"Complete on the Day of Christ" (Philippians 2:12–18)

August 14, 2016

"Complete on the Day of Christ" (Philippians 2:12–18)

Series:
Passage: Philippians 2:12–18
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Since Philippians 1:27, Paul has been exhorting the Philippian believers to live worthily of their gospel citizenship. To do this, he has brought us from one concept to another through a very tightly written section of Scripture. So, he began by exhorting Christians to stand together in unity (Phil. 1:27), but then he defined the unity (Phil. 2:2) not as utter sameness, but as “humility” (Phil. 2:3). As the perfect example of humility, Paul wrote of Christ, who “humbled himself by becoming obedient” (Phil. 2:8). Just as Paul had defined unity in terms of humility, he defines humility in terms of obedience.

Now, in Philippians 2:12–18, he picks us the idea of obedience (“Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed…”; Phil. 2:12) to address a lingering question: on what basis should the Philippians believe that they will succeed? In Philippians 1:6, Paul had expressed his utter confidence “that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ,” but how could he be so confident? The Philippians are in the midst of deep suffering, where Paul is not able to be present to encourage them (Phil. 2:12), so what hope could they possibly have of persevering all the way to the end?

It is here that Paul enters into one of his richest meditations on human responsibility, divine grace, and new covenant promises of perseverance for believers in the midst of suffering. If the Christ hymn of Philippians 2:6–11 is the chief theological example in this letter, then Philippians 2:12–18 provides this letter’s chief theological exhortation.


 

Hear the word of the Lord from Philippians 2:12-18.

12 Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
14 Do all things without grumbling or disputing, 15 that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, 16 holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. 17 Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. 18 Likewise you also should be glad and rejoice with me.
Philippians 2:12-18

This is the word of the Lord. Right now the Olympic Games are in full throttle, as you probably are aware. As you watch the Olympics, one of the things that's very difficult to keep in mind is the sheer out of this world abilities and talent and athleticism of the people you're watching. Because you're basically watching a collection of the freakishly freakish athletes of the world all competing at one time.

Someone I saw on Twitter say something along the lines of, you know, they really ought to have an ordinary person competing with everybody else just for the sake of comparison, to recognize what a marvel you are staring at. Because you watch these greatest athletes representing their countries from all over the world and you forget about the hundreds and thousands and hundreds of thousands of athletes who compete in the exact same sports and the exact same events who didn't make it, who didn't qualify. You watch the one event and it seems like, well, they're the eight competitors and that's really it and you forget about all the people who didn't make the Olympic qualifying team. Maybe people who competed well at the collegiate level, at the national level, and other international competitions, but who did not even get to throw their hat in the ring in the Olympic Games.

Here in Philippians two. Paul is addressing the issue of whether or not we will make it. Of whether or not we will persevere to the end. Of whether or not we will qualify on the last day on what he calls the day of Christ, the day when Christ returns. If you remember what we talked about last week, if you were here from Philippians 2:5-11, he's given us a pretty high bar to measure up to, that of Jesus Christ himself. The one who emptied himself, though he was God of God, light of light, very God of very God. In fact, because he was God, he emptied himself by taking the form of a servant. We read that as he took the form of a servant, in verse eight, that he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. It was through the humiliation and the humility of Christ who was obedient for us as a human being in the flesh. It was on that basis that Jesus was exalted, that he qualified, that he made it, exalted to the right hand of the Father.

So now, Paul says in verse twelve and thirteen, "Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure."

He's repeating the same language just as Christ was obedient to the point of death. He's saying, "Well, now you as you have always obeyed. So not only as in my presence, but much more in my absence." Now that I'm gone. Here's the question will you make it to the end? Will you persevere? Will you qualify? Will you stand before the throne of God with confidence on the last day?

So in this passage, Paul lays out first how we know the difference between qualification and disqualification, failure and success between achieving glory and losing it. He gives a very important, balanced, nuanced answer. Then the next thing Paul is going to do, as we'll look at it in just a moment a little bit later in the sermon is to contrast the difference between what failure and what success looks like. Then finally, he gives us a response based off of what he teaches about how we go about seeking perseverance. How should we respond in our day to day life?

