Alright, brethren, Philippians
chapter 3. Paul says here in verse 1, to
write the same things to you, to me indeed it's not grievous,
but for you it's safe. When you read the epistles and
you just start paying attention to what's being said, you begin
to see that Paul just repeated the same things in all the epistles. He really wrote the same things
over and over in the epistles. And you have to remember that
he did that by the Spirit of God. God gave him what to write. So it's the will of God that
we just repeat the gospel over and over and over. Why? Because it's safe. It's safe
for God's people to hear it over and over. God's preacher is not
looking for something new to preach. Not looking for something
new to preach. I've seen this through the years
and noticed this in messages where I spend more time trying
to put things in my own words and spend a great deal of time
preaching my own words, I don't usually hear people respond
as being blessed by that nearly as much as when I just read God's
Word and just say as little as possible to give the sense of
what it means. But your blessing is from hearing
God's Word. When you see it in God's Word
and God speaks that Word in your heart, that's when you're blessed.
And you know, we're not looking for something new. We're just
saying the same message over and over and the Lord keeps it
new. And you know, I've said this
to you before, you'll preach and you may have said the same
thing a hundred times and then one day somebody will come up
and say, that's the first time I ever heard that. And it's not
that you didn't hear it before. It's that you don't remember
you heard it before. And the Lord made it new to you
again. And it's like the first time you ever heard it before.
And that's why it's not grievous to repeat the same message over
and over. It's safe. Repetition, repetition, repetition. That's the key. That's the key. Verse 2, He said, Beware of dogs,
beware of evil workers, beware of the concision. This is a common
repetition in the Scripture. Common reminder in the Scripture.
The Lord gives us this repeated warning. He gave it when He walked
this earth. And then He gives it through
Paul repeatedly, through Peter, through James, through John. Christ's messenger is a watchman. And you're watching. And what
a watchdog does is when you detect danger, you sound the
warning. You bark. And the Lord calls false preachers,
blind watchmen, dumb dogs that cannot bark. Can't see the danger. But here the Holy Spirit gives
Paul a word to sound the alarm. And this is the most dangerous
thing we face as believers in this world because we have this
in our own sin nature and we have it surrounding us in this
world. And it's will works, will worship religion. These three
names right here are not different enemies. It's the same enemy.
It's three names for one enemy. Dogs, evil workers, the concision,
that's just one enemy. That's will worship. That's looking
to self. and trusting self and the works
of self. The evil works are not immoral,
evil, wicked things you might imagine. The evil works are the Pharisees who appeared holy
and righteous outwardly and yet they didn't believe Christ. They
were trusting in that appearance. They were trusting in what they
had done by the works of their hands. That's the evil. That's
the evil of these works. That's the evil our Lord's talking
about in John 3 when he said, this is the condemnation. Light
has come into the world and men love darkness rather than light
because their deeds are evil. You know what it's going to take
to make a sinner come to Christ? A sinner knows his immoral, sinful,
wicked deeds are sinful and wicked. He knows that. But what reason
he won't come to Christ is he keeps thinking, well, I've done
this and that and the other. That ought to make up for that.
And it takes God showing him, no, those good deeds you did,
they're just as evil as those wicked things you've done. Because
the sin that you are has made it all vile and God won't receive
it. If you've just had a thought
in your heart that's sinful, you broke the whole law of God.
