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If you're led by your soul and physical body then your focus will be on earthly things.

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Your focus will be on here, what you see, what you feel, what you smell, what you taste.

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You let the flesh influence you because you're living on this physical plane.

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But the challenge is for us to be led by the spirit.

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Welcome back to a deeper dive into Philippians.

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Today we'll be looking at chapter 3 from verses 17 to 21.

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So let's just jump right in it and we'll read the whole section and then we'll break it down.

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Whose God is their belly and whose glory is who glory is in their shame who set their mind on

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earthly things for our citizenship is in heaven from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior

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and the Lord the Lord Jesus Christ who will transform our lowly body that he may be conformed

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to his glory glorious body according to the working by which he is able even to subdue

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all things to himself. What Holy Spirit through the Apostle Paul is telling us in this section

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is this, that there's a standard of living that we all should live by. There's an expectation

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that he has of us. For some reason being a Christian has just become a title not a lifestyle.

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The word Christian came about when people in Antioch called their disciples Christians

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and what it means is Christ-like. So they saw the disciples of Christ and they're like those

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are Christ-like and that's how the name Christians came about and for us today that's just a title.

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We're nowhere near Christ-likeness. We don't even look we don't even smell like Christ and that is

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a sad reality. There's a standard of living that is expected of us. We're expected to live to the

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cross of Christ. That is the standard and what this section is doing is reminding us that the

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standard of living that all believers are expected to live by and part of the reason why Christians

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don't look like Christ anymore is because of the leadership. It's because of the leadership and in

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verse 17 Paul is putting the onus of the on the leadership to walk in Christ-like, Christ-likeness.

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Leaders matter. Leaders influence people and the generation. Paul invites the Philippians to

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walk like him or anybody else who is mature. When the leaders are walking like Christ and

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influencing people to walk like Christ then all the disciples and all the believers will begin to

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look more and more like Christ. Look at these verses in Judges chapter 2 verse 7 and then verse

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10 or 12. So the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who

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outlived Joshua who had seen all the great works of the Lord which he had done for for Israel. Then

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in verse 10 when all that generation had been gathered to their fathers another generation

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arose after which who did not know the Lord and know and know the works which he had done for

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Israel. Then the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord and served Baal and they

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forsook the Lord God of their fathers. When the leadership died the people strayed far away from

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God. In the news today it's a sad reality. It feels like every week there's a Christian leader who's

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exposed for something and what do you think that does to the body? What do you think that does to

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the area of influence they have? That some Christians will keep living because they have a deeper

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relationship with the Lord but then there's some will be influenced by that and fall away

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and leave the gospel, leave the Christian faith because when leaders fall people are influenced.

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In verse 17 Paul is laying the standard for both leaders and the congregation. He's saying

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to the leaders live a life worth imitating and to the congregation choose leaders worth following.

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Leaders matter and when leaders fall people will fall and so in verse 17 Paul is telling us

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leaders live an example and then verse 18 and 19 Paul is exposing the people who he should not

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follow. He calls his people the enemies of the cross. That's why I titled this episode.

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Living a life worthy of the cross, or living up to the cross.

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Because the enemies of the cross are the people that we're supposed to avoid.

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And I'm just going to re-read verse 18 and 19 so that you can see what he's talking about.

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For many, and this is the leaders he's talking about,

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for many of these leaders whom I have told you often,

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and I'll tell you even weeping,

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that they are enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction,

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whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame.

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Who set their mind on earthly things.

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You should not follow these leaders.

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You should not follow the leaders who are enemies of the cross.

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And I love that phrase that he uses, enemies of the cross, in verse 19.

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It's very interesting to me.

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And then he says, the people who are enemy of the cross have these three characteristics.

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Their end is destruction, and their God is their belly,

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and whose glory is in their shame.

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And at the end of verse 19, he summarizes these three by saying this,

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those who set their mind on earthly things.

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In other words, you are an enemy of the cross,

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if you set your mind on earthly things.

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The earthly things that he's referring to is if your end is,

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if you focus on destruction, if your belly is your God,

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if your glory is in your shame.

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These are the three things that will lead you to focus on earthly things.

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So then let's look at those three things. What are they?

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So the first one is your end is destruction.

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The Greek word for that word destruction is the word apolia.

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And it means in particular,

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the destruction which consists in the loss of eternal life,

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eternal misery, perdition,

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the lot of those excluded from the kingdom of God.

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These are the people who have chosen to reject Christ.

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If you've chosen to reject Christ, then what will your focus be on?

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It will be on earthly things. That's a no, that's a no brainer.

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If you reject him, you'll focus on the earthly things. Okay.

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Then let's look at the next one. Whose God is their belly.

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Now the Greek word of belly is koilia and it means the whole belly,

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the physical belly, the entire cavity.

