All right, if you take your Bibles
and turn me to Philippians chapter three, Philippians chapter three. And I've entitled this message,
The Desire of the Saints. What is your desire? Believer
in Christ, what do you desire most? And as we go through this,
as Paul sets forth his desire, as Paul sets forth his wants,
I know this, that every believer in Christ will identify with
the desire that the Apostle Paul had. We all have this same desire. In this chapter, the apostle
here begins, he says, finally, brethren, rejoice in the Lord.
To write to you the same things indeed is not grievous, but for
you, it is safe. Isn't that wonderful? To preach
this gospel I preach every time. It is the same gospel and I do
this for a reason. For you, it is safe. It's good. These things that I preach, I
preach them over and over and over again, and that's good for
you. Paul said, that's good, that's safe. Why? Because false
religion don't. They don't hire this same gospel
over and over. That's why he gives this warning
in verse two. He says, beware of dogs, beware
of evil workers, beware of the concision. He's talking about
the Jews. Now all those who oppose the
gospel of God's free grace in Christ and deny that salvation
is by grace through faith in Christ alone, all who depend
on merits to make themselves acceptable with God, all who
depend upon the free will of man, those who depend upon the
law of God to make themselves holy, Paul calls them dogs. Isn't that something? In this
culture we have, everybody don't like to be offended. Well, I'll
tell you what, the gospel is offensive. To the natural man
is offensive. And God calls every false religion,
every one of them dogs. Dogs, beware of dogs. Beware of the false religion,
the concision. Why Paul says this, for we are
the circumcision which worship God in the spirit and rejoice
in Christ Jesus and have no confidence Paul said, we're real Jews. He
said, these Jews, these work mongers, these legalists that
come in, beware of them because they're not true Jews. He said,
we are the true circumcision. And what's the mark of a true Jew? Here
it is. We worship God in spirit, in
spirit. That is, we worship God, as Jesus
said, in spirit and in truth. We worship with the spirit of
God, by the spirit of God, with the truth of God and by the truth
of God. The truth is the word of God
and the word of God is who? Jesus Christ. That's how we worship
God. And remember, the outward circumcision
of the flesh, that token of the old covenant, that God made with
Abraham was like all the other tokens, all of the other sacrifices. They were simply a picture of
spiritual things. Therefore, we are born again
of the spirit of God. Our flesh and our heart have
been cut away. That old nature, what a picture
that is. That old nature has been cut
away. And God has made our hearts tender. He's made our hearts
pliable by which we may receive the things of God. He's made
us spiritual creatures, new creatures in Christ Jesus. Given a new
nature, which made us to feel our guilt. We become sensitive
to sin. Have you been made sensitive
to who you are by nature? That's a gift of God. That's
a mark of true circumcision. And we are true Israel of God. And then in power and love of
God's grace, we put all our trust, all our soul, then rest completely
and solely on the victorious work of Jesus Christ. And I'll
tell you, you can't have one without the other. You can't
have guilt and sin without coming to Christ. That's what the spirit
of God does. I know plenty of people feel guilty of sin and
never come to Christ. That's not the spirit of circumcision,
the spirit of God. He makes us feel our guilt and
need. And then he brings us to Christ
and we come to Christ. We come to Christ. And now all
we see, all our righteousness, all our wisdom, all our sanctification
and all our redemption. is done by Him. All of it is done by Him. We
are made partakers of the grace of God through union with Christ,
through union with Him. And which is not according to
the merits of our flesh. That's why Paul said we have
what? No confidence in the flesh. We have no confidence in the
flesh. Why? The flesh had nothing to do with this. John said, as
many as received him, to them gave he the right to become the
sons of God, which were born, what? Not of blood, not of kinship. My son is my son, he's my blood,
but he'll never be saved because he's my kin. not of the will
of the flesh. No man shall be saved by the
will of their nature. Matter of fact, the will of their
nature goes in the opposite direction. And no man is saved by the will
of man, some other man. I can will my children to be
saved, but I can't save them through my will. They cannot
be born again of my will. But how are we born again? We're
born again by the will of God. by the will of God. Have you received Christ? Who's
responsible for that? Who's responsible for you receiving
Christ and being made a son of God? What do we say? We say that's all of God. That's
all of God. That was God's purpose. That
was Christ's work. That was the Spirit's work. And
it's none of us. We have no confidence. Don't
you see the difference between dogs and Jews? Dogs are false
religion and true Israel of God, we don't have any confidence.
