“Our True Citizenship” Philippians 3:20-21

Well, take your Bible and turn with me to Philippians chapter three. I’m coming to Philippians. And we’ve just finished this exposition verse by verse through the Gospel of Matthew. My daughter sent me a thing to say that that took about two and a half years. And just because I had made a comment about I don’t know how long I’ve been in this book, but that, well, I guess it was about two and a half years.

And so we’re gonna be doing maybe some specialty type of things, and if you’ve looked into your bulletin, it says that tonight’s message is odium theologium. Now I’ve had one person ask me if that means stinking, or odious, stinking theologians. No, it doesn’t mean that. It means a theology that stinks. And that is actually historically what has been termed concerning the doctrine of hell. On Wednesday nights, I kind of started a series, and because of this terrible schedule that the summer brings to us, it’s very, very difficult to, well, what can I say, to get this, you know, kind of gone through and it’s piecemeal, and Wednesday night is when we have so many people working in other areas with the Arowana Program. that hell has been a doctrine that is neglected, has been denied. It is something that just has, people don’t like.

And we would expect that in the world through the enlightenment historically, through, you know, secularism that’s in our culture, how people no longer believe in hell. It’s something that I wanted to, I thought needed to be addressed. And part of it is, and really the thinking of what I’m doing today is this morning we’re gonna talk about heaven. or about eternity. It’s about our life and in preparation for what’s going on now for heaven and for eternity for believers. But then the offset of that is that’s for believers.

But I’ve made mention of a couple of times about those that have given their lives of our country and our freedom and so forth. But what really breaks my heart And in the reading, on vacation, a book that was, I read a book on hell for my vacation. So, you know, what does that tell you? And Sinclair Ferguson was the author of the last chapter. And I really picked up his broken heart. Are we a hellfire and brimstone church? Yes. But does it really grip our hearts? Do we really contemplate what it means that people outside of Christ spend eternity in hell? Do we really, really remember how the reality of that And so this morning, I kind of want to take the positive thing, but then what about the negative aspect? What about all of those that gave their lives and then went off into an eternal destiny of the wrath of God? So the goal tonight is to talk about that. It’s a theology that stinks in the eyes of the world. I even saw something on Instagram and it talked about a lady who said, you know, whatever happened to those preachers in those churches who when they go to funerals, they never talk about hell?

Maybe if they did, they’d scare us a little bit more into the reality of what it means. What’s really one of the terrible things, and this is all a commercial for tonight, One of the things that we tend to forget is that everyone has an eternal destiny. And are we being faithful in the preaching of that? And at least it ought to break our hearts. But the problem now is in our day and age, we’re not always taking the heat from without. It is from within the evangelical circles. And those who, one of the fastest growing contemporary doctrines is the nihilism. That is, well, God isn’t going to burn sinners in an eternal hell. But what he’s gonna do is, is he’ll judge them hard, and then he’ll just annihilate them. Problem. And we’ll look at this tonight, Lord willing. It’s found in parallelism to our eternal life. They go out into everlasting punishment. Now, does the Bible mean what it says or not? And so we’re going to look at the doctrine of hell tonight. Not a light topic for Sunday night, and one of the difficult things is, I also realize many people are traveling and some aren’t here, but it has seemed to come together that we look at both of these within this one day.

Now, we are looking at Memorial Day, and it does break my heart when I come to those thoughts. While we were away, out in California in Colorado Springs, that we did go to the Air Force Academy, along with zoos and the Garden of the Gods and everything else. But the Air Force Academy was kind of interesting, to say the least. And I have to confess that I’m actually, and please don’t, you got to love me, but I’m really kind of glad I didn’t go there as a person for college. because of one of the things that they said and they had a movie that was there and it showed a woman just staring in the face of some of these young guys coming in and young ladies and yelling and screaming at them and then and just making them feel terrible. I’ve just never I’ve been very impressionable my whole life and you don’t have to yell at me just tell me and I’ll modify my behavior. But they were yelling scream and they made this comment. I see our Marine, at least one Marine here that is just kind of laughing. But they said, we want to break them down. Almost till they’re nothing. And they’re going to we’re going to rebuild them to be exactly what we want them to be.

