If you have a device or a Bible with you this morning, go ahead and flip to Philippians chapter three, verse number eight. I just want to say thank you for what I say was just an incredible worship experience last, last weekend for Easter. I love that we saw lots of new faces, families, just great, just such a great energy. Like you leave with a smile on your face.

And we should, because our king was raised from the dead, we. And he still lives. And so I just, I'm excited to be here again with you this morning to be able to worship and to proclaim and to thank our God. Listen, whatever's going on in your life, whatever anxiety may be pressing on you, I can tell you the key is gratitude. Be anxious for nothing.

But in everything with prayer and supplication, with what thanksgiving, whatever's going on in your life, I can guarantee you dig deep and you can find, even if it's just say, God, thank you for the breath that I'm breathing, you'll find a point of gratitude to launch you into thankfulness. So I'm thankful that you're here today. And speaking of worship, tomorrow morning is our next day of prayer at 6am and all the students said, ugh. No, seriously. We remember back in January, we kicked off our year with a week of prayer.

It's a part of our strategy to increase and nurture our own prayer lives. Like, showing up for the event is not what is going to cause you to pray more. It's you begin to begin to integrate that value into your life. And so we decided after that week of prayer that the first Monday of each month would be a day of prayer. 6:00am, you're out of the door by 7.

If you can only stay 30 minutes, come from 6 to 6:30. We just love to have you in the room. But this one is kind of special one because it's not the first Monday, it's the second Monday because Easter was last weekend and we wanted to give you guys a breather. But I want you to come energized tomorrow because we are going to share the Lord's Supper as a part of our worship experience in the morning. And so before you eat your bacon, egg and cheese biscuit, or whatever it is that you do, come and eat of the Lord's Supper.

And also as you came in, in the back middle doors, I've put out, or actually Aaron made these and put these out for us, some fresh prayer request cards. Now, what happens at a day of prayer? You come in and tomorrow communion will be Here, prayer cards will be over here. And you come up for that time of prayer and you take a card and you go and you pray over that card. I'm telling you, we've got about probably 300 cards that have built up over the few months.

And I need your help because some of those prayers have been answered and we want to celebrate that. So tomorrow morning, what time? 6am or p.m. a.m. I can't wait to see you in the morning. You know Jesus came to turn your world upside down, right?

We started talking a few weeks ago about how Jesus on Palm Sunday went into the temple and he flipped the tables upside down. And we started by talking about how Jesus, the kingdom of God, had come. That's what he preached. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, change your mind, to change your behavior and point in a different direction.

And he came first to address the religious mess that existed, that was subjugating those who were broken, disenfranchised, on the margins and brought hope. And last week we continued that idea how Jesus came to take what we accept as normal and show how abnormal it is to really flip it upside down in the sense that I must die in order to live. You see, Jesus taught that to be first, you must be last. He taught to be great, you must be humble. He taught that instead of just showing love to our family, we need to show love to our enemies.

He said, to have power, you must be weak. To have something, you must give away. He called for righteousness and faith, not status or works. He called for justice, not just for those who had, but those who have not. He called for blessing for the marginalized, not the religious perfects.

He called for mercy, not sacrifice. He called for humility, not control. He called for people to serve, not to be at the top. He called for sacrifice, not domination. He called to focus on the inside, not the outside.

He called for purity of heart, not fake performance. He called for storing up eternal treasures, not accumulating temporary trinkets. He called for grace, light of judgment. He called for abnormal in our messed up world. And so what we're going to do the next four weeks is we're going to dig a little bit deeper and take some of these themes about how the kingdom of God has flipped and can flip this world upside down.

So I want to invite you to stand in honoring God's word today. And I'm going to start reading in verse 8 of Philippians chapter 3, Paul in prison is writing and says, more than that. I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value beyond measure of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of many things and I count them as garbage. Now, I want you to notice there are four mays, M a Y that follows. So if you mark your Bible, you may want to circle these mays so that I may note gain Christ, and I may be found in him not having a righteousness of my own, derived from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith that I may know him, the power of his resurrection and the fellowship, the koinonia of his sufferings, being conformed to his death, transformed in that way.

And here's the best verse of it all, that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Father, as we dig into this text today, help us to analyze where we stand so that we might please you in Jesus name. Amen. So Jesus has called us to die. We shared a few weeks ago that you're going to die to sin.

