Zechariah once again, the help
of God. I'd like us to turn together
to the chapter that we read, Philippians chapter 3, and the
text you'll find in verse 7. What things were gained to me,
those I counted lost for Christ. With Judaism, the Judaizers And
as the Gospel was preached, that is salvation by grace, that it
is undeserved love, that it is the righteousness of the Lord
Jesus Christ that is able to be obtained that it is God who
was well satisfied with his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, that the
whole central theme of the Gospel revolves around the life and
the death and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and
that Christ himself has fulfilled the whole law, every line and
every dot of the law on behalf of his people and yet such is
the beauty of the gospel, yet so offensive was that to many
of the Jews and to the Pharisees that they sought to claw back
something of the law and to bring the law alongside the work of
Christ, that you needed to be circumcised, you needed to follow
the law of God, They needed to continue having the temple worship
and they didn't want an abandonment of their lifestyle which they
were so entrenched in. They couldn't realise that Christ
was sufficient. Christ was the fulfilment of
all of the Old Testament, all of the ceremonial laws, all of
the law itself, that everything finished with the Lord Jesus
Christ. And we see in those Pharisees and those Jews that constant
trying to claw back and undermine the beauty of the gospel of the
Lord Jesus. And so many of these they were
self-righteous. They deemed themselves as right
before God. They deemed themselves as acceptable
in the sight of God. They saw themselves as not as
bad as the law said they were or not as bad as God saw them. And so they strived for this
righteousness. Paul, he tells us that he was
one of these Pharisees. He was able to be he thought that he could boast
and if anyone could boast about his sufficiency outside of Christ
it was him. And so he tells the Philippians
and us even today and the early church that to beware of people
who try to pull us back to legalism and he calls them Dogs. Beware of dogs. Beware of evil
workers. Beware of the concision. For we are the circumcision which
worship God in the spirit. You understood that external
circumcision it never really did anything. But there is this
circumcision of the heart, the cleansing of the heart. And it's
those who has had their heart worked upon by God. Those are
the true Israel. Those are the true workers of
God. Those are the true ones who worship
God in spirit and in truth. It's not external. rituals that
people go through but it is an internal working of God in the
heart and those who have seen or experienced that internal
working of God upon their heart are able to acknowledge with
Paul They have no confidence in the flesh. They understand
that their flesh is weak and they understand that their flesh
is prone to pride and to sinfulness. And so they have no confidence
in their flesh but their confidence rests upon the Lord Jesus Christ
and him and him alone. The Pharisee And Paul in his
unconverted day rested upon his own works of righteousness, his
own keeping of the law. He believed that his good works
would free him from the guilt of sin, that his obedience and
his sacrifice and his labour under the law would please God
and eradicate any sin, that God would accept him on his own grounds,
on his own works, on his own merit. But we know that is impossible. It is impossible. Because even
when we do good, evil is present with us. And so no amount of
works can eradicate any sin that we have already committed. Even
if we started today to live totally perfectly before God, there is
still an untold catalogue of sin behind us which has to be
dealt with and no amount of work that we can do can put away our
sin. So you have to come to that conclusion
that the law can't help. The law points us and declares
to us that we are guilty. And so that points us then to
Christ. There is nobody who can be just
by keeping the law of God. Think of the time the apostle
would have spent the time that the Jews, the Pharisees spent
seeking perfection. You read of Martin Luther and
the time that he spent seeking to appease his conscience, seeking
to satisfy the law but every time he tried to do good He seemed
to get worse and worse and worse until he came to understand that
the just must live by faith. We are justified by faith in
the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not just a life of ticking
boxes that we wake up in the morning and we tick the box,
or we've read this morning, or we tick the box, we've done our
prayer, or we've ticked the box, we've helped old Mrs. So-and-so across the road, or
we've ticked the box, we've been a courteous driver, we've allowed
somebody to come out. And there are people who do that.
