Executing Joy in the Spiritual Mind

The speaker is thanking their dad for filling in for them and discussing the messages from the book of Psalms. They then discuss the beginning of Philippians chapter 3, where Paul reminds believers to rejoice in the Lord and warns them about false Christians. Paul contrasts his past achievements with his newfound faith in Christ. He encourages believers to calculate their losses and view worldly achievements as liabilities. He emphasizes the importance of a genuine relationship with Christ and the need to be born again. The speaker concludes by discussing Paul's present assessment of his life and the importance of counting worldly achievements as worthless compared to knowing Christ. A couple of weeks ago, I appreciate so very much my dad filling in for me last week, Sunday morning and Sunday night, and the messages that he brought pertaining to Psalms. And today we're back in Philippians chapter 3. Philippians chapter 3. And we started this before I left looking at verses 1 through 3. And what we noticed in verses 1 through 3 is when Paul said, finally, he's not coming to the conclusion. What he is doing is adding on this, based on everything that we've studied in chapter 1 and chapter 2, Paul is reminding us again to rejoice in the Lord. And he says, I've got some things I need to write to you. He says, indeed, it is not grievous, but for you it is safe. And then he tells us, beware of three groups of individuals. Beware of the dogs. Beware of evil workers. And beware of the concision. The flesh mutilators. Those that circumcise people is what that word actually means. And so we covered that and we saw that there's a lot of people out there that are faking Christianity. They're faking their relationship with Jesus Christ. And there is absolutely no joy. There is no security in their life. And so Paul is writing to beware. And he gives the flip side of that in verse 3. He says, for we, Paul, referring to himself and the church at Philippi, who's going through trials, who's going through suffering, who through the bad situations is allowing Christ to be magnified, Christ to be glorified. They're not focused on what's happening here. They're focused on Jesus Christ. So Paul includes them and he says, we are the circumcision. In other words, we are the followers of Jesus Christ. We are the true Christians. What makes a true Christian? A true Christian, he says, is one that worships God in spirit. They rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. And so we're going to pick up there this morning because we looked at that a couple of weeks ago. And in verse 4, Paul starts with himself. He says, though I might also have confidence in the flesh, if any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I am more. And so Paul says, men, if you want to look at fleshly achievements, if you're going to look at Christianity and go off what you present in your flesh, then Paul says, guess what? I'm better than all of you when you look on the outside, right? And he goes through and he gives a list. And we're not going to get into each one of these in detail. You can go and study because all of this has to do basically with Paul's Jewish heritage. He said he was circumcised on the eighth day. He was of the stock of Israel. He was of the tribe of Benjamin. He was a Hebrew of Hebrews. He says, as touching the law, a Pharisee. Concerning zeal, persecuting the church. Touching the righteousness which is in the law. He said, I was blameless. But then you come to verse 7 and there's that word that I always refer to and make notice of, but. Paul said, this is who I am. This is my credentials. Man, if there's anybody that has credentials in Jesus Christ and could call themselves a Christian, it is me. Because I am a Jew. I've been circumcised. I've obeyed the law. I've kept the law. When it comes to being a Hebrew, I've done all of the sacrifices. You name it, and I have been there. But then in verse 7 he says, but. A contrast to what he is in the flesh. He says, what things were gained to me, those accounted loss for Christ. And then in verse 8 he says, 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 done, that I may win Christ. When we come to the Christian, when we come to looking at our life, I've entitled the message this morning, executing joy in that spiritual mindset. The whole theme of Philippians is dealing with joy and making up your mind. We saw in chapter 2 that it is a mindset. We have to think like Jesus Christ if we are going to act like Jesus Christ. And so many of us, we want to get salvation, and we want our spiritual to be saved. We know that our spirit is going to be in heaven, but we don't want to change our mind and our body. We still want to do and live how we want to. And Paul said, yes, that type of attitude and mentality, you are a dog. You are an evil worker. You are of the flesh, of the concision. You are doing things to impress God, but you haven't changed anything. And so he's telling us here that here's three things that we need to do if you're going to have joy and a spiritual mindset, and going to really be able to call yourself a Christian. Three things have to take place in your life, and Paul gives them to us in this passage of Scripture. First of all, you have to calculate your loss. And I think we don't do that very much these days. I think we as Christians, as a pastor of a Baptist church, a Kentucky church, I think we do a lot of offering salvation, right? We preach a lot of grace