You're either going to die to it or you're going to die because of it. You come to the cross of Christ and his death must become your death. You must die to that person of sin. Or if you leave this world not knowing Christ, you will die separated from God eternally in what we know as hell. That's a big pill to swallow.

But you don't have to if you put your faith and trust in Christ right. And Paul is calling us now to this attention of what it means to die. He wants to qualify what it means to die to yourself. Not quantify, but qualify. And it's this idea that if I want to gain and win, I have to lose.

How weird would it be? Imagine that you're on a sports team. How many of you in this room confessionally received a chewing out on a football team at a halftime event because you were losing the game? That was rough. Some of you have been the recipients of that.

I mean, you watch these basketball games and there's coaches on the sideline and. And their veins are bulging and popping and they're screaming as they're trying to motivate the team. But how weird would it be, almost like Waterboy, if you walked in and the coach went, all right, guys, here we are. We're about to play. I hope you're ready.

Just go out there and don't lose.

I mean, you'd be ready to go out there and pop somebody in the chops. I remember when I chaplain football, I had two guys that would Go over. And they'd just slap each other. I'm going, what are you doing? Like they were trying to get each other so riled up and their adrenaline flowing.

Like, the coach come in and say, well, hey, just don't lose. Or what if you were a part of an investing firm and it's Monday morning, and your job is to do what in an investment firm? Make money. If you're in business. If you're a business owner today, what's your goal in business?

Make money. If you buy stock in a company, what do you expect? Money. But imagine you go in and the CEO comes in and he's like, well, guys, we broke even this week. Let's go out there and don't lose any money.

Like, really, like, that's it. That's not a very inspiring speech, is it? Like, what if you came in here and I came up and said, hey, guys, let's. Let's go out there and live for Jesus? I mean, I'm not saying that everything has to be like me get up here in a tutu, in a cheerleading outfit and try to get you excited.

But, I mean, at the same time, it's like trying not to lose is never a winning strategy if your goal is to not lose. When you get on the field, you might play good defense, but you'll never play good offense. Offense means you're strategically looking at opportunities to move the ball forward, to make the shot, to make the investment, whatever it is, that's the gain. And for you and I today, this is how the kingdom is upside down. If we want to win, I have to lose everything else, everything in my life that takes the place of Jesus Christ.

Being number one is what is called a disadvantage. In verse eight, when Paul begins to say, I count all things as loss. That word count on one hand is a leadership term. But in this case, it is logically analyzing and coming to a conclusion. Well, maybe the conclusion he drew is that when he looked at his life, when he looked at his past, when he looked at what he had done and what he had accomplished, he put it on a scale with Jesus, and the side with Jesus went straight down to the tabletop.

Because nothing compares. Nothing compares to what he's done. Nothing compares to who he is. Nothing compares to the value of the Son of God. And he said, I'm leading myself to understand that nothing in my life, my successes, my titles, my family lineage was, wherever I've been, whatever I've done, how much money I made, none of it.

Not only does it count when you compare it to Christ, it's garbage. It's garbage. When we get to Scotland next week, they won't have trash cans, they have rubbish bins. It's trash. You're going, whoa, wait a minute.

You're talking about my family. Now, that's fighting words.

I mean, I think Jesus said that you forsake mother, father, brother, sister, did he not?

It's about our priority. See, Paul's in prison. And if you back up to 1:21, he doesn't really know what's going to happen to him. He's unsure, am I going to get out or is this the end, is this my life? But here he is in prison and he's writing to the Philippians, let me remind you, Acts, chapter 16.

He goes to Philippi. He meets Lydia at the riverfront. She gets saved. He goes out on the street, demon possessed woman starts taunting him. And through God's power, this woman is freed of that demon.

But because she made money for people gain, they're flogged and thrown into prison. And the jailer hears some rumbling, you know, later that night, and they're miraculously set free. The jailer gets saved. You got Lydia in there, you got the jailer in there, but they saw Paul suffer. Do you know why some of you in this room, your faith is weak?

It's because you've never embraced the absolute suffering of Christ and you've never seen how your suffering. For the faith glorifies the gospel. We actually avoid it. See, Christianity, for a lot of us is that strategy of not losing. I want to come in on a Sunday morning and I'm going to do my church part.