They have all the confidence in their flesh. That separates
true and false religion, friends. True religion is salvation by
God. False religion is some kind of
cooperation between God and men. Paul said this, no, we're the
true circumcision which worship God in spirit, rejoice in the
Christ Jesus. We rejoice in his work and have
no confidence in the flesh. We have nowhere to glory, nothing
to glory in. Our reception of him was totally
an act of God. We have no confidence. So then
what should we do? We should be aware of them, friends.
Now you listen, that's not put in scripture take up space. We
need to be aware of these people. Why? They're always seeking to
infiltrate the church. They've always done it for years.
They've done it even in Paul's time. They did that in the Church
of Galatia, didn't they? Those dogs, they came in preaching
circumcision in the flesh. They came preaching law. And
that's what happened to the church in our day. I'll tell you, many
of those same legalists are creeping into the church, preaching progressive
sanctification or progressive holiness by the obedience to
the law of Moses. Paul said they're not Jews, they're
dogs. They're not true believers in
Jesus Christ. But we who are quickened by the
Spirit of God to faith in Christ put absolutely no hope in our
merit, no assurance in our standing before God based on our will,
our works. So Paul by that now sets forth
his own experience. He sets forth his own experience.
He said in verse four, though I might also have confidence
in the flesh, if any other man thinketh he have whereof that
he might trust in the flesh, I more. He's getting ready to
put it out there. You know, there's an old Southern
saying, what is it? Famous last words of Redneck. Hold my beer and watch this.
That's what Paul's saying. Look, now I'm going to show you
something. Now watch this. Watch this. And he goes out and
he said, look, if anybody in this world got any more confidence
in the flesh, I got it more than you. I'm better than you all
if we judge based on this. He said, look, I was circumcised
the eighth day, the stock of Israel, the tribe of Benjamin,
Hebrew of the Hebrews, touching the law of Pharisee, concerning
zeal, persecuting the church, touching righteousness, which
is in the law, blameless. What do you mean by that? He
said, look, I was the strictest sect of the Pharisees. I knew the Old Testament scriptures
better than any other man that lived. I knew them. and thought
I had acceptance with God by my blameless conduct. He said,
now you could not find one thing wrong with me. You couldn't point
out one sin outwardly. We know that Paul sinned, but
he didn't know that. He thought he was blameless. And so strong was his faith in
his religion that he not only said it, he took action. Remember
what happened when Stephen was stoned? He held their coats and
consented unto the death of that righteous man. And you know, not only, and after
that, what the scripture said, he wreaked havoc on the church,
hauling them off, having them killed. This man was more zealous
than any other man in the Jews religion. But now after his conversion,
after he had been born again as the Spirit of God, look at
the change. Look at the change that takes
place. He says in verse seven, but what things were gained to
me, what'd he say? Those things I counted lost for
one person, Christ. Yea, doubtless, I count all things
lost. for this one thing, the excellency
of the knowledge of Jesus Christ, my Lord, whom I've suffered the
loss of all things. Now, how does this speak to your
heart? Is this not the same of you and me? We had our conversation
in time past and we walked according to the course of this world.
We thought everything was well with us. We thought being in
a religion, we had it all. We were good people. Surely God
would not punish us. We're not as bad as that man
or that man. And we thought we were blameless. Until what? Sin. came, sin revived,
and I died. When the law came in power, we
began to see that, hey, look, what we had was nothing but sin,
nothing but sin. And when we found Christ, what
did we find? We found the pearl of great price,
didn't we? We found the best thing. Therefore,
we counted all our religious efforts, all our religious works
as useless, worthless. All my religion before I knew
Christ is worthless. Now, I tell you this, and I can
say this of myself, I grew up under this gospel, friends. I
grew up under it. A lot of you didn't grow up under
this gospel. Some of you came out of a false church. You came
from freewill works religion. I grew up under the gospel. And
you talk about a Pharisee of the Pharisees. I was a Pharisee. I had all this theological knowledge
in my head, and I had no Christ in my heart. But when Christ
came, what did all that knowledge avail me? Nothing. Nothing. I was a sinner in need of grace,
and I found grace in Christ. I found mercy at His feet. I found forgiveness of my sin.
