Hills and Valleys: Walking Out the Faith
First B Jackson
2026-06-21

Automatically transcribed. Where this and the recording disagree, the recording is the record.

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Good morning, everybody. Welcome to First Bee in Jackson, Wyoming. Just in

case you didn't know where you were,

would you stand and join us in song? We're gonna sing, bless the Lord oh my soul. And here's a good word from Psalm one zero three. It's right from the Psalms. Bless the Lord oh my soul and all that is within me bless his holy name.

Would you join us and sing it?

Morning. Hold on second, man. This is a responsorial Psalm from Psalm one zero four. So that was Psalm one zero three. This is Psalm one zero four.

I'm gonna lead and y'all be the people. Okay? Would you do that? Bless the Lord, oh my soul. Oh Lord, my God, you are very great.

You are gold with sender and majesty wrapped in light.

Make the cloud your chariot. You ride on the wings of the wind.

You make

springs pour water into the ravines and they flow between the hills. You caused the grass to grow for the livestock and the plants for the people to cultivate.

To flatten the human heart.

Oh Lord, how manifold are your works and wisdom you have made them all.

The earth is full of your creatures.

The these all look to you to give them their food in due season.

You open your hand, they are filled with good taste.

Oh Lord, how manifold are your works. In wisdom you have made them all. The earth is full of your creatures. We just did that. Here we go.

How about this? May the glory of the Lord endure forever. I'm getting I'm new at this. Liturgy is a little different for me. May the glory of the Lord endure forever.

May the Lord rejoice in his works. Bless the Lord, oh my soul.

Praise the

Lord. Amen. Y'all can have a seat. I'm on back van up to do the now. Here, we're glad you're here.

You're There's a card. Should be a

card in your seat back. Help me if I turn it on.

There we go.

There's a card in your seat back pocket in front of you. If you're new here, we'd love for you to fill it out. If you want us to reach out to you and get to know you. If you don't want to be reached out to, don't fill the card out. If you've been coming here a long time and you still you you have a prayer request or anything like that or any sort of interest in how to get involved, you can use that card for that purpose.

Put in the offering plate or the box as you go out the front. We've got a ton of announcements, so bear with me. They're all great. We've we've got more announcements even than we're announcing this morning. So the first one is revival at the rodeo.

It's tomorrow night at 07:00 at the Rodeo grounds. It it last week was the first time we did it, and I was surprised at how awesome it was. I mean, Brad was joking with me beforehand. He was like, is this what you imagined before you moved out here? And I was like, this is so much better.

There's a full live band concessions. I think they're doing hot dogs this week. I'll be bringing the message. If you have friends that are here seasonally or friends that you would love to bring in a space where the gospel will be faithfully proclaimed and we worship Jesus, but they might not be comfortable going to church, this is the perfect opportunity for that. The next thing on the list, First BBQ is next week.

Brian, we haven't talked about this. But at First BBQ, if you missed the missions interest meeting last week, so that we've got two short term trips coming up in November. If you missed the interest meeting, no big deal. We're gonna have a table set up at First BBQ, and we can hand out notes. And if you wanna go to Zambia or Costa Rica, come to that table, find us.

We'll be there. And also, yes, First BBQ is amazing whether you wanna go on a mission trip or not. VBS is tomorrow. You probably noticed some of the decorations and everything. Pray for the Jordans.

They're on a medical situation leave right now, so keep them in your prayers. They run VBS. VBS is still gonna happen. The volunteers are solid, so we're excited. And be praying for for this ministry.

Right? Like, this opportunity to use this building all week for kids to come in and hear who Jesus is, man, that's what it's all about. So we're excited for that. And if you haven't signed up yet, it maybe need to do that today for your kids. So it does start tomorrow morning.

So then seeking truth in your twenties is the next one. At the McCooey's house, it's been going on. I've heard it's been awesome. If you're in your twenties or know someone in in their twenties, send them to the McCuey's house tonight, and it's continuing on Sunday nights. They have food in the backyard and a message, and and it's a safe place again for people that have questions about who God is, and in a different theological whatever they're wrestling with, it's a great space for that.

