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Welcome to the Gospel Coalition Podcast, equipping the next generation of believers,

pastors, and church leaders to shape life and ministry around the gospel.

Today, you'll hear a message from Paul Miller,

originally delivered at Bethlehem College and Seminary in 2020.

Why don't we begin with prayer and ask the Lord, Father, I pray that by your spirit,

you would open up our hearts to your Word and to the wonder of these truths of Christ in us,

and we in Christ. And I pray that you would pour out your spirit and give us teachable hearts.

And I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

The idea of the J-curve is a very simple idea that the letter J

traces the path down into Jesus' death and up into his resurrection.

And I want to look with you at a passage from Philippians 3 where Paul introduces the idea of the

J-curve. And by the way, I'm taking these from notes from our J-curve study that we have,

our interactive Bible study guide, so you'll see some extraneous things on the pages as we go through.

And let me just begin by reading this here. So Philippians 3, 7 to 11.

But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything

as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake,

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