We're going to be in Philippians
chapter 1 and we're going to be looking at verses 8 through
11. Now in reading the opening of
this letter, one readily sees that Paul is describing and speaking
of a bounty of righteous fruit which is born in every believer,
and it springs, that righteous fruit that is born in us springs
forth out of that good work that Christ works in his people. It's born out of the grace of
our God from the abundance of his riches toward his people
in the Lord Jesus Christ. So in this passage that we're
looking at this morning, we'll see how that Christ is the builder
of his house. Christ builds the house, his
church, and she bears righteous fruit of him, so that the fruit
she bears is all to the praise and the glory of the Lord Jesus
Christ." When we're speaking of the fruit we bear, we give
credit to where credit is due. It's of the Lord's doing that
we bear anything that is righteous or good to the Lord. It's His
work in us. So our title is Christ's Good
Work. Christ's Good Work. And we'll
have three divisions. We'll look at the mystery of
godliness. We'll look at this fruit in our
text described as knowledge and judgment, and then proving all
things. We'll close with that. So all
the fruit that's witnessed in a believer, along with the tracing
out of their character and their circumspect walk in this life,
it's all born out of the truth that's contained in that verse,
verse 6. Look at verse 6 with me, Philippians
1, 6, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform
it until the day of Jesus Christ. So that what the scriptures are
teaching us throughout is that Christ is the Alpha and the Omega. Christ is the beginning and the
end. The scriptures describe him as
the author and the finisher of our faith. He's the first and
the last. So if you're wondering, the answer
is yes. I am saying that all the fruit,
all that precious righteous fruit that a believer brings forth
It's all to the praise and glory of His name. He's the one that
worked it in us. It's His seed that is planted
in us through which we bear fruit. This doesn't come forth from
this flesh. This flesh is wicked. This flesh
isn't improved at all. It's all worked in us by the
seed of the Lord Jesus Christ. As Christ said in John 15, verse
5, He said, I am the vine. Ye are the branches, he that
abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much
fruit, for without me ye can do nothing. We can do nothing
apart from Christ. Now the Apostle Paul, who's writing
this letter, he understood it very well. And if you want a
visual, when you're going home or where you're staying, if it's
okay, you can break off a branch or you can saw off a branch or
you can clip off a branch and throw it by your front door and
every day walk outside and look at it. Is that branch that's
broken off from the tree, is it bringing forth anything green?
or is what's on it dying and becoming withered and brown.
And just like that branch that can bring forth nothing, no good
fruit, when it's separated from the tree, we can't bring forth
anything of ourselves. It's Christ that brings forth
fruit from his people. We who want to be pleasing to
the Lord God, we who are convicted of our sin and ashamed for the
works that we do in this flesh, don't seek for righteousness,
don't seek for justification or your sanctification in looking
to the law. Look to the Lord Jesus Christ. As Paul said, you know, so many
people look to the law of Moses, but Paul said, are ye so foolish
Having begun in the spirit, are you now made perfect by the flesh? And that's what so much of religion
does. They start you off in Christ,
they get you going in Christ, and before long, they take away
that food that's for the sheep, and they slip in the food for
the goats, and they start having you look away from Christ and
look to the law for some part of your salvation, to complete
something that Christ himself apparently isn't able to do and
work in the believer. but throughout the scriptures
and Paul was used mightily of God to do this constantly pointing
us back to the Lord Jesus Christ for not just our justification
but even our sanctification and the comfort and the hope that
we have in Christ. The moment we begin to look to
our works and what we're doing or not doing what we're doing
consistently or inconsistently that's where we begin to doubt
and fear and become afraid and rightly so because we don't have
any righteousness of ourselves. All our righteousness, all our
standing before God is only and always in the Lord Jesus Christ.
It's not in ourselves and in our work. So we're to seek Christ
and not the law of Moses and thinking that the law of Moses
is now going to supplement something that Christ fails to do in us.
