All right, now if you would,
let's open our Bibles again to Philippians chapter three. I titled the message this morning,
Be Thus Minded. Our text is just two verses,
beginning in verse 15 of Philippians chapter three. Let us therefore,
as many as be perfect, be thus minded. And if in anything ye
be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. Nevertheless,
whereto we've already attained, Let us walk by the same rule
and let us mind the same thing. Paul is exhorting every believer
to be like-minded and to walk by the same rule. And what he
means is that every believer does have the same mind. Every
believer has the same thoughts on how God saves his people.
And every believer walks, every believer conducts themselves
by the same rule. It's the rule of grace. Our rule
of life is not law. It's God's grace. Every believer,
God has given them the same mind and the same rule of conduct
because God's the one who teaches all of his people. And he teaches
all of his people the same thing. And that's what Paul means. He
says, if you're otherwise minded on something, God shall reveal
even this unto you because he teaches all of his people the
same thing. And the lesson is always Christ,
always. Salvation, this is what the Father
teaches all of his people. Salvation is accomplished by
Christ alone. Salvation, the salvation of a
soul is all by the doing and dying of the Lord Jesus Christ. The only way my sin could be
paid for is by the blood of God's son. That's how vile I am. The
only way my sin can be put away is by the blood of God's son.
It can't be by me cleaning up my act. It's got to be by the
blood of Christ. And if I know Christ, I trust.
His blood's enough. It's all I need. The Father teaches
all of his people about righteousness. Righteousness is accomplished
by the obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ. He obeyed the law
perfectly. He is our righteousness. And
this matter of righteousness, our works never enter into it. Doesn't add to it one bit. The
only thing that we do is we receive that righteousness. We receive
it by faith in Christ. By trusting Christ is enough
and quit and do any works trying to make God happy with me and
trusting Christ. That's how we receive the righteousness
of Christ. The father teaches all of his
people about holiness, that holiness is in the nature of Christ. It's
the nature of Christ in us. Never by our own goodness. Never,
ever, ever do we make ourselves holy by our goodness. It's all
in Christ. The Father teaches all of his
people. There's not one left out. He teaches all of his people.
We need Christ to be our all. He's our prophet, he's our priest,
and he's our king. Christ is our prophet. What does
a prophet do? He reveals God to us. He comes
to us and tells us this is what God said. He reveals God to us. Christ is our priest. What does a priest do? He represents
the people to God. He offers a sacrifice for sin
to God. Christ is our priest. By one
offering, he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. That's
our priest. And Christ is our king. Now, what's a king do? Well, a real king, not just a
figurehead, a real king reigns over us. I tell you, a lot of
our theology would get fixed up if God teach us this lesson.
The Lord Jesus Christ is not our buddy. He's our king. He's our king. He's not our equal. We bow to him as king. We do
not decide what to do with him. He decides what to do with us
as he will. His will completely unaffected
by anything that we do or don't do. He's our king and we bow
to him. The father teaches all of his
people. The father teaches all of his people something about
ourselves. He teaches us that we're born dead in sin. We're
born alive physically, aren't we? But spiritually, we're born
dead in sin. And since we're dead, there can
never be any hope for anything spiritual found in something
in us, what we do or something about our nature. The only way
that we can see Christ, the only way we can believe on Christ,
the only way we can have spiritual life is if the Holy Spirit gives
it to us in the new birth. He's got to cause a new nature
to be born in us that sees Christ and believes Christ. That's all
the work of God. Now, every single believer, I
don't care where you find them, they all believe those truths. Every believer. They all have
the same mind on that. There's not one of them think
that they can be saved or they can have eternal life any other
way. Every believer thinks those same
things because the Father teaches us. Now, some understand those
things more clearly than others. I mean, there's old men in Christ,
there's babes in Christ. Some understand those things
more clearly than others. In all of us, sometimes we believe
those things more strongly sometimes than we do at other times. See,
our faith is not perfect. Paul said earlier, I haven't
arrived. My faith is not perfect. Our
faith wavers. So sometimes I believe these
things more strongly than other times. Sometimes I act on these
things more strongly than at other times, because sometimes
my faith is stronger than it is at other times. Sometimes
it's very weak. Now, our faith never moves off Christ. Never. But you have to admit, sometimes
it's stronger than it is at other times, isn't it? And that's what
Paul means in verse 15 by the word perfect. The word perfect