I found all my religion was nothing but sin. And so what do we do? We count it as loss for the excellency
of knowing Christ. What great grace and love of
God of the Holy Spirit to take us in spite of our condition,
in spite of our worthless, corrupt nature, and show us Christ. You know, everything we deserved,
we deserve not to know Christ. We deserve God to shut us out
from understanding. And yet what did God do? For
God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness has shined
in our hearts to give us what? The light of the glory of God. The light of the knowledge of
the glory of God. Where? In the face of Christ.
In the face of Christ. That's where God's glory is,
in the face of Christ. And so when we've been delivered,
when we believed on Christ, what did Christ become to you? He became everything. He became
everything. You see all my salvations wrapped
up in one person. All of my hope, all of my life,
all of my joy, all of my peace is wrapped up in one person,
Christ. Christ is all. Christ is all. Remember over in first Corinthians,
Paul said God made Christ to be everything, didn't he? He
said, but of God are you in Christ? Who of God is made into you,
what? Wisdom. How do you know your guilt and
need of Christ? That's wisdom, friends. Do you
realize how few people know that? I don't think we realize how
few people really know their guilt and need of Christ. And
I'll tell you this, even fewer come to Christ. That's wisdom,
isn't it? Isn't it wisdom to come to Christ?
Isn't it just foolish to stay away from Christ? When Christ
says, come unto me, and you run away, that's foolishness. How
is it that you are wiser than others? Because Christ is your
wisdom. God made him to be your wisdom,
and that's the only reason you've come to him in wisdom. What else
did he make him? He said he made us to be wisdom,
righteousness. What did God demand of us? Righteousness. What is Christ to us? All our
righteousness. Now that word all is inclusive,
isn't it? There's none left for you. None
of your righteousness is involved in that. Christ is all our righteousness. It's not a cooperative effort,
is it? That's why we don't have any confidence in the flesh,
because all our righteousness is in Christ. His wisdom, righteousness
is what? Sanctification. That does away
with all that foolish, progressive sanctification. Why? Because
Christ is all my sanctification. He's all my holiness. Matter
of fact, God sanctified me in eternity by putting me in Christ. Christ sanctified me when he
walked on this earth and merited my salvation by his righteousness
and blood. By the Holy Spirit coming into
my heart and quickening me, he sanctified me because I was in
Christ. Christ is all my sanctification,
all my holiness, and he's all my redemption. That blood of
Christ is all my payment for sin. How many times we say something
foolish, we feel like we've got to make penance for our sins.
We do something, we sin, we feel the guilt of it, believe it,
and we say, well, I've got to make that up. We've got to do
something. No. No. Christ is all my redemption.
He's all my payment for sin. All of it. There's no part left
for me to give. I have nothing to give. That's
why He's all my redemption. He's all my redemption. And what's
the result of this? Paul says in Colossians 2.10,
he says this, you are complete in him. Now, what is it to be
complete? It means you ain't missing nothing.
If you're missing something, what are you? You're incomplete. Paul says, I am complete, whole,
lacking nothing. Where? him now does this mean the believers
without sin absolutely not we know this we have sin in this
mortal body we still have this old nature to contend with this
old rotting corpse about our neck look what Paul says about
this in verse 11 of our text Paul knows this and go in Philippians
chapter 3 and verse 11 he says if by any means I might attain
under the resurrection of the dead not as though I had already
attained. Neither were already, listen,
complete, perfect. And what does he say in there?
Paul, didn't you say in there, in other parts, you're completing
Christ? Absolutely, you're completing Christ. But yet, listen, I've
not yet experienced that completeness, have you? I am complete. I know this by faith, but I'm
not there. I've not yet apprehended. I've
not yet attained, but what do I do? I follow after. Man, I
follow after. I want it. I want it. I want
to experience it. I follow after by faith, if that
I may apprehend, that I may get it, that for which I am apprehended. You know what? I was apprehended.