and we want people to be saved, but when we offer them to come to salvation, we never really let them spend much time or talk to them about what they're losing when they get salvation. We focus on the positive. But notice what Paul does. Paul goes back and he calculates his loss. In other words, what he is doing is making a personal assessment of his life before Christ, and then a personal assessment of his life after Christ. And so we have to calculate this loss. Notice what he says in verse 4. Though I might also have confidence in the flesh, if any other man thinketh that he whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more circumcise the eighth day, the stock of Israel, the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews, touching the law of Pharisee, concerning zeal, I've been persecuting the church, touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless, but what things were gained to me, those I counted loss for Christ. That word loss actually means to damage or injury. In other words, what Paul is doing is Paul is fixing up a legal, kind of an accounting document here. And that's what he's talking. You have your assets and you have your losses. When you go to do your taxes every year, if you file personal tax on yourself and everything, you've got to list your assets and your liabilities. And that's what Paul is going through and discussing here. And he's telling us, he says, this loss is damage or injury. These are the things that I thought were assets. These were things that I thought, man, I've got this in the bank, so man, God is going to be pleased with me. He said, actually, these are not assets. These actually become liabilities in my life. How many of us trust the things of this world more than we trust Jesus Christ? And what we think are assets actually turn into liabilities. The same is true for us this morning. Just because you come from a Christian heritage does not buy you a ticket to heaven. You can go back however many generations of your family members that have been saved and going to church and faithful in church. That doesn't guarantee you eternal life. Being raised in church, being a good person all of your life will not save your soul. Jesus made it very, very clear when He talked to Nicodemus in John 3 and verse 3. He told Nicodemus, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. And so there has to be this rebirth. It's not about what we do on the outside. I cannot say that I am the son of Maxie Haynes and my grandfather was a deacon, my other grandfather was a chaplain, and my great-grandfather was a preacher. I can't look at my heritage and say, man, I have been in Christianity my entire life. As soon as I was born, I was in church and hadn't hardly missed a lot of services in my life. But guess what? That's not being born again. And so Jesus says we have to be born again. What we consider to be assets in this religious realm are actually liabilities. They're hindering or preventing us from perusing a genuine saving relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. And so many people sit in church today and they think, man, I have salvation because I'm living a good life. Because I am doing what I'm supposed to be doing. And so what they consider assets is actually the thing that is keeping them from coming to Jesus Christ. And so that's what Paul is telling us here. But then he also gives a present accounting. Not only does he assess his past, but he also looks at the present of what's going on. He says in verse 8, 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 then notice this, and do count, that's that accounting term, I count them but dung. That I may win Christ. When you look at the verbs that he uses here, they are all present tense verbs. In other words, Paul is saying I count. This is not something that I did in the past, but this is something that I am doing in the present. Every single day, I look at my past and all of the assets that I think I've put up there, you know, I've given a lot of money to the church, I've sang specials, I've taught class. All of these things that I think are assets, he says every day I look at them and when I see them, I notice that they're really liabilities. They're really losses. Because they keep me from what I need to do. And so he counts them as a loss. And he views them literally as dung. And we know what dung is, but in Israel's time and when Paul was writing this in the church at Philippi, it literally meant boot scrapings. After they walked around the streets and the roads all day long behind all of the animals, the sheep, the goats, the donkeys, everything that come through town and brought merchants in and out, all day long he was walking in this and it was building up on your shoes and all of that nasty stuff. And at the end of the day, before you go into a house, you would scrape your shoes and then take off your shoes and wash your feet. And Paul said, everything that I thought was good is just what comes off the bottom of my shoe. It's dung. It's no good that is there. Nothing in Paul's life was nearly as important as his personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. And so I want to ask you a question this morning. Is there anything in your life that hinders you from having a focused, vital, growing relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ? See, we're talking about an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ. Me and my wife can be married, but I can allow a lot of things to