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I want to ask you, how would you finish this sentence? For me, living is blank. What would you put in that fill in the fill-in-the-space there? For me, living is blank. I was challenged by this question personally this week, and I wanted to pass on the challenge to you. I was as I was studying, this question was posed to me in one of the materials I was reading, and it just asked that question pretty point blank, said, you know, what is living for you? And as I was challenged about this question, I was reminded this is a very, very important question because how he answer it, answers it really determines a lot of things in our lives. Would you say, for me, living is money? Now I'm asking you guys to not say, you know, what would you fill that blank in in a group of people if you had to say it out loud? But if you were gut level honest, what would you say? Would you say for me living is money, or for me living is happiness, or for me living is pleasure, or a hobby, or relationship? How would you fill in that blank? For some of my extended family, I got to thinking about them, and I thought for them, maybe they would have filled in this blank. For us, living is success. So on my dad's side of the family, he has an uncle that we knew as Uncle Doug, and he had an incredible story, one of those rags to riches type stories. You guys know what I'm talking about? Like those stories that you're like, wow, that's incredible. So Uncle Doug, way back in the day, lived in a shack with his family. They had barely anything, barely enough food to even eat. And they lived in this horrible little house. My dad described it to me a couple of times. And this house was down by a swamp, and that was on purpose because what Uncle Doug was up to, he was making just enough money to get by, but his main thing that he was on the side was an inventor. And he would go out at night and test his invention in the swamp. So what he was trying to invent was an insect propellant. And so he'd work on his formula, he'd mess with it, he'd put it on one arm, and he'd go out and literally stand out there in the swamp and test his product. And he did this hour after hour, relentlessly, until he got a product that he was happy with. And he kept testing this thing until he found this product, and then from there he took this product and he created a little empire. It went from rags to riches. They went from having nothing to having everything. And so when I met, you know, that side of the family and my dad's cousins and all of that, it was always like, whoa, look at this huge house, look at these cars, like, look at all this success, this fame, this fortune. But when I was a young teenager, maybe not even a teenager, Uncle Doug passed away. And he didn't take any of that stuff with him. He didn't take his success, his fame, and his fortune. And the sad thing was I had an inside track to see what happened next in his family. All his kids started to fight and feud and and and backstab and bite at each other over the over the fortune. And it really just tore apart their family. This success, this fortune just ultimately led to disappointment in their family. And as I look at them, I'm so reminded that when we put things other than Christ into that fill-in-the-blank that I challenged you on earlier, ultimately it's going to lead to disappointment. If we say success is what we're ultimately living for, success is fleeting. If we say money, possessions, happiness, all of those things are fleeting. The only thing that is not movable is Christ. And I want to challenge you with that this morning as we continue on in this series where we're talking about living for more. We're living for more than just success. We're living for more than just happiness or having money or possession or whatever you may fill that blank in with. We're living for Christ. And so we've been going through this conversation by studying the book of Philippians, and we've been going just section by section, working our way methodically through the book of Philippians, which I've enjoyed doing a study this way. And as we've continued on through, we're going to get to finally today the end of chapter one. And I'm excited for us to cover these last 11 verses as we read, but I wanted to remind you of a couple of quick things as we jump into the conversation today. The first thing is that this is a letter written by Paul from prison. Paul is at the end of his life. He's an older man, he's in prison, he's in chains for speaking the gospel. And he's writing his letter to a group of people that he helped plant a church at. Now, one thing that I really want to make specifically clear to you guys this morning is that yes, this was a letter written by Paul from prison, but it's also a letter from God to us. This is God's word that we're talking about this morning. So don't just see this as some obscure letter from written from some guy who lived 2,000 years ago to the, you know, this church that he helped plant. See this as God's word to us. Whenever we read the scriptures, God was behind the authorship of all of that. And you've got to know