I was arrested. Christ arrested me. He apprehended
me. Why? Because he purposed something
for me. And you know what I want? I want
what he purposed. I want to apprehend what I've
been apprehended for. That's what I want. Now brethren,
he said, I count myself not to have apprehended. Look at me.
I'm not yet there. I still suffer in this body.
You could tell. You wake up in the morning and
you feel bad. You know what? You hadn't apprehended it yet.
You ain't got it all yet. You get up in the morning, your
sin is constantly bombarding you. You know this. You hadn't
apprehended all the things that Christ has done for you. You've
not yet attained that fullness of it. It's yours. It's as good
as if you had attained it already in the eyes of God. But I'll
tell you this, we know this, I've not yet apprehended, I've
not yet attained it. But one thing I do for getting
those things ripped behind, what do I do? I'm reaching forward.
I press, press for it. Does that sound like urgency
to you? He's hurting about that. I'm pressing in like a runner
toward a race, toward a finish line. I want what God has already
purposed and accomplished for me. I want that. So we press
forward by faith. We press forward by faith. And so we must as long as the
believer, I tell you this, we've been free from the guilt of sin
and the penalty of sin, but yet not the presence of sin. Isn't
that right? One day though, what are we going to be free from?
the presence of sin. Why? Because he's already apprehended
it. He's already obtained it for
us. And we must, as long as we abide in this body, contend and
struggle against sin in our fleshly nature. Therefore, we, as we press, we continually
press and count all our works of religious deeds and efforts,
what do we count them? still counting them as done.
He said, I count counted all things and lost. And guess what
he doing right now? He said, I'm count present presently count
all things done that I may win Christ. Yet, because of God's salvation
wrought in our hearts. Because of his salvation, I'll
tell you this, we have a desire. Every believer has a desire.
You know what I want? I want to be what he made me
to be. I have a desire. I want to be
in him. I want to know him. There's some
things that we desire in our hearts as we walk through this
life. We want to grow. Believer, don't
you want to grow up? God help us to grow up. So many
believers are still sucking on the milk. You know why they got so much
invested in this world? Let it go. May God help us to
grow in grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ, knowledge of his
person, his work, and his glory. You know, David said this. He
said, one, have I desired. You know what my desire is? Christ. You know what the desire of every
believer is? Christ. Christ is the single
desire of every believer. He is the main focus and desire
of our hearts. Now, I've got seven things here
that every believer desires. Every believer, and Paul mentions
these things here, seven things every believer desires. First
of all, we all desire to know him. Second of all, we all desire
to win Him. Third, we all desire to magnify
Him, to praise Him, to honor Him. Fourth, we all desire to
be found in Him. Fifth, we all desire to be conformed
to his image. And six, we all desire to be
with him. And lastly, we desire to rejoice
in him. to rejoice in him. So let's look
at these to know him. Everyone who is truly born again
of God has a personal knowledge of Jesus Christ. You have a personal
knowledge of Jesus Christ. Look at this verse eight. He
said, yea, doubtless, I count all things for laws for what?
The excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ my Lord. Now,
if he didn't know Christ, he surely wouldn't have counted
those things laws. You see, you must know Christ if you're ever
going to count those things as done. So Paul's expressing, say,
look, I know him. I know him. And because I know
him, I have no confidence in the flesh and I count all my
religion and all Christ is all. Christ is all. So as with us,
we know his person, we know he is God, very God. And we know
this, that he is man, very man. We know him. That's who I know. If you got a Christ that's not
God, very God, and man, very man, I don't know who that is.
I know Christ is God-man, the God-man. In 1 Timothy 3, verse
16, it says, without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness,
listen to this, God was manifest in the flesh. Now I know that,
I know him, don't you? I know him. I know he condescended
to take on our nature and as our substitute and representative
became responsible for our salvation and accomplished it as a man.
And we know that his perfect obedience brought in everlasting
righteousness. We know that his glorious death
by which he died and satisfied the justice of God for all the
sins of his people. Now, I know that. You know the
difference between a true Christ and the false Christ of this
generation? Success. I know the true Christ was successful. He actually did the will of God
and actually accomplished redemption. I know him, don't you? I know
him. We know that his glorious righteousness
was merited in his flesh and we know that he is now, that
he was crucified, dead and buried and has risen now and ascended
to the throne of God where he ever lives to make intercession
for us. Therefore, He is the object of our faith.