Well, I’m not so sure I want to be what they want me to be. Now I suppose in preparation for battle and all that, that’s all true. But I’m way too cerebral to be thinking through that and thinking I want Jesus to do that to me. But I don’t want my government doing that to me and what’s going on in the world today. And it would take a very strong Christian to be able to endure with what’s going on. I met and talked with a couple of some that were in the Air Force, but then also just in some other public services. And they they were all saying how disappointed they were. And one was close to retirement. He says, I went out so bad because what I signed up for is not what I’m having to do right now. when pronouns become more important than can you shoot a gun. And when you look at the messed up things of this world and so forth, I just wasn’t sure of, you know, how does that compare to, you know, as a Christian and we need to pray for the believers that are in the armed forces and so forth. They really, really need our prayers. But in preparation for today’s message, what I wanted to do was to look at Philippians chapter 3 and verse 20. It’s an interesting passage of scripture here. It says, For our citizenship is in heaven.

Now we are citizens here and even the confession of faith mentioned that. We are and it says that later on in the confession that Christians are allowed to serve in office and praise God for the Christians that are in the Congress and Senate and we praise God for all of that. And that was written in 1689 when it really cost them. So civil involvement and so forth is really good but for a believer, on the Lord Jesus Christ, we must remember, I am not of this world anymore. And then my King is still coming. He’s not elected. He’s already appointed. actually on a throne already. But he’s going to come and establish that throne on earth I believe in Jerusalem one day. But for right now my citizenship is in Heaven. Now that doesn’t mean that I can’t serve well within my citizenship here within the United States because I’m an American citizen. But let’s face it for those of us that are and I’ll second guess almost everyone here is an American citizen.

We have some that came from Saudi Arabia. We have some that have come from the Philippines. We have some that have come from different places around the world. We have Portugal. We have, I’m trying to think, Poland. We’ve got citizens from others, but they came in legally. And part of the illegal thing that we have going on with our own country is the fact that, you know what? And this is not a political statement. There are no illegal aliens in the membership in the citizenship of heaven. Because you see, there’s only one way in. And ultimately, there’s no way out. But once you’re in, you don’t want to get out. Because you see, Jesus Christ said, I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes unto the Father, but by me. And we come by way of Christ. And our citizenship But what does that mean, and how does that happen?

Well, that’s what we read, and that would be the basic statement that I want to build on. But of course, if you want to do that, you have to look at the context. And what context is he mentioning this? And we could go in and say several things about the book of Philippians. Philippians is, if you remember, is a thank you note. And it was a thank you note of the Apostle Paul to the Church of Philippi. It is a very autobiographical epistle, letter. In fact, he uses the word I 52 times. So the Apostle Paul refers to himself. He’s gonna refer to his example. We’ll see a little bit of that tonight. But it is the idea of a very personal, he really loved them. It was a book that he was concerned. He was concerned, I think, first of all, for the brethren that were there at the Church of Philippi. The brethren had a problem of self-satisfaction. In other words, they had become benevolent, but they were Well sometimes thinking maybe money is the answer to all of life’s problems. I wonder how much that would apply today. Or to the idea that they were self-satisfied that well I’m in the kingdom and praise God and then they wanted to go on and build their own careers and their own life. They had lost their focus. They had lost their reality of their true citizenship. And because of that they had become, well here comes a very fancy theological word, they had become lazy. They were just taking life kind of on the marking of cruise and just cruising along. But there was another problem, and this one kind of only accentuated it, and that is there was a problem of false teachers. And the false teachers that had crept into the church, were bringing destructive heresies and everything, but they were actually enabling this.

The false teachers, he’s going to say in this particular passage, look at verse 19 for example. Well, I guess we better go up to verse 18. It says, For many of whom I have told you often and now tell you even weeping. See how personal this is. That they are the enemies of the cross of Christ. These are people in the church. Now, in reading and studying on this, some wanna say that these are Jews, some of these wanna say that these are Gentiles. One is just say that I’m gonna take the safe road and say they were enemies of the cross of Christ. That’s what the text says. Ultimately, it doesn’t make a whole lot of difference whether they were Jews or Gentiles, they were enemies of the cross of Christ. But then he discusses that whose end is destruction. Well, that word destruction means everlasting ruin. And that kind of interesting for those that want to say hell is not eternal. The Bible assumes that the eternal destination of those that are going to be judged, that that will go on for eternity. But I’ll just leave that for there now. It says whose end is destruction, whose God.

