Turn with me, if you would, back
to Philippians chapter 3. Philippians chapter 3. Every time I'm led to preach
from this chapter, I get so excited every time the Lord leads me
to this chapter, and I feel like this is the message of the hour.
I just get so excited because every line in this chapter is
a glorious message in and of itself. Every line. Everything
that's said right here, I come back to this all the time because
this resonates with me. You know what I mean? This resonates
with me. This chapter speaks to me. I
pray it'll speak to all of us this morning. Let's see if the
Lord will really let us enter into what he's saying. Philippians
3 verse 1, it says, finally, my brethren, my brethren, he's
speaking to the brethren. He's speaking to, this is written
to the elect. God's chosen God's sheep, that's
who he's talking to. God's sheep. And he said. Rejoice in the Lord. He said, rejoice in the Lord. I titled this message the character
of God's elect people, I might change that to rejoice in the
Lord. Brethren, rejoice in the Lord. We could stay there forever.
We will. We will. Rejoice in the Lord. If any man
glory, if any man rejoice, let him rejoice in the Lord. Finally,
my brethren, dear brethren, dear sheep of God, dear elect people,
This is God's word to you. Rejoice in the Lord, no matter
what sorrow or what trial a child of God is going through, he or
she can always rejoice in the Lord. Go back to the Lord. Get back to the Lord. Whatever's
going on, just go back to the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. David said in Psalm 103, forget
not all his benefits. Just dwell on His benefits. David said, He has forgiven our
iniquities. How glorious is that? He has
healed our diseases. We talk about all these dear
loved ones who are carrying these diseases. We all have the disease
of sin. And that produces these issues
of health. Diseases. Well, if we're healed
of them here, God did that. He said, I kill, I make a life,
I wound, I heal. God did that. But no matter what,
one day real soon, he's going to heal us of all our diseases.
No more diseases. David said he has redeemed us
from destruction. We, by nature, were running head
first into destruction. And he said, nope. He has crowned us with loving
kindness and tender mercy. Just dwell on everything we have
in Him. Just dwell on what we have in
Him. If we ever find ourselves looking for something and needing
something to rejoice in, we can always rejoice in the Lord. And
again I say, rejoice. Paul said in verse one, Finally,
my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. And then he went on to say, to
write the same things to you. To me, indeed, is not grievous,
but for you it is safe. That's what I love about the
gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. The gospel that rejoices in the
Lord. It's so safe. It is so safe. That's what God's people feel
in Christ. Safe. That's what the gospel message
of the person of Christ and the work of Christ and the glory
of Christ is. It's safe. Safe. Paul said to write these same
things to you. And I say to preach these same
things to you. I don't have anything new to
preach. I have nothing new. To preach these same things to
you is not grievous to me. I actually love it. The more
the same it is, the more clearly the same it is, the more I love
it. I get so excited. to preach that same old story. Tell me the same old story. I
really do. It's not grievous to me because
it's so safe. This is so safe. Verse two, he said, beware of
dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the concision. There's
a reference, I have a center column, a center margin in my
Bible, and there's a reference to Isaiah 56, which calls these
dogs, there it calls them dumb dogs, mute dogs. And it's talking about false
prophets, false preachers, which do not preach and clearly declare
the safe message of Christ. They do not warn men and women
of the dangers of not preaching and hearing and believing the
safe message of Christ alone. Christ alone. Stop at Christ. Don't go any farther. He said
they don't do that. Comparing them to dumb dogs,
He said they don't bark. They don't speak. They don't warn. They just lie
down in the in the false religion of man, you know, that talks
about the loving to slumber, wool being pulled over eyes. They have closed ears to the
warning of God's truth, they promote and love the evil works
of man. And they only bring harm to men
and women's souls. That's what comes from that harm
to men and women's souls. Paul said, beware, beware. This is safe. Beware. Verse three,
he said, for we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit
and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. Now, this is the verse I want
to dwell on for a minute. And this is the verse that I
want us to see that everything in this chapter is in light of. Everything in this chapter. And I want to dwell on this because
it brings so much comfort to me. I love this verse of scripture. Every time I have doubt, every
time I need reassurance and knowing that I'm a child of God, when
I read this verse of scripture, my heart cries, Amen. Amen. Verse three says, for we are
the circumcision. That means we are God's people.
I want to be one of God's people. We are those who have been given
faith to truly believe. We are those who have been called
to be the people of His choosing. He says, which worship God in
the Spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence
in the flesh. What is it to worship God in
the Spirit? What is it to worship God in
the Spirit? It is to in the heart In the depth of our soul, in
our innermost being of sincerity and truth, not lip service, not
what we want people to believe about us. I mean, what's inside
here between me and God? It is to right inside here, worship
God. What is it to worship God? It's
to, in sincerity and truth, bow down to God. Bow down to God. Honor God. Praise God. Lift up and magnify God and not
man. God and not man. It is to worship
God for who He is and for what He is. It's to worship God in His sovereignty
because that's who He is and what He is. That's what we just
heard. Sovereign over all things. It's
to worship God in His sovereignty over all men. It's to worship
God in His sovereignty over all circumstances. It's to worship
God. It's to acknowledge His hand.
and His will and His purpose and His providence in all things,
everything. To worship God in a nutshell
is this, it's to worship God. It's to worship God. Verse 3,
Paul said, For we are the circumcision which worship God in the Spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus.