And we come into this world having already broken it. We come into
this world dead, depraved, dead and dying. And we can't save
ourselves and we can't make ourselves righteous and we can't make ourselves
presentable to God. We can't clean up our act. God
won't have it. He just won't have it. Concision,
what is that? That's cutting the flesh. That's
cutting the flesh. And here's where the confidence
lies in will-worship. It's cutting the flesh. In Paul's
day, they insisted that believers must be circumcised and come
back under the law of Moses or they couldn't be saved. They came to Peter after he had
preached to Cornelius and those other Gentiles. And the Lord
sent the Spirit and He gave them faith to believe. Well, here
comes these Pharisees down there and they said, they insisted
that they must be circumcised or they could not be saved. That's
what makes it an evil work is when men say, now, unless you
do this, you can't be saved. It's one thing to want to desire
to honor God's law and have a heart and desire to do something that
you ought to do. God's people have that. But to
say that it's a must or you can't be saved? Now you've turned it
into a work. Now you've turned it into that
which you put confidence in. And here these Gentiles were,
the Lord had given them the Spirit, He had given them faith in Christ,
Christ had ruled them in His righteousness, they were perfectly
wise, perfectly righteous, perfectly holy, and perfectly free in Christ
by what He had done for them. And here comes some sinful, wretched,
vile, wicked men who thought they were so self-righteous that
they could tell these holy, righteous children of God, saints, except
you do this or this or this, you can't be saved. Peter said,
nope. He said, unless me and you Jews
who've had the law all our lives, unless we let go of every bit
of that, and be saved like they're saved, we can't be saved. We've
got to rest in Christ and be saved by His righteousness and
His wholeness alone. But this concision is bringing
believers back under the law and insisting that you've got
to cut this out, you've got to cut that out, you've got to cut
the other out. And by cutting these things out,
that's what they do to make themselves righteous and holy. Paul, look
over at Galatians 5. I told you the other day, Paul's
got a way with words. He liked to write with a play
on words. I know this is words of the Spirit of God, but you
know, men have their own personality in their writing too, but Paul
does this a lot. Galatians 5.11, he's talking
about these men that come down there and preach circumcision
to them. He said in verse 11, And I, brethren, if I yet preach
circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution? If I turned it over
to men's hands and told them there's something they can do,
just this one thing that they can do, then the fence of the
cross is ceased. Men don't mind that. You just
put one thing in their hand they can do, men will love the message
you preach. You tell a sinner there's nothing
they can do, and that offends them. It's all Christ that offends
them. But look what Paul said. He said,
then's the offense of the cross ceased. He said, I would, if
they were even cut off, would trouble you. He's saying, when
they're doing the circumcision, I wish they'd just get cut off. None of man's works equal the
righteousness God requires. We've all sinned and we've all
come short of the glory of God. Galatians 3.1, He said to them,
he said, O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you that you
should not obey the truth before whose eyes Jesus Christ has been
evidently set forth, crucified among you? This only would I
learn of you. Received you the Spirit by the
works of the Lord, by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish,
having begun in the Spirit? Are you now made perfect by the
flesh? He said, Galatians 5, 8, This persuasion cometh not
of him that calleth you. This didn't come from Christ
that called you. You didn't get this doctrine from your master.
It didn't come from him. I find the best way though to
shine light on falsehood is to preach truth. So I want to go
now to the next word here in our text. I want to declare the
truth to you. That will shine more light on
this falsehood than anything else. Here's God's word on who
His people are in verse 3. He says, for we are the circumcision. which worship God in the Spirit
and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh."
He said, now beware of the concision. They claim to be the circumcision.
He said, they're the concision. They're cutting, they're just
cutting, cutting, cutting people. And he said, because we're the
true circumcision. It means we're the true Jew.
We're the spiritual Israel of God. Circumcision was an outward
token, an outward sign of an inward work of the heart that
God had worked within in regeneration. That's what it's a picture of.
Go to Romans 2 verse 29. We have to have this work done
first. For you and me, it's not necessarily
Christ had come first, all that's done first, but I'm saying for
us to enter into what Christ has done, this work has to be
done in us first, or we can't believe, because we don't have
life until this work's done. He says, Romans 2.29, He is a
Jew which is one inwardly, circumcisions out of the heart, in the spirit,
not in the letter, whose praise is not of men, but of God. In
the spirit, not in the letter. In the spirit, I'm going to show
you what that means. Not in the letter means it's
not outward. It's not just in things you can
see. It's not in the letter, in the keeping of the letter
of the law. That's not what we're talking about. It's spiritual. Look at Romans 4. The Lord gave
Abraham circumcision long after Abraham had been regenerated
in his heart. And God gave him faith to believe
Christ, and God imputed the righteousness of Christ to him. Later, God
gave him the outward sign of circumcision as a token, a picture
of what God had done in his heart. It's the cutting away of the
filth of the flesh is what it is. You and I can't do that.