Now, these are the people that are the false teachers at the Church of Philippi, that have brought these destructive things in and have helped cause the Christians to become lazy, but also to the fact that these lazy Christians were neglecting these people. And he says, whose God is their belly, Meaning the idea of a natural idea that, you know, if I preach until one o’clock today, the God of your belly is gonna be telling you, I don’t like pastor pie anymore because my stomach is telling me. No, it goes to the natural appetites, you get that. So he says, whose God is their natural appetites, whose glory is their shame. And I can think of a lot of practical applications of that right now, but I’m gonna let that go. You can probably do very good too with June coming up. Whose glory is their shame, who set their mind on earthly things.

Now that is real expressive. Where is your affections? Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth. How much time do we focus on our earthly citizenship as opposed to our heavenly citizenship? And then when he goes on after that and says, for our citizenship is in heaven. And so that’s kind of what the lay of the immediate context is. Now the broader context, the Apostle Paul oftentimes would use athletic illustrations. At this particular time, old time members of fellowship are now trembling. Oh no, is pastor gonna use something athletic rather than an animal or biology illustration? But yes I am. Because while we were at or out in Colorado, another place that we went to was Pikes Peak. Now, you know, I have just celebrated my five month continuing life of open heart surgery that was totally unexpected. And before that time, and sometimes way back, that I, you know, you know me as I was a runner. I run a couple of half marathons and I had done some triathlons and this whole thing was a shock. So I’m five months. And in fact, when I first announced that I was going to go to the top of Pikes Peak, I heard the gasp in the congregation. Oh no.

Now I, heard that but it was in ignorance because I didn’t realize there’s no oxygen up there. I you know yeah you know you get woozy halfway up let alone try to get to all the way to the top. Well there was still so much snow cover there that we took the cog train because my wife didn’t want to ride in the car with me driving on those hairpin turns with you know big drop-offs and so but the train couldn’t go to the top because of all the snow and I have actually pictures of It’s hard. It was, you know, it’s deep. It was over the sides of the train, still snow out in Colorado there at the end of May. And so but as we were traveling up Pikes Peak, The guy on the train was just full of all kinds of information. And he said some things that really tweaked my interest. He talked about maybe some of you don’t know that there is a marathon and a half marathon of runners that run up Pikes Peak. Now, I thought the man was joking because I could barely stand, let alone walk and then run. Well, let me give you some information. Pike’s Peak Marathon was founded in 1956. I was three years old. And it’s the oldest continually held marathon in the United States of America, taking runners from Manitou Springs, Colorado, to the summit of 14,115 feet. and back down for 26.2 grueling mountain miles. It has a sister race called the Ascent. I didn’t even get a chance to tell that to my wife yet, which climbs to 7,800 vertical feet up the historic bar trail. We saw that, actually. And you run 13.3 miles to finish that. Pikes Peak’s marathon was also the first American marathon to allow female competitors. There you go, Trish. and to allow them and from the beginning of the and that was in 1958. So for a couple of years there was all men.

Now you might think well does do people survive that? And the answer is yes. In 1923 last week a guy named Remy Bonnet Visited and took that whole race and I don’t want to waste a lot of time on an illustration But I just want to say that he ran through Manitou up to the top came back down and averaged a nine point one five mile mile But most of us can’t hardly walk that let alone run that up And as you go up, there’s less oxygen. And you have to really work at it. And it says here, which is astounding when you consider how much oxygen level is not on the course. And he was upset. He won. But he didn’t get the $10,000 course bonus reward, which is tied to breaking the two-hour limitation. to run to the top of Pike’s Peak and back down. Unbelievable. Now, why am I giving you all these stats on this running? It’s because in our passage here today, he’s gonna use the illustration of the marathon.

