Come, Lord Jesus

I wonder if you've heard the story of the Tanzanian runner, John Stephen Aquari. He did not win the marathon. He actually came in last place, surprising that he would be one of the more famous marathoners ever. But in 1968, the Olympics was in Mexico City. and for some strange reason they chose to start the marathon at 3 p.m. in the heat of the day on what turned out to be an extremely hot day. A record number of runners didn't even finish the race at all. A lot of them hadn't trained at the altitude they were running at and it was just a brutal race in many ways. About Halfway through the race, there was a tangle of runners that kind of got tripped up on each other. And John Stephen Aquari falls hard on his shoulder and his knee. He actually dislocates his knee. I don't understand that medically, but he dislocates his knee, scrapes his lower legs up very badly and hurts his shoulder. but receives medical attention, they put his knee back in, they bandage him up, and John Stephen Aquarii decides to keep running the race amazingly. First he's hobbling. You can see footage of this that they have. He will start to run a little bit and then he will walk. Well, you know, as the time passes, all the other runners finish. They cross the finish line. The only reason that we have footage of John Stephen Aquari entering the Olympic Stadium is that the medal ceremony was starting, and they sent a camera crew to video that. Darkness has set, and there he comes into the stadium, hobbling, walking, making his way towards the finish line. Only a small handful of people even saw it live. Later, a reporter pulls him aside and asks him a question. Why did you keep running? And his quote is probably the most famous thing. He said, my country did not send me 5,000 miles to start the race, but to finish the race. I don't know how you feel this morning about the exercise of running. Maybe you're a runner. Maybe your days of running are past. My kids get tired of me joking that when I get the urge to run, I lay down on the couch until the urge goes away. But however you feel about running, it's amazing how often the New Testament pictures the Christian life as a race, as an athletic competition. So whether Paul wants to talk about training yourself for godliness in 1 Timothy 4, or whether he wants to talk about obedience as competing according to the rules, 2 Timothy 2 or whether the writer of the book of Hebrews wants to talk about running a race through to the finish line, running with perseverance the race that is marked out for us. Again and again, the image or one of the images that we're supposed to have in our minds as we think about the Christian life is running a race, a race that we have to finish. This morning, we're gonna look at one of these key finish the race passages. It's in Philippians 3, as it's already been read. I think it's a great starting the new year off kind of passage for us because after all of the activity of the holidays and hopefully some good evangelism with family members and friends, we may have a little bit of an exhale, a little bit of a let down, a little bit of a feeling of now what. Well, the now what for you and I is setting our focus once again on Sanctification, that's the theological term that we're thinking about this morning. How do you and I grow in grace and holiness and obedience? How do we faithfully carry out all that the Lord has called us to? What does it take? How do we do it? So Philippians 3, 12 to 21, if you're taking notes, we're gonna look at four things that are essential to our sanctification. You wanna write these down. Number one, foundation. It'll be verses 12 and 13a, foundation. Number two, focus. It's verse 13b, second part of it, to verse 16, focus. Number three, friends. It's verses 17 to 19, friends. And then fourth and finally, fuel, verses 20 and 21. It's my prayer that we'll walk away from this study knowing how to run and being motivated to do that. So let's think first of all about foundation, verse 12 and 13a. I'll read that section again. Not that I have already obtained this or I'm already perfect, but I press on to make it my own because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. The language of running and racing is evident in our first verse here when Paul says, I press on. He uses the word dioko in Greek, which means to move rapidly and decisively after an object. We picture here a tiring runner who is having to tell herself to keep going. In the first part of the chapter, Paul has been saying that he wants to know Christ, the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings. But he turns to us now and says, this is not going to be easy. But before he can elaborate on how to press on, I think there are several kind of disclaimers that he gives us. Because he knows that this concept of sanctification is really easy to mess up. It's easy to confuse in our minds. One way to mess it up is what we might call arrivalism. Arrivalism. You know, a great way to win a game is just move the goalposts and declare victory. So I thought we were playing to 100. No, we're playing to 20. How much do you have? 20. It's over, I guess. Could laugh, but this is a major Christian temptation. You come to faith, your life begins to get cleaned up. So you stop cussing, you stop abusing alcohol and other substances, you start attending church, you start tithing, you buy a nice Bible and you start to read it. I'm commending