So let's look at this. Let's start versus twelve again, Paul says, "Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence" Stop there for a moment. We are at the very beginning of the school year right now and some of you young people are going to go back to school, or maybe you're thinking about getting ready to go off to college in a little bit. There's a question here that Paul is raising, incidentally about what are you going to do when you're absent from the church? When you're absent from maybe your parents direct influence? Maybe as you're growing older, maybe as you're even going somewhere totally different for college, maybe that's next year, maybe that's in a few years. Will you keep going? Will you persevere? Will the faith that your parents have led you in thus far be your own or will you be willing to let it go? That's a major question.

Paul is not asking those of us who are just leaving, he's talking about his absence as a minister, as an apostle in their midst. He said whether I'm there or not, the question is, now that I can't come to you because again, he's in prison, will you continue? So what he tells them to do first, as he says? Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

Now let's look at this statement. We don't want to downplay this statement or sort of dismiss it out of hand. We need to really wrestle with what Paul says here, because what he says is extremely important. He gives us a direct flat command. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. Fear and trembling as in you are doing this in the presence of God, of the consuming fire himself. You will on the last day, have to stand before the throne of God himself and give an account for how you have lived your life. Therefore, work out your salvation. Make it your own. Figure it out. Press on. Don't stop. Keep going. Lay hold to what you have to lay hold of. Cling to what you have to cling to and let go of what you need to let go of. Make sure that nothing trips you up. Nothing stands in your way. Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.

Now, this is a very direct command. Paul tells us this, he commands us this, and this is so important lest we slip into a kind of holy passivity. It's the kind of passivity where we tell ourselves, you know, I'm just not feeling like going to church today. Obviously, all of you were here, so maybe I'm not speaking to those of you here, but maybe others. I'm just not feeling like going to church and until I can really work that out, until this can be totally my gut, I want to be at church, I'd better stay away until I can do it authentically and not hypocritically. Or we say the same thing about Bible reading. You know, I just don't want to just Go through the motions and be a hypocrite reading the Bible. So I'm just going to wait until God jolts me from heaven to want to read the Bible. Or we say that about prayer. I'm just I'm just that feeling it today.

Well what Paul is telling us here, and maybe we can take a lesson from the Olympic athletes that we've been watching this last week or so, some of the best experiences we have in our discipleship are when we persevere, when we don't feel like it. When it isn't something that we want to do, when it's hard, when it's grueling, when we work out our own salvation in fear and trembling. Not because it's bubbling up from in our heart of hearts, but because God has said that it's the right thing to do. Paul rejects a holy passivity that we might take up here.

It's also very important to read the rest of this verse, isn't it? Or the rest of this little, short section of the passage looking on to verse 13? Notice the conjunction he uses. It's the conjunction "for" again, conjunctions are so important in what Paul writes. Conjunction Junction, what's your function? The word "for" gives us the ground. It explains how Paul could possibly tell us what he has just finished telling us. Paul, how do you possibly tell us to just go on, grit it out, work out our salvation with fear and trembling? He says this is how. Earlier we looked at the way Paul had rejoiced in the midst of his deep suffering. We said, Paul, you're out of your mind, who rejoices in the midst of suffering? In verse 19, he says for and he begins to explain how someone could possibly have this mindset.

Well, here in 2:13, Paul says, "For, it is God who works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure." Paul doesn't negate human responsibility. He doesn't stop from issuing us absolute directives and commands. He says, work out your salvation with fear and trembling, but he says, let me explain to you what's going on behind the scenes. For he says, God is the one working in you. You don't have to work this out on your own. You're not on an island. This isn't an individual race that you're just out there and left in, in the water or on the track or whatever, and it's up to you to do or die, swim or fail.