I had a friend who was a Jehovah's Witness and he believed that
if he let somebody out of a junction, you know, God would be pleased
with him. He'd get a tick, a plus, and that if he got enough pluses
then God would be very pleased. The same as the Muslims. It's
a works-based religion. The more they do, they believe,
the more that they will satisfy God. But no amount of ticking
boxes will ever satisfy God's holy law. will never appease
God for the catalogue of sins that we have committed in the
past. No amount of being nice to people can eradicate what
we have already done. No amount of being nice to people
can remove those times when we haven't been nice to people. And what about God himself? To
love God with all of our heart, soul and mind. To have no other
gods before him. How easy it is for us to make
ourselves a God, to make our works a God, to make our husbands
or wives or children little gods. Take our minds off the true and living
God. We can't love God with all of our heart, soul and mind,
not for a moment. And Paul had to come to realise
that. He had to realise that all his
life that he had been labouring and labouring for perfection,
all his life, everything that he had accumulated, he had been
wasting his time. All the time he had been trying
to seek God's favour by trying to climb up to God. He hadn't
realised that God had already stooped down to man. As we look Maybe at the life
of the Apostle Paul or the life of someone who is seeking to
live religiously by works. You may look at their life and
you might think well they are a godly person. They are doing
nice things and they are sacrificing themselves. Think of those who
do give up their lives like Mother Teresa for service for others. What's their motive? What was
the Apostle Paul's motive for his zeal in persecuting the church? It was he thought to please God. The motive behind it is to gain
the favour of God. The Lord Jesus Christ has already
gained the favour of God. The Lord Jesus Christ has already
fulfilled the law of God. The Lord Jesus Christ has already
satisfied the wrath of God. so all Paul's works and all the
works of those who deem to appease or gain the favor of God they will fail although their lives
might look righteous yet when God looks at that life he sees sin You see sin are works of righteousness
outside of Christ. They are sinful before a holy
God. They're seeking to gain the favour
of God but without having God themselves. They want the blessings
of God but they don't want to have true fellowship with God. They want God on their own terms.
not God on his terms. God on his terms can only be
known through the Lord Jesus Christ. You cannot know God and
not know Christ and you cannot know Christ and not know God. The Apostle Paul had to come
to know the Lord Jesus Christ. He had to lose sight of himself. He had to lose sight of I me. Isn't that what works does? It
puffs up the flesh. It makes people proud. It's what
I have done. I have gone here. I have helped
somebody. I have spoken in a nice way.
I, I, I. And we see that with the the
man who went to the temple to pray. It's all about himself. In Luke chapter 18, Jesus says,
and two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee, just
like the Apostle Paul, he was a Pharisee, and the other a tax
collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed
thus with himself, God, I thank thee that I am not as other men,
extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican, I fast
twice in the week. I give tithes of all that I possess. It's all about himself. What
he had done. What he believed God would be
pleased with. He had added to God's law. God had never said you need to
fast twice a week. God had never said you need to
give tithes of all that you possess. And it was all about himself.