there means mature or grown up. Now some, are gonna be more mature. They're gonna be stronger than
others. But we all believe the same thing. Some are stronger
than others, some have stronger faith than others, but we still
all follow the same rule. Our rule is salvation is by grace
in Christ Jesus. Now some believers are stronger
than others, but those who, you know, we, you know, here's the
thing about a believer, they never really view themselves
as the strong one. We always view somebody else, you know,
as the strong one. No believer is satisfied with
our growth. What if you are one of the older ones? You've been
in the faith a long time. You've been well taught. What
if you are one of the stronger ones? Well, no believer, just like every
believers of the same mind about how God saves sinners. We're
all of the same mind this way too. We're never satisfied with
our growth in these areas. We're never satisfied with the
strength of our faith in these areas. And Paul is able to comfort
our hearts in this by telling us, now, if you're otherwise
minded, Sometimes if you're not as strong as you are in other
times, or you're not as strong as somebody else, or these things
are not as clear to you as they are somebody else. He says, God
will reveal even this unto you. God's going to teach you. The
father will teach you this, and he's going to do it through the
preaching of the gospel. He's not going to speak to you
audibly. He's going to do it by sending you a preacher and
telling you these things, preaching Christ to you. All we have to
do, is just avail ourselves to the means of grace. Just avail
ourselves to the preaching of the gospel. You'll see growth
eventually. It's not going to come as fast as you want. It
won't be as much as you want. I promise you that. But that's
how growth comes, by availing ourselves to the means of growth,
the means of grace. And like Brother Henry told us
so many times, walk in the light God's given you. Walk in the
light God's given you. Now, you're not satisfied with
your growth in these areas, but you do know this. God speaks
to his people through the preaching of the word. You don't understand
everything that's going on, but now you have that much light,
don't you? Well, walk in the light God's given you. And just
wait on him to give you more. Do what God has enabled you to
do and wait on him to give you more light. Now, when Paul says,
let us, as many as be perfect, be thus minded, and if you, anything
you'd be otherwise minded, what he's talking about is not just
the immediate verses before this, but it's the whole epistle. It's
the whole epistle. And in this very short epistle,
Paul gives us a summary of things that every believer believes.
Every believer agrees on these things. Now the theme, just if
you look at the whole book as the theme of the book of the
epistle to the church at Philippi, the theme is this, rejoice in
the Lord. Now we rejoice in the Lord because
he's the one that's done all the work saving his people. Salvation
is by God's grace. And here's a good definition
of salvation by grace. God saved us even though we don't
deserve it. Well, I can rejoice in that.
God has blessed me with every spiritual blessing there is to
be had in Christ Jesus, even though I don't deserve one of
them. That's grace. Oh, I love that
grace. I want that grace. Salvation
is by grace. The Father chose us. He chose
a people even though we don't deserve it. That's electing grace. The Lord Jesus Christ, the Son
of God, died for those people. even though we don't deserve
it. That's redeeming grace. Surely there's not anybody here
that would say, yep, I deserve for Christ to die for me. Nobody
would say that, surely. But he did, he died for his people.
That's redeeming grace. He died for us even though we
don't deserve it. The Holy Spirit comes and gives us life even
though we don't deserve it. We're trying to run as far away
from God as we can, and the Holy Spirit arrests us. He apprehends
us and gives us life and faith in Christ, even though we don't
deserve it. That's regenerating grace. Oh, and after the Lord
saves us, after He reveals Christ to us, after He causes us to
be born again, we're so full of failure and stumbles and shame,
aren't we? Just ashamed of ourselves. We're
not satisfied with our growth in these areas, our knowledge
of these things. And the Lord keeps us and he
preserves us anyway. That's keeping grace. Now that
is saving grace. It's all found in the Lord Jesus
Christ. He's the fountain of all grace. And we rejoice, don't we? We
rejoice in him. Now let's look back. I want to
look back and look at four or five things here. that Paul has
given us in this epistle. And these are things that every
believer has a mind for this. Every believer has this rule
of life. Number one is this. Salvation
is of the Lord, from its beginning to its ending. Salvation is of
the Lord. He's done it all. Philippians
chapter one, verse six. Being confident. of this very
thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform
it. He'll perfect it until the day
of Jesus Christ. Now, salvation is not just an
outward work in the flesh. It's not an outward work in the
flesh at all. Salvation is the work of God in the heart. It's
a spiritual thing. Now, salvation requires two things.