that. You've got to realize that. And so we can look at this today and not just see it as a letter to the Philippians, but see it as God's word to us. The reason that I say that this morning is that the Bible tells us a lot about how we should view it. 2 Timothy 3 16 says this all scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. I'll give you another scripture that speaks about itself. Second Peter 1 20 tells us this. First of all, you should know this no prophecy of Scripture comes from one's own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came from the will of man. Instead, men spoke from God as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. Isn't that good? It reminds us that as Paul was writing this letter, God had greater intentions behind moving that pen of Paul. And so as we read this this morning, I want you to really see this as God's word to us as we open up and read. So let's turn to Philippians chapter one. Would encourage you to grab a Bible and read along. Or your Bible app on your phone is appropriate too, I guess. We'll make that we'll make that permissible. Philippians chapter one. We'll have it on the screen also, if you need to read along there. Philippians 1, verse 20 is where we're going to start. My eager expectation and hope is that I will not be ashamed about anything, but that now as always, with all boldness, Christ will be highly honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For me, living is Christ, and dying is gain. Now if I live on in the flesh, this means fruitful work for me, and I don't know which I should choose, which one I should choose. I am pressured by both. I have the desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better, but to remain with remain in the flesh is more necessary for you. Since I am persuaded of this, I know that I will remain and continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith, so that, because of me, your confidence may grow in Christ Jesus when I come to you again. Just one thing. For it has been given to you on Christ's behalf not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for Him, having the same struggle that you saw I had, and now hear that I have. What we see in the text is that God's desire for Christians is to grow in the gospel. If I could summate this whole eleven verses in a nutshell, that's what we see. That's your first fill in the blank here this morning. We see that God's desire is for Christians to grow in the gospel. God's desire is for us to more and more so bear his image in life. That as we walk through the journeys of life, people would see Christ more and more in our lives. That as they see us through the seasons of life, we will mature and grow to look more and more like him. He wants for us to develop, to not be the same people that we were yesterday, but to continue to grow and develop and be the people that he's called us to be. This is a principle that we see throughout life. When you develop, when you grow, when you teach somebody, you typically walk through some steps with them. You move them from just being in those beginner steps to being growing and being the people that God has called you to be. And when you see that, what happens is there's typically this process where you say to somebody, okay, watch me. Observe my example, and then you move on to say, join me in what I'm doing, I'm gonna lead you, and then finally you say, I'm gonna watch you. You lead out now. You know what I'm talking about? Like when you learn something, that's typically what the process by which it happens. I had this happen a lot when I was in college and and on out of college as I worked with my uncle. My uncle, Uncle John, was a uh construction, did like construction work and landscaping and all sorts of stuff. He was like probably, he is probably the most practical man I know. He's like one of those guys that if there's a tool, he knows how to use it. If there's like something that needs working on, he knows how to fix it. Like whether it's an engine or like building a house or whatever, he's like, he's got it figured out. He's one of those type of guys. And so working with him over the years, I learned a lot of things. And typically what would happen is whether it was like learning how to paint or use a chainsaw, he'd be like, okay, here's how we do it. And he'd sit me down and kind of give me an example of what to do. And then he'd be like, okay, come alongside here and let's do this together. So we work together for a little bit, and then he'd be like, Okay, you got it. I'm gonna come back and check on you. So he'd let me kind of work a little bit and check on me. And essentially, as we look at this scripture this morning, that's what I see Paul is saying, and God is saying through Paul to us this morning. He's kind of giving us an example. Then he is saying, Okay, imitate my example, and he's saying, Okay, let me encourage you as you continue on in what you're seeing here. And so, as we dissect this text this morning, as we pull it apart, that's the way that we're gonna look at it. We're gonna look at it in these three ways that God speaks. So the question we're gonna