come between our marriage. Last week when I was in Mexico, she was here. We're married, but guess what? We wasn't very intimate last week. Every once in a while, maybe we would get to talk on the phone during the week. Maybe we could text each other and find out what was going on. But it's not like sitting there, looking each other in the eye, being with one another. And so yes, that was a good thing, but guess what? It cost me in my marriage. And that's what Paul is saying here. What is coming between us and a relationship with Jesus Christ? Is it really worth the price of being hindered in our walk with Him? We're getting ready for the Olympics. I don't know if any of you care about the Olympics or not. I've kind of got to watch some of the free stuff and watch some of the interviews and all of that. But man, when you look at these athletes, the things that they are giving up and doing right now so that they can focus on maybe a 15 second race. They're giving up all of this food and they're disciplining themselves in order to participate in a 15 second race and it's all over with. And that's this idea that Paul was talking about. We need to make sure that we lay aside everything that keeps us from running and running well. That keeps us from a relationship with Jesus Christ. And so the third thing in calculating your loss is there's some things that we have to accept. And notice the prize acceptance that he tells us. Notice why Paul did this. In verse 7, he said, but what things were gained of me, those I counted loss, and then I underlined it there on the screen. For what? Christ. A lot of times we will say, those things that were gained of me, I counted for loss, and we put a period there, right? We put a period. And we go through the Christian life and we don't know why we're doing what we're doing or how we're doing, but we have given up all of this and we're hoping to have an eternity one day. Paul says, no, these things were gained of me. I count as loss. I made them a liability, but for a purpose. And that purpose is for Jesus Christ. See, there has to be something that we are obtaining. Something that we are reaching for that is better than this world. In verse 8, he says, here's what he wants to know about Christ. 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. Paul was willing to turn his back on everything that was important to him so that he might be saved. That he might have an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ. See, when it came to Paul's life, there was nothing more important than Jesus Christ. And he said, Jesus Christ suffered and gave His life for me. You remember chapter 2? Who thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made of himself what? No reputation and took upon himself the form of a servant and humbled himself even unto death. And Paul said what? He did that for me, and so therefore I do that for him. I'm willing to suffer. I'm willing to lose everything in this earth. And the use of this language is talking about a personal relationship. A personal relationship. The whole point of these verses is to cause us to see that knowing Jesus Christ is more valuable than anything else in this life or in the life to come. If you have all of these religious attainments and you miss Jesus Christ, you have lost everything. And then that's the point that Paul is trying to make here. He says in Matthew 16, verse 26, that I actually preached down in Mexico on Saturday night. He says, For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? And what shall a man give in exchange for your soul? What is more important? What are you willing to give up in order to have a better relationship with Jesus Christ? The flip side of that is what are you willing to hang on to in order not to have a relationship with Jesus Christ? Are you willing to exchange your soul? Are you willing to exchange? And what is your soul? Your soul is your mind and who you are. It's what controls your body after your spirit is saved. Your soul then either sows seeds to the flesh or it sows seeds to the spirit. Your soul is who you are. And we change who we are by our mind, by the renewing of our mind. Romans 12 says, Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may present your bodies a living sacrifice. So, what will you exchange for your soul? What are you willing to exchange for your soul? Back to verse 8. He says, Yea, doubtless I count all things but loss to 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. Look at verse 9. And be found in Him. When we went through 1 Corinthians, we talked about in Christ. In Christ. Nothing else matters. When we went through Romans, in Christ. In Christ. When we went through Ephesians, it is in Christ. Paul says, I want to be found in Christ. I want to 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. And so he says, now that we have calculated our losses, now that we've figured out that, guess what? Anything that we can do in our flesh is absolutely no good for God. It's not going to gain us any understanding. The conclusion of that is by what? Faith. By grace are you saved through faith that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God. But we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works. How are we to walk? How are we to live? How are we to work on this earth? By faith. You go with Hebrews 11. Remember, by faith Noah built an ark. By faith Abraham left his family and headed to a country. See, we live by faith. We trust God and we obey God. So here's