What is it to rejoice in Christ Jesus? It is to, in the heart, in the depth of the soul, in
the innermost being of our sincerity and truth, rejoice in who Christ
is and what He did and why He did
it. And for whom he did it, do we
not rejoice in for whom he did it? But he did it for all of the,
you know, the Bible scholars of the world, all of the the
doctor attained. Could we rejoice in that? He did it for everyone who honestly
has not. committed sin, honestly kept
themselves from. Could we rejoice in that? We
rejoice in who he accomplished his work for, we rejoice in how
accomplished it is. How complete it is, how secure
we are in him, we rejoice in that. Who is Christ? We rejoice in
Christ Jesus. Who is Christ? He is God Almighty
manifest in the flesh. The God that we worship. We worship God. The God that
we worship. The very God that we bow down
to. The God who we praise and glorify
for His sovereignty over all things. Jesus Christ is that
God manifest in the flesh. What did he do? See if the Lord will let us get
a hold of this. What did he do? He purged us. Have you ever purged
anything? You ever just gotten fed up and
said, I'm purging this. He purged us. He cleaned us. He washed us from all of our
sins in His own blood. He took our guilt from us. He took our wrath from us. He took our punishment from us.
He took our death from us. What did He do? This is something
to rejoice in. He took our death from us. By
taking our sin from us in his own body, he waged war on our
sin. Here's what he did. He waged
war on our sin, the sin that invaded us, besieged us, conquered
us. He waged war on that sin and
he won. That's what he did. He got the victory. And then
he gave that victory to us by substituting our place with his. I'll never get over substitution.
I'll never get over substitution. Once a sinner sees substitution,
that sinner will never get over it. He earned a righteousness for
us. that we could not earn for ourselves. And the reason is because all
of our righteousnesses are filthy rags before God. Man at his best
state, when God sees a man's best state, God says, altogether
vanity. Couldn't do it. He earned a holy
purity for us that we who are completely infected with a loathsome
disease could not earn for ourselves. This is what he did. He earned
godliness for the ungodly. He earned acceptance for the
rejected. He earned adoption into the family
of God for strangers who were scattered abroad. That's what
he did. That's what he accomplished for
his people. And here's the thing about it.
It is indeed accomplished. It is accomplished. The Spirit
of God gives assurance of that very thing to the troubled souls
of his people. Every time a child of God becomes
worried or troubled over his state before the judgment throne
of God, if that ever happens, If sin ever gets a hold of us
and really takes hold of us and we're aware of it and we think,
oh I've sinned against God, I'm such a sinner against God and
we worry about our state before the judgment throne of God. Every
time that happens to a child of God, the Spirit comes and
whispers into the soul, lifted up was he to die. It is finished
was his cry. Now in heaven exalted high. And
all of his people cry, Hallelujah. What a Savior. What a Savior. I've told you that story before
of a man and woman in the late 1800s. They traveled over to
England. And while they were there, they
wanted to go hear Charles Spurgeon preach. They had read his books
and read his writings, and they wanted to go visit his church,
Metropolitan Tabernacle, and hear him preach. So they went
on a Sunday morning, and they got there too late. There were
so many people trying to get in, they were turning people
away. And can you imagine what a problem
to have? Can you imagine if people were
lined up in that front door waiting to get in to hear God's word? But anyway, they got turned away.
They couldn't make it in. So they went down the street. There was another church down
the street and they got in. sat down and the pastor, the
preacher of that congregation, he was a very well studied man,
a very educated man, a wonderful orator, very charismatic. And after the message was over,
the man and his wife walked out of that place saying, what a
sermon, what a sermon. That night, they went back to
Metropolitan Tabernacle, and this time they got in. Sunday
night, they got in. And they listened to Brother
Charles Spurgeon preach the glorious gospel of the finished work of
the Lord Jesus Christ. And they both walked out of there
after the service was over with tears in their eyes, crying,
what a Savior. Oh, my soul, what a Savior. What
a Savior. Hallelujah, what a Savior. Verse
three says, We are the circumcision which worship God in the spirit. And rejoice in Christ Jesus. And have no confidence in the
flesh, that does not say a little confidence in the flesh. That does not say we are hoping
that very soon we will have confidence in our flesh. That does not say our main focus
and goal is to strive to have confidence in the flesh. It says we are the circumcision
who have no, none, zip, not one molecule of confidence in our
own flesh. All of our confidence is in Christ's
flesh. All of our confidence is in His
body and His blood and His life and His walk and His death and
His deeds and His goodness. His alone. His alone. All of our confidence. His alone.
What do you mean by that, Paul? Here he is writing to the Philippians.
