoon, I should say, who refuse to give up their own righteousness. They still think their own righteousness is what pleases God. They think their own good works, coming to church, being faithful in a youth rally, and those things are important, but again, they don't bring righteousness to your life, only Jesus Christ can do that. And so sadly, most will refuse to give up their own righteousness in order to receive Christ's righteousness. Paul said that his righteousness was worthless. How worthless was it? It's like dung to him. There's only one thing I know that dung is good for, fertilizer. That's about it. But it was worthless. Christ's righteousness, he said, was far better. If there's somebody here today that is holding on to their own righteousness, get that settled today. The only place our righteousness, the only result our righteousness will bring is destruction and death and hell for all of eternity. Paul said he gained knowledge and righteousness of Christ, but then he concludes by saying that, you know what, by living for Christ, by following Christ, I also gain the fellowship of Christ's sufferings. Now this is something we don't often think of as a gain. Paul did. Verse number 10. It says that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death. When Paul became a Christian, he not only gained knowledge of Christ and the righteousness of Christ, he also experienced the sufferings that came with knowing Christ. Again, verse 10 says that I may know Him. Of course, know him, know about him, but I also want to know and experience the same type of things that he experienced, which are the sufferings of Christ. He was going to know those things. He may not have desired to know those things, but he was willing to suffer those things for Christ. Paul knew that following Christ would require suffering. You know, when God appeared to Ananias in a vision in Acts chapter 9. God told him in Acts chapter 9, he said, go thy way for he, that is Paul, talking about Paul, after he got saved on the road to Damascus, he said, he is a chosen vessel unto me to bear my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. And then he says this about Paul, he says, for I will show him how great things he must suffer for my name's sake. Before he was saved, Paul was the one doing the persecuting. Paul was the one that wanted to destroy the church, wreak havoc in the church. He was the one causing the suffering, but now that he followed Christ, he was gonna be the one suffering. He was gonna not be the persecutor anymore, he was gonna be the persecuted. And how did Paul see this? Did he run away from this? No, he said, this is great gain for me. He said, this is great gain. He told Timothy the same thing in 2 Timothy 3, 12. He says, all that live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. And the truth of the matter is, if you attempt to live for the Lord, if you attempt to live above and beyond seeking Christ in your life, you will suffer some persecution in your life. The problem is most people, again, don't want to live above and beyond because they don't want the persecution associated with it. It could be the loss of some of your family. I remember when I went to Bible college, my family pretty much disowned me. They told me they don't want anything to do with me anymore. They had spent all of that money on my secular education and I told them I was going to go to the Bible college to be a preacher of all things. And they said, how could you do that to us? We're going to disown you. You're going to be on your own. You're going to, we're not going to be there to care for you or to help you anymore. It may require you to lose some of your family. It may require you to lose some of your friends. And by the way, if you lose your friends for living for Christ, those aren't the kind of friends you should be hanging out with anyways. You could even lose your job, a position at work, because you're taking a stand for Jesus Christ. But no matter what we may go through, we need to look at it the way Paul did. The fellowship of this suffering is fellowship with Christ. Christ went through this suffering, and I just want to be counted worthy to suffer for the name of Christ. He looked at it as a gain, not a loss. Again, most people would look at suffering as a loss, but Paul said it was a great gain to him. Are you willing to stand out? Are you willing to make a difference, to stand out from everyone else, to be different? The Bible says that we should be a peculiar people. That's not a description most people want to be called. They don't want to be called peculiar, but that's what God calls us. A royal priesthood. Are we willing to be different in this Christian life? Are we willing to live godly in an ungodly world? You know, we need more young people to stand out. David, David stood out when he was a teenager. Nobody wanted to face Goliath. He said he would do it, and what did people do? People made fun of him for it. But he said, I'm not going to let somebody defy the armies of the living God in the name of God. He stood up for God, and people dismissed him for it, mocked him for it, but he was willing to stand up as a teenager. Daniel did the same thing. Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, also known as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, right? They did the same thing. When everybody else would bow down, they said, we're not going to bow. We're willing to stand out amongst the crowd. Why? Because we love God more than we love popularity. We want to please God more than we want to please this world. We need more young people standing up for Christ. going above and beyond, seeking Christ with their lives. When Paul got saved, everything changed in his life. He said, the things that were gained to me, those I counted lost for Christ. He counted all those previous things, again, that he valued, that he lived his life for as dung. He said that he may win Christ. That begs the question today, does that describe your life? What do you value in your life? What do you value? Do you still hold on tight to the temporary things of this world? The things that you once valued, do you count those for loss for Christ? Is popularity, is a car, possessions, money, relationship, whatever it may be, throw whatever it is in there, are those things still more important to you than a relationship with Jesus Christ? Is it more important to you than growing in the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ? Are you growing in His knowledge? Are you thankful for His righteousness? Are you willing to suffer like Christ suffered? If the answer to that question is no, then repentance needs to take place. You know, repentance is not just for a lost person. Repentance is something that even us as believers ought to do. If something is taking the place of Christ, that Christ should have in your life, then you need to confess that before God. 1 John 1, 9 is written to believers. Confess that to God and then ask God to help me forsake it. Help me repent of it. Paul says, all things that were gained to me, those I counted lost for Christ. I know there are some things in people's lives right now, right now, today, that you need to give up, that you need to forsake. How do I know that? Because I know there are still things in my life that I need to give up, that I need to forsake. Just because I'm a pastor doesn't mean I've reached some level of sinless perfectionism. There are things in my life that I need to repent of, things that I need to get right, things that I need to give up, maybe something in my life that I need to surrender more. Every one of us has those things in our life. Ask one more question and I'll be done. Raise your hand if you're perfect today. Raise your hand. Anybody? All right. By that admission, nobody raised their hands. By that admission, that means every one of you, including me, has something that needs to change in their life. Something needs to change because none of us are perfect. Whatever that is, Whatever that is, don't leave today without asking God to help you change it. You know, God allows us to hear the preaching of the word so we can be conformed to it, so He can complete or finish or perfect that work that He started in us the day of salvation. If the Lord's convicting you about anything today, get that right with the Lord. Maybe it's salvation. Maybe it's the need to grow. in your knowledge and wisdom of Jesus Christ. Maybe it's to set the right priorities in your life. Maybe it's things that you need to forsake and give up. Maybe it's things that you need to strengthen and continue to do. Whatever it is, God wants all of us to live above and beyond for Christ. And now is the time to do that. Now is the time to make that decision. Thank you for listening. If you would like to contact us, please write us at P.O. Box 126-541-Harrisburg, PA 17112 and visit our website at www.sbbcpa.org. Until next time!