Next, second to last, the Compass Annual Fundraiser. We talked about it last week. This is an awesome ministry that does so much in walking through pregnancies and and births and and all these different things with women, encouraging them to do the right thing when they're faced with difficult situations. So that fundraiser is in July, July 9. Right?

Yes.

Yes. And but RSVP ends this week, so try and sign for that by the end of the week. And lastly, there are more announcements. I talked to somebody last week when we were talking about announcements, and they were like, hey. If it's not set up front, I don't know about it.

And I was like, well, that needs to change. Okay? We try and say everything up here, but if you are regular attenders, sign up for the emails. The emails have tons of info. So get on our website, sign up for emails, and you can find out even more.

So, we'll we'll continue in worship, but let me pray first. Lord, we're so thankful for everybody in the room. We love you so much, and it's just so encouraging to be in a room full of people that love you. May we worship you faithfully and open may you open our eyes and ears to what you want us to hear today. In Jesus'

name. Amen.

One last prayer request before we start, and I'll I'll have you guys stand up and and greet each other too. But FCA camp is this week, and we've got a bunch of kids going to FC FCA camp and, leaders, etcetera. So if you could be praying for that, that'd be great. Why don't you stand and and greet each other, and we'll bring you back with a song.

Jesus and find your way if you want freedom need forgiveness just come is helper and healer forevermore, savior and savior for every storm, our refuge, redeemer, and lord of lords, he is. He is. Child of heaven and son of man, provider, protector, the great I am. Alpha, omega, beginning, You can have a seat.

We're gonna enter the time of worship through giving, and we're gonna sing a song during the during the offering as well. But first, I'll just wanna Matthew seven says, the rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew beat against the house, yet it did not fall because it had its foundation built upon solid rock. Ray, can you pray for us?

Yeah. God, thank you. Lord, the the Psalm this morning and staying in the Psalms and just looking at the contemplation of someone who really takes in what so many people come here to see. They look at your creation and they see the wonder of it all, Lord. How you make everything and then it erupts into praise.

God, may we be doing that every day, all the time. May we have the moments that we just recognize your goodness and step back for a moment from ourselves, Lord, and worship you. And that the we're fitfully and wonderfully made too. It's amazing, Lord, the way that you do things, the way that you reconstitute after injury. We have so many in the church right now that are hurting, Lord, and I pray that you would heal their bodies.

Lord God Almighty, we're thankful. We want to be ministering in this community and to the very ends of the earth. Would you take these offerings, Lord, and do with them as you will? We really want for you to do your will and your way. We wanna get out of the way, Be free and open with what we have and who we are to do your kingdom's work.

Would you show us the way, lord? In all humility, we bow before you. Amen.

Christ is my firm foundation the rock on which I stand when everything around me shaken

Amen. And it's time for Children's Church downstairs. Van mentioned it very briefly, but, you know, Philip and Amy Jordan are our children's directors. They kinda co lead husband and wife team, and their 17 year old son, John they have an older son, James, maybe here today. But John is having issues with his he was recently diagnosed with Crohn's disease, and he had an abscess this week.

And they are down in Salt Lake City. So specific prayer. When I was talking about the reconstituting of bodies, we know that there are several among us who are suffering from various forms of cancer and things. But this is a very new diagnosis and it's at a time where it's pretty high level stress, but that's where they are. I wanna pray for them and then we'll get started.

Lord God Almighty for Philip and Amy and for John. Lord God Almighty, would you heal his body? Use whatever means necessary, Lord. But pray that you would get him up to speed and back to work and that Amy and Philip would be absolutely absolutely comfortable in your peace. So in Jesus name, Lord, we thank you for the Jordans, and we ask your blessing on them today.

Amen. Amen. So here we are. If you were here, if you were here last week, is that the first slide, Josh? Visual aids.