the second step. Once you have calculated your losses, the second thing is you consecrate your life. You consecrate your life. You do it, first of all, by persistence in consecration. That passage of Scripture that I read a while ago, what would a man give in exchange for his soul? Right before that, the verse before that, Jesus Christ says if you want to be My disciple, you have to deny yourself, take up your cross daily, and follow Me. There is a persistent concentration. In other words, when I was saved, that was the start of my salvation. That was the start of the sanctification process. That was the start of living for Jesus Christ. But guess what? Every single day I have to make up my mind. Let this mind that was in Christ Jesus be in you. Today, God, I'm going to serve You. Today, I'm going to consecrate my life to You. Sometimes I have to do it hourly. Sometimes, Lord, I'm going to give You this hour. I'm going to give You these next few minutes. But it has to be persistent. And it's talking about a mindset. Jesus Christ has to come first in your life. And I will allow nothing to come between me and Him. You go back all the way to chapter 1 of Philippians and this theme is brought out through this whole thing. He says, let your conversation be as it would come at the Gospel of Christ. And then do what? Stand fast in one spirit with one mind, striving together for what? The faith of the Gospel. In chapter 2, verse 2, He says, Fulfill you My joy that you be what? Like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord of one mind. In verse 5 of chapter 2, Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. Hebrews chapter 12 and verse 1. He starts out and He says, Wherefore, after Hebrews chapter 11, all of these men and women that are listed there of faith, He sends in chapter 12 and He says, Wherefore, seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which thus so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is sent before us. Looking unto who? Jesus. The Author and Finisher of our faith. Who for the joy that was sent before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. Philippians chapter 3, verse 15, after this passage that we're looking at, says, Let us therefore as many as be perfect, as many as be mature, complete, true Christians, those of the circumcision, be thus minded. And if in anything you be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. He says in verse 16, Nevertheless, whereto we have already obtained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing. See, when we look at Jesus Christ, when we look at our Savior, the way that Paul looked at Him, it helps us to live the kind of life that we need to live. Because we are focused on Him. Paul wasn't focused on being in prison. Paul wasn't focused on his death. What was Paul focused on? Jesus Christ and the Gospel. He said, I'm in bonds and I don't know what's going to happen. I hope to come to you one day, but I may not. But here's what I do know, is the faith of the Gospel. And so hang in there. He was focused on Christ. But he uses three words there. He saw Him as Christ. The Anointed One. The Messenger. The Messiah. The Prophet of God. And so he sees Him in all of His fulfillment of the Old Testament when he looks at Jesus Christ. But then he uses the name Jesus. And Jesus means He saves. And so He's the Savior who gave Himself to all those that are trapped in sin. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. And then he uses that word Lord. Do you remember back in chapter 2? Do you remember that name that is given to Jesus Christ? The name above all names? That He is now Lord and He is exalted at the right hand? So Paul not only sees Him as the Savior, as the One that has fulfilled all prophecy, the One that was chosen before the foundation of the world to be a Lamb's Ladder, but he also looked at Him as being Jesus, the One that came and was died. But then he also referred to Him as Lord, the Sovereign Ruler, the Authority over all life, the One who hates sin and is set against it. And so we have to be persistent in our consecration. But there's also pleasure in consecration. We think, man, if we live for Jesus Christ, there's no pleasure in that. But look at what Paul said. Paul said, yea, doubtless I count all things, but lost for the what? The excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ my Lord. He talks about this excellency of knowledge. That word excellency means superior. It means above and beyond the ordinary. So many Christians today are living the ordinary life. God doesn't want us to live an ordinary life. God says I came that you might live above and exceedingly above all that you can imagine. He wants to be there for us. And Paul says that just being able to know Jesus Christ is a privilege beyond compare. He's referring to the knowledge that comes by experience. You know, every time I go to Mexico, I experience Jesus Christ in a different way. And yes, bad things happen. Yes, things don't always work out according to our plans. But I told them Sunday morning, they asked me to answer some questions. And so I was doing a question and answer session Sunday morning to their congregation there in Ramos, Brother Gallardo's church. And as I was answering this, I was telling them that all of these bad things and everything, everything that happens in our life, but guess what? God has always been faithful. He's proved Himself. He's done what He promised to do. And man, it's amazing to get to experience that. And