I ticked that off. And I'm going to get up in the morning and read my 10 minute devotion check. And that hour and 30 minutes you spend every week is the extent of your faith life. And you wonder why that when suffering and hardship comes, you can't stand because your faith has not deepened. James, chapter one, verse number two.

Consider it all joy when you encounter various trials. How upside down is that? Like, how upside down is it for you to go, thank you, Lord, for my car being trashed. Thank you, Lord, that my house just burned down. I mean, like, you're going, like what?

That's natural suffering, what Paul's talking about here in 121 1, where he says, for to me, to live is Christ, that's a win, and to die is gain. Guess what that is? That's a win. And he's talking about physical death. He's not talking metaphorically.

He knows his life might end because he's preaching the Gospel. And I would dare say a fraction of us in this room have ever truly been ridiculed or persecuted for our faith. And we're missing out on a depth of gain in knowing Christ because, number one, we haven't. And number two, when it's come, we haven't embraced it. I didn't get an amen on that.

Paul goes on in 129 to say for you, listen, he's writing to them. And I think the Philippians are about to throw the towel in. I think they're looking at Paul and they're saying, like, no, dude, you're in jail. Like, we believe that if bad things happen, you must have done something bad. It goes back to the book of Job or modern day karma.

Well, that stuff doesn't happen. The Bible already said that it rains on the just and the unjust. Good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people. They're looking at him and they're going, like, what kind of apostle are you? You're in jail.

And he says to them, hold on, wait a minute, wait a minute. For to you it has been granted to suffer for Christ's sake, not only to just believe in him. There is a depth of knowing Christ that we have not gained because I still haven't put the world in its place.

Last week, when we read Matthew 16 and we talked about how he calls us to deny self, Peter denied knowing Jesus three times. And some of us still haven't broken up with our old self.

He's he or she's still there and it's almost like a jumpsuit. I go, put that jumpsuit back on and I live my old life and I'm like Miley Cyrus. I'm trying to live the best of both worlds and I can't.

You're schizophrenic, in a sense, spiritually, you can't do it. Paul is calling us that the only true gain that has any eternal value is the gain of knowing Christ himself. And so he gets to chapter three after he talks about the greatest example of denying self, which was Christ himself, who emptied himself of the glory of heaven and he came and he put on human flesh. He became sin for us, yet was sinless. You realize that, right?

He took on your garbage so that he could die to it on a cross. But then this is the beautiful thing he says, but then in us, we are becoming the righteousness of God. But I can't if, like Paul's Going to argue here. I keep my own righteousness on the table. Like I've got them in little picture frames so that the world can see how good I am, how perfect I am.

And that's the kind of life I live. I just want to get by. I want to make sure everybody thinks I'm a pretty good person, that I can't suffer, that I can't mess up. You know what's unbelievable in the world today? They come in a place like this and they can't find grace.

Like, how are you saved? By grace, through faith. And if I can't come in with the people of God who have experienced the grace of God and received the grace of God, how will I ever know the grace of God? Paul says he starts this chapter off and he addresses legalism. You got those people that even though grace is so amazing, is so rich and so awesome, there's still those that are going, but, yep, if you don't get circumcised, you're not a Christian.

If you don't read a certain type of Bible, you're not Christian. If you don't go to a certain type of church, you're not Christian. And we put all these add ons. It's kind of like Microsoft Windows PC sometimes. Can't run.

It's got so many add ons and updates. For those of us that switch to Mac, we don't have that problem.

When we're saved by grace alone, we don't have that problem either. Why Paul would say in Romans 10, why would you want to go back and start doing the works of righteousness that never could save you to start with, when you've been given 100% full righteousness from Christ.

And when he starts saying, I count all of these things lost, what's he talking about? Well, he says, well, I was circumcised on the eighth day. I was of the tribe of Benjamin. Like, he knows his lineage. Some of you could trace your lineage in Tekoa back to before the Plymouth, in the Mayflower, but that doesn't save you.

Some of you can trace your roots back into this church back a couple of hundred years back, but that does not save you. He says, I was a Pharisee. I was zealous. Zealous for what? Remember his story?