The one who is working in you, Paul says, is God himself. Then he gives us two ways In which he says God is working. He says God is both working in you to will and to work. See, there are two parts to any actions we take. One is to desire to take an action, and one is to actually have the ability to carry it out. So especially when I was a child, but even sometimes these days, I wish I could just flap my wings and fly. But God in his wisdom saw fit not to give me arms that could flap in a way that would give me flight. I don't have the ability to do that, no matter how much I desire to do it.

On the flip side, when I go to the zoo and go to the Kingdom of the Night exhibit, if you've been down there below the Desert Dome and I come across the alligators, really, I have complete ability to just leap over the fence, which is like this tall into the water along with the alligators. But guess what? I haven't done it because I have no desire to wrestle the alligators in the Kingdom of the Night exhibit. You have to have both desire to do something and the ability to do something. If you don't have either, you will not be able to accomplish something. You will not accomplish something.

What Paul says here is he can tell us he can give us this command. He can give us this call to action to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, because he also says that any ability you have to do it either to desire to do it in the first place or to even have the ability to carry it out at all comes from God. It's a gift. It's grace. You don't do this on your own, whatever you are able to accomplish, either to desire or even to carry out, comes by grace.

So on the first hand and in verse twelve Paul cuts against, he rejects the idea of passivity. Here he cuts against and rejects the idea of presumptuousness. You see, you might ask the question, why is it that some people believe in Jesus and others don't? Why is it that some people reach the finish line and others don't? Why is it that some people get caught up in sin and tangled and dragged down so that they eventually walk away from Christ himself and others don't? Well, if you explain that in terms of your own life, in terms of, well, I'm just better, I'm stronger, I'm more morally pure, I have better insight. You're being presumptuous. You're taking credit for the gift of God worked in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. This isn't yours. You can't take credit for this. It comes as a gift from God.

Which means that we have a way to ask for this gift. If it's just on you, if either you fail or succeed in this, then you just have to hope that you're going to be able to carry it through. If this comes as a gift of God, if God Is the one willing and working in you, this means you can come to God and say, God, I'm struggling with this. You're asking me to do something, to obey you in such a way, or maybe to refrain from doing something. Frankly, my desire doesn't line up with what you were commanding me to do. I don't want what you want. That gives us the ability to pray God, I don't want what you want, but work in me to will what you will for me to do. Or God, you've asked me to do something and I want to do it. I see how good it is for, peace, for mercy, for justice, but I don't know that I'm up to the task. This is way bigger than I am. I can't change that person's heart. I can't move this circumstance. It gives us the ability to go to God in prayer and say, God, give me the ability to work. I desire it, but give me the ability to work. Both to will and to work.

Paul, here again, look at what he's doing. He says the way we persevere is not by just sort of sitting back on our on our easy chair until God gives us a jolt from heaven and sort of this, I believe that I'm being holy, but really, I'm just being passive. Paul says you can't do that. Paul also says you can't take credit for this. He says the way in which we persevere is both by doing everything in our power to seek salvation in the knowledge and praying for grace along the way that God would continue to work in us. Its command and its promise, its law and its gospel, its directive and its grace. Paul says you can't substitute one for the other. Is it human responsibility or is it's God's sovereignty? The answer is yes, it's both. Paul says do not allow either side to fall, or you will have an incomplete view of how God is working in and through you and your life. That's how you persevere.

So Paul goes on here and he does something that's really fascinating. In verses fourteen through the first part of sixteen, so sixteen a you might say. Paul gives us a contrast between what success looks like, on the one hand, perseverance and then, on the other hand, what failure looks like. He does it in a pretty subtle, sneaky way. He does it by quoting and alluding to referencing a lot of Old Testament scripture. He's contrasting the New Covenant, New Testament people of God in the church with the Old Covenant Israelites. I have to give credit to Gordon Fee, he does a lot of work to work through this in his commentary, and I'm drawing pretty heavily upon what he has. I have notes again today. If you want to look at this and look at a little bit deeper into what's going on.