Remember that verse, he that hath begun a good work in you
was faithful to complete it to the end. He's going to bring
it to the end of that day when Christ returns. So trust the
one who gave you that hunger and thirst for his righteousness,
that he's going to continue to keep you and feed you with his
righteousness. He's going to bear that righteous
fruit in you. As Christ said, for without me
He can do nothing. So Paul understood this very
well. Even as an apostle, he understood that everything he
had, everything he was, was all done in Christ. It was through
Christ and by him. Listen to what he says in 1 Corinthians
3. 1 Corinthians 3 and verses 5 through 7. He asks, who then is Paul, and
who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed? These were
men that were used of God to preach the gospel to the people,
and they heard, the Spirit came upon them, and they heard what
was being preached, and they believed. God gave them faith
under the preaching of the gospel. And he says, even as the Lord
gave to every man. And what he's saying there is
that it's Christ who gives various gifts to his people as he wills
and as he pleases. And he goes on, verse 6, I have
planted Apollos' water, but God gave the increase. Not me, not
my skill, he's saying, but God gives the increase of the growth
of his people. That is, bringing them in and
keeping them and growing them in Christ. And he says, So then
neither is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth, but
God that giveth the increase. So we're to glory in God and
not in man. It's God that gives the increase.
All right? Then again, if you look in Ephesians
chapter 4, Ephesians chapter 4, verses 7 and 8. We'll look
there. Paul says, but unto every one
of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of
Christ. It's just like what he said back
there in 1 Corinthians 3.5, that even as the Lord gave to every
man. It's according to the measure
of the gift of Christ, wherefore he saith, when he ascended up
on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. And
then Paul, a little later in verse 11, goes on to enumerate
some of those gifts, and he says he gave some apostles, some prophets,
and some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers. And so
Paul's takeaway in all of this is what is found there in 2 Corinthians
3. Look over there in 2 Corinthians
3 verses 5 and 6. This is his takeaway in Christ, in whom he was put
into the ministry by Christ. He says, 2 Corinthians 3.5, not
that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything is of ourselves,
but our sufficiency is of God. Our sufficiency is of God, who
also hath made us able ministers of the New Testament, not of
the letter. not looking back to the Law of
Moses to perfect what Christ has begun, but of the Spirit,
for the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life. So any church that is directing
you away from Christ and turning you to the Law of Moses to to
sanctify ourselves or to walk a more circumspect life before
your God, they're turning you away from Christ, who is our
sufficiency. Christ is the sufficiency that
God has provided for His people. And He's telling us, He that
began this work in you, He'll be the one that completes this
work in you. He's going to bear righteous
fruit in you, sinner. This flesh is dead and this flesh
is sinful and weak, it's an earthen vessel, it's brittle and easily
broken. Yet the power is witnessed in
that Christ is able to continually deliver us from the love of this
world and the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and
the cares of this life, and the fear of men, He delivers us,
even in these weak vessels, so that all the glory and the praise
goes to Him. And He receives it, because He's
the one who's worthy. So, this measure of the gift
of Christ is the good work of Christ, done in the sinner, by
the Spirit of Christ in you, dwelling in you. helps us to
understand this mystery of godliness. The mystery of godliness, right? Because all the world, all the
religion of the world teaches you, well, you've got to do this,
and you've got to do that, and if you do this right, and you
do that well enough, then you'll be godly. You'll be godly in
doing these things. And they're looking to some work
that the flesh is doing, but the mystery of godliness is the
Lord Jesus Christ. That He is the very righteousness
of the believer. Look over there in 1 Timothy
3.16. That's a very well-known verse. It speaks of the mystery
of godliness. 1 Timothy 3.16. But did it ever
hit you that when you're looking at the subject of that verse,
that the subject is Jesus Christ? It never once turns you back
to the law of Moses for anything. Look at it there. He says, He
says, without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness.
God was manifest in the flesh. That's Christ. Justified in the
spirit. That's Christ. Seen of angels.