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And another definition is the innermost part of a man,

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the soul heart as,

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as the seat of thought, feeling choice.

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And you see that I talk in first Peter, the inward man of the heart.

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And that's what the definition is given right here.

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If you put these two definitions together,

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you get a clear picture of what Paul is talking about.

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The belly represents the five senses, the physical being.

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So when he's saying the whose God is the belly, the physical,

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they're led by the five senses. They're led by the physical senses.

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And the other part is our reasoning,

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our soul and our soul is made up of our mind, will and emotions.

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And we talked about that in a previous episode.

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So what he's saying is don't be led by our soul and physical bodies.

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Instead be led by our spirit.

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If you're led by your soul and physical body,

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then your focus will be on earthly things. Your focus will be on here.

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What you see, what you feel, what you smell, what you taste.

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You let the flesh influence you because you're living on this physical plane.

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But the challenge is for us to be led by the spirit. Okay.

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The third thing whose glory is their shame.

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Glory in Greek is the word doxa.

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It means opinion, estimate whether good or bad concerning someone.

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In the new Testament,

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always a good opinion concerning one resulting in praise, honor, and glory.

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And the Greek word for shame is, and forgive me for this one.

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This is a hard one. I'm going to give it everything I got.

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Please don't judge me.

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It means the confusion of one who is ashamed of anything,

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sense of shame, ignominy, disgrace, and dishonor.

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And for us believers,

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we've experienced shame when we do something wrong and actually not just

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believers, anybody, when you do something wrong, you feel ashamed.

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And especially when you sin, you feel shame and condemnation.

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So what Paul is saying here, whose glory is their shame,

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who revel, who enjoy their shame,

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who enjoy doing wrong things, who enjoy sinning,

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who are pursuing the flesh, the flesh stuff.

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And if your goal, or if you enjoy your shame,

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if you enjoy doing wrong things, if you enjoy sinning,

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you will 100% be focused on earthly things.

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That's where your attention will be. When you reject Christ,

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when you live a life led by

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your soul and physical senses.

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And when you enjoy your sin,

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your mind will be set on earthly things.

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Your mind will be set on earthly things.

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Because that's not the goal.

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The goal is for us to be set on heavenly things.

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And that's where you see verse 20 pick up.

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And then before I read the whole verse 20 and 21,

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look at the first phrase in verse 20,

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for our citizenship is in heaven.

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For our citizenship is in heaven.

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He goes on, he goes from telling us how we,

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people who focus on the earthly things,

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what they do and what motivates them and telling us our citizenship is in heaven.

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That is the first thing that we all need to be aware of.

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That is how we need to carry ourselves.

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We need to remember that our citizenship is in heaven,

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not on earth, in heaven. That's how we move life.

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That's how we interpret life.

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That's how we engage by remembering that our citizenship is in heaven.

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So now let's read verse 20 and 21.

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For our citizenship is in heaven.

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We're supposed to not focus on earthly things,

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but we're supposed to focus on heavenly things because our citizenship is in

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heaven. We live on earth,

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but we belong to heaven. You never forget that.

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We live on earth,

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but we belong to heaven because our citizenship is in heaven.

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Our focus is on our savior who is in heaven, Jesus Christ.

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That's where our focus should be.

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And I love the promise of verse 21. I love,

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I'm just going to reread verse 21.

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What verse 21 is talking about is this.

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Remember in the previous episode, we talked about spirit, soul, and body.

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And we established that the day you get saved,

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the Holy Spirit comes in us as a down payment and he

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completely renews our spirit.

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Our spirit is born again and it's made perfect, righteous, just like Christ.

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And our soul is being made perfect by the renewing of our mind.

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That's how our soul is perfected. But the more we study the scriptures,

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but our bodies will be made perfect.

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At resurrection morning. And that's what verse 21 is talking about.

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It's talking about when Christ comes back and we get our new bodies,

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our bodies that don't have sin, our bodies that will never get sick,

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our perfect bodies.

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That's why I love that promise because it reminds me the salvation is not yet

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complete.

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We've got the down payment down and it's going to be completely done when Christ

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comes back. Right now we have the down payment, which is the Holy Spirit.

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And very soon when he comes back, we'll get the full salvation.

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In this passage of scriptures,

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Paul is challenging us to live up to the cross of Christ.

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Don't be focused on earthly things, but be focused on heavenly things.

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Surrender yourself to the cross.

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And that's how you can focus on heavenly things.

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We cannot live up to the cross of Christ if our minds are focused on earthly

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things that will make us enemies of the cross.

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We live up to the cross of Christ by remembering that we are the citizens of

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heaven and turn our attention to the return of our savior,

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the Lord Jesus Christ.

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So I pray everything that I've shared that you will take these things to heart,

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learn how to surrender,

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learn how to live on the cross and then turn your gaze on him.

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Amen.