He is the subject of our gospel. And he is the joy of our heart. And I know him for one reason. He first knew me. God says this in Jeremiah 1 5,
before I formed thee in the belly, you listen to this, I knew thee. That's the only reason I know
him. Do you know him tonight? Do you? Search your heart, friends. This is an all important question.
If you don't know him, listen, he never knew you. But if you know him, it is because
he's always known you. He's always known you. But I'll
tell you this, I gotta confess something. I don't know him like
I want to know him. So what did Paul say? Look at
verse 10, that I may know him. That's what Paul wanted. Now,
did anybody know Christ better than Paul? Paul said, I wanna
know him. So do I. Paul said in 1 Corinthians
13, 12, we see through a glass darkly. Right now, I can see
him only by the eye of faith. You know, I read that in 1 John. It says that we have seen him
and with our hands we have handled him. You know, I envy that, don't
you? Oh man, to be able to see him
and to be able to handle him like they did. But we're not
given that. We see through a glass darkly,
but when he comes again, we'll see him face to face, but right
now we don't. So then we know him in part.
We know him in part. So what is the desire tonight?
Do you wanna know it? You want to know him? God's people
have this desire. That's in Psalm 27. That's what
David said. He said, one thing have I desired. Now that word thing is in italic.
It's not in the original. What is he saying? One have I
desired. And you know what he said? That
will I seek after. Tonight, I want to seek after him. I want to
know him. And this is the desire of every
believer's heart to want to know him more. And listen, if we are
content with what we know of Him, oh God help us. It's because we're like the church
of Laodicea. We're cold and indifferent. May
God warm our hearts to know Him. Secondly, we know this, every
believer has this desire, to win Christ. That's what Paul
said in verse eight. He said, yea, doubtless I count,
continually count all things lost for the excellency of knowledge
of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I suffer the loss of all
things and do count them done for this purpose, that I may
win Christ. Win Christ. We're not merely
satisfied to know Christ. We have to win him. What does
that mean, win him? When you win something, they
give you a trophy, right? You win it. And then when you
win it, you take what? Possession of it. You see, I
know this, God has taken possession of me. God put me in Christ,
Christ took possession of me, accomplished my salvation. But
now that he's put this new spirit in my heart, I want him, I want
to possess him like he possesses me. I want to feel His presence.
I want to know Him, not just know about Him. I want to grow
in the knowledge of Christ, but I want to grow also in the love
for Christ. I want to have Him. And I'm not
satisfied unless I have Him. I want to win Him. Do you long to possess Him? It's
like that Shulamite The shulamite bride who longed
for her beloved, she said, by night on my bed I sought him
with my soul whom my soul loveth. I sought him, but I found him
not. Oh, friends. Isn't that a sad condition when
our hearts are weeping on our beds and we cannot find him? Now he's my beloved, he's my
husband, he's my savior, but at times I can't feel his presence.
And we cry and weep and we seek him and we don't find him. And
what do we do? She said, I will rise and go
into the city and the streets and the broadways and I will
seek him whom my soul loveth. I sought him, but I found him
not. And then it says in, Chapter three of verse three, it says
the watchman, they go about the city, found me to whom I said,
saw you him whom I so love it. Who is it? That's a preacher
of the gospel. Isn't that where we go? We go to the gospel. We
go to hear the word of God to find him. And what we learned,
she learned this, and it was but a little while passed from
there. And I found him. Isn't it wonderful when He comes?
Isn't it wonderful when He allows us to feel that we've taken true
possession of Him? That I belong to Him, and listen,
He belongs to me. He belongs to me. This is our
desire. We want to win Him, to be found
in Him, to enjoy Him, to love Him. I like this song of Solomon 4.
This is what he says about our love and our desire for him.
He said, he said, thou hast ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse.
Thou hast ravished my heart, listen, with one of thine eyes.