all of that, do all of that. But then it's the easiest thing in the world to stop and think, well, this is some great progress that I've made here, especially compared to some of my old friends. And we can begin to feel complacent. Look, if anybody could have felt that way, it was Paul. None of us have lived as sold out a life as the apostle Paul. But he wants nothing to do with that kind of thinking, does he? He says, not that I've obtained all this or already have been made perfect. The truth is that none of us have arrived. Not anywhere close. The finish line is still out there. So we can't be lazy by moving the goalposts and sitting back in complacency. But another way to mess up sanctification is to not actually be in the right race at all. To not be registered, if we go with our metaphor of a race. You don't have a bib number. You just jump on the course and start running, but you're not registered. When Paul says there, I press on to make it my own, We need to be very clear of what the it is, the thing for which Paul says, Christ Jesus has made me his own. So we back up a few verses in the chapter to verse nine. We read this, and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. He's talking there about justification, about the being made righteous, which is the essence of what we mean by salvation. When you think about standing before God, the righteous judge, on the last day, which will surely happen, You really have two different options in the way you think about what you're hoping will happen on that day. The one is to think, well, I hope when he evaluates me, the things that I've thought and said and done in life, I hope that the good is more than the bad. I hope that he looks at it and says, well, there's more good than bad. And therefore, you're hoping that you're gonna have a passing grade in that sense. The other choice that you have is to see that as sheer folly, an impossible dream, something that couldn't be true because of who God is. If he is indeed the righteous judge that is using righteousness as the evaluation, that's the answer key, that's the tool by which we evaluate something, that's the norm, You realize, well, there's no way I'm going to pass in that bar of justice. And so, with all your heart, you look at the only provision that God has made for the failing grade. And you say that that is what is meant by Jesus dying on a Roman cross for sin. When we say that little phrase, he died for our sin, what we mean is that he took all the penalty that I deserve because of my sinfulness, took it on himself, he paid for it, and now he gifts to me his righteousness. imputed as a gift. When we grab on to that righteousness through faith in Christ, we experience salvation. Oh friends, that's the most important thing that you will hear this morning. If you are not trusting in that righteousness, if you're still kind of living in that idea that you're a pretty good person, you need to let go of that. And with two hands, grab on to Christ. That's the it that you need more than anything else. And this is the righteousness that Paul speaks of having received by faith. It's what registers him for the race. And it's the thing that he wants to run after when he says, I want to know him now and the power of his resurrection. And I want to share in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible, I may attain to the resurrection of the dead. So knowing Christ through faith and becoming like Christ. That's the it he's after here. Friends, I think it's so easy in the church to not have clarity in our minds on these things, on justification and sanctification. Is your life characterized this morning by trust in Christ and then pursuit of knowing him more? In times of spiritual awakening and revival in the church, these foundational things are clarified. Who is a Christian and how does a Christian live? So this is where we start. This is the foundation we build on as we understand the Christian life is a race to be run. But let's think about a second thing. Focus. Paul says, but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on towards the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. But those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained. That little phrase there, but one thing I do, that's one, two, three, four, five words. In Greek, it's just two words. Paul just says one thing. But then it's really interesting. So in some sense, we're talking about a focus of the Christian life. One thing. One thing that's in Paul's mind. One thing to be in ours. But then he elaborates on it in at least four different kind of facets. So it's simple in terms of a focus, but it's also a bit complex as we think about what this one thing is. So let's look at what he says. This one thing, first of all, involves forgetfulness. Forgetfulness. He says he forgets what is behind. It's interesting, different commentators have different views of what he's thinking about there. Some commentators think that he's forgetting the other people in the race. So he's not comparing himself with anyone else. I think that's probably true on some level. Others think that he's forgetting past failures. So forgetting ways that I may have failed in the past. And I think that's an important and precious thing to be able to do. But in light of Philippians 3, where he began the chapter recounting his spiritual resume, I think primarily he's even forgetting the good things that he's done