Verse 10 of Proverbs 18, the
name of the Lord is a strong tower. The righteous runneth
into it and it's safe. The righteous run. So let's ask a couple of questions
about that according to scripture that have answers from the scripture. What are the righteous running
from? Running to something you're running
from something The Philippians chapter 3 if
you turn over there with me to Philippians chapter 3 verse 13 We have a biblical exposition
of the scriptures That is my endeavor in God's grace rightly dividing
the word of truth is to have scripture Shed light on scripture. What am I going to say? What
am I going to come up with? But look what the Lord says about
this Philippians 313 brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended
but this one thing I do forgetting those things which are behind
and reaching forth unto those things which are before and Press
toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in
Christ Jesus There's what Saul of Tarsus Was running to but
what he was running from is mentioned here those things Forgetting
those things which are behind leaving off that which is behind
me. I press I run I race toward the
mark and for the prize of the high calling of God. And that's
in Christ, the prize is Christ. Now, what was he running from
then? Look back up to verse eight. What are those things which are
behind? Verse eight, yea, doubtless and I count all things but loss
for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for
whom I have suffered the loss of all things and do count them
but don't. that I may win Christ and be
found in him not having my own righteousness." If you look at
the beginning of this chapter, you'll see that what he's running
from is his own righteousness, his own heritage, his own works
according to the law. Himself, he's running from himself. not having my own, leaving off,
throwing away, discarding, renouncing my own righteousness, I press,
I run. And to be found in him not having
my own righteousness, which is of the law, because it's not
a righteousness. The law utterly condemns me.
It's just what I called righteousness before I met Christ. that which
is through the faith, the faithfulness of Jesus Christ, the righteousness
which is of God by faith in him. Paul is a living example of our
text. Step fourth in Philippians chapter
three. Now the name of the Lord, it's
always important to understand this when we see those words,
the name of the Lord, is his character and his attributes,
who he is. It's another way of saying the
Lord, but mentioning his name brings to mind and emphasizes
who he is. Rather than just designating
who you're talking about, you're emphasizing who he is, his character,
his name, and what he's done. Turn with me to 2 Samuel 7. Let's
look at this together, because I want us to understand if the
Lord is pleased, a little better about what the name, the name of the Lord, 2 Samuel
7 20. God is who he is. He doesn't
need to make a name for himself, but he does that for his glory.
His creatures glorify him because of his name. 2nd Samuel 7 20
and what can David say more unto thee for thou Lord God knowest
thy servant For thy words sake and according to that own heart
hast thou done all these great things to make that servant know
You notice the word them there is in italic He does all these
great things that we might know who he is When When the Lord told the disciples
to cast on the other side of the boat and they couldn't haul
it in because of all the fish and Simon hit his knees and said,
Lord, depart from me, I'm a sinful man. Why did he say that? He
realized who he was dealing with. He understood who it was on that
little boat with him. Verse 22. "'Wherefore thou art
great, O Lord God, "'for there is none like thee, "'neither
is there any God beside thee, "'according to all that we have
heard with our ears, "'and what one nation in the earth is like
thy people, "'even like Israel, whom God went to redeem?' "'What
is it that distinguishes us?' "'And Israel is us, spiritual
Israel. "'No nation is like us. "'What does that mean? "'Oh,
we're outstanding, we're exceptional. No, the scripture specifically
says the Lord didn't choose you because of anything in you, but
because he loved you. What is it that distinguishes
us here in this passage? The Lord redeemed us to himself. He made a difference. God went to redeem for a people
to himself and to make him a name. and to do for you great things
and terrible." You see how his name, integral to his name is
who he is and what he's done. He's our redeemer. What has he
done? He redeemed us. That sounds redundant,
Chris, it's not. Most of this world that calls
themselves Christians would say he's the redeemer, but they deny
that he actually redeemed anybody. which thou redeemest to thee
from Egypt, to do for you great things and terrible, middle of
verse 23, for thy land before thy people, which thou redeemest
to thee from Egypt, from the nations and their gods. Because
of who he is and what he did, we glorify his name. He's made
a name for himself. among his creatures. But what is it to run into the
name of Jehovah? That's interesting, isn't it?
