Let's open our Bibles to Philippians
chapter 3. Last week we started a new chapter,
chapter 3. The name of the message today
is Rejoicing in Christ. Rejoicing in Christ. Now isn't
it amazing that God takes those who at one time did not rejoice
in Christ He takes note. That was us, wasn't it, Charlie?
That was us, sister, right? We didn't rejoice in Christ before
we were saved. Not at all. Not at all. And we can all remember that,
can't we, Brother Charles? We can remember that time when we didn't
rejoice in Christ. But now He's taken us, who wanted
nothing to do with Him, and we get lit up, don't we, Brother
Charlie? When we talk about the Lord, we get excited. My, what
a change. And you know what? The only one
who made us to differ is God. It's God. He's the only one.
We're going to see that too in the Sunday, or in the main message,
that all this is happening according to God's eternal purpose. The
whole reason we're saved, sister, is because of God's eternal purpose.
Isn't that amazing? It was God's purpose to save
us in eternity. And that which He planned, He
provided. a lamb to take away our sins, right? And then the
application of it, we're born again by the Holy Spirit of God,
given faith to believe. And now here we are, trusting
Christ, clinging to Christ, aren't we? Isn't it wonderful? He takes
rebels, He takes rebels and causes us to praise Him. And we, And
Vicki and I were talking today. We willingly do that because
He makes us willing. Isn't that amazing? The unwilling
are made willing. And now we praise His name, don't
we, Brother Jim? We praise Him for His mercy and
His goodness towards us. It's in Christ. And He causes
us to rejoice in Christ. We have a new heart now that
hungers and thirsts after Christ. We're born again. We're given
faith to trust Christ, to cling to Christ. We want no other. He's now everything to us. For
salvation, right? And we know for our lives, too.
Oh, my. We trust Christ alone for the
salvation of our souls. And now, think of this. I love
that song, Wonderful, Merciful Savior. Now we rejoice in the
fact that Christ is our wonderful, merciful Savior. It's just incredible. Ones who did not want to see
Him, did not want to rejoice in Him, did not want to hear
about Him, are now rejoicing in Him. Only God makes us to
differ, right? According to His eternal plan.
Isn't that amazing? It's amazing. And so let we who
are the redeemed of the Lord rejoice as Christ Jesus our Lord
shed His blood 2,000 years ago. to purchase our pardon, to purchase
our eternal souls. We're His. We're His by choice,
right? God chose us in Christ before
the foundation of the world. We're His by purchase. Isn't
that amazing? And the purchase is His precious
blood. Because He came here to save His people from their sins,
and He did it perfectly, didn't He? He did it perfectly. Wonder
of wonders! Christ Jesus my Lord, God in
the flesh, saves sinners of whom I'm chief. We all say that, don't
we? I'm the chief of sinners. But
praise God, God saved this chief of sinners. Isn't that wonderful? So let's read Philippians chapter
3, verses 1 to 6. Finally, my brethren, rejoice
in the Lord. To write these same things to
you, to me indeed, is not grievous." So, writing about Christ, talking
about the gospel, setting the gospel before them constantly
is not grievous for the preacher, and it's not grievous for the
brethren, is it? Not at all. We love it. Yeah. But for you,
it's safe. If we cling to Christ and Him
alone, we're safe. We're safe in his irons anyways.
But that's who we cling to, isn't it? Beware of dogs. We know this is the false teachers.
And that dogs there is the mangly street dog. Vicious. Beware of evil workers, the same
people. Beware of the concision. Now
look at the contrast here. This is what we're going to look
at today. Look at the contrast between those spoken of in verse
2 and those spoken of in verse 3. And the only one who made
us to differ is God. Keep that in mind. The only one
who's made the dogs spoken of, the evil workers in the concision,
to differ from those who are the circumcision. And this is
in the heart. This is being born again. Remember
Colossians? It's an operation of God. Look at this. It's God. Christ is the only
one who made us to differ. For we are the circumcision,
which worship God in the Spirit. Look at that. We're born again.