It requires a work for us, and it requires a work in us. The
Father did a work for us in divine election when He chose some sinners
that He would save. If the Father didn't choose anybody
to save, nobody would be. That was a work for us. We weren't
around, man wasn't created, and God chose a people to save. That's
a work He did for us. God the Son did a work for His
people when He suffered and died in their place to redeem them
from their sins. That's a work the Son does for
us. We weren't there. We didn't contribute to it. He
did it for us. Now, the work that God does in
us is the work of regeneration. It's the work that God the Holy
Spirit does in the hearts of God's elect when he causes that
sinner to be born again, to be born again with a new nature.
It's not from like the nature of Adam that we received when
we were born physically. This nature is holy and it's
righteous because it comes from holy seed, from the word of God. And that is the nature that God
loves and accepts. We don't have it by nature, we
can't make it in ourself by nature. So God causes it to be born in
us so he can accept us. Now, I know you're not satisfied
with that. You who believe God, you who've
been born again, you're not satisfied with it. It's not perfect, you're
still living in a body of the flesh, a sinful dead flesh, so
how can you be satisfied with it? I understand you're not satisfied
with it. But you can be absolutely confident of this. You can rest
your eternal soul. You can hang your eternity on
this truth. If the Father began a good work
for you in divine election, and the Son began a good work for
you when he died for you in his redeeming grace, the Holy Spirit
will finish it. He will give you life. He will
give you faith in Christ and he won't let you quit. He will
bring you all the way. You say, oh, I don't know. It
seems like a long way from here to there. I don't think I can
get there. I don't think I can get there. You don't have to. The Spirit's
going to bring you. The shepherd's going to carry
you all the way to the fold. He began a good work in you.
I'm telling you, he's going to finish it and you're going to
awake in glory in a likeness of Christ. And then you'll say,
I'm satisfied. And you know why you'll say you're
satisfied? You can't have anything more. See all the responsibility for
the salvation of God's elect. It's all on God. And not one
straw of it is on us. That's what makes salvation.
Sure. That's how, you know, God's going to finish this thing because
he can't fail to do what he purposed to do. He can't fail to finish
what he's begun. Now, every believer knows that
every believer believes every single one of them believes that.
And shamefully. From time to time, we doubt and
fear, don't we? And when that happens, you know
what God's going to do? He shall reveal even this to
you again. He's going to remind you again
through the preaching of Christ. It's all his responsibility.
It's all his doing. It's all his sacrifice. It's
all his obedience. And he's going to strengthen
you again. He's going to strengthen you by reminding you. All right,
here's the second thing. Every believer believes this.
The Lord Jesus Christ is our Savior. First and foremost, he
is our savior. But he is our example, too. And
the illustration that just crossed my mind is my dad. There was
never a time in my life that I thought my dad was my equal. Never. Never. He was my dad. He was the authority figure.
He was, I mean, he's the dad. He's in charge. He's large and
he's in charge. But there came a time, I didn't
do what I did. I didn't mind him because I was
afraid he's going to whoop me. It's because I wanted to be just
like him. I mean, more than anything in this world, I wanted to be
just like my dad. Now, he's my dad. See what I'm
saying? He's the authority figure, but
he was also my example. Christ is our Savior. He's our
King. He rules over us, first and foremost. but don't you want to be disliking,
huh? Look here, chapter two, Philippians,
verse three. Let nothing be done through strife
or vainglory, but in lowliness of mind. Let each esteem other
better than themselves. Look not every man on his own
things, but every man also on the things of others. Don't just
think how this affects you. Think how it affects others.