Let me walk you through what Paul is doing. Paul essentially has three subsections of this section. The first is where he says in this contrast that he's drawing, do all things without grumbling or questioning, or if you have a newer version of the ESV that that word questioning is disputing. So do all things about grumbling. Ok, so again the Old Testament is written in Hebrew and the New Testament is written in Greek, but there was a version of the Old Testament that was translated from the Hebrew to the Greek called the Septuagint. Paul is drawing off this. Paul quoting using the word that the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament. He's using the exact same word here for grumbling that we find in Exodus and Numbers to describe the murmurings of the Israelites in the wilderness. When they grumbled against Moses, when they wondered when he was going to actually take care of them. In Exodus 15:20, Exodus 16:2, 7, 8, 9, 12, Exodus 17:3, and a few times in Numbers. I won't list them all off there in the notes if you want to see them.

So that's the word grumbling, but this word questioning is kind of a parallel idea. So many times when the Israelites grumbled, they did so by asking questions. Not to clarify what Moses was asking them to do, but to cut him down. So in Exodus 15:24, we read that the people grumbled, there's that first word, against Moses saying, "What shall we drink?" Well, if you've ever parented a toddler or a teenager, they act in similar ways at times. Or if you have ever personally been a toddler or a teenager, you might know that the people asking that question don't have the best of intentions in mind. They aren't asking. They're accusing.

In Exodus 17:3, "Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?" Why did you bring us here to kill us? Well, in politics you're supposed to say, you know, I reject the premise of that question. That's not why Moses brought them up out of the land. It wasn't to kill them, it was to give them the promised land, but they don't see it that way. So they question in this disputing angry kind of way. Or in Numbers 12:2, "Has the Lord indeed spoken only through Moses? Has he not spoken through us also?" That's not a legitimate theological distinction. They are trying to undercut Moses theological authority.

Numbers 14:3, "Why is the Lord bringing us Into this land to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become a prey. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?" Well, the answer is no, but they're attacking him. Or Numbers 16:3, "They assembled themselves against Moses and against Aaron and said to them, "You have gone too far for all in the congregation are holy every one of them and the Lord is among them. Why then, do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the Lord?"

These are people not seeking information but seeking to indict, not to build up, but to blame, not to ascertain information, but to attack the one whom they are questioning. That's the idea here, and Paul is saying, don't do that. Don't live that way. Don't you almost wonder if he's saying, don't attack your leaders. Which if you remember back in Philippians 1:1. This is the only letter where Paul specifically acknowledges the overseers, the elders and the deacons. You wonder if the leadership at Philippi is under attack, and Paul is saying, don't be like the Israelites who attacked Moses.

So there's this contrast here. Don't do anything. Do all things without grumbling or questioning. The second subsection here is where he says that you may be, and he uses three key words blameless, innocent and unblemished. What these words get at is kind of a two sided nature of what these words get at. It's getting at what the people of Israel were supposed to be versus what they failed to do. So blameless you go back to Genesis 17:1, and again in the Septuagint, the Greek translation, the same word is used there when God says to Abraham, "I am God almighty walked before me and be blameless." God's intention for his people is that they would be blameless.

Now, sometimes that means blameless according to the law of Moses. If you peek across the page to Philippians 3:6, Paul is giving his credentials there as the Hebrew of Hebrews, a Pharisee as to the law. There, he says in 3:6, that as to the righteousness under the law, he was blameless. Yet as we'll look at in a few weeks, Lord willing, he realized that wasn't enough apart from Christ, so it could mean righteousness under the law. In general, it means a righteousness that God Intends for his people a blamelessness. That's the first word.

The second word is innocent. This is the idea of something that is unmixed, unpolluted, undefined. It's something intact as it was created to be. Paul says here you should be blameless and innocent, these are twin concepts that go together. Then he says that they should be children of God, without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation. What's fascinating here is that this is a direct quotation from Deuteronomy 32:5, except that he's tweaked it. There in Deuteronomy 32:5 Moses, singing the Song of Moses is accusing the Israelites, telling them all the ways in which they have already fallen short of the law that God gave them of the covenant that God established them. He says there that the Israelites, the people of God themselves, are our blemished children, that they themselves are the quickest, the crooked and twisted generation. Again in the Septuagint these words are the same.