That's Christ. Preached unto the Gentiles. That's
Jesus Christ. Believed on in the world. That's
Christ. And received up into glory. That's
Christ. And Paul's declaring to us that
the mystery of godliness is Christ. That's why we preach the Lord
Jesus Christ. Because he's the one who feeds
his sheep. He's the one who restores his
sheep. He's the one that keeps his sheep.
He's the one that melts your hard heart, that warms your cold
heart, that draws you back to himself to look to him and trust
him and rest in the Lord Jesus Christ. All this world, right,
the religion is constantly telling you what you need to be doing,
what you need to be doing better, what you need to stop, and they're
never preaching Christ. They just preach some biblical
stories, or they preach Moses, and they preach what you need
to be doing, and they stop preaching the one who alone produces true
righteous fruit. Otherwise, we're just Pharisees.
Otherwise, we're just like the Pharisees who know their doctrine
really well, and put on a good show before men and women, but
there's no love for God. There's no life there in their
heart. And Paul said in Ephesians 4.15,
but speaking the truth, the truth of the gospel, declaring Christ
in love may grow up into him in all things, which is the head,
even Christ. He's always bringing it back
to Christ. We're always being kept and looking
to the one who is our true righteousness, the Lord Jesus Christ. Because
when we stand before God, we're not going to be standing and
looking at the works we've done and how well we know our system
of theology. We're going to be looking to
Him who's revealed Himself to us, who is our righteousness,
who is our hope, the Lord Jesus Christ. the one in whose robe
of righteousness, his blood that we stand before God, accepted
and confident to stand before God, who is perfect and holy. And we know ourselves in our
flesh, we're not perfect and holy. We fall short constantly. So it's the preaching of Christ
It's the preaching of his gospel, what he accomplished for us,
that engenders in us that love for Christ and that love for
our brethren. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 8.1,
at the end there, he said, knowledge, just knowing things, it puffeth
up. That knowledge, apart from What
Christ has accomplished for us, it just puffs a person up. It puffs them up. But love, charity,
love edifies. That's what edifies, is that
love. And so Christ, that righteous fruit that Christ bears in us,
is love. And when you're looking at the
law, we saw it in the last hour, when you're watching what everybody
else is doing, what your brethren are doing, or what they should
be doing, it doesn't engender love. It causes you to start
despising people because they're not living up to the standard
you expect them to live up to, or you're envying them because
they're doing it better than you are. And so you're not too
happy with that person. over there, but Paul said we
preach Christ crucified. Unto the Jews a stumbling block.
Unto the religious, those people are so good in religion, he's
a stumbling block. They stumble over him because
he is the righteousness of God and they forget that. They want
to push him aside and they want to get to doing, well, what do
I got to do to be saved? What can I do to add to this
work, and unto the Greeks his foolishness, but unto them which
are called both Jews and Greeks Christ the power of God and the
wisdom of God. To look to Christ is to confess,
Lord, You are wise. I could never have saved myself. After 10,000 years, I could never
be righteous enough to stand before You. I'd be worse, but
I could never do it. But You provided in Your Son
all the righteousness which You require for a sinner to stand
whole and complete before Almighty God, who is perfect and holy
and just in all that He does. And I'm none of those things
in my flesh. So we preach Christ and he goes
on in Ephesians 4 16 from whom the whole body fitly joined together
and compacted by that which every joint supplieth according to
the effectual working in the measure of every part maketh
increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love. So that love is born out of the
good work which Christ has begun in us. He bears out that love. And that's what we see demonstrated
here in Philippians 1, 8, and 9, these first two verses of
our text. Paul speaks of them. He says,
Philippians 1, 8, and 9, for God is my record, how greatly
I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ. He bears forth
that love and that affection that we have for our brethren
because we see He's born this light of the gospel in them too.
And all the world hates me for preaching and declaring Christ
my righteousness rather than preaching and declaring circumcision
or some work of the law that I can do. Then they would receive
me. Then I'd be embraced by the world. But because I declare
my righteousness is in the Lord Jesus Christ, they despise me.