That's the first slide. Alright. Well, Ephesians is where we are. That's where we've been. We've been there since March 8.

You sure that's the first slide? Gracious. This might be fun for y'all. I'll I'll just go whatever it is. Ephesians, we're at the very end.

We've got four verses left. We started this March 8 is when we started. 03/08/2026, we started our study. I did like seven or eight sermons, but we had Palm Sunday in there. We had Easter in there.

We had lots of other diversions, but we have been studying Ephesians together. And now just four verses remain. And you might just think, oh, this is the end. This is where he starts talking about. Oh, say hi to so and so and blah blah blah.

And that is kind of the end of it, but that's not all. We need to look at every verse. We savor this stuff. Right? This is good.

So we're saying goodbye to Ephesians today, and then we're going to say hello to Philippians today. Those are probably written one after the other, whether it was Philippians first. Ephesians first is hard to say, but I think Ephesians is a really good foundation for understanding Philippians. I think that that's the order they were written in from the same place at the same time, sent with the same dude. So here we go.

Here we go. Now, so that you also may know about my circumstances. Now last week, we did the full armor of God, you know, and that's as far as a standalone sermon goes, I mean, hey, that's wonderful. It gets to the heart of the faith of the matter. But then Paul, has been you know what?

Who has been discussing theology for three chapters and then he's going into application for three chapters. I may need to come up there, Josh. I'm confused. Let's go back here. Hey.

Yeah. No. This is good. Keep on going. Let it go backwards from there.

Y'all see the whole sermon in reverse right here. Can y'all am still clicking. Do want me to leave it alone? Visual aids. Here we go.

So the first three chapters really are about this. Either we're in sins or we're in Christ. It's a binary function. Either we're in the kingdom of darkness or we're in the kingdom of light. So that's a binary function.

That's our position in Christ. And you might call it lost and saved. That's what I grew up with. Right? There are folks who are in the kingdom and there are folks who are not yet in the kingdom.

And I'd rather you think of them as folks who are not yet in the kingdom, not because I'm a universalist, because if you tend to think us and them, you don't care about them. You just care about us. Okay? So I don't want you to do that. Our position is either we're in sins or we're in Christ or in the kingdom of darkness or the kingdom of light.

But a non binary function is in our practice. How we walk it out. Now, when you first get saved or come to know the truth and accept it, you don't know the way yet. Right? There's a reason that it says for a qualification for leaders is somebody who is not a recent convert because they don't know yet.

Right? So we're learning and we're surrendering our will a little at a time and we are walking away from what we have always known and we're walking towards Christ who are we are getting to know. So it looks more like this. Okay? And if we had to put that on a graph or a continuum, I've used this a lot of times, but it's been a long time.

We look at it like this. God has chosen from the beginning. He is completely other. He is completely holy, holy, holy, and he is different from all else. And the creation is good, is good, is good, is good, is good, and we chose to rebel.

But the way to get out of our selfishness and our sin, God chose from the beginning that he would take the initiative, and he would work by leaning towards. And so Christ work, all his work, his birth, his life, his ministry, his sacrificial and voluntary death on a cruel cross with a perfect record, having no sin. He does voluntarily and sacrificially for anyone who would come to believe. And then he was raised from the dead and proved to be Messiah. Now that gospel witness goes forward from that time.

Right? All of those quivering disciples who ran at the cross, all died proclaiming the resurrection, all of them throughout the rest of their lives. So the gospel witness goes forward and for you or for anybody else, one is saved by trusting in Jesus. The gospel witness goes forth and you accept that that is true, not just that it's true, that it's true for me, that I needed it, that I have it not a perfect record, and I need that. Christ is the way, the truth, the life.

It is exclusive. That's just the way that it is. Christ is the way, the truth, the life. No one comes to the father except through him. So here we are, gospel witness and belief.