We have the Spirit in us now, right? whereby now we cry, Abba,
Father. Because we're sons, remember
Galatians, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts whereby
we now cry, Abba, Father. Isn't that wonderful? Look at this, I'll read that
again. For we are of the circumcision which worship God in the Spirit
and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have, what, isn't this an amazing
statement? No confidence in the flesh. That
means we have no confidence in ourself. We can't save ourselves
by anything we think, anything we do, or anything we say. Isn't that amazing? You must
be born again. It's a rebirth from above, isn't
it? It's a spiritual rebirth whereby
now we trust Christ. Now we trust Christ. Now he's
going to contrast here even more. What he's going to say in the
next few verses, we're going to look at next week. But it's important
to read the context here. He's going to say, well, if they
can boast in the flesh, here's some things that I can boast
in, but he won't. Look at this. Though I might
also have confidence in the flesh, if any other man thinketh he
hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more. Circumcise
the eighth day of the stock of Israel, tribe of Benjamin, Hebrew
of Hebrews, touching the law of Pharisee, concerning zeal,
persecuting the church, touching the righteousness which is in
the law, blameless. So he's giving us a picture of
how he was as a natural man. Charlie, he didn't think he did
anything wrong. He thought he was blameless. And this is the
same man who, after he was saved, penned the words and said, there's
none righteous, no, not one. He'd been taught something, hasn't
he? He'd been taught that he's a sinner. Same man who wrote,
I'm the chief of sinners. He found out he wasn't blameless,
but in his mind, he thought he was blameless. I even heard a
guy on YouTube this week. I was listening. I can't remember
what I was watching. I was watching something. I think
it was just a mindless video. But the guy said, oh yeah, he
says, I'm a good fellow. My good will outweigh my bad.
And I went, oh, I used to say that. Oh my. See, that's natural man. We think
that. We think that. No. So Paul's going to give us
a contrast here. And last week we looked at the
exhortation, finally my brethren rejoice in the Lord. That's an
exhortation from Paul, from the Holy Spirit for us. And remember,
I brought forth that if we keep our eyes on Christ, it'll keep
us to know and to identify man's based religion and be able to
say, no, that's not, you mix anything with Christ, it's not
salvation. It's not salvation. And the rejoicing
in the Lord is an exhortation for us to keep our minds on Christ
so that we're not affected by the false teachings. Isn't that
wonderful? Oh my. What do bank tellers study? in order to... Do they study
counterfeit money or do they study real money? They study
real money. They don't look at the counterfeit.
Because if they know the real money, then the counterfeit won't
get by them. Look to Christ and Him alone.
Salvation and Him alone. And we'll know what the counterfeit
is. Isn't that amazing? Oh my! I like apologetics, but
people get all tangled up into apologetics, studying all these
different religions. I used to do that until Norm
told me about the bank teller. And I'm like, I'm going to study
the truth. Then it's easy to identify all that stuff. I don't
need to know all the ins and outs of their religion. I don't, because I can, here's
the truth. That's false, right? Isn't it wonderful? So let's
just focus on the truth. Focus on salvation by grace alone
through Christ alone. My oh my. So in essence, Paul's
saying here, beware of the dogs, beware of the concisions. He's
basically saying here, beware of Christless Christianity. Because there is Christless Christianity
out there. So beware of anything that's
a Christless religion. or any religious custom or doctrine
or service that's centered in man rather than in Christ. Anything that encourages you
to focus attention on yourself. I love what Scott said, Brother
Travis, and I say it all the time. We look outside of ourselves
up to Christ. We look to one outside of ourselves.
We look to Christ. He's the Son of God. God in the
flesh has saved us. So let's read verse three. This
is a wonderful verse. We'll get right into it. For
we are the circumcision which worship God in the spirit and
rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. Beloved
of God, every heart of God's children who are born again,
savingly regenerated, we have an everlasting cause to rejoice. We don't always rejoice, because
we're flashy beings. But we have cause to rejoice. We're justified. We stand in front of God, justified
in Christ's righteousness, just as if we never sinned. Whew! That'll make us rejoice,
won't it, brothers? Oh, yeah. Justified. I heard a fellow yesterday. I couldn't believe it. This fellow
said, well, some people take justification too far. How can
you take justification too far? It's the heart of the gospel.