He's standing there, we're introduced to Paul as he's standing there taking up the coats of people who were stoning Stephen to death for preaching the gospel. And he goes and he gets letters to continue doing the same. He wanted to snuff Christianity out. It was a abhorrent to him. But on the road to Damascus, God shut his physical eyes and opened his spiritual eyes.

He made him blind physically to show how he could open his eyes spiritually.

And Paul was changed. Paul, in that moment, didn't start. He didn't pull out a scroll because he couldn't see and go, well, you know, all this stuff about the Messiah makes sense. And I mean, he didn't go through a list. Sorry, that sounded a little bit It's a Wonderful Life.

He didn't do that. What it did was it transformed. It conformed him to the thinking of Christ, that I must come to the end of myself so that I can gain Christ in knowing him.

I went online and I typed in a search. Show me where the church admits they're better off for suffering. You know what I got? This is what I got. Pew research.

That because people go to church, they're more engaged with family and friends. That's a good thing, right? That's a good thing. I'm not saying it's not. They're more satisfied with life.

That's a good thing. That they have social support and lower depression. Barna said that, you know, it elevates faith and exposes you to different perspectives. But what I could not find is anybody saying that my suffering for the gospel has caused me to know Jesus more.

It's foreign to us because we don't know suffering. We have brothers and sisters today around this globe who against their life went to church today. We've got brothers and sisters around this globe who are sitting in jail cells just like Paul because they believe there might be somebody today around this world whose life was taken because they believe in Jesus Christ. And yet for us, we're uncomfortable sitting in a service once a week for an hour.

My priorities, my success, they take the place of Christ being number one. George Guthrie observed this. Whereas gain here has more to do with advantage. The word rendered loss is its opposite. Speaking of disadvantage, or one that forfeits, we would have to be biblically tone deaf.

Did you hear how strong those words are? Biblically tone deaf not to hear the words of Jesus behind this thought. What benefit would it be for someone to gain the whole world yet lose their soul?

He bids me come die. But for whatever reason, in Christianity, we're like, how many of you took your kids to a little fair and you gave them about $30? And they'd go, put the quarters in there and get these tickets? And they come, they carry this big old Pile of tickets. And you're like, look at what I won.

And they go up to that counter and they start looking at all these toys and stuff. And for $25 they come back with this little gold medal. That's nothing but cheap plastic sprayed with spray paint. That's what we satisfy ourselves with.

Our strategy in Christianity is just to not lose. Folks, can I challenge you today to start looking at Christianity different? That your prize is the day that Jesus Christ comes back and he raises you from the dead. That is your gain, that is your security. That is our hope, that is our future.

If I know Jesus Christ to be raised, remember he said that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. In fact, he actually uses the word from twice in there to be raised from out of the dead. Many of you are like, that doesn't make sense. Everybody I know that has died is still dead. There's coming a day.

And this is what Paul, this is what drove Paul as he counted the cost. He said, Christ is the most valuable. Nothing else compares. So if you want to fill in the blanks, it's blank time. You ready?

Point number one is this gain is discovering the greater value of Christ alone compared to self success. I want you to notice he says the word count twice in verse number eight. More than that. I count now. What's he saying about.

Well, more than what. That he decided to not put confidence in the flesh. That his lineage, his heritage and his self righteousness. He said that's, that doesn't matter. That's not who I am.

I've lost those things. They have no value in my life. They don't make up who I am. So he says all things in view of the surpassing value, the overarching more, far more than we can imagine. Knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

I don't want you to skip over that label there because he could have just said of just knowing Christ Jesus, but he tacks on my Lord.

See, we preach an easy gospel. Come to Jesus, ask him into your heart if you truly put repentant faith in Christ, he's your Lord.

If you say you're saved and Jesus is not ruling in your life, something's not right. See, that's what happened to Paul. He had the experience on the road to Damascus and it caused him to begin to analyze. The thinking didn't lead to faith. The, the faith led to his thinking.

And today we need to get our thinking straight because he says, whom I have suffered the loss of all things. That word is passive. Paul didn't go and make suffering happen. Suffering happened to him as a result. I was watching a video of a preacher this week, and he was making the point.

Jesus was hated by this world, and he is hated by this world because Jesus hates sin. And if he hates sin and I'm identifying with him and the world hates him because of sin, he's going to hate me too. In this world, you will have trouble. But take heart. I've overcome the world.