And then once you have believed, you begin the process of learning and understanding the way by following Jesus who is the way. And as you walk towards the truth, you have these hills and valleys. As it says, I asked Jimmy Barts, the pastor over at Saint John's one day a while back. I said, how's it going, Jimmy? He goes, hills and valleys.

What a great response. What a great response. Hills and valleys. It's not all easy. It's worthwhile to be walking.

Right? God uses everything. Everything. We know. He uses everything to those who love God.

Can I get a amen? Do y'all love God? Amen. Are you called according to his purpose? Amen.

Then everything is going to work out for the good and for the glory of God. Now, in the in between time, it's gonna be up and down, hills and valleys. And that's the way sanctification is. This is sanctification and that is the work of the Holy Spirit. You cannot by brute force just go and grow yourself spiritually.

You can humble yourself and that helps because God resists the proud and he gives grace to the humble. And so, God works through this process of sanctification in this life, and then there will be that time when we're ultimately saved, whether it is at the moment of our death or at that great and mighty day of the Lord, there is glorification to come. Right? So that's what we're working on. This is the continuum.

This is the chronology of how things go. But our practice again is more like that. It's not just out of there and you're all of a sudden now, you are immediately a saint. Immediately. You're called to be holy, and you are given the power that you don't even know how to use yet.

Immediately when you believe. So here we are in Ephesians. Thank you. Six twenty one and twenty four. I had two parallel things open on my computer, and I probably fixed one of them and didn't fix the other.

And then I replaced one with the other like I was cutting or burning the ship, so I couldn't go back. The closing is this. Now, so that y'all may also know about my circumstances as to what I'm doing. Now, what is he doing? He's in jail.

He could have said that. He's already said prisoner of the Lord a couple of different times. But so that y'all may know about my circumstances as to what I'm doing, Tichicus, my buddy, he's a beloved brother, and he's a faithful servant. And servant Tichicus, let me just say this first. He's the letter carrier.

So Paul is not free to move about the world. He's stuck where he's stuck. And he's writing these letters. He writes Colossians, Ephesians, and Philippians probably within the space of a little time. He may have well, he wrote Colossians and Philippians together because he sent them with the same guy.

Right? I mean, sorry, Ephesians and Philippians. Tichicus, the beloved brother and faithful servant. Servant there is Diaconois. The iconos actually it's it's singular at this place.

It's a deacon, a minister, or a servant. He's a faithful deacon, minister, servant in the Lord and he will make everything known to you. I'm sending the letter. This is what I want you to know. But if you have questions, ask Tichicus.

Okay? He'll let you know. I've sent him to you for this very purpose so that you know may know about us and that he may comfort your hearts. No. Paul's really alright.

He really is. He's finally slowed down long enough that he can write a letter. You would you should see what's happening to the guys who are in prison around him. You should see what's happening to the jailers. He's taken this as something that the Lord has done.

And so I've sent him to you for this very purpose so that you may know about us and that he may comfort your hearts. If you look in Philippians, it says that that one was carried by Epaphroditus. Excuse me. I keep on getting Colossians and and they're all written at the same time and I get them confused sometimes. We're talking about to start Philippians though, and it was carried by Epaphroditus.

I thought it necessary to send you Epaphroditus. He's my brother and my fellow worker and my fellow soldier who is also your messenger and minister to my needs. So they sent him Epaphroditus and he sent a letter back with them. But I've received everything in full, everything. I I'm fine.

Really. I'm alright. If you read Philippians, it says, I know how to get by on little and I get know how to get by on lot. I'm fine. Okay.

I'm amply supplied, haven't received from Epaphroditus what you've sent. That's the letter carrier system. My mom was a postmaster for a full career. My dad was a letter carrier for like eighteen years. Yeah.

I think this is cool. I think it's cool. Now, the post office doesn't read your letters. They don't have them open. Right?

That's that's not what they do. But these guys did and they knew Paul, and they knew what he was saying, which is great. Other letter carriers, Phoebe. Phoebe is a deacon of the church in century, delivered the book of Romans, Onesimus who was a runaway slave. This is a varied group.