in the past. He's not resting on his laurels. It doesn't really matter in one sense whether you were walking with God in 2015, or in 1998, or in 1976. If you aren't obeying him today, it isn't the kind of thing where we look back and we can go, oh yeah, there was that season where I was sold out for the Lord, I was walking with him, my life was defined by this kind of one focus. That doesn't help you at all today. So we have to forget what is behind if our focus is to be truly forward. So that's the first thing. This one thing involves forgetfulness. But secondly, notice that this one thing is strenuous. It's strenuous. Paul says he's straining towards what is ahead. Now we need to be clear that the gospel is free. And Jesus said, my yoke is easy and my burden is light. It's a joy to follow Christ. And that's because he's generous with us. He doesn't command us to do things and then not also provide the strength that we need. But in another sense, we're supposed to have this mindset that it's gonna involve strain. Our lives are to be characterized by an intentional copying of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he didn't live on Easy Street. He walked the Calvary Road. He poured himself out for the good of others. He consistently said no to his own comfort so that he could move towards need. And so the following of Jesus, if we're to be his disciples, is a similar movement from comfort to need. We're called to take up our cross and follow him. That takes effort. It takes effort to know him in the pages of scripture. People whose Bibles are falling apart usually don't have lives that are. It takes work for us to lock arms with other people and get in small group Bible studies and find conversation partners that are gonna spur us on. It takes work to open good resources, good books, written mostly by dead people. You know, not in modern English sometimes, but things that are gonna make us think about who God is. Conversation partners like J.C. Ryle and R.C. Sproul and G.I. Packer and C.S. Lewis and other people that don't use their first names for some reason. It takes work to develop a prayer life. to day by day say, I'm not gonna start my day without thinking through what's to come and committing it to the Lord Jesus in prayer. It takes work to carve out gatherings of the church like the prayer gathering on Wednesday evening and say, I'm gonna get there and I'm gonna pray with the saints. It takes work, it takes strenuous effort to fight off sin. Sins like lust and greed and anger. that they don't go away easy. We're gonna have to fight. Sins like laziness that encourage us to waste our lives in a sea of fantasy sports and a Netflix-induced coma. You know, we live in a strange time where people recognize that it takes strenuous effort to get into a good college. or to develop your career and be successful in it. People recognize that if you wanna be good at a sport, you're gonna have to devote yourself to it. But when it comes to the Christian life, they think showing up once in a while on Sunday morning and having a Bible on a shelf somewhere is enough. That's gotta be enough, right? It's not how the Apostle Paul presents it to us here. Mao Zedong has a famous, quote that is said in China a lot, a revolution is not a dinner party. Well, brothers and sisters, the Christian life is not a dinner party. It takes an investment of all of us. But third, notice that this one thing is a response to the call of God. We're told here that this strenuous effort and pressing on towards the goal for the prize is of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Paul loves to enfold the Christian life in the language of calling. So in 1 Corinthians 1, he describes the Christian life as beginning with the call of God. It says, God is faithful by whom you were called into the fellowship of his son, Jesus Christ. So it begins because God called us and here it's given direction by the call of God. He's saying that God didn't just call us to know him, he called us to press on all the way to the terminal point when we shall see God and be like him. So let's think about what this isn't. This is not an inspiration that's drummed up from within us. It's not a matter of you and I deciding that we're gonna be overcomers. This isn't something that originates with us at all. After all, we were just minding our business with ourselves as the center of our universe when God's call came to us in the first place, the gospel call in the form of the friend or the family member or the preacher that first shared the good news with you. That's when you heard the invitation and the effectual call that Paul talks about in Romans 8, where we read that God predestined, and those he predestined, he also called, and those he called, he also justified, and those he justified, he also glorified. Well, why does it matter that we wrap the Christian life up in the language of God's calling? Well, it means that the whole race is run as a response to God's grace. We're responding to him. He called me to run, so I run. That makes the strain a joyous strain. When we think about the love that the caller has for us, when you and I think back on how good God has been to us, all we brought to the table was our sin, and what he brought to the table was love and mercy and grace, adoption into his family. And now he calls us to run as a response to all of that. So there's pain, but when we think about how good he's been, we see