Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening. And
now for today's program. Welcome to our program. I'm glad
you could join us. And if you'd like to follow along
in your Bibles today, I'll be preaching from the book of Philippians,
Paul's epistle to the church at Philippi. In chapter three,
I've been going through this chapter in a series that I've
entitled Every Believer's Desire, Every True Believer's Desire.
And this is the desire that God, by His grace and power, gives
to His people who have been chosen before the foundation of the
world, who have been justified in and by Christ, redeemed by
His blood, justified by His righteousness imputed, and who have been born
again by the Spirit. brought to faith in Christ, the
gift of faith, and repentance of dead works in idolatry, the
gift of repentance, and showing how God has imprinted upon our
hearts, the minds, the affections, the will, the conscience of every
believer, every believer's desire, a desire to glorify him in the
salvation that God has freely given and provided for him. And in last week was part three,
this is part four, this will conclude the series. In the book
of Philippians chapter 3, Paul is speaking of things that he
has attained, not by his works and efforts, but by the grace
of God in Christ. And now, beginning at verse 12
and 13 and on so forth, he's talking about some things that
he has not attained. And what he's talking about is
not, he kind of shifts gears, as I said last week in verse
12, but it's not going from the gear of grace to the gear of
works, because it's all grace and going in the same direction.
But what he's saying here, as sinners saved by grace, if we're
truly saved, We are totally washed clean from all our sins by the
blood of Jesus Christ. We cannot be charged with our
sins. We cannot be condemned. Who shall
anything to the charge of God's elect? It's God that justifies.
Who can condemn us? It's Christ that died. Yea, rather
He's risen again, seated at the right hand of the Father, ever
living to make intercession for us. Romans 8, 33 and 34, all
of that. And we are righteous in the sight
of God, legally in Christ. In His righteousness imputed
for He, 2 Corinthians 5, 21 speaks of that. Christ was made, God
made Christ, the Father made the Son to be sin for us. Christ who knew no sin. How was
He made sin for us? By the imputation, the legal
charge, the accounting, of the demerit, the debt of the sins
of God's elect to the account of Christ. He was made sin. Our sins were, our iniquity was
laid upon Him. That's another way of saying
that. And so Christ who knew no sin, that we might be made
the righteousness of God in Him. In Christ, we are as saved as
we'll ever be. In Christ, we are as forgiven
as we'll ever be. In Christ, we are as righteous
as we will ever be. But on this earth, as a sinner
saved by grace, a born again person, One who has been given
the gift of faith, the gift of repentance, and one who by the
grace and power of God perseveres in the faith. We are not yet
perfect in ourselves. We have the flesh. There's a
warfare within every true believer between the flesh and the spirit. The flesh keeps us from going
the full way unto the perfection of conformity to Christ that
we desire. We want to be rid of sin. And
that desire grows. And I mentioned last week how
when you're young and vibrant and healthy and all that, your
desire to go to be with the Lord is not as strong as when you
get older and your body gives out. That grows, or if you have
a deadly sickness. But we know that as Paul wrote
back over in Romans chapter eight, that the desire of every believer
is to be like Christ because we realize that that's the glory
of God. Verse 28 of Romans 8, listen
to this. It says, and we know that all
things work together for good to them that love God, to them
who are the called according to his purpose. Well, what is
God's purpose? Verse 29, for whom he did foreknow,
he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his
son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. So that's
the purpose of God, to glorify himself in saving a people to
be made like unto his son. Now, we who are saved are already
like Christ legally, representatively, He's our surety, our substitute,
our redeemer. But in ourselves, we're still
sinners in this life. Paul wrote about that in Romans
7 very well, you know, talking about he wanted to do good according
to God's standard of goodness found in Christ, but he couldn't
do it. A believer, even at our best,
we still fall short. So he has put within us a desire
to fight sin and to be rid of it, to put it to death, and to
be like Christ. And that's what Paul's talking
about here in verse 12 of Philippians 3. Not as though I had already
attained, either were already perfect. Now I'm already perfect
in Christ legally, representatively, my substitute, my surety, my
redeeming, but I'm not perfectly like Christ in my character and
my conduct. I still have sinful desires and
sinful thoughts that I have to fight and strive to be like him,
to follow him, to obey him, to bring him glory and honor. And
he says, but I follow after if that I may apprehend, lay hold
that for which I also am apprehended of Christ Jesus. If you're a
child of God, that means Christ has laid hold of you and he will
not let go. But it also means that when the
Holy Spirit brings you to faith in Christ, you lay hold of Him
and you hold on for dear life. Verse 13, brethren, I count not
myself to have apprehended. I'm not already perfectly conformed
to Christ in my character and conduct. But this one thing I
do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth
unto those things which are before. Forget all that which is behind
and look full on to Jesus Christ, the author and finisher of our
faith. You know, so many people, when they speak of salvation,
they always want to go back into the past. I ask people, you know,
we'll talk about people and they say, well, I know I'm saved because
when I was 12 years old, I walked and I gave my heart to Jesus.