Let this mind be in you. See, here's the mind of every
believer. Let this mind be in you. which was also in Christ
Jesus, who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery
to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, and
took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness
of men, and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself,
and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a
name which is above every name, that the name of Jesus, Every
knee should bow of things in heaven and things in earth and
things under the earth and that every tongue should confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Now, that's
the most amazing story that's ever been told. What God has
done for sinners through the sacrifice, through the obedience
of his son, our Lord Jesus Christ. This is amazing. How amazing
is it that the Lord of glory would humble himself, would go
down so far to do such a great thing for sinners like you and
me. That's more amazing than the
human tongue can tell. But here's something else that's
just as amazing. The attitude that he had in doing
it. The Lord of glory. the creator,
God himself came to earth with an attitude of humility in order
to save his people. God became a man. When the Lord Jesus walked this
earth, it was not robbery for him to say, I'm God. He wasn't
robbing God of his glory for him to say, I'm equal with the
father. It wasn't robbing God of his glory for him to say,
I and the father are one. Because He is, He is one with
the Father. It would be robbery if your eye
said that, but not if He said it, because it's true. What humility! The heaven of heavens cannot
contain Him. They can't contain Him, they
can't contain His glory, yet this high and lofty One humbled
Himself to confine Himself to become flesh and reside in a
human body. You know why He did it? He came to be the representative
of a sinful people, and that's where you find them. So he became
one of them. The shepherd became one of the
sheep. To save the sheep, he became a man. The son of God
humiliated himself. The one who has all power, the
one who appeared to Abraham and said, my name is God Almighty,
or the Almighty God, however he said it, appeared in the weakness
of human flesh. Now he still had all power. but
never one time did he use that power to benefit himself, not
one time ever. He humbled himself to take on
a body that could die. Life himself humbled himself
to die as a sacrifice for the sin of his people. The law demands
death for sin. My death, your death, wouldn't
affect that debt one whit, but his death would. because he's
perfect. So he humbled himself to die
to satisfy God's justice for his people. The Lord Jesus Christ
is Lord and he's master of all. Yet he humbled himself to become
a servant. Remember when he washed the disciples'
feet, he said, you call me Lord and master and you say, well,
for so I am. Yet he became a servant. He's
equal with the father, but he gave up his rights as being equal
with the father. He gave up his rights as God
and became a servant to his father. He came here to serve his father,
to do everything that the father, all the work that the father
gave him to do, he came and he did it. He obeyed God's law perfectly. So he could establish righteousness
on the earth. That's humble. He would have
to humble himself to become a servant to his father. But I'll tell
you what's even more humiliating, what shows even greater humility
is the Lord, a master of all, humiliated himself to become
a servant to his creatures. He came not to be ministered
to like the big boss. He didn't come as a king. He
came as a homeless man. He came as a poor carpenter.
He came to minister to his people by giving his life a ransom for
many. And here's his attitude again.
Aaron, it was his delight to do it. It was his delight to do that
because of his love for his people. He loved his people so much he
was willing to humiliate himself in all those ways because his
desire was to see his bride redeemed. Well, he did it all. He did everything
the Father sent him to do. So the Father glorified him.
He's glorified. He's seated on the right hand
of the Father. He's seated on the throne of
heaven. Now, why point that out? Well,
it's true. He's our King. That's where he
ought to sit on the throne, isn't it? But what a blessing that
you and I can trust a risen, glorified Savior who's seated
in heaven. because the work's finished.
He's not on the tiptoe of heaven, looking and wondering if anything's
going to happen just the way he wants it to happen. He's seated. He's seated. No worry. He knows his enemies are going
to be laid at his footstool. He knows his people are going
to be redeemed and be brought to him to be with him where he
is that they may behold his glory. He knows it's going to happen
because he's the king. and he's sitting on the throne
accomplishing his will. Now, Paul says, let that attitude
of Christ the Savior be in your heart and in your mind. Let it
direct how you act towards your brethren. No job is too low for
me to do if it'll help you. No job's too low. It ought to
be easy for me to humble myself and give up some of my rights
if it'll help you and if it'll make things easier for you. It
ought to be easy for me. It ought to be, shouldn't it?
When I consider how the Lord humbled himself to save me, was
nothing if I humbled myself to help you. I mean, you know, he
humbled himself. You know, I say no job's too low for me. Buddy,
I'm already at the bottom of the barrel. No job can be too
low for me because nothing's lower than me. The Savior humbled
himself, didn't he? To save the likes of me. Well,
that ought to make it easy for me to, quote unquote, humble
myself, if it'll help you. Now, every believer has that
mind. Every believer thinks that way. Every believer does. Every believer. You know what
I was talking about when I say you want to be just like the
Savior? Well, you can't, but you want to be, don't you? But our action's far from perfect.