ask is, how does God use Paul to encourage us to grow? The first way is by observing his example. By observing his example. Verse 20 through 26 is really this segment of the scripture. He starts out in verse 20 by stating his eager expectation and hope that he will not be ashamed of Christ, but he will actually be bold and honor him in life or in death. In case we have any confusion as to what Paul is getting at here, he goes on to elaborate in this sentence that has been quoted throughout history. It's one of those New Testament scriptures that's used a lot. And it's the scripture that says, For me, living is Christ and dying is gain. You've if you've been around church or Christianity for a while, you've probably heard that statement before. For me, living is Christ and dying is gain. He gives us this little formula to kind of see here. He says, Hey, living equals Christ, dying equals grain. But uh gain, but what is what does that mean? Well, living meant courageously living for Christ and fruitful ministry. He kind of goes on to elaborate on some of that. Paul is saying that as long as I have breath, you're gonna see Christ in my life. Like, Christ is gonna inform my decisions, like how I use my time, my energy, my money, like everything. I'm gonna ooze Jesus. Like wherever you see me, Jesus is gonna be flowing out of my life. For me, living is Christ. And there is a whole sermon right here that we could preach on this, but we're not gonna get bogged down in that. If you if you want to hear some more on that, uh, I'd encourage you to listen to some of the sermons we've already preached out of Philippians 1, because that's really been one of the key kind of ideas throughout this passage so far. So, this idea simply is that Christ would be coming out of every essence of our beings. The second thing that he says here is that dying is gain. And for Paul, dying meant courageously departing to be in the presence with Christ. And what this really reminds us of is that death doesn't need to be something that we're fearful of. Death doesn't need to be seen as something that is bad. There was a missionary that uh ended up dying, the death of a martyr. This is a guy who went to proclaim Jesus and died for it. But before any of that happened, he actually wrote this famous quoted phrase. It was this He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. Think about that. What's he trying to say here? This is Jim Elliot, a man who was killed by these headhunters that he was trying to reach out to with the gospel. And he said, Hey, I can't keep my life. I have no control over the future, but the thing that I can keep through Jesus is my salvation. I don't have to be fearful of the future because I know that my certainty is found in Jesus and my future with him. To a Christian, death is not final, death is not negative. That's a double negative right there. First Corinthians 15 goes on and says this in verse 55, 54 and 55. It says, Then the saying that is written will take place, and it quotes the Old Testament here. Death has been swallowed up in victory, death, where is your victory? Death, where is your sting? Paul was entirely confident of where he was going when he died. There wasn't a question in his mind, and so I want to ask you, are you confident? Did you do you know what will happen to you when you will die? I know that's kind of a morbid question to throw out this morning, but it's an important one, guys. Like this is really important to think about. Do you know what's going to happen to you when you're gonna die? Paul knew. He said dying is gain. And I don't ask this question unsympathetically this morning. Because as a Christian, I I made a decision to be a Christ follower when I was in elementary school. But from then on until like late teenage years, I really struggled with this whole thing. I struggled with believing that, you know, if I was going to die, that I was in a right place with God. I struggled to believe, well, hey, what about my sins? What about, you know, I haven't been very good lately? What if, what about these things that I've been struggling with? Would that keep me from being in a right place with God? Thankfully, I now live day by day believing that when I die I will be in the presence of Jesus. And I just want to put that question to you. Do you have that same faith? Do you have that same belief that when you die, you will be with Jesus? If you're a Christian, you can have that certainty. The gospel, this word that we keep throwing out, gospel, is the good news of Jesus. And if you believe the good news of who Jesus is and what he's done, you can have that certainty. The reality is this, let me be explicitly clear here this morning. We are separated from God. God created us, but he gave us humans a special place in creation. We're created in his image, and he gave us the ability to choose and to worship him or to choose and to worship ourselves. We chose to reject God as humans. And that created this chasm between us we call sin. And there was not there is nothing you can do, no matter how good you are, that can make you right with Christ again. The only thing that will make you