So you, brethren, who have also been given the Spirit to look
to Him I love you." And that's what he loves them and he desires
to see them again. And he says, verse 9, this I
pray that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge
and in all judgment. So we see here how that this
knowledge of Christ, that this work of Christ in us, this good
work that He's worked in us, it produces love to Him, and
it produces love for the brethren, because they are His people,
the people of God. So, now let's look at this next
point, the fruit of knowledge and judgment. Where Christ has
begun this work in us, we see love is born, and it's further
strengthened. That love that we have for Christ
is strengthened by knowledge and judgment. And what does that
mean? It's speaking of this knowledge
and this understanding that we're growing up into to see what Christ
has accomplished for us. Because we don't know it, right?
When you go and you take a tomato seed and you put it in your garden,
you don't go to sleep and you put a little water on it, you
don't go to sleep that night, wake up the next day and there's this
big stalk and all this lush green leaves on it and big plump ripe
fruit, juicy fruit on it. No, it takes time. And in the
same way, the Lord reveals the gospel to us, and he shows us
that Christ is the hope of the sinner, that he died for me,
that his blood was shed for me, and he shows us what Christ accomplished
for us, that he's a successful Savior. He didn't fail. He's
a successful Savior. And he shows us that, but he
continues to reveal that more and more by showing us what he
himself has accomplished." So it's in knowledge and in judgment.
In another word there, the margin says sense. We have this sense,
a growing sense of what Christ has accomplished for me, an unworthy,
vile sinner. He did this for me. And so we see how we come to
know that we're dead in trespasses and sins. I'm not standing here
as a pastor and you're not sitting there as believers because you
worked some righteousness of your own that God isn't looking
to you to say, wow, you did good enough, now I'll finish off the
rest here. That's not why we're here. We
were dead, the scriptures declare, we were dead in trespasses and
in sins. And Paul goes on to say, in Ephesians
2, he says, wherein in time past we walked according to the course
of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air,
the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience,
among whom also we all had our conversation in times past. in
the lusts of the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and
of the mind, and we're by nature the children of wrath, even as
others." We're all sinners. There's nothing that we can look
to and say, well, that's why God loves me now. There's nothing
that we've done or can do that would motivate God or change
God's mind to say, all right, they're pretty good, I'm going
to set my love upon them. But it's Christ who makes this
known to us, that we are sinners. He brings us to see that we're
condemned under the law, that we are not worthy of salvation,
that the only thing we've earned are the wages of sin, which is
death and eternity in hell. That's what we've earned and
warranted for our works. But the Lord grants us repentance,
and we see that this repentance we've been granted isn't, again,
it's not this flesh that repents, it's what God has given to us
as a gift. He's granted us repentance to
see that God doesn't save sinners because of some work that they've
done, And that's the world that teaches that. But he turns us,
he gives us repentance from dead works religion to look to Christ
and to believe him and to see, oh, it's Christ whereby God receives
me. It's by Christ's blood that God
has made me righteous. It's through Christ that I'm
accepted with God. And we never go outside of Christ.
We stay right there because it's in Christ that God looks upon
us always. It's the wicked that God doesn't
look upon through Christ. He sees them outside of Christ,
and that's why they're going to stand before him in their
own works, and they're going to blow away like a dead rotten
leaf, because no man is righteous enough to please God or to do
what God requires. It says, for this cause, because
we ourselves are unable to bring forth any good work, for this
cause, Christ tells us, came I into the world, that I should
bear witness unto the truth, everyone that is of the truth
heareth my voice. We look to him who is the shepherd.