That's not what salvation is. Salvation is not you giving your
heart to Jesus. It's him giving you a new heart.
That's the new birth. And then you give yourself over
to Christ because he's given you a new heart. And people think
that their decision is what causes God to shine upon them and to
give them life. That's not the case. What we
do, Paul's saying here is, Paul's past was a very bad thing in
his eyes. He said, I counted all but loss
and dung that I may win Christ. And he was a religious man. a
sincere man, a moral man in the eyes of men. But he said, when
I see the glory of God in Christ and see my sinfulness and depravity,
he said, all I want to do is just lay hold of Him, plead the
blood and righteousness of Christ as my only ground of salvation,
and strive to be like Him, fighting the warfare of the flesh and
the spirit, not to be saved, not to be righteous, but because
I'm already saved and secured by the grace of God in Christ.
And so he says, I forget those things which are behind and reach
forth under those things which are before. That's that desire.
Look at verse 14. I press toward the mark for the
prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Pressing
toward. You know, that's perseverance
in the faith. And we understand that perseverance
is not a condition that we must meet in order to make it to heaven. Now, a lot of people believe
that and it's wrong. It's a false gospel. For example, if you're
in a denomination or a church or a so-called church that believes
you can be saved but after that you can lose that salvation,
then that's what you believe. You believe that salvation is
based upon your perseverance, but that's not what the Bible
teaches. The Bible teaches that the perseverance of the saints,
perseverance of believers, the continuing of believers is a
matter of God's power, God's goodness, God's grace, God's
preservation. That's what it is. God will preserve
his people. He won't let us go. And when
we mess up and we do, he'll bring us back. I heard an old preacher
one time say that we're on God's leash and he will not let us
go. But my friend, he says, I press
toward the mark. Now, what is the mark? What is
the high calling? To be like Christ. To be like
Christ. Oh, wretched man that I am, Paul
wrote. Romans 7, 24, who shall deliver
me from this body of death? And in verse 25, he says, I thank
God through Jesus Christ, my Lord. And then he followed it
up with there is therefore now no condemnation to those who
walk after the spirit and not after the flesh. Well, what is
it to walk after the spirit? It's to look forward unto Jesus,
the author and finisher of our faith. What is it to walk after
the flesh? It's to seek salvation based
on any of our works or our doings or our decisions. It's to seek
salvation by works. So he said, I press toward the
mark of the high calling. And it is a high calling because
my friend, all we know by nature, before we're born again by the
Spirit and brought to faith in Christ, is that salvation is
something we must strive to earn or deserve, either by making
a decision or by working hard, or both. That's a low calling,
because it's a calling of legalism, self-righteousness. It doesn't
glorify God. It doesn't exalt Christ. It gives
sinners room to boast and to brag. I chose him, but they didn't. No, that's a low calling. The
high calling is the calling of Jesus Christ, which is the calling
of grace. And that grace that inspires
and drives by the power of the Spirit and the Word of God, drives
and inspires the people of God to fight sin, to fight the flesh,
and strive to be like Christ. So he says in verse 15, of Philippians
3. Let us therefore, as many as
be perfect, perfect in Christ, complete in Christ already by
the grace of God, be thus minded. Let us think this way because
we've already been saved by the grace of God, we're kept by the
grace of God, we'll be glorified by the grace of God in Christ.
Let's be thus minded that is striving toward that perfection
within ourselves, not to be saved, but because we already are, not
motivated by conditional salvation and works-based assurance and
rewards earned but motivated by grace, love, and gratitude,
that high calling. Be thus minded, and if in anything
you be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.
If you're minded in any other way, and you're a child of God,
God will reveal it to you. I'll give you an example of that.