And of course, he's speaking against antinomianism, which
is against the law and people saying, well, I can do whatever
I want. Those aren't believers. Do you guys sin more than you
want to like me? Yeah, we do, don't we? If we
could never sin again, we'd be the most happy people in the
world, but we're sinners. One day, Sister Byron, one day,
we're gonna sin no more, and that'd be glorious, won't it?
It'll be glorious. It'll be wonderful. My, oh, my. So we have everlasting cause
for rejoicing in Christ. The fact, this is a fact, we're
justified. We're justified in Christ. We
have peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ. We're saved
from all our sins, from all the penalty of our sins being paid
for. Isn't that wonderful? And we're redeemed from our sins
by the blood of Christ. He gave his life for us, shed
his blood for us. My, oh, my. So let us walk in
these wonderful truths while we pilgrimage through this world,
and let us encourage each other. Let's encourage each other. Now
let's read verses 2 and 3 together. And again, here I'm going to
contrast. Notice the vast difference. And this is Paul putting a contrast
here before us. This is wonderful. Between those
who have confidence in themselves, in the flesh, and those who have
no confidence in the flesh. There's a big difference, isn't
there? Man's based religion makes man have confidence in themselves.
Look what I've done. Oh my. But grace says, I'm a
poor wretched sinner and God had mercy on me. I got no confidence
in myself. But all, remember, and remember,
it's so evident for us not to have confidence in the flesh,
but it's so natural for us to do that. But in the scripture,
it's so evident that we shouldn't have confidence in the flesh,
because remember, I was thinking about this, Travis, what our
Lord said to us, without me, you can do nothing. So he's telling
us, you can't do anything to save yourself. But yet we still,
we even struggle against the flesh, don't we, as believers,
right? Let's be real. Come on, I love it, I love it,
because we're real here. We struggle. Without me, you can do nothing.
So note the contrast here. And remember, as we read this
again, I'm gonna keep stressing this, that it's only God who
made us to differ. The only difference between me
and my two older brothers and my friends from high school who
aren't saved is God. He plucked me out. He saved me. And I marvel that it was all
according to His plan and purpose. That's amazing, from eternity.
Let's read these two. Beware of dogs, beware of evil
workers, beware of the concision. So he's writing about the Judaizers,
false teachers. For we, notice that, we are the
circumcision. Paul lumps himself in with the
Philippian church. The Philippian church is a bunch
of Gentiles. Gentile dogs like us, brother.
And he says, for we are the circumcision. Paul's a converted Jew. It shows
us that we're one in Christ, doesn't it? Jew or Gentile, doesn't
matter. We're one in Christ. For we are
the circumcision. So that's all of us. Anyone who's
a believer here, that's us too. We're the circumcision. Isn't
that wonderful? Which worship God in the spirit
and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh.
The false teachers and natural men and women who've not been
born again have confidence in the flesh. I know I was there. Confidence in the flesh. Which
is basically saying they have confidence in themselves. They
have confidence in their works. They have confidence in what
they do. Like I said, that guy, well, my good will outweigh my
bad. I don't know. It don't work that
way, does it? Because there's none righteous,
no, not one. There's none good. But praise God, Christ saves
sinners, of whom I'm chief. Oh my. And note the different
characters here spoken of by the Apostle. He speaks of dogs,
evil workers, and concision, and then they're contrasted to
the true circumcision, who worship God in spirit. And again, remember,
Sister Diane, the only one who's made us a difference is God.
That's amazing. And that truth is still true
today. Still true today. So the evil workers, the dogs,
the concision are contrasted to the true circumcision which
worship God in spirit. You know what we see here, the
find? That which was spoken of in Genesis.
Excuse me. I'll read Genesis 3, verses 14-15. Listen to this. And the Lord
God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art
cursed above all cattle and above every beast of the field. Upon
thy belly shalt thou go, and thus shalt thou eat all the days
of thy life. And I will put enmity between
thee, the seed of the serpent, and the woman. in between thy seed and her seed. It shall bruise thy head, and
thou shalt bruise his heel. And what that is, Christ in his
humanity, his heel was just bruised, but he crushed the head of the
serpent, didn't he? Isn't that amazing? And there'll
be enmity between his seed and the woman's seed. It pictures those in Christ.