How what he was doing was to gain the favour of God. The other said God be merciful
to me a sinner. You see the Pharisee didn't feel
that he needed mercy. He believed that God was pleased
with him and that he should deal with him and to be pleased with
him. but the tax collector understood
that he needed mercy. And so the apostle Paul had to
lose sight of himself. He had to lose sight of I. He says, before he was converted, though
I might also have confidence in the flesh If any other man
think that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more. Circumcise the eighth day of
the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, and Hebrew of the
Hebrews, as touching the law a Pharisee. Concerning zeal,
persecuting the church, touching righteousness which is in the
law blameless. That's where he came from. That's
what he was trusting in prior to his conversion. He was circumcised. He was a Jew. He was of the tribe
of Benjamin. He knew his lineage. He knew
everything about his ancestors. He knew where he came from. He
believed that he was a zealous Pharisee working for God, killing
the Christians, persecuting the Christians. Under the law he
believed that he was blameless before the law. Maybe he was. Maybe outwardly he hadn't committed
any external sin. Maybe he didn't even lie. Yet we know that the law goes
deeper than just those things which we have and haven't done
externally. Jesus tells us it goes right
down into the heart of man, into the heart of men, women and boys
and girls. It's out of the abundance of
the heart the mouth speaks and so it's the heart that stands
guilty before God. The soul is dead before God,
separated from him. The Scriptures tell us that the
heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. That is how God views us. Lawbreakers
and desperately wicked. And so no amount of obedience
to the law can please a holy and a just God. And so Paul had
to lose sight of I, what I have done. And he had to come face
to face with the Lord Jesus Christ. We see in his conversion. In Acts chapter 9, verse 3, and as he journeyed,
he came near Damascus and suddenly there shined round about him
a light from heaven. And he fell to the earth and
heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou
me? And he said, who art thou, Lord?
And he said, I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest. Is it hard
for thee to kick against the pricks? And he trembling and
astonished said, Lord, what would thou have me to do? And the Lord
said unto him, arise and go into the city, and it shall be told
thee what thou must do. And so here it is that the great
I met with the great I am. The great I, the fulfiller of
the law, the Apostle Paul who believed in his own righteousness,
in his own goodness, in his own zeal, now met with the one who
he was persecuting, the Lord Jesus Christ. And he says, I
am Jesus whom you are persecuting. And now it all stopped. He lost
sight of I. And he comes to be blinded and
he's blinded for three days without eating or drinking. All his glory now is gone. You
can see the great change in this man. on his way to Damascus,
breathing out threatenings and slaughter to the disciples of
the Lord Jesus Christ, filled with holy zeal, as he thought. Then he meets with the Lord Jesus.
His life is completely smashed. All his righteousness disappears.
All his holy zeal disappears. And now he's just in a room,
blinded, and not eating and drinking. He's just sitting there. No doubt
he is praying to Christ, meditating on his past life and meditating
on what has taken place, but everything that he had trusted
in was now gone. All his pharisaism, his religion
had now gone. All those years of seeking to
please God, ticking all the boxes, doing what is right, now accounts
to nothing. It's all lost. He's blind. He's fasting in a room waiting
for further instruction and the Lord brings to him Ananias and
he is sent to him and he receives his sight. Jesus brother saw
the Lord Jesus that appeared unto thee in the way as thou
camest has sent me that thou mightest receive thy sight and
be filled with the Holy Ghost and immediately there fell from
his eyes as it had been scales and he received sight forthwith
and arose and was baptized and when he had received meat he
was strengthened and then saw certain days with the disciples
that were at Damascus and straightway he preached Christ in the synagogues
that he is the son of God. A complete change. He now understood
things that he had never understood before. He now understood that
his righteousness was as a filthy rag before God. and that he was
trusting in the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ and
that alone. In Isaiah 64 you see Saul, he
would have known all of these scriptures. He would have known
what the prophet Isaiah said. we are as an unclean thing and
all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags and we do fade as
a leaf and our iniquities like the wind have taken us away and
there is none that called it upon thy name that stir it up
himself to take hold of thee for thou has hid thy face from
us thou has consumed us because of our iniquities But now, O
Lord, thou art our father. We are the clay, thou art the
potter, and we are the work of thy hands. And so the apostle
would have known clearly all the dealings of the Lord's people
in the Old Testament. He would have known their failings
and their backslidings. He would know exactly what Isaiah
prophesied. and spoke about how God saw the
Lord's people, that they were unclean before him, they had
sinned against him, that their righteousnesses were as filthy
rags before a holy God. But he had failed to understand,
he'd failed to see himself in that prophecy or in God's sight. He was a Pharisee of the Pharisees.