And he says he's counted these things, all of his accomplishments and titles, as excrement, as manure, as kitchen scraps. Any of you old enough to remember the slop buckets our great grandparents kept in their kitchens? Anybody? Any of you have to go slop the pig. Tommy's back there waving like, he's like, I did it.

I got a T shirt to prove it. Like. Like he. I mean, like, it was gross. But what went in the slop bucket?

Well, the wastewater went in the bucket and the potato peels went in the bucket. Migraine to kill chickens. She didn't go to Ingalls and buy it. Like, she killed it. So there was feathers in the bucket and there was fat chunks in the bucket and there was insides in the bucket.

The bucket stank. He just said, I look at all the things in my life and it is garbage. And what do you do with garbage? You take it out today. If you're here today and this isn't for me, say, well, maybe there's something vying for attention in your life.

I'm saying, is Jesus number one. That's it. You could go through and start analyzing like Paul did and say, okay, well, you know what? My job security and Jesus are kind of like this right here. It's time to take that job security and put it in the slot bucket and take it out.

My kid's future and success and Jesus are like this and this. Actually, maybe it's like this and this. It's time to take that and put it in the slot bucket. You can't experience the full gain of having Christ until you take the trash out. Point number two, gain is found in Christ alone, not banking on self righteousness.

In verse seven, he says, I put no confidence in the flesh. He didn't say, some confidence, a little confidence. He said, I put no confidence in my flesh. Where did he put the confidence that he had been found in Christ? Now, that could be seen two different ways.

Number one is the fact that we have been found by Him. This is one of those. This is the 2nd of May of that paragraph. I have been found by Christ. If you think in any shape, form or fashion that you produce salvation in and of yourself, you're wrong.

You cannot save yourself. All of us in this room probably would attribute that. When Jesus found me, I was as far away from God as I probably could be. But he found me. So first I need to be found in Christ and Christ then needs to be found in me.

So when other people find me, they find Christ. But what are they looking at? Not a righteousness that I've achieved on my own. I'm not looking at myself going, look at how good a person that I am. Look at all the good things that I've done.

You know what I want to be described as is a faith filled person. And when do people see you express your faith most? When do people see you most faith filled? Can I tell you when? When your life unravels.

Job did not curse God. His wife said, would you just curse and die? Curse him and die? And he said, no. After he had lost his health, after he had lost his family, after he had lost his belongings, he still would not speak against God Almighty.

For you and for me. If I really want to be found in Christ alone, it's time to stop bragging about what I've done and start bragging about what he's done. When I talk about Christ, I need to stop using first person and use third person. I need to stop saying, well, I went to prayer meeting, I went to church, I'm in a Bible study. I, I, I, me, me, me, start saying, well, he did this and he did that.

That's the secret. It changes when I'm found in Him. It changes my position in life.

I'm not just getting by, thriving in the abundant life that he brings. See, Titus 3:5 says, we're saved not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to his mercy. Because if I got what I deserved. A lot of times we come to the table and we're like, well, God, look at all the things I've done. It's pretty good stuff, God.

And I don't think God looks down with a scowl in his eyebrows. I think he drops his head in sadness because we still don't get it. Listen to what he said in Romans 10, 2, 3. He said, For I testify about the Jews, that they have a zeal for God, but not in accordance with knowledge. What did Paul just say?

That I may know him? He says, for not knowing about God's righteousness, they sought to establish it on their own. Can I ask you a question. I'm going to lean in on this. Are you tired?

Some of you are exhausted, spiritually speaking, because you're still trying to achieve righteousness on your own. You don't understand and have never experienced the true and pure grace of God and how it changes your life, it changes your heart. That if I'm going to boast, let me boast in the Lord as that passage of Jeremiah that I have listed in your study notes. Like if we're going to boast, boast in him, boast in what he's done. He's given you the righteousness that you need.

So if it is, if it's a heart issue, have I weighed out and counted that my personal gains are of no benefit to me? They're actually a hindrance. Do you get that point?

When I brag about my accomplishments, it is a roadblock for me to be able to experience the purity of the righteousness of God. And today, you know what I can do? I can do just like Paul said, go take a big old bucket and throw that trash where it belongs. Point number three, I'll be here all day on this gain is embracing the suffering of Christ, not living to avoid being uncomfortable. And yes, I did word it that way.

