Alright, brethren, Philippians
chapter 4. Now they had sent this gift to Paul,
and he told them that he wasn't speaking in respect of want.
He was greatly rejoicing that they did it. And he said, verse
14, notwithstanding you've done well, that you did communicate
with my affliction. You did well in sending a gift
to me in my time of affliction. He said, now you Philippians
know also that in the beginning of the gospel, when I departed
from Macedonia, no church communicated with me as concerning giving
and receiving, but she only. For even in Thessalonica, you
sent once again into my necessity, not because I desire a gift,
but I desire fruit that may abound to your count. Their giving to
Paul was the fruit of the Spirit of our Savior. It was God proving
that He had given them faith and they trusted Him. He produced
the fruit which resulted in them giving that gift. And so Paul
gave Christ all the glory. He said, but I have all. Now
look at this in verse 18. But I have all and abound. I am full. having received of
Epaphroditus the things which were sent from you." And here's
what he calls those things. He said, an odor of a sweet smell,
a sacrifice acceptable, well-pleasing to God. A subject is works acceptable
to God. We looked last time at the subject
of contentment. Well, this time we see another
reason that God's saints are content. There's another reason
for contentment. All our works of faith and love
are acceptable to God and well-pleasing to God by Christ Jesus. If the Lord teaches us that in
the heart, that will give you great peace, great contentment
within. All our works of faith and love
are acceptable to God and well pleasing to God by Christ Jesus. Now Paul was in prison and he
was in great affliction, but he was content. He had all and
abounded and was full because he had Christ his all. God's
saints are content because we have Christ. He's our wisdom,
our righteousness, our sanctification, our redemption. He's our peace.
He's our provider. He's our preserver. He's our savior in every way.
And so that's why God's saints are content. In Christ we have
all and abound and are full. It's all in Christ and all by
Christ. Paul's heart rejoiced greatly
in the Lord because Christ worked this in the hearts of his brethren.
Christ did it. And it was Christ who made them
cheerful, sacrificial givers, and that's why he called this
an odor of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, well-pleasing to
God. God's saints are content, and
we rejoice in Christ over our brethren, because all spiritual
sacrifices are acceptable to God and well-pleasing to God
by Christ Jesus. That's our rejoicing. Now, I
want to look at this in a few ways. First, we did not make
ourselves acceptable to God by our works, and we do not, even
as believers. We came into this world dead
in sin, and all our works were dead works. Everything. It doesn't matter if we were
in religion or not. The works may have been good
in themselves. They may have been things we
found in this book. But we did all from a selfish motive. We
did all in our dead heart. We did it from legal motive and
from fleshly, sinful motives. We did it all thinking that we
were righteous and holy by these works we did. We did it all thinking
that we were going to earn life by the work of our hands, and
we did it thinking that we were going to make God well-pleasing
with us by what we did. We try to indebt God to us by
our works. That's what Paul's talking about
when he says in that passage just after what Brother Greg
read, he said, they that are after the flesh do mind the things
of the flesh. That's all we had our mind on
was ourself and what we were doing. That's how you hear men
preach in most places. And so in an attempt, in addition
to all this, we're doing these works, and you know, we knew
something was missing. We knew we had this conscience
that was plaguing us. And so to soothe that conscience,
we condemned others and we looked down on others. You know, we
didn't know it, but we were the Pharisee. We would hear messages preached,
and anything we heard preached in this book concerning a good
work, that's really all we could latch on to. But we didn't hear it as first
hearing ourselves as not having been made righteous by the work. We heard it as, I've done that. I'm doing a pretty good job at
that. But we also filtered it this way, but you know, oh, so-and-so,
they don't do very good at this. And that soothes your conscience.