Spiritually. Only God can do that. And he
says here in Romans 4.9, Cometh this blessedness then upon the
circumcision only or upon the uncircumcision also? Does God
impute the righteousness of Christ through faith to his elect among
the Jews only or among the Gentiles also? That's what he's saying.
For we say that faith was reckoned to Abraham for righteousness.
How was it then reckoned? When he was in circumcision or
uncircumcision? Did God impute righteousness
to Abraham when he was outwardly circumcised or not? Not in circumcision. He was a Gentile. Abraham never
heard of Israel. He never even heard of what a
Jew was. There was no such thing. God hadn't created Israel yet.
He was just a Gentile, heathen idolater in Ur. We heard about
the Chaldeans this morning, the Babylonians. That's where Abraham
was, in Ur. And it says God gave it to him. He gave him faith. He circumcised
his heart in regeneration. He gave him faith and he imputed
righteousness to him. And then later, verse 11, he
received the sign of circumcision. God gave him the outward, a seal
of the righteousness of the faith which he had, yet being uncircumcised,
that he might be the father of all them that believe, though
they be not circumcised, that righteousness might be imputed
to them also. and the father of circumcision
to them who are not of the circumcision only, that is, not to his elect
among the Jews only, but also who walk in the steps of that
faith of our father Abraham which he had yet being uncircumcised."
He's saying Abraham, he wasn't under the law of Sinai, he didn't
have the hour token of circumcision, all the things that the Pharisees
insisted believers must do or they couldn't be saved, Paul
said, Abraham didn't have any of that. And God said, you're
righteous through faith in Christ. And he's the father of everybody
that walks like Abraham did. not trying to trust in the law,
not trying to look to your work. Those that walk by faith trust
in I'm saved by Christ, my righteousness alone. If you believe Christ
is your righteousness alone, Abraham's your father. That's
what he's saying. For the promise, verse 13, that he should be the
heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his children through
the law, but through the righteousness of faith. For if they which are
of the law be heirs, faith is made void and a promise of none
effect. The covenant's worthless. because
God done saved through the law. Because the law works wrath,
where no law is, there's no transgression. Therefore it's a faith that it
might be by grace to the end. The promise might be sure to
all God's elect, not to those that are among the Jews, but
to those that are of the Gentiles also. True Jews, true Israel, the Israel
of God, are God's elect from among all nations. circumcised
in the heart by God, given faith by God, resting in Christ by
the grace of God, to whom God imputes Christ's righteousness,
and says, Accepted in the Beloved. That's who true Jews are. Now
here's the three common, this is so with everybody that's a
true Jew right here. These three things are the three
sure characteristics of everybody that's a true Jew. These three
right here. I hear Ben preach about evidences
all the time and I think, I'm not so sure about your evidences
you're preaching. These three right here, these
three are certain and everybody got saved. Number one, we worship
God in the spirit. We worship God in the spirit.
True worship of God is in the new heart, the new spirit that
God's given us. That's where true worship is.
The new spirit created of God. Christ said this in John 4.23,
He said, "...the hour cometh and now is when the true worshipers
shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth. For the Father
seeketh such to worship Him." You know, when the Lord looked
at Nathanael and He said, this is an Israelite indeed. He said,
this is a true Jew in whom is no guile. You know why Christ
said that? Because He had created a new
spirit in him, and in that new man, Nathanael was holy and without
sin, no guile whatsoever. Nathanael's flesh, nothing but
sin. That's all it was. So he couldn't
look to his new man, because his old man tainted his new man,
so that God couldn't receive him. But having that new man,
The truth that you have in your heart about the Spirit is it
makes you confess, in me is nothing good. And it makes you look out
of yourself to Christ only and trust Him. That's when a man
has no guile. All this other stuff of the Pharisees
boasting and what they'd done and how good they were, that
ain't nothing before God but guile. You're lying through your
teeth. If that's what a man thinks,
he's lying through his teeth. He ain't good. Nothing He's ever
done is good. Our motive is the love of Christ
for what He's done in making us righteous and holy in Him.