To run into a name. It's our tower, it's our mighty
tower, his name, who he is. Well, to run into Jehovah is
to recognize the deadly nature of our natural condition. Do
you see the last part? We're safe. Safe from what? What was Paul running from? Remember
our question? It's not safe where we are by
nature. And don't be misled by that.
Now, when we normally say that something's not safe, there's
still a good chance that you're gonna get away with it, right?
I've done a lot of things that aren't safe and it didn't kill
me. I still got all my fingers and
everything. But when we say, It's not safe
to take refuge in your own name, to trust your own name. It is
certain that you will not get away with it. See, your name also has to do
with who you are and what you do. It's your character, your
attributes, and your exploits, all of which are sinful and despicable
in the sight of God, the very best of them. Your best qualities
are evil and your best deeds are sinful. To run into the name of the Lord
is to run from yourself like a house of fire. And it's to see who he is. It's
to see who he is. There's a lot we could say about
what it is to run into Jehovah. But in the Bible class, we have
about 20 minutes. And so I pray that the Lord will reveal his simple, basic gospel
truth to us in just these two or three considerations this
morning. If you're gonna run from yourself
to Christ, you're gonna have to see who you are, what you
are, the unsafeness of your predicament before God and your sin. And
then secondly, it's to see who he is. It's not just the negative.
It's not just, I don't want anything to do with the best me, but I'm
pressing towards something too. It's to see who, God is who Christ
is. He's everything you're not. And
he is not everything that you are. He is righteous. I need righteousness. I run to him. His righteousness
is in Christ. Christ is the righteousness of
God. And we are made the righteousness
of God in him. We see what we are. We see our
condition by nature, wretched, sinful, hell deserving and hell
bound by nature. The children of wrath, even as
others. And we know by his grace and
his word that Christ is a strong tower to save me from myself. Listen again to Romans 10.1,
very familiar, but listen to it now. Every time we study a
particular text in scripture and we see these types of scriptures
that we quote so much from the perspective of what we're looking
at this morning, the picture is clear, isn't it? We're running
for safety to a mighty tower. Listen to this verse with that
in mind. This passage, Romans 10, one.
Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that
they might be saved, that they might be safe, that they might
find refuge from the wrath of God. For I bear them record that
they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. They're
zealous for a God they don't know. For I bear them record, they
have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge, for they being
ignorant of God's righteousness. If you're gonna know who God
is, you got to know something about his righteousness. God
is holy, he's righteous. He must and shall punish sin,
all sin. The righteousness that God requires
is perfect righteousness. and the penalty for not measuring
up, all have sinned and come short, is eternal death. But there is righteousness that
God gives. There's righteousness he requires,
but there's righteousness that he gives. It's the same righteousness.
There's just one. There's just one righteousness. and just one person who is righteous. Run, run to him. One human being that's righteous,
run to him. They being ignorant of God's
righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness. Who is it that run? The righteous. What are they running from? Their
righteousness. Pretty clear, isn't it? Have not submitted themselves
unto the righteousness of God. The next word is Christ. For
Christ is the end of the law. Christ is the purpose of the
law. He's the goal of the law. He's the termination of the law
for righteousness. Not having my own righteousness,
which is according to the law. It's over. Not interested in
that anymore. Won't have it. Casting it off
like the filthy rags that it is. For Christ is the end of
the law for righteousness to everyone that believe it. That's
what it is to believe on him. It's to abandon your own righteousness
according to the law and to see it for the evil that it is and
run to Christ. What is it to run to Jehovah?