Look at verse 12. Not that I have already attained or that I’m already perfected, but I press on that I may lay hold on for that which is Christ Jesus has laid on hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended, but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press towards the goal of the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Therefore, let us, as many as are mature, have this mind, that if in anything you otherwise think, God will reveal this to you. Nevertheless, to the degree that we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us be of the same mind. And then he goes on and says, brethren, join in the following of my example, see the personal aspect there, and note that those who walk as you have us for a pattern. And then he goes on to say, don’t follow those false teachers. Running a race was often used by the Apostle Paul. It was used in Hebrews chapter 12. Why don’t you go there so we can see this to make this application. That in Hebrews chapter 12, therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight of sin which so easily ensnares us and let us run. with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. For the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Or in 1 Corinthians chapter 9 he uses the same illustration. Now why do I mention those things? How, for those of us that ran and are running, now I know some people are allergic to running. They would no way want to ever run. But how does this guy want to come off that he wants to run the Pikes Peak Marathon in under two hours so he can just win an extra $10,000? Well, it goes on and it talks about as different ones, some from Kenya. There was one who came in second at two hours, four minutes. The fourth fastest time on the course was an American who did it in two hours and seven minutes.

Now, what does it take to be able to do that? Well, they all said the altitude and the preparation for the race. And this is what he said. With this, finishing the race was the goal. Bonnet trained more diligently all year, running in different high mountains in Switzerland, running on a treadmill in a hypoxic chamber. Then 10 days before running the Pikes Peak race, this is what he did. I trained and then slept in a hypoxic chamber for 20 days before coming here. So he slept in a chamber that’s denying him oxygen to prepare his body to be able to do this because he was involved in a race that he wanted to win at all costs. And we say he’s nuts. How much are we willing to do to run the race for the glory of God to accomplish his purposes? I one time told them out in Colorado, the night before was the rehearsal dinner and the next day was the wedding and they said, well, we’ll see you tomorrow. And I said, well, I’ll show up if it’s not raining. You should have seen the bride and groom’s eyes get big. What? No, I said, I’m just joking. But yet sometimes people say, well, you know, it’s too hot, it’s too cold, the pews aren’t right, the air conditioning is not gonna, we make up all kinds of excuses. Here’s a guy that’ll sleep in a chamber, deny his body oxygen, just so he can win. What is the compassion? And that’s just to win 10,000.

In our context, what is he fighting for? people that are caught up in this world. So let’s kind of now take a look at that, with that all in the background, that’s just all introductory, that in the midst of all of this, we have Paul as the example in the race, in verses 12 through 14, we’ve got an exhortation to those of us that we’re in this race, and then the expectation, or what is the goal? You don’t win $10,000 bonus. We win eternal life. We win as it were. We refer to that as heaven. I’ve almost come to my point in my ministry that it’s nice to be able to die and go to heaven. But I almost think that’s kind of a low goal. It’s going to be nice to die. And to see the face of my savior. The presence of Christ is what makes heaven special. It isn’t, you know, I mean, I don’t have a lot of gold and all that kind of stuff, and to walk on it, you know, gold in heaven is nothing more than asphalt.

So, you know, what’s the big deal? What makes heaven heaven? Well, if you talk to some Christians, dying and going to heaven is because that’s, well, you get to go see your loved ones. Well, that’s kind of a perk, but it’s not the purpose of heaven. He didn’t save us. Let me stop and come back now to my original thing. What about your loved ones that didn’t go to heaven? Have you ever thought about that? They won’t all be there. Not everybody that we think is in heaven is gonna be there.

Now, we will be in a completely sanctified, glorified state, and we’re gonna be good with it. You know why? Because God is sovereign. And God always does good. God always does right. But your mommy and daddy or your kids or those babies that have been ripped from our arms, praise God, you know, there’s perks. But that’s not what heaven is about. So what are we willing to fight for? to bring glory to Christ because we’re eternally with him. And that’s what makes heaven heaven. We’ve heard the story about the young couple that died down in Haiti. Our hearts break. Well, it’s a sad story. It is. I mean, you know, I you know, I’ve had the near death experience, too, in that sense, you know, being told I got to go underneath a knife and we’re going to open up your your chest. And when the doctor says, I’ll hold your heart and I’ll sew it together and I’ll fix it. Praise God he did. But you know what? We’re all going to die. What is our investment?

Well, the Apostle Paul, in this particular example, in being a very, very personal kind of an epistle, he says, and in these particular, as far as his consciousness, I’m gonna read these quickly, because I don’t wanna waste a lot of time here, and spend more time than I need to, but this idea of what he was thinking, verses 12 through 14, he says, now, I have, Not that I have already attained. So there’s his humility. Or that I am already perfected. I’m not a mature man.