Epaphroditus, we already mentioned. Stephanus Fortunatus and Achaicus Achaicus were a group of believers who came to him and he sent a letter to the Corinthians with them, and then Titus. So there it is. As to all my fears, Titchicus. He knows.

Titchicus knows and he's coming with Onesimus. I bet Onesimus was scared to death, a slave going back to his situation, which was difficult. But Paul in Colossians, he calls out to the church, this is the way that it should be for slaves and masters, and then he sends a letter personally to Philemon and says, hey, Philemon, treat him like a brother. Romans, Phoebe, she's a servant of the church, which is at Centra that you receive her in the Lord in a manner worthy of the saint. Servant there is Excuse me.

Switch languages and switch languages. Golly. Sorry. Has nothing to do with Spanish. Wow.

How the brain works or doesn't. She's a deacon of the church where she is, and she's been sent to Rome to carry the letter. Stephanus, Fortunatus, and Ichaicus. Titus, second Corinthians, it mentions a couple of times that he's a partner and a coworker. In Philippians, we'll see Euodia and Syntyche are coworkers, it says.

Here we go. Last two verses. Peace be to the brothers and the sisters. Peace be to the brothers. Now, I told you whenever you see the italics, it it is added.

It's inferred in the original, but in Greek and in Spanish and a lot of language when it says brothers, it could be brothers or it could be brothers and sisters. If it's not by context limited to just men, we'll add brothers and sisters. That's what they did right there. So peace be to brothers and sisters and love with faith, which is so important. The shield of faith he just mentioned, the shield of faith is what extinguishes all the flaming arrows of the evil one.

And he's saying, I want for you to have agape love and that shield of faith. And this is his final greeting. Peace be to all brothers and sisters and agape love with this faith that is the shield from God the father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus came at the will of the father. He carried it out and Paul has been telling them that we are to continue this mission that Jesus started.

Go forward in peace. Jesus gave peace not as the world gives. He gave peace to all of those who would trust in him. So peace be to the brothers and sisters, love with faith from God the Father and Lord Jesus Christ, and grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ with incorruptible love. So grace.

Peace is the absence of war is one definition for it, but is complete rest. It is the absence of inner or outer conflict and that's what God is wishing on us is shalom. In Greek, but Shalom in Hebrew, the concept is at rest in God, confident and not at war. No turmoil inside, not worried about the outside, being connected to God as peace. And then grace, the reason we can have peace is because God has unmerited favor.

And if you begin to think because you've been walking this path for a while, if you begin to think, well, now I deserve it. Grace is unmerited favor. Grace is what God has for us. It is unmerited. And so I'll just say a little application point right here.

The beginning of Ephesians starts off with grace and peace to the saints. Sinners saved by grace are saints. That's everyone who's put their faith in Christ. Right? And if you think about it, it's everyone else too because it's unmerited favor.

There are those who just have not received him yet. And I'm praying for a lot of folks. Right? And y'all are praying for a lot of folks who have not received him yet. So unmerited favor, the grace of God is what we should be proclaiming because if you tell somebody that you deserve to be in a club, they might wanna also deserve to be in that club.

But if you say, I didn't deserve to be in this club, and it's amazing. It's it's the love of almighty God. It's the power of the Holy Spirit. It is the power that raised Jesus from the dead is available, and the requirements are just accepting it. Grace.

Grace. God's grace. Grace that is greater than all my sin. Grace is unmerited favor, and that's what he's saying. No matter what's going on in Ephesus, no matter what's going on in Philippi, no matter what's going on in Jackson, grace is what's required.

This is the last verse of Ephesians. Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ, and John would say, we love because he first loved us. So for those who reciprocate the self serving others focused kind of love that God loves us with, for those folks, we give back to God that very same love, and we give that with all we are loving God and loving people through Christ. That's the way. So that's the close of the book of Ephesians.

Close the book. Nope. Here we go. Philippians. Here it is.