We look to Christ who is the very righteousness of his people. And for this cause, Peter tells
us in 1 Peter 4, 6, for this cause was the gospel preached
also to them that are dead, us who are dead in trespasses and
sins. For this cause, this gospel is
preached to them that are dead, that they might be judged according
to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the Spirit,
so that the Spirit of God makes us to take sides against ourselves
and stand with God and say, Yes, Lord, you are right. You are
just to condemn me. Thank you, Lord, for delivering
me from this wicked flesh and making me righteous in the Lord
Jesus Christ." So that's a dead sinner here in the gospel. They
don't continue to look to their works. They look to Christ and
they stay in Him. So that's the repentance that
God gives us and He shows us. This is a work that He's given
us. He's the one who turned us from vain dead works. And then
we see as the Lord blesses us under the gospel, we see more
and more how that He's our redemption. It says in Romans 3, 24, being
justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is
in Christ Jesus. So we see that God saves us by
grace. It's His grace that saves us
through Christ. It's not anything that we've
done. We don't ever head to this work that Christ has done. And
we see how that We are the purchased possession of the Lord Jesus
Christ now. He purchased us. And the purchased
price being His blood, as it says in verse 325, whom God hath
set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood to
declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are
past through the forbearance of God. That word, propitiation,
a lot of times you see that and you're like, well, I'm not even
sure what propitiation means. And when it describes Christ
as being the propitiation that God's provided, he's just saying
that Christ is the means of our forgiveness. It's because of
Christ that God forgives us, washes our sins. He washes us
in the blood of Christ. Christ's blood is that purchased
price that God accepts. to whereby he now forgives us
and is merciful to us and gracious to us, all because of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And so then it says there, verse
26, to declare, I say at this time, his righteousness, that
he might be just and the justifier of them which believe it in Jesus
Christ. So God is now able to be both
just and to justify us because of that faithful work that Christ
did. And then we see here that from this work of redemption
we come to find that what Christ did in paying the price and putting
away our sins, he was just following through on the election of God,
when God chose out a people for himself. Christ came and fulfilled
that. Our choosing, our election wasn't
based on any work we did, it was all done by God in eternity,
when God did it. It says in Ephesians 1 4-7, we
see our salvation, Ephesians 1, 4-7, it's according as he
hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world,
that we should be holy and without blame before him in love, having
predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to
himself according to the good pleasure of his will. So he's
never looking to the sinner, having done neither good nor
evil. It's according to God's good pleasure that he does this.
And he didn't leave it to us in order to earn these rich blessings,
but he says in verse six, to the praise of the glory of his
grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved, in whom
we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins
according to the riches of his grace. There's no place for our
worse. God is never looking to the sinner.
He never looks to the sinner. If He looked to the sinner, we'd
all perish. We'd all perish in our sins.
But He looks to Christ always. And that's why there's love for
Christ. That's why we love Him. And as
we grow in this knowledge of what He's accomplished for us,
We're amazed, and because we see then even this, that He gives
us the new birth. We must be born again. He provides
it. He gives that new birth. He regenerates
us, gives us life by His Spirit. And so we're called out of that
prison of darkness. And the Lord says, Prisoner,
show yourselves. He calls us out of that darkness. And we're unable to stand before
Him because it's not in our own strength, not in our righteousness,
but in that righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. As Peter
wrote, well he gives us that spiritual sense, you know, he
gives us that heart, he gives us those eyes, he gives us those
ears to hear him, those senses, he works that. And that sense
gains a sense and an understanding of what he's accomplished for
us completely, that he's done all the work, and he's a successful
Savior, and he cannot fail. He shall not fail, he cannot
ever fail. And it says Peter wrote, when
he wrote to them, he said, to them who have obtained like precious
faith with us. We're given that faith. We've
received that faith. It's not a work of the flesh.
It's a work of Christ in us that bears that belief and that faith
in Christ. It's to this knowledge of God
and of Jesus our Lord was all that was according as his divine
power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life
and godliness. And that's in 1 Peter 1 3. All
things he's given us. All things that pertain unto
life and godliness. Does that mean our faith? Yep, that means
your faith. That means my love for Christ?