What do you mean by that, Paul? He said, well, let me explain
it this way. Verse four, he said. Though I might also have confidence
in the flesh, if any other man thinketh that he hath whereof
he might trust in the flesh, I more what he's saying is you
think you see obedience to the law in your flesh? You think
you see a commendable way according to the commandments of God in
your flesh? He said, I more. Verse five, circumcised the eighth
day, the law said to do that. He said, I did it or it was done
to me. Of the stock of Israel, of the
tribe of Benjamin, the law said you had to be that. He said,
I was. I was of the children of Israel and Hebrew of the Hebrews as
touching the law of Pharisee, whatever it said to do or be,
if it said to live this way, he said, I lived it. If it said
to think this way, I thought it. If it said to act this way,
I acted it. I was a God-commanded, law-abiding
Pharisee. That's what he said about himself.
Verse 6, concerning zeal, persecuting the church. I judged, I criticized,
I looked down on. Touching the righteousness which
is in the law, blameless. Good deeds, good deeds, good
deeds upon good deeds. He said, my inner man and my
outer man was right with God. Or so I thought. So I thought
verse seven, he said, but. But in Galatians one, he said,
I thrived in religion. I was more zealous than all of
them, but when it pleased God. He stopped me in my tracks. He knocked me off of my high
horse of religion. He blinded me by his glory. By blinding me to myself. He
blinded me to myself and he revealed his son in me, his son, who I
saw to be the true obedience of the law. His son who I saw
to truly be everything God requires us to be. Christ is that. His son who truly lived the way
God requires us to live and think and act truly. And Paul said,
when I saw that, I died to me. I died to me. I died in my own
eyes. When I saw Christ and his goodness
and his purity and his righteousness and his glory, I saw me no longer. That's what happens in God's
people. We see us no longer. And now verse seven, he said,
what things were gain to me. Those I counted loss for Christ,
he said, the very deeds of the law that I saw to be gain to
me. Does that do we enter into that?
The very deeds of the law that I saw to be gain, gain before
God, this right here is gain to God. He said, I now actually
see it all to be loss. Trash, that's what it means.
Worthless trash. for Christ, compared to Christ,
in light of Christ, if it's going to take my eyes off of Christ,
if it's going to take my eyes off of Christ. Verse 8, he said,
Yea, doubtless, and I count all things 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 dung, that I may
win Christ and be found in him, not having my own righteousness
which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of
Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith. That means his righteousness,
not mine. His goodness, his good deeds,
not mine. Verse 10, he said that I may
know him. That I may know him. That's my goal. That I may know
him. That it may be all about him.
That I might have true union with him. That I may know Him and the power
of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings being made
conformable unto His death. I pray I died in Him. That's
what He's saying. I pray I died in Him. I pray
God judged me in Him and forgave me in Him. And I attain the resurrection
of the dead in Him. What is attaining the resurrection
of the dead? It's attaining Christ. He said,
I am the resurrection. I am the life. Paul said, I want
to know him. I want to have union with him.
I want to attain him. Verse 12, he said, not as though
I had already attained either were already perfect. Paul said,
I know that in my flesh there still dwells no good thing. And that'll be the case for me
till I leave this flesh. But he said, I follow after.
If that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended
of Christ Jesus life. Salvation in him. Verse 13. Brethren,
I count not myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do. Forgetting
those things which are behind my works, my law, my bondage
of the flesh. and reaching forth unto those
things which are before Christ. Rest, peace, comfort, eternity
with Him. Verse 14, He said, I press toward
the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ
Jesus. He's the mark. He's the goal. He is the prize. Verse 15, he
said, let us therefore, as many as be perfect, made perfect. That means mature, complete,
holy, righteous. As many as have been made perfect
in him, made perfect by him. Let us therefore, as many as
be perfect, be thus minded, and if in anything you be otherwise
minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. He will either
reveal it in mercy now or judgment later. Mercy now or judgment
later. Verse 16, nevertheless, whereto
we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let
us mind the same thing, Brethren, be followers together of me,
and mark them which walk so as you have us, for an example.
For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell
you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ,
whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose
glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things. Stuck on
earthly things. Verse 20 says, For our conversation
is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord
Jesus Christ. That's where the conversation
of God's people is. Brethren, it's in heaven. Where we look for the Savior,
our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Verse 21 says, Who shall change
our vile body? He's the one who will change
our vile body. that is His work, and He will
do it. Who shall change our vile body,
that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according
to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things
unto Himself. That means this is the sovereign
God. And He is able to do everything He promised He would do for His
people, and we believe Him. And we wait for Him, we look
for Him, we trust Him. If any man glory, let him glory
in the Lord. That's what he's saying. Christ
is all. That's what he's saying. Christ
is everything. And all who hope in him are going
to attain the perfection that he has secured for us in the
end. He has secured holy perfection. And all who hope in Him are going
to attain it. They're going to receive it.
He said, take comfort in Him. Rest in Him. Rejoice in Him. Finally, brethren, rejoice in
the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord because we've
been allowed to. We've been given faith to. We
worship God in the Spirit. We rejoice in Christ Jesus and
we have no confidence in this flesh. That comforts my soul. Amen, alright.