I want to, but I can't do it perfectly. Well, when we find
ourselves ashamed of how little we do to help our brethren, and
we find ourselves ashamed of how full of pride that we still
are, here's our comfort. God shall reveal even this to
you. You already know it, but he'll
reveal even this to you again through the preaching of the
gospel. God, you're not going to wear God out. He's just going
to withdraw himself and quit. He's going to keep revealing
this to you through the preaching of the gospel. So walk in the
light God given you. He'll give you more. Just wait
on it. All right, here's the third thing. Every believer thinks
this way, believes this. Absolutely everything I've ever
done, trying to please God through the law. It's nothing but manure. Chapter three, verse four. Though
I might also have confidence in the flesh, if any other man
thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh,
I more. Circumcised the eighth day of
the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the
Hebrews, as touching the law, a Pharisee. Concerning zeal,
persecuting the church. Touching the righteousness which
is in the law, blameless. But what things were gained to
me, those I count a loss for Christ. Yea, doubtless. And I count all things but loss
for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for
whom I've suffered the loss of all things and to count them
but done that I may win Christ. Now, here's what what Paul is
saying is using himself as an example. If you think that you've
kept the law, you think you've done something, kept the law,
well enough that you got something to trust in. You think you've
done something, you know, obeyed the law well enough, and you've
done something, God will be more happy with you than He is with
somebody else. Paul says, whatever you think you got, I got more. I got more. Saul of Tarsus had
way more outward righteousness than we have. I mean, just wait,
we can't even compare it to him. And Saul of Tarsus was dead in
sin. Paul said, I thought I was keeping
the law, and then I saw the law and I died. Paul had way more
outward righteousness, way more outward morality than you and
me have, but he was dead in sin. So if we think we can trust in
our works, we're just as dead, we're just as lost. You know,
and say you want to compare yourself to Saul, or say you're Saul and
you want to compare yourself to somebody else. Well, you know,
it doesn't do us any good to compare ourselves to each other,
because we're not the standard. You know, if we compare ourselves
to each other, compare ourselves to other men, here's what we
do. I wouldn't compare myself to somebody in this room. I'd
think somebody out there in the world, you know, who's got way
more open sin in their life than I think I do, you know, and compare
myself to them. Now, that might make my dead
flesh feel better, but it doesn't make me righteous. When we compare
ourselves to other men, all that is is one maggot comparing himself
to another maggot. Now you might think you're a
better looking maggot than this maggot, but you know what? You're
still a maggot. You're still a maggot. If we
would be righteous, we had to be perfectly righteous. We must
be compared to the Lord Jesus Christ and be found equal with
him. Perfectly righteous. You don't
have to be as good as Saul of Tarsus. You have to be as good
as God himself. Well, we don't know that by nature,
do we? We keep wanting to compare ourselves
with each other. We keep wanting to try harder, you know, keeping
the law. We can't know that righteousness
is being as good as God himself. So we think our works are pretty
good until we see Christ. until the Father is pleased to
show us Christ by faith. If we ever see Christ by faith,
then and only then will we see our works for what they are,
because now we're going to see our works in the light of who
God is. See, that's what Job said. Job said, I've heard about
you. I've heard of you at the hearing of the ear, but now might
I see a thing. Now what did Job do when he saw
God? He said, wherefore I abhor myself. I hate myself. I hate my works. And the apostle
Paul had that very same experience. Paul said, after I met Christ,
then I knew, oh, all my religious works, they're nothing but dung. They're manure. I don't count
those things as advantages anymore. I used to think it made me better
I did all these things. Now I see really, They're a disadvantage. So I gladly gave up all my works
of the law. I gave up all my heritage. I
gave up everything about me so I could have Christ alone. Now,
you and I are going to be saved. We're going to do the very same
thing. We've got to give up everything. We've got to give up everything
we think about ourselves that makes us look good. We've got
to give it all up and trust Christ alone. And if God's given you eyes to
see, you'll say, that's a good trade. Trade my dung for the
perfection of Christ? I'll make that trade every day.
You know, I think it's interesting. I read a lot of these old writers,
you know, and they're so refined, you know, in these ages past.
And they say, Paul's saying, his works of the law are rubbish,
is what they say. Well, you know, That's not true.