right with make you right with God again is Christ. Jesus is the one who bridges that gap. He was fully God, fully man. He came and he died for our sins. He had to pay that penalty for us. God couldn't just just pretend that we didn't sin. He had to pay that penalty and that's what made us right with him again. And if you believe in Jesus, that's what saves you. It's not your good works, it's not being a good person, it's not being a morally, you know, right person or being. It's Jesus and Jesus alone. One of my favorite verses on this is Romans 10, verse 9. It says, If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. And so I just really I don't want to move past this this morning without making sure that everyone in the every person in this room this morning hears the truth that you can know when you die where you will be going. You can know your destiny, you can know that you will be right with God and be going to heaven. It's not about you, it's about Jesus and where you stand with Jesus. It's not about living up to a certain moral standard, it's about Christ and Christ alone. Because when you stand before Him, instead of your sins, he can see Jesus' righteousness. So basically, as we look here and we see that Paul says, For me, living is Christ, dying is gain. He's saying, I've got two great options in front of me. I can live for Christ or I can die and even be better in a better spot. He's playing the optimist, which is kind of interesting considering he's in prison, right? He's in prison writing this letter, and he's saying, Hey, I've got two really good options in front of me. I like the way the message paraphrase puts it. It says it like this It says, Life versus even more life, I can't lose. That's how this is translated. Life even versus more life, I can't lose. Do you view life the same way as Paul? Well, you have two great options in front of you. Yeah, you may have some hardships. I mean, Paul's there in prison, and yet he's saying, Hey, I've got an option of either life or even more life. And so I want to encourage you with those words this morning that we too can have that same perspective and outlook. Let's look at the second way that God uses Paul to encourage us to grow. The second way is not just by observing him, but it moves on in this learning process to imitating his example. If you go into verse 27 and 28, Paul has moved from using I, my, me into using words like your. And in this section, he's really saying, hey, I want you guys to imitate what I was just telling you about. I just told you that I'm living for Christ and I view death as a gain. You guys should live the same way. And this isn't a new concept. If you go to 1 Corinthians 4, it says, Therefore, I urge you to imitate me. 1 Corinthians 11, imitate me as I also imitate Christ. There's this idea in Christian community that we can we can follow and encourage each other, spur each other along. And I want to ask that question to you this morning. Would you feel comfortable saying the same thing? If you're a Christian in the room here this morning, would you say, hey, do you want to know what it looks like to be a Christian? Look at me. Not in a prideful way, but in a humble way, saying, hey, I'm living as best as I can in front of Christ, and you can watch me and I'll show you what it looks like to be a Christian. That's a pretty high bar, right? Like to be able to say that. And what we see here is Paul making this reference and saying, hey, imitate me in this powerful verse in verse 27. Because essentially he's moving from saying, hey, for me living is Christ and dying is gained, and he goes on here in verse 27 to say just one thing. Live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel. So he's saying, hey, I'm living a life worthy of the gospel. You guys should do it too. Imitate me, copy my example, live for Christ, see death as gain, and live a life worthy of the gospel. This word, just one thing, these words, just one thing, is signaling that this is very important. And I don't know about you, but when I hear that verse, live a life worthy of the gospel, I'm like, wow, that's that's actually pretty intense when you think about it. The gospel is everything. Like the gospel is what brings freedom and liberty and grace and love into my life. The gospel is the good news of Jesus, the most powerful being that's ever existed. How do I live a life worthy of that? Like that's a pretty that's a pretty intimidating thing, a challenging thing to think about, maybe overwhelming. And when I couple that with some of the words of Jesus, that can that thought continues. If you go to Luke chapter 12, Jesus is talking to a group of people and he's talking about how we're entrusted with things and we we're accountable for the things that he has blessed us with and entrusted us with. In verse 48 of Luke 12, he says, Much will be required of everyone who has been given much, and even more will be expected of the one who has been entrusted with more. And as I look to my life, I'm like, wow, I've been blessed with a lot. Like God has been very gracious and good to me. I mean, just even in the gospel alone. Like I'm responsible for