you don't experience that when things are going good. You know, me and my wife had a lot of great times before we were married. We experienced a lot of good things before we got married. But guess what? After we got married, then we began to really experience each other. You think you love somebody. You think you care somebody. Wait until they have some surgery or something and they're relying upon you the entire time. Wait until you go through trials and tribulations. Wait until something major happens in your life. Wait until something major falls apart. It's then that you learn and experience who the person really is and how close they'll stick to you. See, we want to experience Jesus, but we don't want the trials and tribulations. But he says it's the trials and tribulations in our life that work with patience. And that patience is what works faith in our life. The more we trust God, the more we follow God, the more God proves to ourselves, and then he says onto that faith is our hope. I honestly believe that no matter what happens or what takes place, God can take care of it. God can provide. And that's where God wants us, that experience that is there. It's one thing to hear someone else speak about Jesus Christ. It's one thing to hear someone else talk about Jesus Christ, who He is and what He can do. But it is quite something different when you have experienced Jesus Christ. You know, to be the three guys, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and to be thrown into a fiery furnace, but when they got in there, was it just them three? No, there was a fourth man. You know, I've experienced a lot from Jesus Christ, but I cannot imagine experiencing Jesus Christ in a fire that I am supposed to be dying, I'm supposed to be consumed, and Jesus Christ leads these three guys out of that fiery furnace, and they don't even smell like smoke. I cannot light my grill and not smell like smoke. But they were inside the fire that Jesus Christ was with them. That's an experience. But you know what? God, every single day, is there to help me for whatever happens and comes about in my life. So here's the payoff. You ought to want to serve God because God's going to take care of you. He's going to provide everything that you need, but here's the payoff. The payoff of consecration. There's many of those who question Paul's middle state. Paul, why have you turned your back on your family? Paul, why have you turned your back on fame? Paul was a member of the Sanhedrin. He was a student of Gamaliel. He could have gone far in Judaism. He could have been one of the top leaders and the top dog that was there, but yet he walked away from all of it. All of his fortune, all of his fame, everything, his future, he gave it all up in order to follow Jesus Christ. And you remember in the book of Acts, he's sitting there before King Agrippa, and King Agrippa says, Paul, you're a lunatic. You have literally lost your mind. You are going to give up all of this and continue to preach this Jesus Christ. Paul said, yeah, I am, because of the love of Christ. It compels me to do that. And poor Agrippa, you remember what he said? Paul, you almost persuaded me. You've almost got me to choose for Jesus Christ. Everything that Paul gained in his life after Jesus Christ outweighed everything that he left behind. And that's what he's trying to tell us here. And that's what he's pointing out. He knew all of his credentials. He knew his family associations, his religious achievements. All of this would amount to absolutely nothing when he stood before Jesus Christ at the day of judgment. Because his works and his goodness was nothing. But what did he do? He boasted in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Paul knew that he appeared within himself and with what he had done, he would be condemned. Isaiah 64 and verse 6 says, all our righteousness are as filthy rags. But he also knew that if he appeared there in Jesus, he would be accepted in heaven. He wrote back in Ephesians 1 and verse 6, to the praise of the glory of His grace. Notice this phrase, wherein He, Jesus Christ, has made us accepted in the blood. See, my works, my goodness is no good. It's filthy. God cannot even look upon the best thing that I do. God looks on it as being filthy rags. But listen, what I do in Jesus Christ, that is righteousness. That is good. And Christ takes it and says, you know what? Here is a sinner that is consecrated to Me, and so therefore I am going to lift him up and I'm going to provide for him because why? He's loved. He's loved. Romans 4.24 says, but for us also to whom it shall be imputed. In other words, place to our count. Another thing, Paul said, all of what I thought were assets turned out to be liabilities. But understand this, but for us also to whom it is imputed, in other words, Paul said, my count didn't have anything on it. My count wasn't worth anything. But then Jesus Christ imputed to my count that if we believe on Him that raised up Jesus Christ our Lord from the dead, He takes what we thought were assets, He makes us see them as liabilities, and then He fills our life with assets. He fills our life with good things. Things that are worthy. And so Paul, praying here in Philippians 3, he says, I don't want to be in my righteousness. I don't want to list my achievements. You know, it's amazing. One time I had a church call and asked for a resume. And it just seemed odd putting all of the things that I've accomplished in my ministry. I was the president of