And when you say that, I don't understand they're trying to
be polite and they're not trying to, you know, offend feminine
ears or whatever. But when you say it that way,
well, it's rubbish. You know, I think rubbish is
like paper trash, you know, we throw under the trash can, the
sink, you know. But that takes the edge off the
gospel because it doesn't paint us and our works. I'm not saying even our sin,
I'm talking about saying our work, best things we've ever
done. Saying that's rubbish doesn't
give a good picture. And that's not what Paul called
it. He called it dung. And the Greek word means the
excrement of animals. It means exactly what you think
it means. And it means the dregs that are at the bottom of the
dung heap. You know, the dung heap, they
throw all the grossest stuff, the animal manure, banana peels
and all these, whatever, you know, degradable things they
throw. And they just stack up on top of each other. Well, you
know, the first dung and the first bits of food or whatever
they put down there, you know how it just kind of turns to
liquid and it's been sitting there in the hot sun and just
it starts oozing out from the rest of the, you know. You and
I aren't the top of the dung heap. We're the stuff at the
bottom, the grossest stuff that's running out. That's the best
we can ever produce. Now that's gross. And if we had
something like that dung heap around our house, we'd get rid
of it as fast as we possibly could. Well, that's how we ought
to treat all of our religious works that we've done trying
to make God happy with us. Get rid of them as fast as you
possibly can because they're shameful. They stink. and they're
shameful and lay hold on Christ alone. See all these religious
works of the flesh we've done, they don't help our soul one
bit. Matter of fact, they hurt it.
They hurt it. You know how they hurt our souls?
Because they keep us from trusting Christ alone. We keep wanting
to look at those things and hang on to those things and they harm
our souls because they keep us from trusting Christ alone. Now
every believer knows that. Every believer believes that
and rejoices in it. Christ is my righteousness. It's
not anything that I do, but we're in this flesh. Oh my, how often does self-righteousness
crop up? all the time, it's like whack-a-mole. You just never get it put down,
never get it. And we're so ashamed. If you
trust Christ, you see that self-righteousness crop up and you're so ashamed,
you hate it. It's the thing you might, of
all of our sins, it's probably the one that we hate the most,
or it's probably the one we should hate the most. And we're so ashamed,
we just wanna hang our head, we wanna hide in shame. And our
comfort is this, God shall reveal even this unto you. He'll show
you again. And you know how he'll show you
again? How is it that you're going to turn from your self-righteousness
again and turn to Christ again? By somebody coming and preaching
Christ to you. And you'll say, oh, that's it. That's it. It's a constant reminder. I am
less than nothing and Christ is all. Try and look to Christ. That's it, isn't it? All right,
here's the fourth thing. Salvation is had through union
with Christ. Chapter three, verse nine. Paul
says, my desire is to win Christ and be found in him, not having
my own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is
through the faith of Christ, the righteousness, which is of
God by faith that I may know him and the power of his resurrection
and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable into his
death. if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection
of the dead. Now, no one can understand the
gospel. No one can understand how it is God saves sinners until
we understand this truth of representation. The father does not look at all
men individually and say, okay, well, how are you doing? And
how are you doing? Well, you're doing pretty good. You're doing real
bad. Oh, you're doing real good. He didn't look at all men individually
and judge all men individually. The father, looks at all men
and one of two representatives, two representative men, Adam,
the first man created, or the Lord Jesus Christ, the second
Adam. And we've all done what our representative has done.
If we're an Adam, we're condemned because we've done what Adam
did. What did Adam do? He sinned against God. He rebelled
against God and took that fruit in willful rebellion against
God, knowing full well what he was doing, and ate it in rebellion
against God, saying, I want to be God. And if we're in Christ, we're
everything that Christ is. We've done everything that Christ
has done. So if we're in Christ, we're
perfect. That's why Paul says, my desire
is to be found In Christ. When God sees me, I want Him
to see me in Christ. So that God sees me, Eric always
sees as Christ. That's my heart's desire. That's
what I want. Because if I'm in Christ, I'm
righteous. Because I obeyed the law when Christ obeyed the law.