that. Like I have to realize that there is a weight of responsibility that comes with that. As I was reading and thinking about all of these verse, the the this verse and and what goes into verse 29 here, I read this uh, I read a little excerpt on this verse by Matt Chandler, a pastor here from Texas. And he said this living a life worthy of the gospel does not mean pretending to be perfect. That's good. Instead, it means having the humility to think of others as better than ourselves. It means putting self-concern aside to work together, realizing that we are all still in process. This is not a call to perfection. This is a call to live in community out the good news and the grace that we've received. And so I really want to encourage you guys this morning that this is not easy, but it is done together in community. If you go on and read the rest of the text here in verse 27, it's interesting what it says. Because it says, Yeah, live your life worthy of it of the gospel of Christ. Then, whether I come and see you or am absent, I will hear about you that you are standing firm in listen to this, in one spirit, with one mind, working side by side for the faith that comes in the gospel. What we're reminded here of is that we can only live in a manner worthy of the gospel in community. This doesn't happen in isolation. God works out his good news and his grace in the context of community. Again, this is something that we've talked about already in this series as we're talking, we've been talking through Philippians 1. God works in the context of community to help us to live lives worthy of the gospel. Again, a lot more could be said on this, but let's move on and ask about the third way that God uses Paul to encourage us to grow. If you go on to the last two verses, God encourages us to grow by the encouragement to move forward in the gospel. Move forward in the gospel. As Paul moves on in talking about how we can grow, he challenges us to embrace suffering. Look at verse 29 with me. It says in verse 29, for it has been given to you on Christ's behalf, not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for him. Now it's interesting as you look at this, this word given implies that this suffering is a gift from God. Now that's an interesting conversation that we could get all tied up in today, right? This suffering is a gift from God. If you go onto some of the other translations, it kind of elaborates on this. If you look at the ESV or the NIV, it says it's granted. The suffering is granted to you. If you go to that New Living Translation, it says, given the privilege. And the message paraphrase, again, doesn't hold back at all. It says it like this there's far more to this life than trusting in Christ. There's also suffering for him. And the suffering, hear this, is as much as a gift as the trusting. That's pretty powerful. The suffering is as much as a gift as the as the trusting. As I think about that, I find it interesting to note that this conversation on suffering and Paul's encouragement for these guys to continue on in their journey. They're obviously in the midst of some hardship. And he's saying, hey, you guys are already living lives worthy of the gospel. Keep it up. And as he's doing this, what we see is that this happens, this conversation about this gift of suffering comes right after he just talked about community. Remember, he was saying, hey, living together, side by side. He's saying, hey, you've got to realize that suffering is much more bearable in the context of community. My wife and I, Liz, we were really reminded of this a couple of years ago. I don't know if I would call it suffering, but a couple of years ago, we went through a hard spot where we went from having uh just having a two brand, a guy who'd just turned two, to having three kids in our family. We had twins. So we had three kids. Uh uh we had our two-year-old, I'm making this complicated. We had a two-year-old and then we had twins, right? And and so there was a lot of babies, a lot of diapers, and it was just crazy in our house. I don't remember a lot from that time in our lives, but what I do very, very, very clearly remember is our church community, our church family, some of you guys getting around us and loving us and serving us in a way that resembled Jesus. I just remember people coming around us, and again, it wasn't suffering like on a on a big high level, but it was hard. But in that season, having you guys come around us and serve us was huge. It was it was massive for us to experience that, and it just reminds me that Paul's been talking about how we work side by side and all of this, and then he moves on to talking about suffering. He realizes that that's much, much, much better in the context of Christian community. But suffering isn't just about us our gritting our teeth and getting through it. So, as Paul's here talking about suffering, what I want you to see this morning is that suffering grows our faith and bears witness to the gospel. Suffering isn't just something that we grit our teeth and get through and say, yeah, I'm done with that. It grows our faith and it bears witness to the gospel. There is