In Christ. And it's still true today, isn't
it? It's still true today. Oh my. So we see, and I marveled
as I was looking at it, we see actually an eternal line of distinction. An eternal line of distinction
that marks the goats from the sheep. We don't know who they
are, but God knows, doesn't he? We see a distinction between
the tares and the wheat, between the children of the wicked one
and the children of the kingdom. And the only one who's made us
to differ is God and God alone. We can't boast in anything, can
we? Except Christ. Oh, it's amazing. And now we,
again, we who were rebels are now rejoicing by the grace and
mercy of God in Christ. So those who are not born again
will be opposed to those who are born again. Don't marvel,
or don't be surprised if your family members who aren't saved
sometimes come against you about certain things, or if you mention
Christ. Don't be surprised. Remember,
we were there. And they may be one of the Lord's
elect. We don't know. No. So treat them with compassion
and love. Christ said, love your enemies,
right? Love those who despitefully use you. Oh my. Turn, if you would, to Galatians
chapter four. You know what else is pictured here? It's pretty
neat. I was looking at this, and I
got this from Robert Hawker. He bought this out. The contrast,
a picture of this is contrast in the children of the bondwoman
and the children of the free. It's pictured right here. Look
at Galatians chapter four. verses 22 to 31. We see an illustration,
and this truth is set before us in this illustration. Galatians
chapter 4, verses 22 to 31. For it is written that Abraham
had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, and the other by a free woman. But he who was of the bondwoman
was born after the flesh, but he of the free woman was by promise.
Remember, God promised that Abraham would have a child through Sarah,
right? Sarah wanted to speed things
up. And she had Abraham lay with her servant, who is the bondmaid. Which things are an allegory,
for these are the two covenants, the one from Mount Sinai, which
gendereth the bondage, which is Agar, For this Agar is Mount
Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem, which now is in
bondage with her children. But Jerusalem, which is above,
is free. So there's a contrast. There's a contrast here, isn't
there? Is free, which now is. But Jerusalem, which is above,
is free, which is the mother of us all. For as it is written,
Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not, break forth and cry, thou
that travailest not, for the desolate hath many more children
than she which is in husband. Now we, brethren, as Isaac was,
are the children of promise. Paul's writing to a Gentile church. And he's telling them that we
are the children of promise. Who is he writing to? Born again,
blood washed, children of God. Oh my. Now we, brethren, as Isaac
was, are the children of promise. Isaac was the child of the free
woman, right? Sarah. But as then he that was born
of the flesh persecuted him that was born of the Spirit, even
so it is now. Remember Esau and Isaac? Esau persecuted Isaac. Oh my. What does the Lord say? Or I'm talking about Jacob. I'm
sorry, I got Jacob and Esau. Jacob. Look at Jacob and Esau. Jacob have I loved, and Esau
have I hated. There's a distinction there, too. So we'll look at this. Nevertheless,
what saith the Scripture? Cast out the bondwoman for her son. For the son of the bondwoman
shall not be heir with the son of the free woman. Grace and
works don't mix. Grace and law don't mix. So then brethren, we are not
the children of the bondwoman, but of the free. Now let's go
back to verse three in Philippians chapter three and read that again. There's something really neat
here that's a little different in the Greek text than it is
in the King James text. Philippians chapter 3 verse 3,
it says, Note that there, in the spirit. Now listen to this in the Greek
text, from the Berean Study Bible, the Greek Literal Bible. I was
thinking about that. We can't worship unless we're
born again. I just wanted to bring that up.