Every time He obeyed the law, every time He did, thou shalt,
I did too. And every time He did not do,
thou shalt not. I didn't do it either. Because
I was in Him, doing what He did. If I'm in Christ, I'm dead to
the law. The law doesn't even want to
condemn me anymore because I satisfied God's justice when I died in
Christ. Christ died for me, for my sin,
to pay the penalty of my sin. And more than that, I actually
died in Christ. When he died, I was in him. I
died. The law says, I'm not looking for you, you already died. You
don't have to die again. Justice is satisfied. I died
in Christ. And if I'm in Christ, I have
life. Because when Christ rose from
the dead, I did too. Because I was in him. The same
power that raised Christ from the dead is used to give me spiritual
life in the new birth. I have life because I rose in
Christ. Now that's salvation. As simply
as you can put it, that's how God saves sinners. And you'll
notice not one bit of that was accomplished by the creature,
was it? is all accomplished by Christ.
And it's ours because we're in Him when He accomplished it.
See, Christ did it all and it is finished. That's finished. That takes all
the pressure off, doesn't it? If the work's already done, you
know, that's a mighty good time to show up, isn't it, when the
work's all finished? That's the believer. We showed up when the
work was all finished. All the pressure's off. All the
worry and fear about judgment is off. We can just rest in Christ.
Every believer knows that. Every believer knows that. Every
believer believes that wholeheartedly. But from time to time, we start
looking at ourselves and we worry. And you know why we start worrying?
Because we're thinking God's doing the same thing I'm doing,
looking at me. And the Holy Spirit comforts our hearts by revealing
this unto us again. It's all in Christ. The Father's
looking at you in Christ, not Jesus. And all the pressure's
off. Every believer's minded this
way. Every believer thinks this and is minded this way. Every
believer is following Christ as our way of life. But we haven't
arrived yet, have we? No, we're not perfect yet. but
we're gonna keep pressing towards it. We're gonna keep pressing
to Christ. That's what Paul says in verse 12. Not as though I'd
already attained, either already perfect, but I follow after,
if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended
of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself
to have apprehended, but this one thing I do, forgetting those
things which are behind and reaching forth under those things which
are before. I press toward the mark for the prize of the high
calling of God in Christ Jesus. Every believer knows this. I'm
a work in progress. Now, my soul is perfect. That
new man is perfect. I'm in this flesh and I'm a work
in progress. It does not yet appear what we
shall be. You can't look at me now and
get any idea what I shall be. And I'm not satisfied with that.
I'm just not satisfied with it. Then what are we going to do?
I'm going to keep pressing toward Christ. How about you? I'm going
to keep pressing on. I'm going to keep pressing toward
the finish line. I'm going to keep pressing toward
that time I am made just like Him. And there's going to be
times you think the finish line is too far off. I can't make it. You're going to come across a
night, the night's too dark, and the night's too long. I can't
make it. How are you going to keep pressing
on when you can't make it? For the Father shall reveal even
this unto you. He's going to show Christ to
you through the preaching of the gospel, and seeing Him is
going to grip your heart so much. You have to have it. You're going
to keep pressing on until the moment we draw our last breath.
We're not going to be satisfied. That when we do take that last
breath, you keep pressing towards it now because the moment you
take that last breath, you're going to open your eyes in glory
and you'll be like David and you'll say, now I'm satisfied.
Now I'm satisfied. I sure am glad the Lord brought
me here. That's what we'll say, won't we? Until the end, he'll
keep revealing this to you. Through the preaching of Christ,
he'll keep setting Christ forth before our eyes, and we'll keep
pressing to it. By God's grace, won't we? Let's
bow together. Our Father, how we thank you
for your gospel. And oh, how we thank you that
you keep revealing the Lord Jesus Christ to the hearts of your
How we thank you that you don't just tell us once and leave us
alone, but that you keep reminding us. You keep reminding us who
and what we are and keep reminding us who you are so that we keep
trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ. Father, we're so thankful. We're
so thankful. How can we even express the thanksgiving
that's in our heart that you would condescend to reveal Christ
to the hearts of so many here? He blessed us so abundantly.
Father, we beg of you that you not leave us alone, but that
you keep revealing Christ to the hearts of your people. Let
each one of us leave here this morning, being of this mind,
trusting in this Savior, trusting in Christ and Christ alone. For
it's in his sake, for his glory, we pray and ask this great blessing.
Amen. All right, Sean.