our efforts as quite small in comparison. Fourth, notice here that this one thing is a frame of mind. It's a way of thinking. That might sound anticlimactic, but this is really useful because some of this soaring language can sound a bit abstract, but look how Paul makes it practical in verse 15. Let those of us who are mature think this way. A really useful and oft overlooked verse. It frames the whole of what came before as a mindset. It's a way of thinking. Think this way, forgetting, straining, responding to God's call. I was thinking about how a good coach, any sports coach, doesn't just drill his team or her team in the fundamentals. Okay, so if your soccer coach teaches you how to dribble, and how to pass, and how to shoot, and how to play the ball in the air, gets you in shape, and just drills the fundamentals, and then just throws you out on game day and says, have at it. That's a failure as a coach. Any good coach wants to train the players in how to think. How to take all of the individual skills and abilities and experiences and apply them to this particular game. I think that's what Paul is doing here. There are so many truths that you've gotta grab onto in the Christian life. There are disciplines that are gonna have to be a part of your Christian life. But more important than those individual things are that you put them together in this kind of mindset. Oh, and by the way, he says, if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. I think in English that can sound a bit like a free thinkers kind of verse, like, think this way, but if you think something else, that's cool. That's not what he's saying here. It's a promise that if your thinking isn't in conformity with this, you can trust God to show that to you. He's gonna reveal that to you. It's the kind of thing that should happen as you're reading the scriptures and listening to sermons and talking with godly friends. So trust the process. And then he says, while you're in the midst of that, only let us hold true to what we have attained. So no backsliding or backtracking. We are moving forward here. So putting this together, what does it mean for a Christian to have a singular focus? To have one thing they do? forgetfulness of what is behind, a strenuous approach to running the race, they're responding to the gracious call of God, and they're arming themselves with the right sort of mindset. So again, let's stop and think about ourselves as we begin this new year. Does this describe you and I? Are we focused? What are you focused on? The thing about people with a singular focus is that it's evident to others. The mindset won't work if you're trying to make your Christian walk just one facet of your life, one compartment. Paul isn't talking about work-life balance. He's not talking about making your spiritual life a priority among others. He's not talking about a hobby. He's talking about one thing, an all-consuming passion. A person running a race doesn't multitask. It can't be done. It shouldn't be done. Not if you're running to win. Foundation, focus. He gives us a third thing that's essential to sanctification here. That's friends. Let's keep reading in verse 17. Brothers, join in imitating me and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. For many of whom I've often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction. Their God is their belly. And they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things." He's talking about imitation here. It's so instructive to me that right after giving the teaching on the Christian life, on sanctification, he turns to think about who we hang out with. So what's going on here? Who you take as your model. whose life you're checking in on and patterning yourself after. Because on one level, he knows that all of us do that, right? All of us copy other people. We take cues from others on how to be a teen, how to be a college student, how to be a single or a young mom or dad, or how to manage a career, how to manage money. We take things from others around us. We imitate. And on the negative side, what does Paul say bad company does? It corrupts good character, right? Every parent of teens knows this. When our kids make friends with studious, hardworking, polite people who say yes ma'am and yes sir and we do a little dance inside. But when our teens kind of fall in a crowd who think that the next big TikTok video is the key for them, if they can just bounce a ping pong ball off of the roof and roll it through the gutter, we get a little nervous, right? Because we know that teens are going to be copying other teens. Well, it's true for all of us. It doesn't matter what age we are. We are made to imitate others. It's a powerful force in our lives. And look at Paul's boldness here in saying, imitate me. Earlier he told us to imitate Christ who humbled himself. Paul isn't ashamed to say imitate me. Elsewhere he says it this way, follow after me as I follow after Christ. Which we should read as follow me in so far as I follow after Christ. He's not claiming perfection here. But he isn't shy about being an example either. And he tells them to look for others who walk according to the example you have in us. So pick your friends carefully. And then I'm struck here at how passionate Paul is about them not choosing the wrong people to follow. He says that he's told them often. Think about the words here. He's told them often that there are many. And as he's writing this, their faces come to mind. And the original manuscript of the book of Philippians has tear stains on it because He's calling to mind people who were dear to him, I think, that are no longer walking this way. Look at what he says about them. He calls them enemies of the cross of Christ, and then he describes them in four ways. He says their end is destruction. So in the end, these people are not saved. Second, he says their God is their belly. It means they're controlled and driven by their appetites, their lusts, sex, food, drink, drugs, alcohol. Sensual pleasure is what drives them. Their God is their belly. 