Isn't that neat? So it says by the Spirit of God in the Greek
text, instead of God in the Spirit. It's the same thing, but I just
thought it was a little more defined in the literal. Who worship by the Spirit of
God. He works in us. He increases
our faith, doesn't he? Oh my, who glory in Christ Jesus
and put no confidence in the flesh. I just thought that was
an interesting little change there. See the word worship in
verse three? This is a translation of the
Greek word referring to the service of Jehovah by his particular
people. We willingly serve our God now. We willingly serve. So worship
there is serving. Now, if a Jew heard that, and
that's in service to Jehovah, if a Jew heard that said to a
Gentile, they'd think that was a scandal. But God, the Holy Spirit tells
us it's so. Brother Jim, we worship God.
We worship Him willingly. We praise Him, we serve Him willingly.
But if a Jew heard that back in the day, that we as Gentiles,
oh no, you can't say that. Yeah, you can, we're in Christ. And the Holy Spirit had Paul
pen that down. Isn't that amazing? Oh my, oh my. Then see the words, which worship
God in spirit. Again, the Berean Bible brings
forth that it's we worship by the spirit of God. Again, without
Christ, we're nothing. Can't do anything. When we're
not born again, we don't worship God. We worship self. I did anyways. I don't know. But for me, I worship
myself. By whatever I wanted, I was going
to get. Oh, my. But now we worship Christ. Now we're sold off for him, aren't
we? Whatever you want to do with
me, Lord, do it. Oh, my, my life's in your hands. Oh, my, oh, my. See the word rejoice in the verse
three? In the Greek, this has the idea of glorying or exalting. which we saw a picture of that
with Paul and Silas in jail. They're singing away, glorifying
God while they're in prison. And it just means we rejoice.
We rejoice in Christ, don't we? It's wonderful. The word confidence
in verse 3 has the idea of coming to a settled persuasion regarding
something. You ever think how amazing it
is that we wanted nothing to do with Christ, and now we are
settled and persuaded that He's the only Savior? Isn't that a
miracle of grace? And that's what that means, that
confidence there. We come to a settled persuasion.
It's settled. Say what you want out there in
the world, but I'm settled that Christ is the only Savior of
sinners. You know why? Because he saved my soul. We've experienced
it, haven't we? And we can't talk about what
we haven't experienced. Oh my. So we gospel preachers,
we proclaim what God's done for us. The word we in that text,
Is Paul saying, this is we who are the born-again, blood-washed
saints of God. He's not exalting himself above them. He's saying,
this is all of us. Isn't that wonderful? It's wonderful. So true religion's not man-centered,
it's Christ-centered. It's Christ-centered. True religion's
not ceremonial, but spiritual. True religion's not a manner
of a creed, but of conviction. True religion is not outward,
it's inward. For we are the circumcision,
God's true covenant people, the Israel of God, Abraham's two
children, which worship God in spirit, is the church of the
living God. We worship God as he's revealed
in the scriptures. How? By the power of God, the
Holy Spirit, which we saw in the Greek literal Bible there.
by His power. And so true born-again believers
rejoice in Christ. We're not always on the mountaintop.
No, I'm not gonna be talking about that. We're in the valley
sometimes, but we still have that joy in us, don't we? We
still have that joy, that confidence in Christ, the peace that passes
all understanding, even though tears are flooding down our face.
Oh my. Our confidence is in Him. Our confidence is in Him, in
our Savior. And you know, we're complete
in Him. Isn't that wonderful? We're complete in Him. My oh
my. So we rejoice in Christ and we
see we have no confidence in the flesh. We don't have any
confidence in ourselves. That's why you hear me say no
merit, no merit, no merit, right? Like Tim James said, there's
no merit in us at all. The only thing we deserve is
hell. But God shows His mercy and saves our eternal souls.
Oh, it's wonderful. And in true religion, Christ
is all. All hope is found in Him, in Him alone. That's the
great distinction between true faith and false faith. Christ
is all. He's everything. So we've seen
in our text then today how Paul sets in contrast before us the
implications that the Judaizers, now think of this too, he's setting
before us by the Holy Spirit of God, the fact that the Judaizers
were confident in themselves, right? And then he's setting
the contrast for we believers who have no confidence in the
flesh. And the only one who's made us differ is God, our Savior,
the Lord Jesus Christ. Praise His mighty, mighty name. Brother Charlie, can you close
us in prayer?