an association. I was these things. And all of my degrees and all of this. And it just felt strange putting all of that stuff on there. Right? Because it was stuff that I had done. Stuff that I had accomplished. And I thought now, man, I wish that I would have just put on there that I am in Christ. In Christ, right? Because that's where we need to be. That's where we have to be. And that's what v. 9 tells us in chapter 3. He says, being found in Him, Jesus Christ, 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. God has placed us by faith in Christ for salvation. And He plainly tells us that this righteousness is given on the basis of faith alone. It's not what we do or what we decide. It's what God does. And so know, where will that day find you? When we stand before Jesus Christ, because He is coming. His reward is with Him. His judgment is there. He tells us in Romans 14.12, so then every one of us shall give an account of Himself to God. You're not going to give an account on me. You're going to give an account on yourself. You're going to tell God what you counted as gain and whether or not it was really lost. 2 Corinthians 5.10 says, for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ that everyone may receive the things done in his body according to that which he hath done, whether it be good or bad. The only way into Jesus Christ is by faith. Believing that Jesus is the Christ. He is the One that is able to save. He was the anointed One that was chosen to bring salvation. He submitted Himself to death. He died on the cross for our sins. Was buried and rose again. And by believing that, then all of a sudden, it is imputed unto us. And so the question I want to ask you today, you know, there's Adam. All of us are born in Adam. And because we are born in Adam, we're all sinners. Sin has been passed down to every generation, every person, because of Adam. But Jesus Christ is the second Adam. And that's where He told Nicodemus, you must be born again. See, I've been born of Adam. I'm a sinner. I'm no good. There's no righteousness. There's nothing good in me. But, by faith in Jesus Christ, guess what? Jesus Christ can make me good. He can make me faithful and good. V. 9 of chapter 3, being 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. Calculate your loss. Consecrate your life. And the very last thing is change your longings. Change your longings. Change what you desire. Look at what He says in v. 10. We're going to wrap it up. That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death. In other words, if you see, I've underlined one, two, three, four things right there, and then there's a fifth one in v. 11. The first thing, He says that I may know Him. We need to long for a personal experience with Jesus Christ. Long for a personal experience with Him. You know, it just blows my mind to watch in our society today, and I'm going to meddle just a little bit, but we can see all of these people here on Sunday morning that say they want to get to know Christ, but then when we come back on Sunday night or Wednesday night to get to know Christ, they know enough of Christ. I can't get enough studying. I can't get enough about Jesus Christ. And so we need to long for that personal experience that we may know Him, but then look at the second thing. In the power of His resurrection, you and I need to long for a powerful experience. We need to see something from God. We need to see God do what He promised to do. It was amazing when we had issues. We got up Sunday morning early and I cranked the van, and before the girls even got up, it was right at daylight, I took the van out and it started up and I said, that's good. So I made two loops around the parking lot. Nothing happened. I said, man, that is great. So I went out there on the highway and I jumped on the highway and I made about a five mile loop and I went and we had drained the gas down to just a little bit of gas. We put five gallons in it that night. So I went down to the gas station. I filled it up, come back to the motel, and I said, things are going good, but things could go bad quickly, right? And so, man, I called Brother Medina and I said, man, things are running good right now. I think we can make it into the States and everything is great. And he said, well, let me call. That night while we were pumping gas, he had put Facebook up to a bunch of his preacher brethren, and that morning he started getting phone calls. I've got a mechanic in my church. I can do this. I can do that. We can get that filter changed. And all of a sudden, people started lining up to be able to help us. We drove to church. We didn't have any issues. I said, you know what? Let's just try to get to America. We're not going to fool with this now because if something happened or whatever, I didn't want to spend another night there. Before I left, Medina gave me a phone number. There was a pastor in Monterey which was two hours down the road. He gave me the phone number. He said, this guy is there. He's got two mechanics in his church. He said he will meet you anywhere you want to if you have problems. We get through Monterey and I tell Austin, I said, call the guy and tell him we made it through Monterey good. Just on the other side of Monterey, we started having problems. We've got an hour and a half still to make it to the border. But guess what? God took care of us. And God kept moving. And I knew if I got to Laredo, I knew another preacher that I could call. And then we started praying, man, if