You know what that eye is? Faith. You believe on him and
you've ravished him. You've won him. You got it. You
believe on him. You've won him. You've won his
heart. Isn't that something? And he
said, with a gold chain about thy neck. That's what ravished
him. These gold chain, what is that? But the graces of the spirit
of God, faith, love, joy, peace, meekness. These all ravish him
and draw him to us. So we desire not just to know
him, but to win him. And thirdly, we desire to magnify
him. Go to chapter one. Look at Philippians
chapter one in verse 20. Paul said this. according to
my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I shall
be ashamed, but that with all boldness as always, so now also
Christ shall be magnified." Where? In my body. Whether it be by life or by death,
our desire is to magnify him. How do we magnify Christ? Paul says all things, in all
things he desires to magnify Christ. He desires to magnify
him no matter the cost to his flesh. Let us be warned to magnify
Christ and to exalt Christ is to be hated of men. The moment
you magnify Christ and his gospel, you will be hated. You'll be
hated. I know this doesn't sink in until
we experience it. I get that myself. You know,
I know we're gonna be hated. I feel like I'm ready. I feel
like I'm ready and then you're hated. And then you know what?
You find out you're not ready. You'll be hated. You exalt him. You know why? Because to exalt
him is to abase man. And to exalt man is to what?
Abase him. So to magnify Christ, we must
exalt Christ. We must exalt his gospel. We
must proclaim plainly that salvation is of God, accomplished by Christ,
finished by his perfect work, and united with the work of Christ
by the Holy Spirit and not the works and will of man. That abases
man and it magnifies Christ. Therefore, we glorify God for
His salvation. It was the Father who chose us,
the Son who accomplished it, the Spirit who applies it and
keeps it, and all who God chose will never fail to believe on
Him. We must magnify Him through the
preaching and declaration of His gospel. We must. Why? It's what I want to do, friends. I want to magnify him by his
gospel. I want everyone to know this
gospel. Therefore, all the glory and
praise belongs to God. So with all my soul, I desire
to magnify him, but listen, not just my soul. Paul says, I wanna
magnify him in what? My body, my body. Our Lord Jesus Christ, by prophecy
said in Psalm 34 verse one, he says, bless the Lord, I will
bless the Lord at all times. That's Christ speaking in it.
His praise shall continually be in my mouth, my soul shall
make her boast in the Lord. And listen, here's this is you
and me. The humble shall hear thereof and be glad. And Christ
says this, oh, magnify the Lord with me. Listen, you won't magnify
the Lord unless you're in Christ. You won't. But if you're in Christ,
listen what you'll do. You'll magnify him. How? You'll live his gospel. You pay attention. You'll live
his gospel. See, Christ is not just part
of our life. He is our life. He owns not just my soul, but
every part of me. Therefore, Paul said, I beseech
you because of the mercies of God, present your what? Bodies,
a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which is
what? Reasonable. Isn't it just reasonable? Isn't
that what we desire to do? Don't we desire to present ourselves
acceptable before him? Yes, it is our desire. Do we
fail? Yes. Yes. I'm just gonna ruin the ending
for you. You're gonna fail. You're gonna
set your heart to do it, and you're gonna fail. But that's
all right, because that's not your salvation. Your salvation
is Him. But because of that salvation,
Paul said, that's why we do it. Not for salvation, but because
of it. Now, fourthly, we desire this. We desire to be found in
Christ. Verse nine, go back to your text
in chapter three of Philippians. Paul says this in verse 9, I
desire to be found in him. What does that mean? Not having
mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which
is through the faith of Christ. And just in case you missed it,
he said the righteousness, which is of God by faith. Now, friends, said that a few
minutes ago in first Corinthians, you were put into union and Christ
was made to be all your righteousness. You realize that we were in Christ
Jesus before the world began. Union, I'm talking union together,
you and him were in union. as your body is connected to
your head, even so were we in union with him by God from eternity,
and God purposed that he should be all our righteousness. When he came, he redeemed us
in Ephesians 1 verse 7, it says, in Christ, in whom we were in
union, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of
sins, according to the riches of his grace. This is the result
of his blood, his forgiveness of sin, and the cause of the
riches of his grace. Wherein he hath abounded toward
us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known to us the mystery
of his will. This is the experience of grace,
isn't it? It's the experience of grace. He did all that before
