We had a good, enjoyable conference
in Tennessee, even though we had very difficult weather. But it's God's weather. And I
was amazed at the crowd that was there. It was a full house.
If it hadn't been for the weather, I believe we would have had to
put chairs out in the aisles. It was a full house, and the
Lord blessed. I believe the Lord gave me something
to say yesterday in the message I preached yesterday. And David
and Todd, it was just a blessed time together. But I
was ready to get back home. We went to, I mean, it was raining
and windy. And Vicki and I drove to Bass
Pro. And we waited out the storm there.
And it's amazing how much money a woman can spend in Bass Pro.
It's amazing. But it was a good place to ride
it out. I wanted to bring this message
this morning on Paul's confession of faith. Our confession of faith
is not a creed. It's a person. Our confession of faith is the
Lord Jesus Christ, a living, breathing person, the King of
glory. He's our confession of faith. Everything we believe has to
do with Him. Everything we believe has to
do with the Lord Jesus Christ. All the doctrine we hold to comes
from Him. He's the doctrine. He's the embodiment
of it. Now Paul writing from prison,
you'd never know when he wrote Ephesians and here in the Philippians,
you wouldn't know he was in prison, would you? You don't hear him
grumbling. complaining, he's shackled to
a guard. Yet when he writes, he writes
to glorify Christ and to encourage the Church of the Lord Jesus
Christ. He forgets about himself, and
here when he does speak of himself, he does so to show this, that
all his achievements or nothing. You know without, and I mean
this, without the Lord Jesus Christ, I don't have life and
my life on this earth is nothing. It's vanity. Isn't it? It's vanity
of vanity. The Lord Jesus Christ is my life. He's my worth. A man was talking
to me one day of self-worth. Christ is my self-worth. He really
is. He's my worth. Worthy is the
Lamb that was slain. He's worthy and
He's my worth. Now he says in verse 1, finally,
he's coming to the close of the letter and he's going to warn
them because he's about to leave. He's about to depart and go home. He knows that. He knows his time
now is short. He knows that. And I believe
when you really, a man of God, if he really knows that his time's
short, he's going to bear out his heart to the people of God
and the people he preaches to. It's like, I want you to hear
me. And he's going to give words of warning and words of encouragement. A true watchman will do that.
A true watchman will watch after your souls. He won't watch after
His pocketbook, He'll watch after your soul, that's what He'll
watch after. And He'll watch after the glory of Christ that
you grow in grace and in knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. I could
not pray for God to give you a greater blessing than for you
to grow in grace and in knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. That
you would seek the Kingdom of God first, and His righteousness,
and He said, all these things will be added to you. I wrote
to a man some time ago. Well, actually, I called him,
he called me, and we were talking. And I said, let me give you the
key to success. You wanna know what the key to
success is? Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness,
and all these things will be added to you. You'll not only
be taken care of in this life, but in the life to come, you'll
have the glory of heaven. You'll have the glory and the
inheritance that belongs to Jesus Christ. It's yours. That's success. That's success. So he says, you're
finally my brother or my brothers and sisters. I like the way Bruce
Crabtree always says it. He says, my brothers and sisters.
I like that. I'm going to have to start using
that. But he said, finally, my brethren, REJOICE! Rejoice in
the Lord! This is the watchword for every
believer, to rejoice in the Lord. Over here in chapter 4, listen
in verse 4, Paul says again, Rejoice in the Lord ALWAYS! Always! We have a REASON to rejoice in
the Lord ALWAYS! Even when we are going through
a difficult trial, it's for our good. Is that not something to
rejoice in? Rejoice in the Lord always, and
again I say, I repeat, REJOICE! They were under very difficult
circumstances. The church for years now, the
church for years has had it easy. Hasn't the church had it comfortable?
They didn't. Now when they made a profession,
when they confessed Christ, their life was on the line, their livelihood. Especially if you were a Jew,
you got kicked out, you got excommunicated. but rejoice in the Lord. Now
he says, to write the same things to you, to me, indeed, it's not
grievous. You know, for me, for me to preach
the gospel to you week after week after week is not a burden. It's not burdensome to me. It's
a joy to do that. It's a joy. And for you, he says,
it's safe, or the word is necessary. It's necessary for me to do this
week after week. For me to preach the gospel to
you, for me to preach Christ wherever I come from, from the
scriptures, you know, you cannot exhaust Christ. Christ is the
wisdom of God. Can you exhaust the wisdom of
God? Can't do that. Oh, I keep praying, Lord, make
yourself known to me. Let me know you more and more
as Paul, we'll see here as Paul does. You know, the great, the
great desire and ambition Now listen, we have ambition, don't
we? But the ambition of the believer
changes from being wealthy, from having all the material things
of this world. The ambition of the believer
is to be found in Him. Not having my own self-righteousness,
but His. My ambition is to know Him more
and more fully. I'm getting ahead of myself.
But it's to know. That's our ambition. We have
an ambition, but it's a spiritual ambition. It's not a material,
worldly, physical ambition anymore. It's a spiritual ambition. Every one of us has a short time
on this earth. We have a short shelf life on
this earth. And what time we have left, I
want us to know together, to know the Lord Jesus Christ. I don't want this to be a religion.