It's in the book of Galatians. The Galatian church, the people
of Galatia, that church had been founded upon the true gospel
of God's free and sovereign grace in and by the Lord Jesus Christ
as Paul had come into that area and preached the gospel. And
those churches were formed by God. And when Paul left, false
Judaizers crept into the church and tried to divert their attention
and their focus away from Christ and onto themselves, claiming
that if really to be saved and to be righteous and to be sure,
you've got to be circumcised, you men have to be circumcised,
and you've got to keep certain days and certain laws, all of
this. And they got their minds away
from Christ. But what happened? God sent the
apostle Paul to teach them in the letter, the epistle of the
Galatians, the seriousness of this error. And he started off
this way, he said in Galatians chapter one, he said, if we or
an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you than that
which we preach, let him be anathema, cursed of God. This is how serious
it was. To take your focus and your desire
off of Christ for all of salvation and to put it on yourself in
order to attain or maintain salvation is a false gospel. And he told
them later on, he said, look, he said, told the men, if you
fall prey to these Judaizers who were teaching false religion,
and you men be circumcised in order to be saved, or in order
to be made righteous, Christ will profit you nothing. You've
fallen from grace. In other words, your profession,
that doesn't mean you've lost your salvation. You've fallen
away from the profession of salvation by God's grace. You know, Paul
said in Romans chapter 11, if salvation is by grace, it's all
of grace. And if it's by works, it's all
of works. You can't mix the two. I've heard people say that. They'll
talk about a preacher, well, he mixes grace and works. No,
he doesn't. He preaches works because the
two won't mix. So understand that. So God will
reveal that to his people. He will not let them fall away
unto perdition. He will not let them turn completely
away and apostatize from Christ. If they do completely turn away
and apostatize, that's fall away, apostatize from Christ and deny
Him, if they do that, they were never saved to begin with. That's what the Bible teaches.
Now John spoke of that over in 1 John 2. He said, they've gone out from
us, but had they been of us, They would no doubt have remained
with us. That's the way it is with salvation.
Once saved, always saved, yes. You say, well, that's just opens
the flood gate of sin and discipline. No, it doesn't. Not if you know
the truth, not if God has put his grace within your heart,
written his law on your heart. So he says in verse 16, nevertheless,
where to we have already attained, That is our salvation, our justification
in and by Christ, by God's grace. Let us walk by the same rule.
Let us mind the same thing. So, in other words, as we've
already been made perfect in Christ, by the grace of God,
washed clean from all of our sins by the blood of Christ,
we cannot be charged. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? And as we are already righteous in Christ,
and that's the foundation of our salvation, His righteousness
imputed to us, as we've already been made perfect in that way
and already attained, let's walk, conduct ourselves, live our lives
by that same rule. That same rule. Let us mind the
same thing. Don't ever lose sight. of God's
grace in salvation, preservation, and glory. So as I strive to
be like Christ, as I fight sin, fight the flesh, as I strive
to be like Him in my character and conduct, don't lose sight
of how God saved me. And the ground of my salvation
is not my works, not my efforts. If I make any improvements, You
know, I tell people this all the time. Somebody says, well,
don't we need to improve in our character and conduct? Oh yes,
we do. I do. All of us do. And if I make any
improvements, I don't want to look upon myself and be proud
and say, well, I finally made it. God sure should be smiling
on me now as if I had earned or deserved his favor. I want
to walk by that real. I preached on this a while back
in our church. Galatians 6, 14 says, God forbid
that I should glory or boast or have confidence save in the
cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, the person and work of Christ.
Always remember that God saves me and keeps me and will glorify
me by his grace that reigns through the perfection of righteousness
that can only be found in Christ. And I have nothing to brag about
or boast in. Somebody says, so why strive
so hard? Why work so hard to be like Him? Well, think about it. If God
has freely, unconditionally given me all the blessings and benefits
of salvation by His grace through the obedience unto death of Christ,
who gave Himself for me, who gives me life from the dead,
all spiritual blessings in heavenly places, none of which I deserve
and none of which I've earned. If that's the truth, then what
should I do? I should thank Him. I should
be grateful. I should love Him. I often use
the example of a poor person, you know, who, let's say a person
who is in debt. owes the bank, let's say, a million
dollars, but he has nothing of which to pay that debt, not even
a penny. So he is in turmoil and sorrow. What am I gonna do? I'm bankrupt.