We believe Him by His grace in the Spirit. And whatever we do
in the Spirit, we do out of gratitude and love to Him for what He's
done for us in making us perfect with God. The Kingdom of God
is not meat and drink. We're not talking about the letter. We're not talking about outward
fleshly. The Kingdom of God is not meat
and drink. It's not what you eat or don't eat. It's righteousness
and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. Let me read that. This is what it means. It's righteousness
in the Holy Ghost, which makes it be in Christ. It's peace in
the Holy Ghost, which makes it be in Christ. It's joy in the
Holy Ghost, which makes it to be in Christ. Everything's in
Christ, in spirit, by the Spirit. Turning us to Him, looking to
Him only. Our righteousness, our peace,
our joy is the Lord Jesus Christ. This is what the Spirit of God,
this is worshiping God in spirit. Now the difference you see these
in is the Pharisee and the Publican. The Pharisee bodily went to the
house of God, he prayed outwardly, and the Publican did. So there
was some outward bodily exercise with both of them. The difference
was what was their heart. The Pharisee in his heart was
nothing but guile. That's all he was. He was just
a sinner. He had no new spirit whatsoever. And here was the
evidence of it. In his depraved heart, he stood
and prayed with himself and thought how good he was because the things
he had done and the works he had done, the meat and drink
he had avoided, and he looked down his nose at the public and
said, what a vile sinner. All that before God was nothing
but guile. That's all it was. The publican
worshipped God in spirit. He had a new spirit. And there
was no guile in him. And here's the evidence of it.
He hid his face before God and smote upon his breast and begged
God, have mercy on me, the sinner. Have mercy on me, the sinner. True worship is in spirit, in
the new man given by the Spirit of God. And from that new man
in spirit, we see ourselves as nothing but sin. Nothing but sin. Sins in everything
we do at all times. It won't let us boast that we've
made ourselves righteous by our works, by anything we've done. And from that new man in spirit,
we cast all our care on the mercy of God. We come to God just saying,
Lord, have mercy on me. That means, Lord, if you don't
show me mercy, if you don't withhold from me what I justly deserve,
I have no hope because I don't deserve anything. I deserve for
you to pour out wrath on me. I need mercy. You cast yourself
on God's grace and beg Him, Lord, please receive me in Christ Jesus
alone. And that's somebody right there
that has been given a new spirit so that they want to be found
in the righteousness of God alone. This is what the Kingdom of God
is. It's righteousness in the Lord Jesus Christ. The Spirit
of God is giving you a new heart to see you've got righteousness
in Christ. It's the Spirit of God giving
you a new heart to see you have peace with God in the Lord Jesus
Christ. It's the Spirit of God giving
you a new heart to have all your joy in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's where it's at. That's
where it's at. That's true holiness of heart.
That's what it is. That's true holiness, period.
It's to completely worship God in the Spirit. To worship God
in Spirit. Now secondly, because the Spirit
causes this joy, we rejoice in Christ Jesus. The first characteristic of every
true Jew is we worship God in Spirit. The second is, and we
rejoice in Christ Jesus. We rejoice in Christ Jesus. That's
what he said. We are the circumcision which
worship God in spirit and rejoice in Jesus Christ. We rejoice in
Christ himself. That man, that man, that God
man is all my hope. He's all my rejoicing. When I
see Him, I see God's holy, just, and good law given at Sinai,
completely, totally honored by the Lord Jesus Christ. I see
God's law magnified. It took God coming to fulfill
it. It took God coming and taking
flesh in my nature, sinless, to live and to die and to do
for me what I couldn't do and what none of His people could
do. That's what Christ did. That's how God is so wise in
how He could honor His law and magnify it and show His holy
character and show all His attributes and show Himself to be a just
God and a Savior. He sent His Son, and His Son
lived and He obeyed God. And so we rejoice in Christ,
we rejoice in Him as our righteousness. My righteousness is a person.