Now, he’s an apostle, born out of season, but he understood that he wasn’t glorified yet, that he needed to accomplish more things. But I do, and then he’s gonna say, and you need to be an imitator of me as I am also of others. but I press on. And that idea is to, like as a runner, when he’s running and you wanna keep your chest up, you wanna keep breathing. That’s why, Pike’s Peak, that is just, it’s just far out. If you’ve never been there, they sell cans to spray in your nose. And it’s expensive, I don’t know, I’m way too cheap, but you know, it is really something else. I press on, agonize. I want to get there. I press on that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. I have been saved for a purpose, to live for his glory. I press on.

Now keep in mind, this is all going to that because I am a citizen of heaven. I belong to Christ. I’m of another kingdom. Behold, old things have become old. Things now are new. I’m converted. I am no longer my own. I am a Christian. I have been saved by the grace of God. And this is for which we would say I have been predestined, I’ve been predestined according to the book of Ephesians and Romans to be in the image of Christ. Not just of others in heaven, but the image of Christ. And so brethren, us, I do not count myself to have apprehended. that is as of yet. I’m not there. But one thing I do, and this would be pictures of the running too. You can’t be looking around at the other runners. You forget those things which are behind and you reach forward or you press forward to those things which are ahead. I press. You get the idea here of exertion. How much spiritual sweat do all of us have at trying to live the Christian life? Well, I’m just so tired.

Well, I’ve got three and a half hours sleep and I’m here. Yeah, the fiddlers here, Chaz and Megan, they didn’t get much sleep. No, Channing did, but that’s another story. You know, we didn’t get much sleep, but we’re here. And that’s just a drop of sweat, if that, compared to what brethren throughout church history have had to go through. But I press towards the goal of the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. And that looks goes on to look at verse 2021. It shows how this is in the kind of who will transform our lowly bodies, that it will be conformed to his glorious body. See, it’s he’s going for the gold, the ticker tape there. for his glorious body, according to the working by which he is able to even subdue all things to himself. Therefore, my beloved brethren, long for brethren, my joy, my crown.

You see, this is all in that picture of running the race and getting it and the final expectation, the end of the race and crown. So stand fast in the Lord. and to emphasize it, to drive the point home, beloved, loved ones. We have been saved, we have been loved eternally by a sovereign, holy God to sweat for him and his glory. And that we will be involved with the prize of the upward call.

Now, verse 15 and verses 15 through 19, we have this what we are involved in says therefore let us as many as are mature have this mind and if in anything you think otherwise God will reveal this even to you nevertheless to the degree that we have already attained and let us walk by the same rule, and let us be of the same mind. There’s a sense of unity, this is for all of us, that has the idea of to walk in step, to stay in line, and to follow these things through, to keep on the path, to follow the right people, and then he’s gonna go on in verses 17 and 18, and don’t follow the counterfeits. And there are many of them and they have characteristics. Look at verse 18.

Well, now, verse 17 basically says what I just said, but put in biblical language, Brethren, join in following my example, look to church history, look to godly people, follow the good examples and note those who so walk as you have us for a pattern. You know, a pattern that you guide and then you make those that will follow. And so there’s a consistency there, walking in line. For many walk, whom I have told you often, and now tell you with weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross. Whose end is destruction, everlasting ruin. Whose God is their belly, whose glory is their shame, who set their mind on earthly things. That’s what makes the prosperity gospel so wrong. Where’s the reward? What is the goal? What is the, you know, it’s all of this world, and they’re setting their mind on earthly things. We’re taught in some circles that, or it’s discussed in some circles that, well, you don’t want to mention sin. You don’t want to mention hell. You don’t want to mention, you know, how that you may die if you’re on the mission field as a young couple trying to help out those kids in orphanages and so on. You don’t want to mention all that stuff. And in fact, in some of the research on that whole, the message on hell, if you’re part of a seekers friendly church, and if you want to build your church really big, don’t talk about those things that discourage or that this culture doesn’t like.