30 says they glory in their shame. So the things that they should be ashamed about, they're actually boasting about, like the person who, who was partying last night and the next day wants to tell you their great exploits. They should be ashamed, but they're glorying in it. And then fourth, he says, their minds are set on earthly things. Again, we might think anticlimactic, but no, this is the final one. Paul again and again wants to tell us how important our mindset is. And what these people think about is the things of this world, not the things of God. There is some debate about who these people were. I don't think we can decide finally, but I am persuaded that he's talking not about pagans, not about people outside, but professing Christians. I think the tears testify to this. I don't think he would need to warn the Philippians that the world out there is a dangerous example. I have my own tears when I think about co-laborers in the gospel that are now not walking at all with him. It's a double tragedy. They destroy themselves, exposed on the day of judgment as those that never knew him, and they lead others astray. Their betrayal of Christ brings down others with them. There's no hiding Paul's grief here. There's no hiding our grief. But let's stop and think for a moment about our friends. Now, I hope that you will be friendly and extend friendship liberally with those around you. I mean, that's the best way for us to do evangelism, to extend friendship to our neighbors, to our coworkers. We should be just so willing to be friends with everyone around us. Our hope is to introduce people to Christ after all. But we need to reserve our intimate friendship for those who challenge us to run the race of the Christian life. People who speak to us about our relationship with God. People who encourage and model godly character. People whose God is not their belly. Whose minds are not set on earthly things. When Megan and I were first married, she ran a marathon. Let me be very clear, I did not. But I was her running partner and decided to run the last six miles of the marathon with her. So I jumped on the course without a bib number and ran with her. And it's a profound and scarring experience because during the last six miles of a marathon, people lose their minds. If you've run one, you can testify to this. Stuck in my mind is one guy who was running near us. He started cursing the day of his birth, basically. As he's running, he just started yelling, what am I doing? And then he walked off. He walked off the course, kind of yelling and cursing at himself. I understood what he was going through on some level. But then stuck in my mind also is a couple, it was clearly a husband and wife, and they were, I don't know, they looked to be middle-aged or older running, and the woman was struggling. She kept wanting to veer off the course she was drifting, and truth be told, Megan was drifting too. She kept running into me and saying, why are you running into me? And I'm like, I'm running straight. But this woman, she's going off the course and it was the most beautiful thing. Her husband would just, as they're running, link his arm with hers and pull her back on. And that stuck in my mind. This is essential, friends. If you and I are gonna run the race with perseverance, we need friends who are gonna pull us back on the course. I know you're sitting there going, this is not a sermon point and illustrate, it's the kind you go, oh yes, friends, I get some friends. You have to do this. I mean, one of the things I love about this church is it is filled with people who are worth being friends with. But you are going to have to invest in friendship with the kind of people that are going to give you perseverance 10 years from now. You're going to have to make decisions. You've got one free evening this week. You've got one block in your weekly schedule. Do coffee, do a meal with someone who you say, it doesn't have to be the person who likes the same college football team as you. That doesn't matter. Sorry, it doesn't. But you need someone, that person, when I'm with them, when I talk to them, they encourage me to follow Christ. Invest in those relationships, friends. That's the application here. Running the race of the Christian life is hard. Pressing on is hard. You need fellow runners, running partners, people who are truly running the race towards holiness and Christ-likeness. There's a fourth and final thing that's essential to our sanctification here. Let's consider fuel, verse 20 and 21. But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself. Any good coach, just like any good theologian, knows that you can't just tell people what to do. You have to motivate them, you have to tell them why they should do it. That little word but there in verse 20, it's a Greek particle or preposition, I'm