So he goes to the banker, makes an appointment, goes into the
banker's office and throws himself at the mercy of the bank. And
the banker gets the books down and he says, well, let's look
at the account books. Your name is so-and-so. And he looks at
your account and he looks up at you and he says, wait a minute,
you don't owe this bank a dime, it's already been paid. Wow,
could you imagine what burden would be lifted from you? I owed
a million dollars, I was bankrupt, about to go to jail maybe. But
I found out now that my debt is paid. That's what the preaching
of the gospel is to a sinner. You think you owe a debt to God's
law and justice, but your debt's been paid, that's to God's elect.
He paid the debt. And you think about how much
relief would come over you, how much joy would come over you. And then you get up to leave
the banker's office and he says, well, wait a minute, there's
more on your account here. Not only do you not owe a million,
that million's been paid by somebody else. You have a million to your,
to your good. You've got a million dollars
here in this money. He gave you a million dollars. He paid your
million off and gave you a million to boot. Well, would you hate
that person? Would you not want to find out
who that person is and thank him? Well, that's what salvation
is about. Christ has paid my debt in full
and secured my salvation and all the blessings, all the benefits
of salvation unto glory. and giving me all the treasure
and the inheritance. And when the Holy Spirit brings
me to see that, gives me a new heart, all I want to do is serve
Him and love Him and glorify Him in my character and conduct. And I feel sorry when I don't.
It's called godly sorrow. Godly sorrow over sin. I know
I'm not condemned. So here's what Paul says. Look
at verse 17 of Philippians. Brethren, be followers together
of me, and mark them which walk so as you have us for an example.
In other words, recognize the preachers and the teachers. who seek to motivate ourselves,
all of us, unto obedience to be conformed to Christ, to reach
that perfection in our character and conduct, but motivates us
by the gospel of God's grace, not by the law, the whip of the
law. You know, do this or God's gonna
take you out the back in a coffin. Give this or all that. No, motivated
by God's mercy. I beseech you, Paul wrote in
Romans 12, by the mercies of God. that you obey Him, be not
conformed to this world, in its religion or in its immorality. So he says, you have us as an
example. And so verse 18, it's put in
parenthesis in the King James, but it says, for many walk of
whom I have told you often and now tell you even weeping that
they are enemies of the cross. Oh, you won't have any problem
finding preachers and teachers who'll put you under the law
and tell you, well, if you don't obey God, if you don't darken
the church door every time it's open, if you don't give your
money, you're gonna lose your reward or even lose your salvation. Oh, you'll find, Paul says there's
a lot of them around. And he said, I say that with
sorrow. I wish they weren't here. He said, they're enemies of the
cross. That's serious business. Do you
realize that? A preacher, or a teacher, or
a mentor, or whoever, who seeks to motivate people by the law,
other than by grace, that's an enemy of the cross. Because the
cross represents a finished, full, complete work. that brings salvation and inheritance,
riches, all by the grace of God to undeserving sinners who cannot
earn a thing from God. So motivated that way. And he
says in verse 19, their end is destruction. And their God is
their belly, their appetites. They have a self-righteous appetite.
It's not just appetite for money. I mean, you'll see preachers
like that. They're just preaching for money.
But their appetites, and the appetite is one of self-righteousness,
to glory in themselves, to boast in the flesh. And he says, and
whose glory is in their shame who mind earthly things. They're
not minding spiritual things. They're not walking after the
Spirit. They're walking after the flesh and their glory. What
they boast in is in reality, their shame. Go back again to
those false preachers in Matthew chapter seven, verses 21 through
23. When Christ said, not everyone
who says, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but they
which do the will of my Father, which is in heaven. What is the
will of the Father? To believe on the Son. And so
he says, for our conversation is in heaven, from which also
we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change
our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious
body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue
all things to himself. Is there any doubt that it's
all of God's grace? And we who are like Christ legally
and spiritually now, washed in His blood, clothed in His righteousness,
will be like Him perfectly when we go to glory. I hope you'll
join us next week for another message from God's Word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
a copy of today's program or to learn more about Reign of
Grace Media Ministries or Eager Avenue Grace Church, write us
at 1-1-0-2 Eager Drive, Albany, Georgia. 317-07. Contact us by
phone at 229-432-6969 or email us through our website at www.theletterofgrace.com. Thank you again for listening
today and may the Lord be with you.