Philippians starts off Paul and Timothy. Philippi knew Timothy. He had been through there with Paul. Right? We know that they knew them.

So the beginning of the letter or the return address sort of part of this letter is Paul and Timothy. Bond servants of Christ Jesus. That's doula. Slaves is a good translation. Bond servants.

You know, I like slaves better, honestly, because it's it's bond servants feels like you're bonded until you get the debt paid off. Slaves is your slaves. Right? So both of them are fine. They're both within the range of meaning.

Paul and Timothy, bond servants of Christ Jesus. I started to say there's a freebie application point and I and I didn't say it. So here it is. Always start with grace and peace. Always.

So many of the New Testament epistles start with grace and peace. And then when you look at the close, it's either peace and grace or grace and peace or grace and peace and love, grace with faith, pay peace with faith, grace. It's always. It's all over everything that Paul did and it ought to be all over everything that we do. Paul and Timothy bond servants with Christ Jesus to all of the saints.

Again, holy ones in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi. I love that. If it's just the ones who are in Philippi, this is who the letter is to because you you know, we're still reading it. Philippi spread a long way. Right?

But he's saying, I'm sending this to the church at. You know why? Because Paul believes in church unity as much as God does. And he doesn't send it saying, oh, yeah. This is to the one that meets on the corner of this and that.

He's saying to all the saints who are in this area, you all need to know this. So we read this. It's like we're reading somebody else's mail in a way, but we're not. He's saying that if this applies in Philippi, it applies to you. Now if the shoe fits, wear it.

Shoe fits though. To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, including the overseers, the word there for overseers is Episcopas or Episcopoist because it is plural. So that's overseers. Literally, Epi is over and Skopas is Sears. Right?

So those who see over things. So it is alright to have leadership in a church. It's expected. Co superintendents who are entrusted with the well-being of a local assembly or of assemblies that might be bigger than that within a city or location, literally or figuratively. So those who are looking over, there's the trust, but verify, you all remember that.

We trust that everybody's doing the right thing, but occasionally, somebody gets out of bounds and there should be those who are paying attention to the text illumined by the spirit and checking in on proper order. So overseers and then deacons. That's the same word that was used earlier for Tichicus. It's the same word that was used earlier for Phoebe. It's the same word that's used throughout, including overseers and deacons.

And this is it. Deacons, ministers, servants. I love the word when we went to this is a sideline, but we went to Costa Rica years ago, and we missed our flight from Columbia to Atlanta, which was a great flight at a great time. And then we went, and I'm not joking, from Columbia to Atlanta, from Atlanta to Memphis, Memphis to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma City to LA, and then we took the red eye to Guatemala. We get to Guatemala.

I'm supposed to preach that morning. It's taking us all night to get there. I'm not even there when I'm supposed to start preaching. And I get in and we got there and they said, just preach the night service. I don't sleep on planes.

Hot as blue blazes. And when we got there, I came in and it's my turn to preach. I'm sweating like crazy. And I'm about to get up there and share the word that I had prepared, but goodness gracious. And Pascal was walking dead, falling asleep, and just could barely make it.

She doesn't sleep well on planes either. And there was a guy that came up with a mechanic shirt on, and he had right here a you know, where you stitch your name or you have a little pad with your name, and it said, Diacono. He was a deacon. Dude, I was so happy to see that guy. He had a little mat, and he laid it out in between the chairs, and he said, let that little girl sleep.

Oh, what a blessing that dude was. He looked for what needed to be done and he did it. He's an attendant. He's a servant. And it was cool that he had the little name tag that said, I thought it was it's not his name.

That's that's who he is. Yeah. He's an attendant. He's a servant. If it's in the genitive for those of you who care, it's a waiter at a table or whatever other menial duties.

It's taking care of the little stuff that needs to be done and specifically, it's a Christian serving in a specific function or post. Our board of tree, our board of trees, our board of trustees our board of trustees acts as a deacon board. They are ministering servants who look to the temporal matters of the church and look around and see what needs doing and then they take care of doing that. So tending to the widows and the poor, teaching and pastoring and whatnot. So here's a little more on the word from a help.