If anyone was getting to heaven, he was. He could pray long. He could sit in the upper rooms
but he didn't realise the Lord Jesus Christ. He didn't realise
the extent by which God can look into his motives and his heart
and see everything that is going on. And so when he is saved when
he is changed, he immediately sees everything clearly. He sees
his uncleanness. He sees his unrighteousness. He sees his works as a filthy
rag before God. He now understood the woes that
Jesus spoke to the Pharisees, that they were hypocrites, that
they were whitewashed sepulchres. He understood that God looked
into the heart. and saw the filth out there,
in there. There was no point in just washing
the outside of the cup. There was the need to wash the
inside of the cup. There was no point just painting
the tombs with a whitewash when inside of those tombs were dead
men's bones. And Jesus says to them, even
so, ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men but within
ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. Isn't that what conversion does?
Conversion makes us see who we are before a holy God that our
God is holy that he looks into our hearts and he sees the sinfulness
that is there. He examines our lives and he
sees that we have broken the law both outwardly and inwardly. But he brings us to realise that. And Paul was brought to realise that those
things that were once gained to him, those things that he
once trusted in and rested upon and gloried in and were proud
of, they were nothing to him anymore.
He counted them as loss for Christ. He willingly gave up everything
and fell upon the Lord Jesus Christ. It's like the man in
the parable that Jesus tells about
the kingdom of heaven. In Matthew 13, from verse 45,
he says again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant
man seeking goodly pearls. When he has found one pearl of
great price, went and sold all that he had. and brought it. In verse 44, again the kingdom
of heaven is like unto a treasure hid in a field, the which when
a man hath found he hideth and for joy thereof goeth and selleth
all that he hath and buyeth that field. And so the apostle Paul
for all that he had obtained as a Pharisee gave it all up. lost it all, his status, his
lifestyle, his works of righteousness, everything. He gave it all up
for the Lord Jesus Christ. He counted them as nothing, as
loss for the Lord Jesus Christ. Those things that he counted
as gain, lost for Christ. Yea, doubtless 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 done that I may win Christ. be found in him not
having mine own righteousness which is of the law, but that
which is through faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of
God by faith. And so he comes to this realisation
that his righteousness is useless He counts it as rubbish, as dung,
something to be cast away. The literal translation is something
to be thrown out to the dogs, the most worthless and disgusting
thing that there could be. That he counted his own righteousness,
his own goodness as nothing in the sight of a holy God. in those books that tell you
about the language. It says something like the dross
or the dregs or even feces, animal feces, something to be thrown
out completely, the scraps of everything. That's what he saw
his old life. And his life, we could say, was
of a high standing. Yet in comparison with the righteousness
of God in Christ Jesus, his righteousness is whereas as nothing was as
vile before a holy God. How often we miss the point. How often we believe that we've
been saved by grace but there's something in us that God looked
upon and decided to save us. He believed that God saw something
in us that was worthy of saving. But it's not true. We're saved by grace, undeserved
love and everything prior to Christ. Anything that we thought good,
that God would appreciate has to be cast out. and we have to rest in Christ
and Christ alone. Remember Adam and Eve. After
they sinned they sewed themselves fig leaves together and they
made themselves aprons. In Genesis 3 they knew they were
naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves
aprons. But to God that was not acceptable.