we experienced it, but in the providence of God, in the wisdom
of God, now it comes into experience. according to the good pleasure
of his will which he had purposed in himself that in the dispensation
of the fullness of times he might gather together all in one things
in Christ both in heaven which are in earth even in him in who
also we have obtained an inheritance being predestined according the
purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his
own will we've been redeemed and have now by the grace and
wisdom of God and providence of God been made to experience
it. What have we experienced? We
experienced this, that we have received the righteousness of
God through faith. That righteousness, now you pay
attention, that righteousness, Paul says this very, it's on
purpose. He says this, I desire not to
be found in my own righteousness. Why? I don't have any. I desire
to be found in His righteousness, which is by faith." Now listen,
not your faith. This is the mistake, this is
the error, this is the heresy of modern religion is to say
that righteousness comes by your faith. Righteousness was made
by His faith. It is received by our faith. But it's His. faith that made
it. Now what if your faith made it? You going to trust in your faith
to merit righteousness? Our faith is so, so vile and
unbelief is so prevalent even in our faith. So what does Paul
say? He said, look, I want to be found
in his righteousness, not mine. Isn't that your desire? When
you stand before God, whose righteousness you want to be in? Now, I'll tell you, there's millions
and billions of people who want to be in their own righteousness.
They're going to stand before God and said, Lord, have we not
preached in your name and have we not done? Listen, many wonderful
words. They think their works are wonderful.
Standing before Him, they even tell Him how wonderful their
works are. And what does He say? I will
profess to them, depart from me, you that work iniquity. I never knew you. Why? Because
they weren't in His righteousness. I want to be in His righteousness,
don't you? I want to be found in Him. I'll tell you this, I know this. We don't desire to be found in
His righteousness alone, and we don't want to be found in
ours because this old flesh doesn't get any better. You know that? Some men say, well, I want to
be found in His righteousness for a starter, and then I'm going
to finish this thing. That's not us. That's not our
desire. We desire only to be found in
His righteousness alone. Now, you that are in Him, is
there any other place that you want to be? Is there any other place that
you would rather be than in Him? No. Why? He's the vine and we're
the branches. Outside of Him is no life at
all. Therefore, He says to us, what?
in me. And listen to this, I in you. And that's something, it's a
wonderful thing. We desire to abide in Christ. I like this, in him we have a
righteousness by God himself approved. Our rock, our sure
foundation, this which never can be moved. Our ransom by his
death was paid for all his people given. the law he perfectly obeyed,
that we might enter heaven. Now that's what I want to, I
want to be in his presence. Now fifthly, I desire to be, I desire
to be conformed to Christ's image. Look at verse 10 of your text. He said that I may know him and
the power of his resurrection, the fellowship of his sufferings
and be made conformable unto his death. Isn't this what we
were predestinated for? It sure was. God said this, "...for
whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be..." What?
Conformed to His image. Do you want to be like Christ? What is there about Christ that's
not good? That's not perfect? That's not
acceptable? Every believer desires to be
like Christ. John says this, now we're the
sons of God, but listen, it don't appear like it. It don't appear what we shall
be, but I know this, when he comes, we're gonna be exactly
like him. Now that's our desire, that's our end goal. And so seeing
that God has purposed us to be conformed to his image, is it
just not reasonable for us to be transformed into his image
in the new birth, that we should also walk Body and soul seek
to be like Him. How about this? How about in
meekness? Should we not be meek? Now friends, I'm telling you,
there's a bunch of people out rioting. There's a bunch of people out
protesting. Then you got the other group who are against the
rioters and the protesters, and they're protesting them. That's
not our job, friends. We're not here to change governments.
We're here to serve Christ. You know what? Jesus did not
seek to change the government. He sought to obey God and serve
God in meekness. Is that not how we're to be?
What about impatience? We should be like Him in patience.
Waiting and trusting God. Isn't that what happened when
He fasted 40 days, 40 nights? He waited on God. Should we not
be the same? In love. Should we not be like
Him in love, forgiving one another? God help us to forgive one another.