He said in verse 10 that I may know him. In fact, that's an infinitive, the perfect simple past tense, that I may know him. It's happened. How did I come to know him? Because I've put all of these things behind me.

I've counted them as trash that I may gain him. Are you with me? So that I can know him. Know what? The power of his resurrection, the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death.

Fellowship of what suffering? I want you to flip back real quick to chapter one, verse five. Paul in the opening of his letter. We talked about this verse a few weeks ago. Let me just mention it again.

Paul is praying for them with joy and says in verse five, in view of your participation, that's the same word for fellowship in the Gospel. From the first day until now, what Paul is experiencing, they are experiencing. What Paul is going through, they are going through. He said that I may know him. Paul has shifted us from gaining Christ to being found by rejecting self righteousness and now is inviting us to proclaim his suffering.

See, Paul saw a loss of status and that loss led him to knowing Christ more, a new value that he lost himself like he discovered a new position in God's righteousness, not his own. And now he's being called to a loss of comfort and stability being found in the suffering of Christ. To know Christ in a real sense is to know his suffering. I'm not talking about pulling up to Walmart, not getting the front parking spot. I'm not even talking about when you offend a family member, they won't talk to you.

I'm talking about people experiencing suffering because they have identified with Jesus Christ. I'm telling you, most of us in this room have never experienced that. Some of you have.

But when the time comes, and it's coming soon in this nation where persecutions will increase, will you be able to stand under the persecution? How do I do that? Because I look at the example of a man who was taken and beaten, stripped, embarrassed, ridiculed and hound on a cross because of my sin. He became sin I on my behalf. And now what he's producing in me is his righteousness and he's called us to the fellowship of the gospel.

First Peter 3:14 says, but even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness, you are blessed. A lot of you in this room would think, well, I'm blessed if I get this new house and I get this raise and I get this promotion and you'll go through the list of the I's, but. But the biggest blessing you could have is to suffer for the sake of his righteousness. Peter writes in 1st Peter 4:13, but to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, to keep on rejoicing. In Acts 5:41, after the apostles were flogged, they were on their way after being with the council, rejoicing that they had been considered worthy to suffer for his name.

Guys, there's a depth of knowing Christ that you cannot know until you take a risk and stop living this I don't want to lose mentality. I want to gain Christ. And if I've gained Him, I want other people to know him. And now I'm a partner in this fellowship of the gospel because I'm being conformed, transformed to his death. Forsaking sin is hard, is it not?

But it's time to put that garbage in the bin. Maybe I need to cut back on my work hours so I can give Christ more hours. Do you think God will take care of the difference if you lose a little money? He owns the cattle on a thousand hills. Some of you, God is called to take a big step of faith, but you're afraid because of your loss.

But I'm telling you that loss isn't compared to the loss of not knowing Him.

Let me put it to you this way. You can keep playing it safe, but you'll never learn more if you don't change your thinking. How many of you remember Blockbuster? You seen one lately? You know why?

Because they wouldn't change.

They closed their doors because they wanted people to come to their store and. And get the CD, the DVD or the VHS to which everyone in here that's like 20 and under don't even know what a VHS is.

I gain life when I forsake safety. I gain life when I surrender to what he's called me to do. What is he calling you to do today? Because here's that last verse. In order that I may.

This is the last may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Is he saying that you're going to earn the resurrection of the dead? No, you earned the resurrection of the dead because he earned it on the cross and his resurrection, he's gifting it to you. But I can't experience the depth of that in my life until I put the past where it belongs. Till I put my titles where they belong.

Till I put my education where. Where it belongs. I count all things as loss, putting no confidence in those things that I may know Him. So that we may gain Christ by not placing confidence in personal success to be found in him. Not by keeping rules to know him, not by taking the easy road.

But this living upside down gain is secured in. In the resurrection of Christ alone and the Resurrection to come. Not in active faith.

You don't do works to believe. But if you have truly believed, you will do works humbly faith filled so that people aren't going around saying, God, what such a great guy or gal that is, they're going, man, he really believes that stuff. That would be the greatest compliment anybody in this room could get. They really believe this stuff. I'd love for it to be said of me.

He really believes. I do. I can't wait till I see Jesus bust the sky open and return to take us home. And that's my goal. That's my prize, that's my gain.

