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I'm 10, from Canada to Columbia, and as part of that journey I discovered that basically

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a billion people in the world didn't have access to clean drinking water.

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So I began this journey and did some higher level education and then on a series of trips

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with my friends in the last six years.

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That's all led us to this spot now where we've become very interested in small scale decentralized

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desalinization projects.

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It's really the future of water.

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Welcome to Bible at the Beach, I'm Ryan.

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Today we'll be in Philippians chapter 3 verses 1 through 8.

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Paul says, my beloved ones, don't ever limit your joy or fail to rejoice in the wonderful

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experience of knowing our Lord Jesus.

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I don't mind repeating what I've already written you because it protects you.

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So Paul had sort of a fatherly protective vibe to his writings.

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He's writing to encourage, he's writing to instruct, he's also writing to protect.

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You know, the way that we protect ourselves is by protecting our thoughts and protecting

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our mind.

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And so Paul is really always warning us, hey, be careful what you think about, be careful

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what you let in.

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And so he says, beware of those religious hypocrites who teach you that you should be

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circumcised to please God, for we've already experienced heart circumcision and we worship

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God in the power and freedom of the Holy Spirit, not in laws and religious duties.

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God cares mostly about your heart and what's going on on the inside.

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So every day it's very useful to say, as David did, God created me a pure heart, oh God,

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and renew a right spirit within me, restore to me the joy of my salvation.

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So what's David saying there?

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God created me a new heart and restore unto me the joy of my salvation.

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So when it comes to our heart, we're to pray for a clean heart, we're to pray for a pure

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heart, we're to pray for a heart that's right.

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And also to understand that God really isn't concerned with how you look as much as he

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is with what's going on on the inside.

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How you look is just cultural.

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It's pretty much irrelevant.

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What is important is what's going on in your heart and in your relationship with the Lord.

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That's the most important thing in our life.

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He says we are those who boast in what Jesus Christ has done and not in what we can accomplish

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in our own strength.

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So it's what God does in us and through us that we're supposed to be most proud of.

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And you find out what's really going on in your life when you go through difficulty.

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I just had a friend call me before I made today's Bible at the beach and my very good

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friend passed away in an automobile accident.

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Very, very sad.

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Very, very heart wrenching.

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And yet to hear my friend talk about her husband, who was my good friend, who was also a cyclist,

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didn't pass away riding a bicycle, was just a fellow bicycle rider.

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And to think about the joy and somehow the strength that she had even through losing

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her spouse.

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You see, when you really go through the hard stuff, when you really go through the deep

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stuff, that's when you find out that the Lord is your strength.

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And there is a joy and there is a peace that does not take into consideration circumstances.

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And you can literally have joy and peace in every age, in every stage, in every chapter,

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in every circumstance that you find yourself in your life if you look to the Lord to be

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your strength.

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Paul wrote, I was born, or he says, it's true that I once relied on all that I had become.

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I had a reason to boast and impress people with my accomplishments more than others for

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my pedigree was impeccable.

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Well, do people have pedigrees?

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Of course, all cultures have pedigrees.

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Think about the culture you're in and think about the pedigrees that go along with the

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culture that you're in.

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So I live in coastal California, San Clemente is very much about how much schooling or how

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much success you've had in your career.

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There's a lot of things people care about around here.

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And Paul says all of it takes a backseat to Jesus.

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So whatever culture you find yourself in, whether it's by the coast or not by the coast

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or whatever, all of the things that we use to set our measurement for success, for the

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culture that we're in, Paul says, look at all this stuff secondary.

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What matters is knowing Christ.

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What matters is knowing Jesus.

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Paul goes on to list his pedigree.

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It's going to include educational, political, and wealth.

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So he says, I was born a true Hebrew of the heritage of Israel, a son of the Jewish man

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from a tribe of Benjamin.

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That means that he was going to already have access to wealth.

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These tribes were generational.

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They passed down to the next generation, land, wealth and acquisitions.

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He was within the line to inherit a lot of wealth.

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He says, I was circumcised eight days after my birth.

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So he was a part of the strict tradition.

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So not only did he have the wealth, elitism, he had the religious elitism.

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We've got wealth, elitism, religious, elitism.

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He said living is separated and devout life as a Pharisee.

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He had the wealth, elitism.

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He has the religious elitism.

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And then within the religious elitism, he's like a three-stripe black belt within the

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religious elitism.

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He says, in concerning the righteousness of the Torah, no one surpassed me.

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I was without peer.

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And then even within that, he was at the top of his class.

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So I persecuted the Messianic believers with religious zeal.

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Then look at verse seven, yet all of the accomplishments I once took credit for, I've now forsaken

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them and I regard it all as nothing compared to the delight of experiencing Jesus Christ,

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my Lord.

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He says all of these accomplishments, the wealth that I inherited, the education that

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I had, the religious elitism that I experienced, the family that I came up in, the place that

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I lived in, everything that went with being in the 1% of the 1%, it's all rubbish.

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One translation says that he considers it dung for the surpassing greatness of knowing

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Christ.

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Boy, that's true.

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That's why my alarm goes off before every day.

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And I sit in my chair and I just pray and I think and listen to the scripture because

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that's the best part of my day, every single day.

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Every single day, spending my time praying and thinking and listening to scripture is

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the best part of my day, every single day.

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So that's why I get up and do that every single day, except Sunday.

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Sunday is I turn my alarm off.

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And then lastly, he just says, I truly know to truly know him meant letting go of everything

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from my past and throwing all my boasting on the garbage heap.

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It's all like a pile of manure to me now so that I may be enriched in the reality of knowing

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Jesus Christ and embrace him as Lord in all of this greatness.

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So he says all of this stuff doesn't mean anything.

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It just means nothing.

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What's important in life is knowing Christ, spending time with Jesus, praying, thinking

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and being in the scriptures and allowing that quiet place in your life and your soul to

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shape your future.

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So as always, may God give us the eyes to see, may he give us the ears to hear, may

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he give us the heart to feel today so we can be his people.

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In Jesus' name, amen.

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You'd like more information about Ocean Water Church, how to join us on an upcoming trip,

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how to be part of one of our Clean Water projects, how to financially support our movement or

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even information on how you can start an Ocean Water Church yourself.

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Please look us up at OceanWater.com.