That makes you feel a lot better about yourself. And we all did
this, and we have this same sin nature in us now, so we have
to be careful now not to think that way. If we're hearing the
gospel, and as we're hearing the gospel, we're being critical
of others, of other brethren, we're not hearing the gospel
correctly. We're not hearing it at all. Look over at Luke
18.9. Luke 18.9. This is what all that
is, brethren. We thought the Pharisee was out
there, the wicked folks was out there, or somebody else in the
congregation, but the Lord has to show us that's being Pharisaical. Luke 18, 9, he spake this parable
unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous
and despised others. That's what the Pharisees' religion
consisted of. That's what ours consisted of
at one time. That's the only thing. And he
said, two men went up into the temple to pray, the one a Pharisee,
the other a republican. Outwardly, one of these looks
a lot better than the other when the Pharisee looks good. By his
works, the publican looks very bad, very bad. The Pharisee stood
and prayed thus with himself. Now listen to this. God, I thank
thee. I'm not as other men are. extortioners,
unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican, I fast twice in
a week, I give tithes of all that I possess. That's how we
heard the gospel. We'd read scripture, and that's
what we thought. I'm thankful, Lord, I'm not like
other men. I do these things. And then we'd
go talk to somebody about, well, you know, the scripture says
we're supposed to do this and that and the other, and you know
what we were doing? In our heart, we were saying, I'm so thankful
I'm not like other people. I do what God says other people
don't. And we usually had somebody in
mind, thinking in ourselves, trusting
in ourselves that we're righteous and despising others. And we
didn't even know it. But God brings you to the place
of this publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much
as his eyes to heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God,
be merciful to me, a sinner. That's where God keeps His children
from the first hour He calls you. And in fact, He grows you
in that. That's growth. He must increase,
I must decrease. He grows you more and more in
every single thought about yourself and what you do to say, God be
merciful to me a sinner. Because you see yourself more
and more and you see Christ more and more. I tell you, this man
went down to his house justified rather than the other. For everyone
that exalts themselves should be abased, but he that humbles
himself should be exalted. Now, this is the state of every
sinner in Adam. Every state of every sinner born
of Adam. So every elect child of God comes
into the world just like this. So we didn't make ourselves accepted
of God by our works. Still don't. Now, I'm going to
make a distinction here. We still don't. We still don't. Well, it says, but these are
sacrifices well-pleasing to God by Christ Jesus. That's how. That's my second point. When
our Savior sent the gospel and the Holy Spirit regenerated us,
He purged our conscience from dead works by the blood of Christ. Hebrews 9. Let's look there.
Hebrews chapter 9. He purged our conscience This
is what He did in making us hear what Christ accomplished. He
said in Hebrews 9.14, How much more shall the blood of Christ,
who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot
to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the
living God? You know, till God works this,
men think dead works are just those immoral, sinful works. That's not the worst of your
dead works. That's not the worst of my dead works. The worst of
our dead works is putting confidence in what we think are our religious
good works. That's dead works. The Spirit
of God, though, made us to know. Look there at Hebrews 10. He
made us know Christ's blood had purged all the sins of all God's
elect, and that Christ made us to righteousness of God in Him.
That's what He made us know in our conscience. And it's only
by the Spirit of God purging our conscience with the blood
of Christ that we're given a new spirit, a new heart, with a new
motive in everything. That's called repentance. He
turns you from you, He turns you from your work, and He turns
you to God, to Christ Jesus, and gives you faith to believe
on Christ. And the love of God is shed abroad
in your heart by the Holy Spirit which is given unto you. You
see what true love is. It's Christ laying down His life
in place of God, for God the Father, and in place of His people
to declare God the Father just and to justify His people. That's
love. And he makes you know he did
that for his people and he makes you know you're one of his people.
If you're one of his and you've experienced it, you know that's
what he did. And that's when we stop working to earn God's
acceptance because our conscience is purged from the guilt of sin
now. You know most works are performed
from the guilt of sin. You take their children in some
household that do nothing because they feel guilty because they're
made to feel guilty. And that's how we all are by
nature. We're guilty and we know it.
And so we're working to make up for the bad things we think. But when He purges your conscience
and shows you that in Christ His people are righteous and
holy and complete, and God remembers your sin no more, That's the
cure for dead works. Look here, Hebrews 10.1. For
the law, having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very
image of the things, can never, with those sacrifices which they
offered year by year continually, make the comers therein too perfect.