so much that could be said on this, but again, last week Nick talked specifically on suffering, so I'm not going to get into all of this this morning, but I want you to think about that this morning. There's a quote by a theologian from the 19th century, a guy named Charles Spurgeon, who said this suffering saints are living seeds. Suffering saints are living seeds. Think about that with me. What does that mean? That means that when we suffer, when we go through hardship and difficulty, the seeds of the gospel are there in our lives, ready to bear fruit, ready to become a beautiful thing out of that difficulty, maybe in our own life, but maybe in the lives of other people as they watch us go through hardship. And so I really want to encourage you this morning that in this process of growing as Christians and this call to move from observing to imitating to then leading out, the leading out sometimes is in the context of suffering and difficulty. Let's summate what we've covered so far. Firstly, there's a call to observe the power of the gospel. And as we see this, we see that the gospel has power to make us live for Christ and realize that death isn't something that we need to fear. That death can actually be something to look forward to in that we will be present with Christ. Secondly, there's this challenge for us to join in what's happening, to live a life worthy of the gospel. Then thirdly, there's an encouragement to lead in the midst of hardship, to not give up, to continue the good work that God's been doing in our lives. So if we kind of summate this scripture, that's what we see in all of this context. But and there's again, there's a lot more to this than we can cover today. But what we see really is God, through his word, giving us a glimpse at what the Christian life can and should look like. If I could really summate this whole 11 verses, I would say this is a summation of what the Christian life should look like. And if it sounds to you or me like the bar's set pretty high, it is. Like the bar's set pretty high here. And it may seem a little overwhelming to us this morning. I mean, I I as I was reading this and studying this, I'm like, man, this is like pretty heavy call to live for Christ, to live a life worthy of the gospel. Like, that sounds a little bit overwhelming. Bill Gates is quoted as saying, most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years. I would say as Christians, as people, we struggle to underestimate what God can do in one year and vastly underestimate what God can do in ten years in our lives. God is gracious, and God's grace is sufficient for us, even in our weakness, even in our struggles. As I look back over my own life, like I'm reminded of this, I am not a perfect person. I was I have struggles. I have things that I struggle with. I'm not a good dad all the time, I'm not a good husband all the time, I'm not a good friend or a good son to my parents. Like, there are things that I mess up. I say bad things, I think bad things, like there are struggles that I deal with, but I will say that over the last five years I've seen God working in my life. If I look back to where I was five years ago, by his grace, I see that he's grown me. If I look back five years from there, I see God's grown me, and it's good to see that, right? I encourage you, Christians, if that's part of your story, think back to how God has been moving and growing you to be the person that He's called you to be. I think in my own life, like about five years ago, where I was and what was going on at that point, there was a point in my life where I was really in this, in a good spot with God, but in this insulated little Christian bubble in my life. And I felt, I really sensed God was calling me to engage with people that were outside of the Christian community, outside of the church. And it's cool to think that here, five years later, now I have some, I'm really engaged with my neighbors. I know my neighbors pretty well. And I have some friends, some very good friends in my life that aren't Christians. Like those are really encouraging things to me because I see that God has been growing me in some ways that He's been prompting me in. So I just say all of that to say, yeah, I'm not perfect. I know you're not perfect, but God can work and grow and develop us to be spiritually mature, to grow as Christians, to allow these things to happen in our life so that we're living lives worthy of the gospel. If you think about Paul himself, he was a guy that God had been working on throughout his lifetime. Paul's here writing this statement saying, for me to live is Christ and to die is gain. He's making this statement as a man who's lived decades faithfully with God. God's been working on his life throughout the seasons of his life. So let's hear this challenge to live lives worthy of the gospel, all the while realizing that it doesn't mean that we need to be perfect. This isn't about our perfection, guys. This text. This text is about Jesus. You've got to see that, you've got to remember that. This text isn't about our perfection, it's about Jesus. Jesus is, and this is really key, it's in your notes. Jesus