It's to see yourself as you are. You're running from yourself
and to see him as he is. Not perfectly. We're gonna see
him as he is one of these days. But in Christ Jesus, to see him
by faith and to lay hold of him, to run to him. Like Jacob saying,
I can't let you go. I will not. And then thirdly, it's to run. It's to run, isn't it? To run
to Jehovah is to run. We don't try Jesus. Isn't it time to give Jesus a
try? No, it is not. It's time to run. The house is on fire. And you
don't need to give getting out of the burning house a shot.
You need to get out. And I do too. And that's a continual
awareness of faith in Christ, is to always be running from
ourselves. We have to get out our own righteousness,
which is what God calls sin, by the way. Paul wasn't abandoning righteousness.
He was abandoning his own righteousness, which is sin. What he called
righteousness, what he considered to be his righteousness. That's what he cast off in order
to press toward Christ. And our own righteousness is
taking us down to hell. Remember, there are two kinds
of sin. It's all the same, but there are two kinds by this consideration. There's the sin you're ashamed
of. There's some things you've done that you're just flat ashamed
of. And you know it's sin. You know
it's wrong. You know it's evil. You hang
your head and you say, Lord, what a wretch I am. But then
there's also the sin that you're proud of. The sin that you call righteousness. Which one is worse? I wouldn't
want to get into that, would you? But there seems to be a clear
answer to that question from scripture. The sin that you're ashamed of,
the sin that you're proud of. The Lord was tender and kind
to those who were ashamed in their sin. And the Pharisees
and religious Jews who were proud of their evil, The Lord had no
kind words for them. What you call righteousness,
that which you're proud of, the things you've done, that's evil too. Run to Christ. Run to Christ. Paul wrote in
1 Corinthians 13 that I can know everything about it. everything
about it, and still yet be nothing. I must actually love indeed. Love in that chapter is defined
by what it does and does not do. We must actually run to him. And one final thought on knowing
who he is, There's something that goes along with that. And
we just mentioned it. There's something that is the
motivation for running. We see what we are, but we're
not just running from hell. We're not running from the punishment
of sin. We're running by God's grace. This is a big reason why
we know this is of the Lord. This is not something we figure
out or Because we're literally running from what we are, from
who we are, from our own righteousness, from our own self, from our own
flesh. Not just from the penalty. Think about this, how does the
rich young ruler Hear very clearly and plainly
from Christ what is needful. There's one thing you lack, and
it's the one thing you need. The Lord told him plainly, and
he went away sorrowful. But then just a little while
after that, when actually discussing that very event, the disciples
said, we've left everything and followed you. We did what he
couldn't do. What was the difference? They
were better, they were more spiritual, they were smarter. They simply knew who he was. Why was it that Moses chose the
reproach of Christ over all the treasures of Egypt? He had regard
to the prize, to the recompense. He knew who Christ was, who he
is. They loved him more than their
own lives. The rich young ruler went away
from Christ, why? In consideration of all that
he had. All that he had. Our Lord put
his finger right on this and pointed it out to us when Simon
had said, I'm going fishing. I quit, I'm gonna go back. The Lord came to me when I was
mending my nets and I was in the fishing business and he took me away from that in
a moment. All of that's behind me and I'm with him now, but
I betrayed him. I betrayed him, I'm a failure.
Just like he said I would be. Just like he said I was. The
Lord is gone. I'm gonna go back to doing what
I was doing before. Do you remember what the Lord
said to him? Simon, lovest thou me more than
these? That's exactly what we're talking
about. The rich young ruler loved these
more than him. The disciples, by God's grace,
because he first loved them, they loved him more than these. All you gotta do is see, and
you will too. By grace through faith that God
gives to get a glimpse of the Lord Jesus Christ the pearl of
great pride Do you love me more than these
that has to be a yes And we know how that happens because he first Loved us It's not easy to run
from you. I Our Lord said that with men
it's impossible. You're not gonna do it. Only
with God is it possible. If God ever gives us a true sight
of ourselves and all that we are, in faith to believe on Christ,
we will run. We'll run. And by his grace,
we'll lay hold of the prize. Let's pray.