Now watch this. For then would they not have
ceased to be offered? If they'd been made perfect,
they'd have stopped offering them sacrifices. Look, because
that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience
of sins. When's a man going to stop working
for acceptance with God? When God makes him see he's perfect
in Christ. And there's no more offering
for sin. He makes us see that Christ came down and by His one
offering, by His will, He fulfilled all the promises of God toward
His people, fulfilled the old covenant for us, and it's by
His will that we're sanctified. By His one offering. By His one
offering we're perfected forever. And this is what the Spirit makes
us to know in the new heart. This is how He purges our conscience
from these dead works. Look at Hebrews 10.15. Whereof
the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us, for he said, this is a
covenant I'll make with them after those days. I'll put my
laws into their hearts and their minds when I write them." That's
the gospel he writes in the heart. It's what Paul was talking about
in 1 Corinthians 2. The Spirit of God has come and given us
understanding that we might know the things that are freely given
to us of God. That's what he writes on the
heart. And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Now
where remission of these is, there's no more offering for
sin. Most good works you see me doing in this world are offerings
for sin. They're offering sacrifices trying
to make God accept them. and try to put out the fire of
this burning conscience. But only the Spirit of God can
do that. And He does it by making you see that in Christ, His people
are perfected forever. Did you see the connection there
in Hebrews 10? If those sacrifices had made
them perfect, they would have ceased to be offered. A few verses
later He says, and by Christ's one offering, He perfected forever
them that are sanctified. And the Spirit comes and makes
you know this, and he purges your conscience from these dead
works. And God says, there's no more offering for sin. It's
made. It's done. I remember your sin
no more. You're righteous and holy. Woo! Boy, there's rejoicing then.
I'm accepted. God accepts me. I can stop working
for acceptance. Oh. Then God makes you to know He
not only receives you and accepts you, He accepts all your works
and is well pleased with your works by Christ Jesus alone. Man! 1 Peter 2.5, Peter said,
You also as lively stones are built up a spiritual house. Now
what we're talking about is spiritual. You're spiritual people. If you're
born in the Spirit of God, you're not in the flesh, Paul said,
you're in the Spirit. And we can't hardly understand
that because all we see about us is flesh. But everything about
the worship of God is spiritual. God seeketh such to worship Him.
They that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. And
the gospel that Christ speaks, these words are life. Your flesh
profits nothing. These words are life. It's the
words I speak, he said. They're spirit and they're life. And He makes you to know you're
a spiritual house, you're a holy priesthood. You're not trying
to become holy by being priest to God and doing priestly works
to God. You are a holy priesthood. That's what He makes you know.
Christ did that by His blood, by His righteousness. And you're
a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices. That's what sacrifices of faith
Faith in Christ, constrained by His love, that's what they
are, they're spiritual sacrifices. Thanksgiving to God, the calves
of your lips, thanking God for what He's done for you. And prayers
which are the odors of the saints. Sweet smelling to God. And works done for Christ's cause
to spread the good news of Him and what He's accomplished. Works
done for the good of His people. These are spiritual sacrifices. But how are they acceptable to
God? Look now, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. They're acceptable to God by
Jesus Christ. You see, Christ is the sacrifice
acceptable. He's the sacrifice well-pleasing
to God. That's why God's saints, as well
as our works, are a sweet smell to God. That's why they're well-pleasing
to God. It's in Christ's perfection,
not in ours. In the perfection of Christ's
sacrifice on our behalf, God smells a sweet sacrifice. Christ
has loved us and has given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice
to God for a sweet smelling savor. It's not now as saints. A holy priesthood, it's not that
we're perfect in ourselves or that in our works that we do
that they're perfect and without sin. That's not what makes them
acceptable to God. Our new man's holy by Christ
our sanctification being in us, but our flesh is nothing but
sin. Brother Greg read it in Romans 7, in my flesh was nothing
good. So it's not that we're accepted
of God by any work we do. The works aren't well-pleasing
simply because we did the work and it was a good work. It's
acceptable by Christ Jesus. You see, the whole works of God,
it's of the Lord, it's of Christ, it's of His Spirit. He purged
our conscience and He keeps doing this. He keeps renewing us to
see if we're doing something and we start putting confidence
in the work we've done, He takes this gospel and purges your conscience
to know, now don't be boasting in your work. It's acceptable
by Christ's blood. It's acceptable in His sacrifice.
And He gave you faith to believe that in Christ we're righteous
and without sin and we're complete in Him. And it's this love of
Christ for us. It's the love of the Father who
sent His only begotten Son for riches like us. It's the love
of Christ who came when we were ungodly and hated Him and didn't
love Him. And yet He loved us and laid
down His life for His people. That's the love that constrains
the heart. That's what makes our motive
to stop being legal and become gratitude for His love and His
faithfulness to us. I said it this morning and I'll
say it again. Look at 2 Corinthians 5. God looks on the heart, brethren,
and He's teaching me and you to know men after the Spirit
as well. God looks on the heart, the motive of the heart. Without
faith in His Son, it's impossible to please God. Without the heart
being motivated by Christ's love for us, everything's a legal
dead work. But in 2 Corinthians 5, Paul
had spoken up there about folks who judge by appearance and not
in heart. And then he tells us right here,
of those that have been sanctified in heart by Christ. He says in
verse 14, 2 Corinthians 5.14, he says, for the love of Christ
constraineth us. It's His love for us that constrains
us. And here's what it constrains
us to do. We thus judge. It is true righteous judgment.