God made them coats of skins and he clothed them. There he
provided for them a covering. What they had made, what they
had done looked suitable to them. They believed that they had covered
themselves suitably but in the sight of God that was not suitable. so he removes it and he gives
them coats of skin, something to clothe them and to cover them
and it was God that provided that. Obviously if it was a coat
of skin there must have been a sacrifice, there must have
been something that died to give its skin to Adam and to Eve. And so the Lord has provided
a sacrifice, a skin, a covering for his people, the righteousness
of God, which is by faith, the apostle calls it, that which
is by faith in Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus
speaks of the wedding feast. those who were invited to that
wedding feast were all granted that special wedding garment
and there was somebody who came into that feast without the wedding
garment and he is told, friend how did you get in here? How
did you get in without the wedding garment? And he is told that
he is to be thrown out into the place of weeping and gnashing
of teeth. So it shows us there that this
man was resting in himself. He was not willing to submit
to the rule or the law of the invitation to the party. The others were clothed but he
didn't want that clothing. Apostle Paul to start with didn't
want that clothing he was satisfied with his own clothing but when
the Lord opened his eyes he saw he needed a righteousness which
was not by the law but righteousness which is by faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ the righteousness which God has provided through the Lord Jesus Christ's
finished work. that he provides a righteousness
for his people and those people count everything prior to receiving
that righteousness as dung and they're willing to throw all
away and rest in the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
it is of grace. If you look at the Apostle Paul,
what was he doing that was pleasing to God at that time? in his life,
nothing. He was actively persecuting the
church which was persecuting Christ. He was doing nothing
at that moment in time pleasing or worthy of salvation but God
chose him before the foundation of the world to redeem him and
to use him And so at the appointed time in his life, the Lord entered
into his life and transformed him and saved him. And so he
didn't deserve it. And none of us deserve it. If
we deserved it, then it would no longer be grace. If we deserved
salvation, there would be no need of the Lord Jesus Christ
because we could just all obtain our own righteousness and get
to heaven ourselves. And so it's not of works lest
anyone should boast. And so there's nothing in us,
it's not because we have done anything but it's because God
loved us and showed himself to us and dealt with us. And so the apostle sees that
he counts those things as done. that he may win Christ. He's willing to lose everything
to lay hold of the Lord Jesus Christ. For those things which were gained
to me, I counted loss for Christ. Nay, doubtless 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 done that I may win Christ. May the Lord help us then to
realise the extent of our salvation that it is of grace, completely
of grace. We were not worthy to receive
the least of the Lord's mercies but in his wrath he dealt in
mercy. May we respond then to that grace,
to that love, like the Apostle Paul, that he suffered the loss
of all things, that he may know Christ and have a greater experimental
knowledge of Christ in his life. And as we continue following May we grow in grace and in the
knowledge of the Lord Jesus, as did the Apostle Paul, as he
presses towards the mark for the high calling of God in Christ
Jesus. May the Lord add his blessing.
Amen. Let us sing our final hymn, 372,
from Gatsby's, to the tune 625, 372. Glorious things of thee
are spoken, Zion, city of our God, he whose word cannot be
broken, form thee for his own abode. On the rock of ages founded,
what can shake thy sure repose? With salvation's walls surrounded,
thou may smile at all thy foes. Zion, city of our God, Thee whose
word cannot be broken, Formed thee for His own abode, On the
rock of ages bounding, What can shake thy sure repose? With salvation's walls surrounded,
Thou mayst smile at all thy foes. See the streams of living waters,
springing from eternal love, well supply thy sons and daughters
And all fear of what we move Who can faint for such a river? never flows their thirstless
rage. Grace which thine can order giver
never fails from age to age. Round each habitation hovering
Sing the count of our appeal For a glory and a covering Showing
that the Lord is near us arriving from heaven, night by night and
shade by day, strength they feed upon the manna which he gives
them when they pray. Best inhabitants of Zion, washed
in the river's blood, Jesus, whom their souls rely on, makes
them His and brings to God. Tis is the day people raise this
O'er the South to reign as kings And as priests in solemn praises
O'er the land of the free and brave Almighty God, we do thank Thee
for the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ and we pray,
Lord, that Thou help us to see the extent of our sin and the
abundant grace which Thou has bestowed upon Thy people. We do thank Thee that it is of
grace that we are saved. And we pray that we may be enabled
to live a life in response to that grace, that love that has
been showed upon us. We pray, Lord, that thou dismiss
us with thy blessing and do return us here on thy day according
to thy will. And now by the grace of the Lord
Jesus Christ and the love of God the Father, fellowship of
the Holy Spirit to be with us each now and forevermore. Amen. Amen.