Yes, that means your love for Christ. Does that mean my steadfastness
and my perseverance in Christ? Yes, he's given unto us all things
that pertain unto life and godliness. There's our sanctification, our
wisdom, our redemption, our righteousness. God has made Christ unto us all
things that pertain unto godliness. He's made him everything to the
believer, so that we may confidently rest in him and not worry and
fear death and be afraid and ask, have I done enough? Have
I done enough? No, you haven't done enough. I haven't done enough.
None of us have ever done enough. But Christ has done enough. He's
done all that work. So believer, sinner, you can
stand just resting in Christ. Believe Him and not fear death
because Christ is all your hope. You're not trusting in any of
your works. When you look at yourself, you're like, I'm not
good enough. You're not, and I'm not, but
Christ is, and that's who God is looking to, is the Lord Jesus
Christ. As we see even with Paul, as
he grew in that judgment, he understood that Christ came to
save sinners, he understood that. And then towards the end of his
life, he writes to Timothy, this is a faithful saying, that Jesus
Christ is coming to the world to save sinners, of whom I am
chief. And see, that's what we see as
we grow in this knowledge. In a sense, we see more and more,
wow, I thought I was a filthy, vile, wretched sinner to begin
with. I see even more now, clearly, what Christ has really done,
and how faithful He is, and how patient He is, and how kind He
is to continually draw me back. Because I was so far, way over
there, and the Lord didn't strike me down as my sins deserve, but
He faithfully, gently drew me to Himself with cords of love,
and he washed me in his blood and he forgives me and he restores
me again my hope in the Lord Jesus Christ. All right, now
as we hear this gospel and the Spirit applies the truth of his
grace to our hearts, that righteous fruit of love for what Christ
has done for us, it grows in us and it comes forth and it
results in the praise of the glory of his grace wherein he
hath made us accepted in the beloved. But for many religionists
who have left their first love, that Christ is not enough, they
get so focused on their religious duties and they start laboring
under the law because they're not resting in Christ and they're
not satisfied that he's done enough. And they think that,
well, now I've got to spend, what do I do now? I got to spend
my time studying something, and so they start looking at the
law, and they start becoming students of the law, and they
look to that, and that's where all the trouble comes. Either
for themselves, because they're never going to be satisfied,
they're never going to measure up to the law, or they're going
to start thinking that they have measured up, and they're going
to judge their brethren, and be cruel, and harsh, and despise
their brethren, because none of us lives up to the law. perfectly. So people get to jockeying for
some better position in the family of God and there's no love but
only a cold, hard indifference. And we become Pharisees when
we study the law and we don't rest in Christ. And so we're
not to look to the law for our righteousness or our sanctification.
Now, let's go on. In life we have of the Spirit
in the life that we now have in Christ. Paul goes on in verse
10, that ye may approve things that are excellent, that ye may
be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ. And so the love that Christ has
worked in us. This love, it stands up to the
scrutiny, or that truth stands up to the scrutiny of this world,
this world's religion, and how it proves us. But the light of
God What I mean is that they're trying to cause us to doubt Christ,
but we may rest in Christ because God Himself proved Christ. He
proved that He is the Son of God and that He did accomplish
our redemption. When He raised Him from the dead,
that was all the testimony we need to know that God is pleased
with Christ and that He satisfied the Father perfectly and that
there's nothing more to be done. And Paul goes on, he's saying
in 2 Corinthians 4 verses 1 and 2, Paul says, therefore seeing
we have this ministry. What ministry? This ministry
where we declare reconciliation to God through Jesus Christ.
We stop pointing people to their works and we say, look to the
Lord Jesus Christ because Through Him, we are reconciled to God. God accepts us in His Son, Jesus
Christ. And as we have received mercy,
we faint not, but have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty,
not walking in craftiness nor handling the word of God deceitfully,
but by manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves to every
man's conscience in the sight of God. And you see that kind
of behavior when you're in a place where they've made it very clear,
we don't do that here. We don't do this and we don't
do that and don't let us catch you doing that thing. What do
people do? they still do it, but they start
lurking about in the darkness like cockroaches, right? They
know so-and-so is coming over, so they put away those things
that they know they shouldn't be doing, and they pretend like
they don't do that, and they put on a good show for people
because that's condemned and they shouldn't be doing that.