My righteousness is God's Son. My righteousness is provided
by God who I offended. He came. He obeyed. He submitted. He worked the will
of God. He laid down His life. He bore
the wrath of God. He satisfied justice. He arose
to God's right hand. He's my righteousness. He's the
righteousness of God's people. We rejoice in the Lord Jesus
Christ. We rejoice in Christ being our
holiness. He's our wisdom because this
is the only way the law could be magnified and honored and
God be a just God and a Savior. And when he makes himself wisdom
to you and you have the mind of Christ, you find the only
and greatest wisdom there is, is in what God has done in Christ.
And it's so wise that you realize if you got a major decision to
make in this life, or even if it's not a major decision, you
find yourself constantly asking God, Lord, direct my steps. Give me some direction. Show
me which way to go. I don't want to lean to my own
understanding. I want to be led. I see the wisdom in my Savior.
I want Him to lead me. And then we rejoice that He's
righteousness. And when He's made righteousness
to you, you see, my righteousness is not in the Ten Commandments.
My righteousness is not in what I do in obeying the Ten Commandments. I've never obeyed them. My righteousness
is Christ. who is the fulfillment of everything
God wrote in His law. And he becomes your rejoicing
in holiness. I didn't make myself holy by
my will. If it was up to me to sanctify
myself, I'd still be right there with that vast multitude of Pharisees
out there in the world right now, boasting how they've separated
themselves from those vile people down there in the bad part of
Trenton. And they're worse than those bad people in the bad part
of Trenton. Because they're twice dead. They got a self-righteousness
that they think is righteousness and it's not. They got light
that's really darkness and they think it's light. And that's
where I was. And that's where I stayed. And
no way I would have separated myself if God hadn't chosen me
and Christ hadn't come and worked the will of God on my behalf. And that's what He did. by the
which will we are sanctified forever through the offering
of the Lord Jesus Christ one time. And then He came and He gave
me a new heart and a new spirit and showed me that I've been
separated in Christ from eternity. I've been separated by God from
eternity. Well, after that, didn't you
separate yourself? Every time you consciously try
to separate yourself, you're putting yourself right there
in the dung heap. When you consciously are trying
to separate yourself and feel like you have separated yourself
and sanctified yourself, you are just going further and further
into the dung heap. When you're separated, it's when
you're looking away from you, and everything about you, and
everything about this world, and you see Christ as your only
holiness and acceptance with God. And that's by the Spirit
of God, through Christ's blood, by Him separating you from you
and making you look to Him. And there's some sweet times
when I really can see Him and know how He is. I'm right there
with Him, in Him. And then those times when I'm
feel guilty and I'm trying to separate myself and I'm trying
to make sure I'll do this and that and the other. I ain't even
looking at Him. I'm not even thinking about Him. All I'm thinking
about is me and my vain works. That's all I'm thinking about.
Dung. He's our holiness. And He keeps
you separated to Him. And we rejoice that He's our
redemption. Believer, you're as free. You are as free. He's redeemed you. You're free
from the law. And you're not as free as you're
going to be. One day you're going to be free from this body of
death. You're going to be with Him in glory and be absolutely,
totally free. That's called the glorious liberty of the sons
of God, Romans 8. Then you'll be really redeemed.
But He's purchased you and He's coming back for the purchased
possession. But listen, right now you are free from the law. You're free from it. That's what
it means in Romans 8 when it says, There is therefore now
no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. You know,
the bad thing is, here's the truth of the matter. It's not
that God's people are running around and you've got to really
corral them because they just want to constantly go out and,
you know, they want to go out and lay up with prostitutes on
the weekend. That's not the problem with God's saints. The problem is, with God's saints
is, we want to go back to that brothel over here called the
First Baptist Church and lay up with them harlots. That's
the problem. We keep wanting to go back under the law and
put our hand to it. That's the problem. He has to keep making us know,
I freed you. You're redeemed. You're mine.