This is the helps word studies, which is always great. It's on biblehub.com. If you're ever looking for something, confused by something, you can look there. Thoroughly dust. Everybody's kinda guessing at where the word came from.

Properly, to thoroughly raise up dust by moving about in a hurry so as to minister sacred service. Isn't that good? Diaconis ministry in the New Testament refers to the Lord inspiring his servants to carry out his plan for his people. AT Robertson, a great preacher, great pastor too, which is not always the same thing, but he was both. Properly, he mean he says it means to kick up dust to get it going.

So as one running an errand in the root is probably connected with someone who's hastening after in such a way that they stir up a little dust, perhaps originally said of a runner. Anyway, that's to this letter is to all of the Philippians, all of the saints, but it it includes the overseers and the ones who are kicking up dust ministering. Okay? And he starts off how? Grace to you and peace.

Always start with grace and peace. You are not at war. You're a child of God for crying out loud. Okay? I know you can use battle metaphors for all kinds of other stuff, but if you meet someone with war in mind, war is what you will get.

Okay? Grace and peace. Grace to you and peace from God our father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Typically, that's the order because Christ, although he's equal in the Godhead, absolutely, he voluntarily submitted himself to the will of the father and carried it out by the spirit, and may we be doing the same. Do I have anything else in this?

Major themes of Philippians. Here we go. Thank you, Connor. Joy. Oh, Philippians.

Chuck Swindoll's commentary on Philippians is laugh again. It's okay to laugh again. It's alright to have fun. Joy is in there. Unity.

Oh my goodness. It's in there. And it's it's about having unity in the midst of difficulty. Okay? So it's the very next thing I like to go chronologically.

It's the next thing we get to joy, joy, joy, rejoice in the Lord always. And again, I say rejoice. Unity make my joy complete, Paul says, by being of like mind. Right? Come together.

Humility, you're not gonna be unified if you're not humble. You will be divided if you're proud. If my way is the only way, my way or the highway gets to be the way that it is, then we are gonna part company. Humility is absolutely essential in order to have unity, and I'd say in order to have joy, unless you just want limited joy with just your friends who agree with you, which I'd say is not really joy. More than anything else, Philippians is about Jesus Christ.

It has the some of the highest Christology in the whole New Testament, so does Ephesians. It's wonderful. Paul is sitting there in that arrest, whether it's house arrest or literal jail. He's sitting there and he's having time to contemplate the goodness of God. And he's listening to what the spirit is saying and he is writing it down, and thank God he was stuck in that jail.

I agree with him when he says it turns out to be for your benefit. Right? Is that all I have? One more benediction. We'll do that after the song.

Would you stand with us? Thank you, y'all. Thank you for what you're doing for the Lord. If there's something that you're already doing, some ministry that you're already doing that nobody else knows about, I'd love to know about it. And not because I wanna list it on a list of all the things first b is doing.

I just wanna pray with you through it. You know what I'm saying? I think it's awesome. And I know a lot of you who are active in all parts of the world. And you are just doing it and kinda nobody knows.

There is an impact on the world that is happening when people humble themselves and pray. There's an impact that's happening through this church when we unify. There's joy unspeakable, full of glory. I'm so glad to be here. I'm so glad y'all let me do this.

Would you sing along? Oh, it's Father's Day. Happy Father's Day. Dog on. I knew I'd forget it, but that helped me remember.

Happy Father's Day to everybody. Amen. Thank you, Ryan. Thank you. Thank the whole band.

That's pretty awesome. For the benediction today, I've got something from the very part first part of Galatians two. Always start with grace and peace and here it is. Grace to you and peace from God our father and from the Lord Jesus Christ who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age. Let's find ourselves there in Christ, separated from any age in Christ.

According to the will of God the Father to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen and amen and amen and amen. Happy Father's Day.