Let’s face it. And I appreciated this. from Sinclair Ferguson. Because who really enjoys the thought of hell? I don’t want to preach on hell because I enjoy it or enjoy thinking about it. I want to do so to snatch people out and from that. We want to do that because we do love them. Well, if you love them, you don’t want to discourage them. No, I want them to know the truth. And that’s the idea here that Paul’s trying to get by. Give them the truth about eternal judgment. Well, after he says, follow our example, not for others. And then we get in verses 20 and 21, the expectation. And it’s interesting he does this. Sometimes I think it’s kind of cool to see what the Bible does. And I think, would have I have written it that way? And I say, no. And that’s why God didn’t use me to write Bible verses. For our citizenship is in heaven. OK, that’s cool. From which we also eagerly await for the Savior. That’s why we’re waiting for the return of Christ. I don’t get excited by people that say, I want Jesus to come because I got a really big test tomorrow. That just lowers the expectation.

I don’t want, I really don’t want to go on to living, and I want Christ to come. You know why? Because I want Christ to come. It isn’t just because I think the political scene right now is totally shot, or that I think that we’re in the swirl of the toilet as a country. After people have died to provide us things, there’s discouragement in the armed forces and so forth. I talked to a police officer who sat with us at the wedding and the reception, and he said, I can’t wait. A lot of people don’t know a lot about Colorado, except for the fact that they were, what, the first state to legalize marijuana and just everything, and he said, I can point to the day in legalizing something like that, that causes you to not be able to think correctly, and that is the day homelessness went up, and my crime rate went up. And he said, I am so ready to quit. The respect for the police has gone down. I want Christ to come because I want Christ to come. And when he establishes his kingdom on earth, not just because that’s going to be cool, and it is, but it’s going to be full of glory for the one who is worthy.

You see, we get so earthly-minded, we forget what it’s really about. So earthly-minded that we’re no heavenly good? Well, he continues. And then he says this, we eager wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body, that is this fleshly body, that it may be conformed to his glorious body. We get one like his, that’s pretty cool. You don’t have to take statin drugs anymore to lower your cholesterol, no more open heart surgeries, no more gallbladder problems and all that other kind of stuff. We get a glorious body, conformed to his, according to the working which he is able to subdue all things to himself. You see, that’s just, All authority is given to me in heaven and earth. Oh, that’s the full manifestation of that. And we sometimes leave it there, but you know, verse four goes on. They did a lousy chapter break there.

Therefore, so let’s apply all of this. My beloved, and remember, you see it’s my beloved and he closes with beloved. My beloved and longed for brethren. He loved them. My joy. My crown, so stand fast in the Lord. What does he do? Well, are you pressing forward in the race to the glory of God? Well, how do you have to do that? What’s interesting is, is he started off talking about pressing and, you know, the running and laying hold on and all of that. But yet, how do we do it? where he goes with the full application, stand firm. Don’t move your position. It’s interesting when you go to bigger cities and you do some traveling and you see some of the things and especially when you let people know you’re more on the reform side, you wanna, oh, you’re one of those old time fuddy duddies. No, I’m not allowing the world to formulate what I believe. I’m not afraid to say, yes, I believe in hell. And you should. Yes, I believe in the eternal. I don’t get pleasure out of this, but I need to warn you. I believe in an eternal hell. of the eternal wrath of God, even though it’s repulsive, yet I must believe it because in the text, that’s what it is compared in parallelism to my eternal salvation. If there’s not an eternal hell, then you don’t understand how sinful sin is. And we really don’t.

We need to press and understand at how wickedness, wickedness is. We need to understand how much God. Abhors sin. Now, we sometimes come out saying, well, God loves the sinner, but hates the sin. But yet the Bible says God’s angry with the wicked every day. Let the Bible speak. But we try to get God off the hook. And we need to press on to say, I, I want to, as it here says, so stand in the Lord because I am loved. Are you standing? Am I standing? Will we stand? We must. The glory of God is worth it all. much more than $10,000 after sleeping in a box that has no oxygen, and then go running to the top of a snow-covered mountain for some earthly fame. We have our citizenship secured by the death of someone who wanted us to have freedom, freedom from our sin, not freedom to sin. And that’s what this world has got all messed up.

Let’s pray. Our Father in heaven, thank you. Thank you for your love, your care, your awesome way that Jesus Christ is the only way, but he is sufficient for all who come to him by faith. Father, may we see the truth of your word and press onward into it and stand firm on it. For we ask these things in Jesus name, amen.