If Christ died for all His people, then all His people are dead.
Our old man is dead in Christ. We judge that about our brethren.
And that He died for all that they which live shall not henceforth
live unto themselves. That's all these self-righteous
works are. They're a man living to himself.
We're not to live to ourselves. We're to live to Him who died
for them and rose again. Wherefore, henceforth know we
no man after the flesh. We don't judge by appearance.
We don't judge by the outward. I said to you this morning, a
man might, he might be doing a good work that is well pleasing
and acceptable to God by Christ Jesus, but to you, outwardly,
you just see his sin, you just see his shortcoming, and you
just see how he's failing doing the work. But God's looking on
his heart. And God receives him in the perfect
righteousness of Christ. And you and me make a bad, fatal
error if we're going to condemn that man. You leave that to God. We don't know any man after the
flesh anymore. We judge after the heart now. What do we judge? My brother's
old man's dead in Christ, just like mine is. And he's born of
the Spirit of God now, made to live under God by faith. We don't
even know Christ after the flesh anymore. Therefore, if any man
be in Christ, you truly been born of God and you're in Christ,
you're a new creation. And these old things, this old
way of judging about appearance and after the flesh and thinking
we made ourselves to differ, that's passed away. Oh, all things
have become new. By God giving us faith to trust
Christ as all, as our acceptance with God, by the love of Christ,
the constraint of our new heart, is his love, his sacrifice. And now the works come to God
in the perfection of Christ Jesus. Our works are acceptable to God,
well-pleasing to God by Christ. Our spiritual sacrifices by Christ
are a sweet smell to God. By Christ they're a sacrifice
acceptable to God. By Christ our works are well-pleasing
to God. In His perfect righteousness,
in His perfect holiness, God accepts our person and our feeble
works. Now listen, it's important to
note, The Philippian brethren, they didn't say this about themselves. They didn't say, oh, our work
was well pleasing to God and acceptable to God by Christ,
the sweet smell to God. No, they didn't say that about
themselves. We don't say that about ourselves. Because God's
going to keep you looking at yourself and saying, oh, in my
flesh dwells nothing good. But concerning your brethren,
where this love of God is working and you really behold in Christ,
I think this is so about God's people all the time. Do you not
find yourself looking at the work your brethren do and thinking,
man, I want to do like he does. I want to serve God like he does.
I want to be selfless like he is. I want to do the things he
does. Don't you see that about your
brethren? Paul saw that about his brethren. This was his rejoicing.
Christ worked that in my brethren. And he rejoiced in Christ for
it. Now that's the right view. That's really knowing men after
the heart. The old man's dead in Christ. God doesn't look at
their sin. I'm not looking at it. But look
at what, look at, look at what God's grace makes them do. I'm
so thankful the Lord working that. But in ourselves, oh, we
don't see it that way. We know we're perfect in Christ.
We know we're accepted in Christ. But as far as what we're going
to judge about ourselves, Lord, I'm an unfaithful servant. I'm
not talking about some false humility. God really makes you
know that about yourself. That's just all there is to it. God's well pleased with our works
by Christ alone. This is what he said in Hebrews
13, 16. To do good and to communicate, forget not. Communicate, I think
you see by now, communicate means giving. And it doesn't just mean
money, it means that, but it doesn't just mean that. It means
giving you time, giving your effort, giving yourself, giving,
communicating, but actually doing it. For with such sacrifices,
God's well pleased. But you see there, it's not just
with our sacrifices themselves, it's by Christ Jesus. It's in
Him, they come to God perfect in Christ's sacrifice. So lastly,
turn to Ecclesiastes 9 and verse 7. We didn't do these works on our
own. We didn't make ourselves acceptable
to God. That's the first thing we know.
And secondly, it's by the Spirit of God purging our conscience
to see we're perfect in Christ, so that our conscience is clear
now. There's no more offering for sin. We're perfect in Christ.