And he keeps setting you free. And so, we worship God in spirit,
we rejoice in Christ Jesus, and lastly, we have no confidence
in the flesh. What does it mean by flesh? I
want to say it as simply as I can say it. You and me. You and me. Well, now that just means your
old sin. No, it means we don't have any confidence in anything
about you and me. Period. Nothing about us. Paul had a lot of reasons. He
said, if you want to talk about confidence in the flesh, he said,
I could outdo all of you. And those things he says there,
circumcised the eighth day, stock of Israel, tribe of Benjamin,
Hebrew of Hebrews, touching the law of Pharisee, concerning zeal,
persecuting the church, touching the righteousness within the
law, blameless. You wouldn't have found a man
that looked more holy and righteous than Paul. You wouldn't have
found one. But you know what happened when God took away that
spirit of guile from him and gave him a new spirit to tell
the truth? Go home and read Romans 7 and
you'll hear a man that has no guile speaking the truth. He
said every bit of it was sin. Every bit of it was sin. And
he said right now, right here as a regenerated, sanctified,
holy, righteous child of God, in me is nothing good. That's a man without guile. That's
a man without guile. When you hear somebody speaking
of something they've done that's good, you know that is a spirit
full of guile, deceit, lying to themselves. They believe it,
but they lie to themselves. Knowing we worship God in spirit,
through faith, That means we believe Christ is our wisdom,
righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. That means we
worship Him in spirit, we rejoice in Christ, and we don't have
any confidence in our flesh. We believe God. We trust Christ. He's everything to us. And now,
because of what He's done for us, you have this spirit of love,
so you want to do something for Him. You want to, however you
please to use me, Lord, use me. Just don't let me overstep any
direction. I just want to, whatever it is
you'd have me to do, and if you'd have me to do nothing, I'll do
nothing. Just whatever you'd have me do, that's what I want
to do. And so having this spirit, brethren,
knowing our righteousness, our peace, our joy is Christ, We
count everything else done that we might win Christ to be found
in Him, having His righteousness only. Nothing that's of our hand,
nothing that's of the law, just His righteousness only. And knowing
this, brethren, and knowing that we're just nothing but sin in
ourselves, when a brother or sister falls, Christ by the Spirit will use
you in this way. He will make you fulfill the
law of Christ. He will. He'll make a believer
fulfill the law of Christ. The law of Christ is not the
law of Sinai. The law of Christ is totally
different. You can find it in Galatians 6. Galatians 6. Here's what it is. This is the
law of Christ. And this is another one of them
play on words. Galatians was being deceived and they talked
about going back to the law of Sinai. Paul says, you really
want to fulfill the law? He said, won't you fulfill the
law of Christ? Brethren, verse 1, if a man be overtaken in a
fault, you which are spiritual, restore such a one in the spirit
of meekness. What's that, overtaken in a fault?
That means when he has sinned, and a man will head jack, that
means he was overtaken. See, it says he was overtaken,
he just accidentally did it. Well, he accidentally did it
with his eyes wide open and his full will behind it, yeah. just
like you do, and every sin you ever sin, me too. That man that willingly sinned
against God as a believer. God said, now if you're spiritual,
that's what they were boasting about, going around trying to
show how super spiritual they were because they wanted to be
back on the law. He said, now you that are spiritual, restore
such one. Restore him and do it in the
spirit of meekness. How are you going to restore
him? You're going to restock him. You're going to restore
him with the good news of the gospel of Christ. You're going
to restore him with the good news that, brother, you're redeemed. You're righteous. You're holy.
You're perfect. Christ has bought you. You're
his. He's not going to let you go. Restore him. Restore him into
fellowship. Receive him like he never did
a thing. not even thinking about his sin,
not requiring anything of him, because you know what? That's
how God receives you if you're his, for Christ's sake. Restoring
in the spirit of meekness. What's the spirit of meekness?
That means I need to act real super humble so everybody sees
me acting real humble? No, that means submitting yourself
to Christ and trusting Christ to handle your brother and not
you. That's meekness. Every time the spirit of children
of Israel were on the string of Moses in the wilderness, he
was on his face before God, begging God to handle it. That's Meknes,
meekest man on the earth. And he said, considering yourself,
lest you also be tempted, lest you get puffed up, swell up like
a bullfrog. Here it is. He said, you really
concerned about the law? This is Paul's play on words.
You really concerned about the law? Then bear ye one another's
burden, bear their sin, stand between them and the judge that's
judging them, whoever it is, and so fulfill the law of Christ.
