All right, good morning. It’s good to be with you if you’re joining us online, Thanks for joining us. It has been really fun. It’s been a pleasure to be working through Philippians and so today we’re gonna reach the last chapter we’re in, starting chapter four and this is really just been paul all throughout talking to the Philippians church as he is encouraging them, he is exhorting them to live a godly life in christ, jesus, right? That’s what he’s been calling them to do the whole time and they’re facing a lot of challenges, right? They got these external challenges. They have some internal challenges. I don’t know if you’ve ever thought to yourself, I believe I have at some point where it’s like, man, if I could have just lived in the time of jesus, with, you know, to see jesus, I mean, faith would be so much easier, or at least the time of the apostles and the disciples, it would just be so much easier, right, because the historical gap wouldn’t be there, and and it was just faith would be so much different. And then you look at some of the challenges and trials that these churches and the christians were going through, and you’re like, you know, but I would pass on that, I would, you know, so every epic of time, every period of time has its challenges, and there are external forces, there are internal forces that wage war against our soul. And so paul’s really talking to the church saying stand firm, right, if you get this chapter four in the first nine verses is what we’re covering. Chapter four, verses one through nine. It just seems kind of like a shotgun approach where he’s hitting this and then he’s hitting this and he pivots over here. And then it’s like, what draws this stuff together? How is this connected? And it’s really by verse one where he’s saying to stand firm, right, this is what’s gonna hold our topic together today, as he calls us, just as he called the Philippians to stand firm. And so we’re gonna work verse three verse. So if you have a bible, open your bible Philippians four, I’m gonna start right here in verse one Verse one says this. So then my dearly loved and long for brothers and sisters, my joy and crown in this manner, stand firm in the Lord Dear friends any time we see it, right? So then it’s very similar to a, therefore it’s connecting, it’s a connecting word where it’s saying, hey, I’ve been talking about all these things. So then right therefore do this. What did he tell us? He says stand firm. We’ve been talking about all these things and I’m gonna reiterate and I’m going to summarize all these things I was just talking about. But ultimately I need you to stand firm in the Lord, right? Not in your knowledge, not in your friends, not in this church, not in science and nothing else, but the Lord. Everything else is on shaky ground If it’s not firmly planted in the Lord. So he tells us to stand firm in the Lord. And this is a common phrase that’s going to get used throughout Philippians four. And if you’ve ever heard kind of a threefold attack on our faith would be, you know, they would say, hey there, the devil, the world in your flesh. But these these things are going to fight and wage war against living a faithful life. Just these are areas that we have to be engaged in the battle. Otherwise they will take us out. And he’s going back again to chapter one verse 27 says, as citizens of Heaven live your life worthy of the Gospel of christ, then whether I come and see you or am absent, I will hear about you that you are standing firm in one spirit, in one accord, contending for the faith of the Gospel, not being frightened in any way by your opponents. And we talked about it a couple weeks ago about how paul uses this battle language, this war language. We have opponents that are waging war agai…