not sure what to call it, but it can be a word of contrast, so I think the translators of the ESV here are looking at the verse before about the enemies of the cross and seeing a contrast here. I think it's better translated for. I think Paul is telling us why we should press on, why strain towards the goal to win the prize, why imitate Paul and the people who are walking according to the example that we're giving them. Here's why. Our citizenship is in heaven. The Philippians were proud of their Roman citizenship. They helped a Roman emperor win an important battle and so it was kind of awarded this colony status as the people there could have Roman citizens. Paul wants them to know that that's not what defines them. That's not what's primary. That's not what's most important. What's most important is that they are a colony of heaven. Heaven is their home country. He's saying, check your passport. You are expatriates here. You are sojourning in a foreign land. Just look at your passport. Look at where you're from. And not only are they citizens of another land sojourning here, but they're waiting for something. I love it how Paul, he mixes his metaphors all the time. He doesn't care. We were running, now we're waiting. That's okay. Are we running or waiting? Well, both. We're running and waiting because the finish line for us is either death or the return of Christ. And either way, he is the one who, by his coming, will mark the end of the race. So he says from heaven, we await a savior. The Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself. Your view of the Lord Jesus Christ defines you more than anything else. The second person of the triune God, incarnate by the Virgin Mary, crucified under Pontius Pilate on the third day, He rose from the dead and ascended into heaven. He, the Savior of all who will believe, the Lord of heaven, will return for his bride and the glorious marriage supper of the Lamb. And you know what happens on that day is that the running will stop. The pressing on and the straining towards the goal will no longer be necessary. that the physical ailments and the oppression of the sinful nature will be no more as our bodies are transformed. Look what he says here. Our lowly bodies will be transformed to be like his, eternal, immortal, imperishable. Behold, I tell you a mystery. We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed in an instant. twinkling of an eye, the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised. And then look at the close here. All of this is fuel for our run, our citizenship in heaven, the coming savior, the transformation of our bodies. But the final thing he includes in this exhortation is just the person of Jesus Christ himself. his glorious body and his power and view, and we're told that this power that will transform us, it's the same power at work that enables him to subject all things to himself. Beloved, so many have an anemic view of the Lord Jesus Christ. But just revel in it here, the Savior, the Lord, the powerful one, with all things in subjection to him. This is the fulfillment of Psalm 8, which tells us that God will subject all things to his Messiah. It's the fulfillment of 1 Corinthians 15, 28, where it says that Jesus will turn all things over to God the Father so that God might be all in all. Jesus is the prize, he's the goal, and he's the fuel to finish the race and to have him The righteous judge, award to us the crown of righteousness. You say, oh, I thought that was just the apostle Paul. He said, I fought the good fight, I've finished the race, I've kept the faith. Now the Lord will award to me the crown of righteousness. Then what does he say? And not only to me, but also to all who have loved his appearing. That's you and I, that's the fuel for our run. What happens? at the end of the race. We talked at the beginning about that story of John Stephen Aquari. Many people have used his story as a motivational tool. You can get on YouTube and listen to many a motivational speaker tell that illustration. They all get it wrong. Because what they do after they tell the story of John Stephen Aquari and his bandages and his limping and his finishing the race, they say, this is what's indomitable about the human spirit and you can go do it too. But it's almost as if they didn't hear what he said. He didn't say, it was because of my indomitable spirit that I finished the race. What did he say? He said, my country didn't send me 5,000 miles to start the race, but to finish the race. It was the love of Tanzania. That's what filled him. That's what caused him to run. That's what makes it a great metaphor for us. Because in the mind of the Apostle Paul, it's your country. It's your citizenship. And it's above all your king that should make you want to run. Not just to start, not just to be faithful in years past, but today and going forward all the way to the finish line. So beloved, with our gaze fixed on him and even as we conclude the service and remember his body and his blood broken for us, shed for us, let's fix our eyes on him and run with perseverance the race that is marked out for us. Let's pray. Our Father, you've been so good to us in so many ways. Thank you for your call. Thank you for your love. We pray now that you would empower our obedience, give us the strength that we need to run. For we pray in Jesus' name, amen. We're gonna stand now and sing the song, Christ Our Hope in Life and Death.