That's what Christ did for you. He stood between you and the
judge, bore your sin, paid your debt, provided you a righteousness,
and received you to Himself and presented you to God. That's
the law of Christ. How do you do that? You have
to do it faith, trusting Christ as the master, trusting Christ
as the righteousness, the holiness, the redemption of this brother
that's fallen, trusting Christ as his master that'll make him
stand just like he makes me stand, trusting Christ as I'm his and
my brother's his and Christ is, he's gonna deal with us. All
I'm supposed to do is speak the truth of Christ to him and point
him to Christ. and you do it on no other motive
but what Christ has done for you, love. That's the law of
Christ, faith which works by love. Not trying to make yourself
righteous, holy, or anything like that. And here's the thing
is, you and me just won't do that unless Christ works it in
us. We just won't. We just won't. And most of the
time, the Lord lets us see that we won't do it without Him first
before then He humbles us and uses us to help restore, brother.
Usually. That right there, brethren, and
here's why He says do it. For if a man thinks himself to
be something when he's nothing, what does that say? If a man
thinks himself something when he is nothing. Who's that referring to? Everybody
that's truly the Lord's. Everybody's a true Jew. Everybody
that rejoices in, worships in spirit, rejoices in Christ, has
no confidence in the flesh. This is what we know about ourselves.
We are nothing. Nothing. Because a man that thinks
he's something when he's nothing, what's he done? He's deceived
himself. He's full of guile. He's lying
to himself. And only Christ can save us from
that. I pray the Lord bless that, brethren. In Him dwelleth all
the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and you are complete in Him which
is the head of all principality and power. Can I show you one
more thing? I want to show you one more thing.
Go with me to Ephesians 4. I want to show you this. To not do this, to not just look
to Christ and speak of Christ, to not restore a brother, to
not trust him to Christ and love him to Christ, but to turn and
condemn and judge. When I start condemning you because
you've fallen, you know what I'm doing? I'm telling you loud
and clear, All my confidence is right here. It's right here
in me, not in Christ. When you start condemning somebody
because they failed, you're saying, I have confidence in myself.
Because if you have confidence, no confidence in your flesh,
you'll realize what happened to my brother hasn't changed
the grace of God and the righteousness Christ has made him. And I'm
going to keep pointing back to Christ. And watch this, verse
29, everything said here has to do with what I've just been
saying to you. Verse 29, let no corrupt communication proceed
out of your mouth. When you're dealing with one
another, especially one that's fallen, but that which is good
to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the
hearers. Speak Christ to one another.
And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby you're sealed
unto the day of redemption. See, anything but speaking of
Christ to one another, that which is edifying, that's grieving
to the Holy Spirit. Let all bitterness and wrath
and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you
with all malice. And be ye kind one to another,
tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's
sake has forgiven you. Be ye therefore followers of
God as dear children, and walk in love as Christ also hath loved
us and hath given himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice
to God for a sweet-smelling Saviour." I hear you say that, but I don't
see it. Just stop walking in love when you make that statement.
You just went to bitterness and evil communication when you make
a statement like that. This doesn't have to do with
how your brother's loving. God's just telling you how you
should love. He's not telling you how your brother ought to
be loving. He's not telling you to judge your brother on how
he's loving. It has nothing to do with your brother, just how
you should love. That's all. That's all. No confidence in the flesh. Just
trust in Christ. Do what you do out of gratitude
for Christ. I pray the Lord calls us today
to have worship in spirit, truly worship in spirit, bowed in the
heart to our Lord, to rejoice in Christ and only Christ, and
have absolutely no confidence in anything about ourselves,
not any. Father, we thank You for this
Word. We pray, Lord, You bless it. Keep us. Gather Your people. Lord, grow us in grace. And Lord,
as You grow us, we pray that You would be easy with us. Remember, we're dust. We just
can't endure much pain and much suffering and sorrow. And we
know that's how You'll grow us, Lord. Keep us looking to Christ alone.
Thank you for this good news. Thank you for our Redeemer. In
His name we pray. Amen.