I need to have a forgiving heart. He says forgive the brethren
even as God, for Christ's sake, forgave you. Should we not be
like Him in love? And should we not be useful?
Is there anyone more useful to man than Christ? Should we not
seek to be useful? We should seek to be useful.
And by doing this, what are we doing? We're being conformed
to His image. This is what we desire to do. I desire to be
like Christ. What's that song? Oh, to be like
Thee, blessed Redeemer. We desire to be with Christ. Paul said this in Colossians
2 and verse 3 and verse 2, he said, set your affection, singular,
undivided on things above and not on the things of the earth,
for you are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God. To desire to be with Christ,
we must set our affection on him. I'll give you this illustration
of Sergeant World War II, a very heroic man. Seemed to be fearless
before his soldiers. Matter of fact, ran across the
battlefield being shot in between both his soldiers and the enemy
were firing at each other. He ran right down the middle
of the battlefield to convey a message and ran back. And his
soldiers said, his private said, how is it you have no fear? Listen
to what this sergeant said. He said, why are you so fearless?
Why are you so bold? And he said this, we're all scared, but the only
hope you have is to accept you're already dead. And the sooner
you accept that, you'll be able to function as a soldier. Listen,
if we already accept that we are in Christ and our life is
hid with Christ in God, how fearless should we be? Why? If we desire to be with him,
then what fear should we have in this world? If all our affections
on him, we would have no fear. Let this desire be in our heart.
Paul said, I'm gonna straight between two. I desire to depart,
be with Christ, which is far better. You know why? He had
no skin in this game anymore. He had no faith, nothing here
to live for. except the church, and he said,
that's the only reason I'm staying is because of you. Isn't this
why should we only be staying because of each other? That's
it. We should all have a desire to part and be with Christ. And
the last thing is, we should desire to rejoice. Rejoice in
Christ at the day of the resurrection. Paul said that in verse 11. He
said, if by any means I might attain to what? The resurrection
of the dead. Resurrection of the dead. He
said, I'm not already attained to it, neither perfect, but follow
after that I may apprehend that which I've been apprehended for
of Christ. Brethren, I count myself not
to have apprehended, but this one thing I do, forgetting those
things which are behind and reaching forth to those things which are
before, I press toward the mark of the prize of the high calling
of God in Jesus Christ. What is he present for? He said,
look, I'm waiting for that one day. One day he's coming back. Every believer should desire
his return. His return. Do you desire his return? Let
me ask you this, are you looking for it? I know this, many times we get
like the world in that, you know, he just hadn't come in the past
centuries, you know, mate, I just don't think he'd do it. That's
not the attitude of the early church, was it? They were waiting. They were on the edge of their
seat anticipating his return. So should we. Matter of fact,
that's what grace teaches us, isn't it? Titus, Titus chapter two, Titus
chapter two and verse 11. For the grace of God that bringeth
salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us, denying ungodliness
and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, godly
in this present world. What? Looking for the blessed
hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior. That's
what grace teaches us. Grace teaches us to look forward
to his coming. So let me ask you, if you're
a believer in Christ, what is your desire? David said, one
have I desired. Is he your desire? Do you desire
to know him? Do you desire to win him? Do you desire to be found in him? Do you desire to magnify Him,
His grace, His mercy, His gospel, both with your lips and your
life? Do you desire to be conformed
to His image, to be like Him in meekness and love and grace
and forgiveness and mercy? Do you desire to be with Christ?
Do you desire to be conformed to that image one day when He
comes again and restores that we may apprehend what we've been
apprehended for? That's what Paul wanted. That's
what we want. We want Christ. Therefore, our
religion is this, Christ is all. Christ is all. He is the author
and finisher of our faith. He is the sum of all our acceptance
with God. He is the sole object of our
affection and love and faith. Oh, believer, let us, by the
grace of God, continually abide in Him, long for Him, love Him,
believe only in Him, and have no confidence in the flesh. The hymn writer wrote, I dreamed
that hoary time had fled. and earth and sea gave up their
dead. A fire dissolved this ball. I
saw the church's ransom throng. I heard the burden of their song. T'was Christ is all in all."
Isn't that our song? Christ is all in all? If we desire
him, he is. May God give us a heart to long
and serve.