Paul is saying, now you have the opportunity to succeed where Israel failed. You can be blameless, you can be innocent, you can be unblemished. You do this how? By doing all things without grumbling or even questioning. By working out your own salvation with fear and trembling in the knowledge, that it is God who works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. He's drawing this contrast what Israel was supposed to be versus what they failed to be. And Paul is saying, you can succeed where they failed. The third Subsection, Paul again is directly quoting scripture With a couple of tweaks. This last phrase among Whom so he's talking about the crooked and twisted generation The people Of God live in a crooked and twisted generation, rather than being the crooked and twisted generation under the New Covenant. But then, he says, among whom among that generation you shine as lights in the world Holding fast to the word of life?

Well, that's a pretty direct quotation, and I'm going to read you the Hebrew version, the Septuagint translation. You'll see how Paul is quoting that here, the Hebrew version in the ESV It's translated in Daniel 12:3, "and those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above and those who turn many to righteousness like the stars forever and ever." That's sort of sounds like what he says, but if you look at the Greek translation which is a little bit different, it says, "the wise shall shine as lights in heaven."
That's what he says here, except not in heaven Paul says, but in the world. You're no longer aloof, you're actually still in the world. The wise should shine as lights in heaven and those who hold strong to my words as the stars. That's the idea of holding fast to the word of life.

Now this is a passage about the end, about the final judgment, about the day when the righteous would stand unblemished and innocent and blameless before the throne of God. In Daniel 12:2, the verse just before this. Daniel writes, "And many of those who sleep in the dust of the Earth shall awake some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt." So it's the contrast between the final verdict the final judgment of the righteous versus the wicked. He's saying, you already are seeing that verdict come through, because this isn't that some long, distant future day that you're going to shine in the heaven glorified far apart from the world. Right now in the midst of a watching world you shine as lights in the heavens.

It's not the first time God's described his people as stars. You may remember in Genesis 15:5 that God told Abraham, "Look up in the stars and count them if you can. Such will be the number of your offspring." We are the fulfillment of that promise in Christ. If you are Christ, you are Abraham's offspring heirs, according to promise. So Paul is saying, look, you can achieve this. This is possible. Do everything without grumbling and questioning, be blameless, innocent and unblemished. Shine in the midst of the people around you as stars in the world, in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation.

There's command, but how does Paul know what confidence does Paul have that they're actually going to be able to carry that through? That's the promise part. Work out your salvation with fear and trembling In the knowledge that God's grace is sufficient, that it's not you carrying this through. It's not you achieving this on your own on an island. God is the one working in you both to give you the desire and the ability to follow him and obey him and believe upon him, holding fast to the word of life, to the very end persevering.

Don't be like Old Covenant Israel, who fell away. Sure, there were individuals who persevered, but the nation fell away. Instead, cling, follow, work out your salvation in the light of God's grace.

So how finally should we respond to this? This command, there's promise, there's law, there's gospel. How do we live in the midst of this? That's where Paul ends here. He says so that picking up right after holding fast to the word of life, "so that" and then he begins to speak of the intensity of effort that he's putting toward the Philippians faithfulness and toward their growth in Christ. He says, "So that in the day of Christ, on the day when Christ returns, I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain." The word there is the word empty. I don't want to have done this with emptiness. I don't want my work to be empty. It's the same word that Paul used earlier to speak about how Christ, very God of very God, who existed in the form of God, emptied himself. He said, I don't want my work to be empty. I don't want to have done it in vain.

Then he turns around and kind of uses the same image. Christ emptied himself by taking the form of a servant. Well, then verse 17, he says, "Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial altar or offering of your faith, I am glad or I rejoice and rejoice with you all." So what he's saying is saying, I am going to give myself completely to this, but I'm confident that in the last day I will not have run in vain or labored in vain. It won't be empty, even if I myself am emptied. Even if I have to in obedience, humble myself to the point of death, just like Jesus did. You know how I'm confident in that? Because I know that God's grace is at work. I don't trust in you. I don't believe in your abilities to get this done.