And it's not a plastic chain sprayed with spray paint. See, I'm on the right side. I'm right side up. When I exchange what I have to gain and I gain everything. Jesus Christ.

I played with that phrasing a lot. I didn't want to. What we gain is him. And if I gain Him, I get all the things that he gives me. He is my life.

But to have a strategy of just getting by to say that, you know, I just don't want to lose. That's a losing strategy. But you know what a winning strategy is today? That if I have truly decided that I'm dead in him, then I've counted everything in my life a loss that I might gain. There's a man by the name of John Patton.

He was born in 1824, a few minutes ago. Do the math. That's 202 years ago. He was saved at the age of 12, and he felt called into ministry. And he left to go to the Southwest Pacific to an island named after a Scottish island, by the way.

I didn't pick that because of our Scottish trip. It just happened to be that way. Called New Hebrides, the island was filled with poverty and ill health and brutal clan battles and cannibalism. And emphasized, in fact, they would sacrifice their widows. And all the widows in the room said, oh, my.

But he left with his wife to go on mission. Three months into his endeavor, his wife Mary and his newborn son die.

He's grieving. He's struggling in an area where he doesn't know the language. I mean, he went. There was no translator. He couldn't pull out Google Translate.

He knew nothing. So he chose to leave in 1862, and he spent a few years traveling, sharing the story of New Hebrides and the natives that were there. He returned in 1864 after remarrying a lady named Margaret. They went to a different island, and while he was there, he learned the language. He produced a New Testament.

He had ten children, but while he was there, four of them died. I think this man experienced loss. Would you agree or disagree? He lost his homeland, he lost his lineage, he lost his comfortability. He lost family.

But listen to what was said of him. They were so involved in just practical helping, educating, creating employment, starting medical and social care. The impact of his preaching and his practice of the gospel was remarkable. Within two decades, the entire island had become practicing Christians.

In 1881, in his late 50s, ill health forced him to leave. It cost him his health. I'm 51. This man was 57. And so he went and started speaking on the influence of missions.

His influence was helped by his dramatic autobiography and the nickname given to him by somebody you may have heard of before, CH Spurgeon, who called him the King of the cannibals.

Patton was careful not to simply talk about his adventures or his suffering, but to tell stories of how violent men, after turning to Christ, had been transformed into. Into gentle human beings. There is a lost world that's waiting for you and I to get our stuff right. That they might know Christ.

That the longer that you and I hold on to the old stuff and the confidence of our things and our titles and where we've been, somebody is waiting for you and me to take that bold step. Now I'm the coach and I'm in the halftime room and I'm saying, guys, let's go. It's time. There's a loss and a dying world. There is plenty of people in Stevens County.

Plenty of people. And they need the people of God to throw the stuff in the garbage. To gain all of Christ, to know him, driven by the resurrection. That's the kind of person I want to be. Faith filled person.

What about you? What kind of Christian do you want to be? Do you want to just not lose or do you want to win? Jesus already won the battle. He won the game on the cross.

It's kind of like we get to come in after the game with all the confetti falling all around us. Well, let's celebrate that and act accordingly. Our altar is open. If you're here today, you don't know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. Our pastors will be up here.

We got ladies that'll come and pray with you as well. Come talk to us. Jesus Christ died for your sins. He doesn't want you to stay in your sins because you're dead. If you'll believe in him, he'll forgive you of your sins.

He'll take your sins away. And he will impart to you the Holy Spirit, changing you, rebirthing you. How do I know he can do that? Because he came back from the dead. And the promise he's given to each one of us, if we would believe in him, we'll be with him forever.

And when he returns someday, he will raise us from the dead. And I want to have a part of that to you. So as we stand and sing, if you're lost, if you just need to come pray. We know this is an open altar. Nobody's going to look down on you.

Come pray for your friends. Come pray for your family. Come pray for whoever you need to pray. If you need to get a card in the back, they're right outside that exit. Come bring it to me.

Put it up here at my seat. Father, we love you. I could just keep going on and on and on and on. But I need you to speak because your words are more important than mine. Way more important.

Open hearts and minds right now to ask the question, Lord, is it time for me to stop focusing on what I could lose and let it go so that I can gain all of you. In Jesus name, amen.