And that's the fruit of dead false religion. But Paul says,
We renounce those things. We preach Christ. We preach the
Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified because He's our righteousness.
And we trust, and I love that verse that Paul wrote, such trust
have we through Christ to God. We are so confident that Christ
is able to work righteousness in you, that He's able to cause
you to walk. He's gonna, if there's some sin
you gotta let go, He'll teach you through the gospel. If there's
something that he's calling you to do, he'll work it. And all
we do is just keep preaching Christ and what he accomplished.
Because that's that food and that nourishment and that comfort
for the believer. And so he works that in us. That's the confidence we have
in Christ. If we weren't confident in Him,
we'd stop preaching Him. And we'd start preaching, well,
you better look to the law, to Mount Sinai now, where there's
thunderings and lightnings and smokings and animals being thrust
through with a dart and killings and slayings. That's what we'd
be looking to. But because we have trust in Christ, we don't
got to threaten you and beat you and whip you. We just preach
Christ, knowing that I trust your souls to the Lord Jesus
Christ, and that's why I preach him, because he's the one who
saves to the uttermost. I can't do it any better, and
the law can't do it any better than what Christ is able to do,
and he does it to the uttermost. We stop glorying in the flesh,
we stop hiding, pretending like we're something when we're really
nothing. We're trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ because Christ
is sufficient to save. So we rest in Him, we can let
go of all that dishonesty and that crafty walking and that
that hiding behind things and pretending like we're something
when we're really nothing. We're just sinners saved by His
grace, and we're thankful for that. And He grows us in that
knowledge. He grows us in that sense and that judgment that
Christ is sufficient. Yep, He's enough. He's enough
for me. Thank you, Lord. And we confess,
therefore, that all our fruits of righteousness are His work.
They're all born in us. If you see anything good in me,
and we do. We look at our brethren and we
think they are so good. The Lord is so merciful. And
we look at ourselves and we're like, man, I wish I could be
like them and just trust the Lord and rest faithfully in Him. And all that fruit we're confessing,
anything good that you see in me, it's not of this flesh. It's
of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's His praise and His glory,
as He says in verse 11, being filled with the fruits of righteousness,
which are by Jesus Christ unto the glory and praise of God. So God receives all that praise
and glory. And I'll close with this verse
in Ephesians 2.10, for we are his workmanship, created in Christ
Jesus unto good works which God hath before ordained that we
should walk in him. So brethren, bless God for Christ's
good work in you. Let's pray. Our gracious Lord,
we thank you, Father, for sending your Son, for doing that work
which we can never do ourselves. and that he is a sufficient Savior
and that he is provided full, free, and complete salvation.
We thank you, Lord. We ask that you will continue
to cause us to look to him, deliver us from the deceitfulness of
this world, the deceitfulness of sin, the deceitfulness of
riches and trusting in our works. Deliver us from that 11, that
dead letter 11 of the Pharisees and cause us to stand in Christ
and rest in his blood alone knowing that you provided him for that
very purpose to save your people to the uttermost. Bless this
people, Lord, knit our hearts together in love and in the fellowship
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Lord, we pray for our brethren
who are sick and ill and those that know that they are dying
with disease like cancer, Lord, give them grace to look to Christ
and rest in him. And Lord, we pray for Steve that
you would just prepare him, keep him well for this procedure coming
up. And Lord, we thank you for our
visitors. We ask that you give them wisdom and direct their
hearts in this move, Lord, that you would establish them in the
gospel, Lord. And we pray for your mercy and
grace in traveling and bringing them home safely. We ask this
in Christ Jesus, our Lord and Savior. His name. Amen.