you can just get me to San Antonio, Lord. If you can just get me to Austin. If you can just get me to Waco. If you can get me on the other side of Dallas, my dad will come and get me, right? And so, man, if you can just get us there. Get me to Sulphur Springs. Get me to Texarkana. When we got to Hope, we started praising. Thank you, God. At this point, I could walk home now. But God took care of it. God provided everything. And see, until you have problems, you don't see the power of God. It's amazing. I know Christian people that I have now met and have new contacts because of what happened because God provided them and put them into my life. That's experiencing the power of God. To be able to come on and we still, hopefully this week, we're going to get it in the shop and see if it's just the filter, if it's the fuel pump, if it even has to do anything with the fuel system. I don't know. But we're going to see how bad it is. But I guarantee you that guess what? God got us home. And had we not bought bad gas, we would have never been able to experience that power of God. And so, Ben, we want the power of His resurrection. What's more powerful than being raised from the dead? Can you imagine Jesus Christ dying and being placed in the tomb to be resurrected? Can you imagine Lazarus who died and laid in the tomb for three days until the Bible said his body began to stink, he was rotting, he was dying, and guess what? Jesus said, Lazarus, come forth! Have any of you experienced resurrection power in your life? Maybe not resurrection, but have you seen some other power of Jesus Christ that's just as good and equivalent? Third thing, long for a painful experience. See, Jesus Christ said if I suffer, you have to suffer. And Paul said, yeah, I want to know your powerful experiences, but you can't know powerful experiences until you've suffered a little bit. See, Lazarus would have never known the power of God to resurrect him if he wasn't dead. And that's what he's saying here. The fellowship of his sufferings. No matter what Jesus Christ suffered, no matter what he did, God was always sufficient. Paul, no matter what happened, he said whether in this body or whether with the Lord, guess what? I'm going to keep serving God because He is sufficient. And so long for a painful experience. Oh, we as Christians, the worst thing we can say is I'm not praying for patience. Because you'll never have patience without trials and tribulation. And your faith will never grow without problems. There's going to be problems in the Christian life. Things are going to happen. But I think God was honored and glorified through everything that happened because we just kept trusting Him. God, You take care of it. God, You have a reason. You have a purpose. I even told the church that morning, we may get to Monterey and break down, but guess what? That mechanic that that pastor's working, he may be lost. And God's already worked it out. God's already planned it. But guess what? We have an opportunity to glorify God and maybe that guy could be saved. Wound up, we went through Monterey. Didn't even get to meet him. Just talked to him on the phone. But see, God works through trials and tribulations. Number four, long for a practical experience. Being made conformable unto His death. Being made conformable unto His death. All we want is what God wants. God, what do You desire? God, what do You want? And then the last one is long for a pleasant experience. He says in verse 11, if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. Do you realize this morning that everything on this earth is temporary? Everything on this earth is going to go away. I've got a lot of funerals in my life. I've never had anyone take their family with them when they died. I haven't had any of them take their 401Ks, their bank accounts. No, we end up taking that individual and we lay them in a box. And we bury them in the ground with what they have on. Job said, naked I came into this world and naked I return. It's not about what we gain in this world. It's what we get later. And God has promised us a resurrection. He said I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go, I will come again that where I am, you may be also. And so man, Paul said I suffer. I do all of these things that I do. I long for this relationship with Jesus Christ because I want to obtain to the resurrection of the dead. And it wasn't that Paul wanted to be saved. Paul was already saved. But Paul said when Jesus Christ came, Paul wanted to hear them words, Well done, my good and faithful servant. What I've trusted you with on this earth, you are faithful. Now, I'm going to reward you. And that should be our desire. We should be mad crazy for Jesus Christ. We should be insane according to the world for our love for Jesus Christ. As we stand and we have a verse of invitation, let me ask you one thing. Are you a false Christian? Are you a dog, an evil worker? Because you're doing it by yourself. You're doing it according to your flesh. Are you of the concision? Are you based upon you've got to do all of this in order to be pleasing to God? Or are you a true Christian that worships Him in spirit and rejoices in Jesus Christ and longs to know Jesus Christ? That's where the true Christian is at. It has nothing to do with me. Everything of my accomplishments is but done. But guess what? If I'm in Jesus Christ, everything that happens in Jesus Christ is a multitude of blessings upon blessings upon blessings. As we sing, what have we?