You know, sometimes you see in television where they're trying to be very pious and incorporate people of faith and the person of faith typically says something along. I believe this is going to happen. Why? Because I have faith in you. That is not what the Bible talks about when it talks about faith. If your faith is another people, you are going to be disappointed. Our faith, the reason our faith is powerful is not because of the strength of the faith itself. It's because of the strength of the one in whom we put our faith in. Because we are trusting Jesus to accomplish what we cannot, believing that he has already accomplished what we never could.

So he says, "In light of this, I rejoice" and then he says, "I rejoice with", it's the word with sort of hooked as a prefix to the beginning of the word rejoice. "So I rejoice and rejoice with you all." Then he turns around and says, "Likewise, you also", in verse 18 "You also should rejoice and rejoice with me." So it's the idea of joy and togetherness. We're going to rejoice in the midst of this. In the midst of suffering in the midst of doubt, in the midst of worrying whether we will qualify, whether we will persevere, whether we will make it. We're going to rejoice. Why? Because it's not on us, because we are putting our faith and our confidence and our hope, not in our own abilities, not in our own goodness, not in our own resolve, not in our own strength, but in God. As the one who works in us both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Keep going, he says, keep striving. Work out your salvation, don't let this get away from you. Don't passively sit back and wait for God to jolt you from heaven. Grab it, lay hold to it. Keep going. Don't be like Old Covenant Israel who fell away. Instead, be like stars shining in the midst of the world.

One pastor I was talking about this this week said when he preached on this passage, he said, you know, people should squint as they look at you. Why on earth would that person behave that way? Because you're shining as stars in the midst of perversity and twisted rebellion.

Brothers and sisters, this isn't an easy road to hoe. This isn't simple, life in the body is hard. There are challenges that we have to deal with, whether we like it or not. There's sin that we find ourselves in the midst of, whether it's our own that we didn't see coming and building on us over a long period of time and now we're reaping the fruit of it. Or the sin of others that affects us and hurts us. What Paul says is it gives us a call to action, a call to arms. Go do it. Work it out. Lay hold to the means of grace. but not in a way that's Pelagian. Pelagius was a heretic in the fourth century, who said, Well, if Jesus did it, we should be able to. That's not what we're saying.

What we're saying is, here's the hope, the hope of the gospel. That what you could not do living the perfect life, establishing a perfect righteousness with which to shine, to present before God Almighty on his throne, to stand in confidence before him with it. What you could not put together Jesus Christ did in your behalf. In faith as we look to him. Jesus Christ promises to send his Spirit to continue working in us. To bring us to the point of recognizing the all sufficient sacrifice of Christ who died for us, for our sins. To look to him in faith so that the Spirit Is bringing us to follow in his footsteps, not to earn our salvation, but because we have been brought from death to life.

Brothers and sisters, this is a hard road to hoe, but let's keep going. Rejoicing together as a community. Not in our own successes, which will rise and fall as far as we can see. Rather in the absolute unshakable, immovable, like a rock success that Jesus Christ established for us. In that we can rejoice and rejoice together. In that we can have perfect confidence that God will continue working in us until he brings all things to completion on the day of Christ Jesus.

Pray with me. Heavenly Father, we pray, God, that you would work in us what we cannot work on ourselves. God, we are cold and lifeless and bored. But God, you offer us eternal life, and this is such a serious, serious issue. We asked God that you would not allow us to be lax, we ask that you would wake us up. We ask that you would prompt us to lay hold of things that we would never become passive, but would seek with everything in us to lay hold of you through the means of grace, through your word, through prayer, through corporate worship, through the sacraments. Whether we feel like it or not, in the knowledge, Father, that you yourself are working in us both to will and to work for your good pleasure. God, be pleased in us, not for our own sake or because of us, nut for Christ's sake and because of Christ and what he did in our stead. We pray this in the name of your son, Jesus, our Lord. Amen.

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