is the motivation and the means for us to live lives worthy of the gospel. When God calls us in Philippians 1 to grow spiritually, it's in response to who he is and what he's done. You've got to get that this morning. This isn't a call that Paul's making here to say, hey, you guys better live good lives, otherwise you're not going to get into heaven. You better live a certain standard, you better be a certain way, you better be a good person. No, he's saying all of that stuff is a response to who Jesus is and what he's done. It's a response to his grace and what he's working out in our lives. And so I want to encourage you guys in this this morning. Another way of putting it is like this it's by his grace that we experience his grace. Let me rephrase that. It's by his grace that we experience the gospel. And it's by his grace that we grow. I want you to see that it's by his grace that we come into a relationship, and then it's by his grace that we continue to grow in that relationship. The Christian life is about both. It's about forming that relationship, then it's about growing that relationship. And so I want to encourage you guys this morning that God's grace is amazing. It's worth celebrating. Don't walk out of here today being heavy in your heart that you aren't living a life worthy of the gospel. Walk out of here today celebrating the faith of the fact that God is gracious to you. And by His grace and by His power, you can live a life worthy of the gospel. Our lives should be saying, for me to live is Christ and to die is great gain because of who Jesus is and what he's done for us. A couple of years ago, uh, well, I guess it's more than a couple. When I was in college, I'm getting older. Uh when I was in college, there was a song in the circles that I was in that was written, a worship song that was written right out of this passage of Scripture. And it quickly became one of my favorite worship songs. It still is, I really love the song. The lyrics are just incredible to this song. And I'm not going to sing it for you this morning, so don't be scared. But uh I what I wanted to let you know is just simply know the words of the chorus because I think they're powerful. The words of this the this song went like this For me to live is Christ and to die is gain, quoting Philippians 1 here. And then it goes on to say, No matter what price I pay, I choose to give this life away. It says, For me to live is Christ and to die is gain. No matter what price I pay, I choose to give this life away. And essentially, that is the essence of what we're talking about today. We're not talking about being high and mighty and being these amazing people so that we can impress God. All that we bring to the table is this: a releasing to God to say, hey, I choose to give this life to you, God. No matter what, you have full reign, you have full control. For me, living is Christ. I'm gonna give it completely to you. And so I want to pose one final question to you guys this evening. I want to ask you again, are you living, what are you living for? Are you living for Christ first and foremost, or are you living for something else? How would you fill in that blank? For me, living is blank. The challenge is a simple and hard one, right? It's simple in that I can say it easily. The challenge is live for Christ. That's all that I'm saying this morning. Live for Christ. Guys, let's live for Christ. But it's hard because the practicality of actually doing that is difficult. Because what it requires is for us to take our our gripped, locked hands off of the things of our lives and say, God, it is all yours, completely yours. I give you myself. The challenge is the same, whether you're a Christian or not a Christian this morning. Live for Christ. If you're not a Christian, live for Christ. Make that first-time decision to say, I'm gonna live for Christ, so that I can know when I die, where I'm gonna go, and so I can live a life that counts for something more than just this temporary thing here that we're doing called life. If you are a Christian, the challenge is live for Christ. Allow God to have all of you, not 95% of you, not 99.9% of you, all of you. Give him your entire life. What does that look like for you this morning? I don't know, but I want you to think about it. Are there areas in your life that you are locked in on? Are there areas of your heart that are not given completely to him? Is it an area of your marriage or your parenting? Is it your housing, your finances, your career, your future, your relationships? I don't know what it is this morning, but I really want to challenge you. I want to challenge myself with this. Am I living fully for Christ? Because that's the call here. And by his grace, we can do that. By his power, we can do that. We can live lives for Jesus. And so I want to challenge us all with that this morning. And really, I want to end today by just praying because we need his help to do that. Again, it's not by our power or our strength, it's by his. And so this morning, as we wrap up, I want you to think about are you living for Christ? And how can his grace help you to actually do that? Let's pray.