This is how faith works by love. The love of God should have broadened
our hearts. And we know these sacrifices come to God acceptable
in Christ. Now lastly, this is the contentment
in the rejoicing in the heart of God's saints right here. And
I want you to get a hold of this child of God. I pray God to make
you just... Dive into this like a deep ocean.
Listen, Ecclesiastes 9.7, Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy,
and drink thy wine with a merry heart, for God now accepteth
thy works. Go thy way. Our way is Christ. He's the way, the truth, and
the life. No man comes to the Father but by Him. He's our way.
Not just when we're sitting here, when we go out in the rest of
our week, He's our way. And God's going to keep Him being
our way. Eat thy bread with joy. This
bread is, we eat the bread of God's providence, whatever He
sends our way. Paul's in prison when he writes
this. And he said, I've learned in whatsoever state I am, whether
I'm afflicted or whether I'm abounding. We eat the bread of
providence that God sends to us, and as we do it, we feast
on Christ, our bread from heaven. We know he's ruling it, we know
he's reigning, we know he's doing what's best for us, and he's
our joy in it all. Eat your bread with joy. And we drink thy wine with a
merry heart. Bread represents life, that which
is absolutely necessary. Christ is our life. And what
he's doing for us in Providence is life to us. It's keeping us
from trusting us or anybody or anything. It's keeping us trusting
Christ the way. That's our bread. It's keeping
us partaking of Christ the bread. But wine here represents pleasurable
things. Things that bring you great joy,
a merry heart. Christ took that cup and He said,
this is the New Testament in my blood. What makes your heart
merry? What makes your heart rejoice?
I tell you what made David's heart rejoice. He said, though
it be not so with my house. God's made with me an everlasting
covenant ordered in all things and sure, and this is all my
salvation, all my joy, though we make it not to grow. That's
the joy of this wine. All the promises of God toward
us are yes and amen in Christ's blood. And so God commands us now, use
everything He gives us, all the good things that He gives us
in this life, use them and enjoy them and know that by Christ's
blood our sins are put away and God remembers our sin no more. That will give you a merry heart
right there. You mean I can enjoy The things
that God has given in this world, enjoy them. That's a command
of God. What we're reading right there
is a command of God. He says, drink your wine with a merry
heart. Why? For God now accepteth thy works. God accepted His people in Christ
before He made this world. Christ came and accomplished
redemption and when He arose, all His people arose and sat
down in Him. But now that He's come and He
found us in the guilt of our conscience and everything we
were trying to do, if we were religious, everything we were
trying to do was just a burden to us. Wasn't your religion a
burden to you before God revealed Christ to you? No joy in it whatsoever. Maybe some temporal, fleeting,
fleshly joy if somebody bragged on you. But there wasn't any
spiritual joy. It was a burden. But now we have
a merry heart because every feeble work of ours, though we see it
as feeble, though we see the sin mixed with it, and we don't
see all the sin mixed with it, but we see enough to just think,
oh, that wasn't anything. That's nothing. When I see what
Christ did for me, nothing I do is anything. And yet, God now
accepted thy works by Christ Jesus and in Christ Jesus. God
remembers our sins no more, not even the sins mixed with our
feeble works. We have peace within. Christ's
blood has purged the conscience of sin so that we cease from
dead works with our motives new. We're not trying to gain acceptance. We're now really doing what we
do with joy in the heart. I love coming here. I love coming
here. I love to come and minister to
you. I love to get up on Monday morning
and open this book and just see what God's going to show me that
week. And then I love to be able to come and tell you about it. This is all of God. This is our
peace, our joy. And anything He gives you in
this world, He said, just enjoy it. God now accepted thy works. That's why Paul was content.
That's why he rejoiced in Christ. That's why we ourselves are content
and rejoicing in Christ. And this is why Paul was content
and rejoiced in his brethren when they sent him a gift. And
he was content and rejoiced in Christ even in that season they
didn't send him a gift because he knew Christ was providing
for him and taking care of him. And again their kindness flourished
toward him again. And he rejoiced greatly in Christ. You see our contentment is Christ.
Our rejoicing is Christ. That's why we're content rejoicing
our brethren. Because we know Christ is working
in the hearts of His people. God's made each of His saints
accepted in the Beloved. And God's command to you is,
now go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, drink thy wine with
a merry heart, for God now accepteth thy works. By Christ Jesus, God
now accepteth thy works. Amen. All right, Brother Greg.