I want it to be a reality. I want knowing Him to be a reality. He's a real person. He's God. This is His earth. Psalm 24,
one, the earth is the Lord's, the fullness thereof, and they
who dwell therein, everybody is His. And He's gonna bring
out of this world a people. He said, this people have I formed
for myself. They shall show forth my glory
now and hereafter and forever and ever. That's so real to me
now, I mean more and more than ever before. To write the same things to you,
to me, in deed, is not grievous. For you it's necessary. Now,
here's the watchman. You know, a pastor has to be
a watchman. He's a useless, worthless pastor
who's not a watchman. And he says, beware of dogs.
He calls them dogs who called the Gentiles dogs. The Judaizers
who he's talking about, and they called US dogs and now Paul's
turning it on them. He's saying the real dogs are
them. They are the real dogs. And beware of evil workers, which
he's talking about the same persons, the Judaizers. They are deceitful
workers. They are unfaithful to the Lord
Jesus Christ. They walk in craftiness, they
walk like their father, the devil. You know, the Lord said to the
Pharisees, you're of your father, the devil, and the works of your
father you will do. You're deceitful workers. You
have an ulterior motive for what you're doing instead of the glory
of Jesus Christ. You have a different motive for
what you're doing. And beware of the concision,
the flesh merchants. The flesh merchants. The men
of the circumcision, what he's talking about, they're flesh
merchants. So many of these televangelists are just that, they are flesh
merchants. It doesn't take them long before
they're trying to get into your pocketbook. Put it on a credit
card. Don't you ever, don't, anybody
that ever listens to this, don't put anything on a credit card
to pay for God's work. God supplies the work. God supplies
the means. He supplies it. He'll put it
into the heart of His children, His children, to support the
gospel. He'll put it into your heart
to support the gospel, He will. And I'm not gonna go out and
beg a bunch of rebels to support God's work. I'm not going to
do that. No, but I tell you what though,
these flesh merchants will, they will. Beware of them. We, now listen, verse 3, for
we are the circumcision, we are the true Israel of God. They're not, they may have the
name Israel, But not all Israel, Paul said,
is Israel. You know who the true Israelites
are? Those whose hearts have been circumcised. It's a spiritual
circumcision. That's the true Israel of God.
It's a spiritual circumcision of the heart. God does business
in the heart. We worship God in spirit and
in truth. That's what he says here. We
are the true circumcision which worship God in the spirit. That's what he told that woman
at the well. The time will come when those who worship, they
won't worship in this mountain, they won't worship in an altar,
they won't worship, they worship God in spirit and truth for the
Lord seeketh such to worship Him in spirit and in truth because
God is spirit. God is not matter and material,
God is Spirit. And that's how we worship Him.
We don't worship Him with ceremonies and pictures. We worship Him in Spirit, in
the heart. He said, you worship Me with
your lips, but your heart is far from Me. We are the circumcision and this
is how we know. We worship Him in the Spirit
and rejoice in Christ Jesus. Well, you cannot say you worship
God and hate Christ. That's not possible. IF WE WORSHIP
GOD IN SPIRIT, WE ALSO REJOICE IN CHRIST JESUS. IN OTHER WORDS,
WE GLORY IN HIM. HE'S OUR GLORY. GOD FORBID THAT
I SHOULD GLORY IN ANYTHING SAVE THE CROSS OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST,
CHRIST CRUCIFIED. GOD FORBID THAT I SHOULD GLORY
IN ANYTHING. WHAT HAVE I EVER ACHIEVED REALLY
THAT GOD DID NOT ENABLE ME TO ACHIEVE IT? WHAT DO I HAVE THAT
GOD DIDN'T GIVE ME? Everything I have and I recognize
this now. There's a time. I didn't recognize
this. I Recognize everything I have
God gave it to me by his grace The Lord giveth and the Lord
taketh away blessed be the name of the Lord We rejoice in Christ and then
our Lord Jesus Christ and we have no confidence in this flesh
and We have no confidence in this flesh. Who my parents, and I had, God
gave me good parents. I had an outstanding mother and
father. But I have no confidence in my
relationship to them that it gives me a relationship to God.
You know, and they still do, in the Jewish nation, Their confidence,
you know where their confidence really is? Their connection to
Abraham. You know where our confidence
is? Our connection to Jesus Christ.
Our union to the Lord Jesus Christ. That's my confidence of being
accepted of God. My confidence of standing in
glory in a little while is in Christ. It's not in Any fleshly
carnal relationship at all. It's not in any achievement.
It's in Him. It's in Him. It's not in the ceremonies. It's
not in any carnal ordinance. It's in the Lord Jesus Christ.
It's not in baptism. It's not because I was baptized.
Brethren, that doesn't put us in Christ. Now, when the Lord saves a sinner,
The way we confess Christ is public baptism. We identify with
Him that way. He gave us that order. But that
doesn't have any saving power in it, any way, shape, or form.
Simon Magus was believed, it says, and was baptized. And Peter
said, your heart's not right with God. It didn't wash away
his sins. The only thing that can wash
away my sins and your sins is the blood of Jesus Christ alone. And that's it. And now Paul's
going to, he's going to use himself here if anybody, and he had a
problem with these men. A lot of them were saying Paul's
a nobody. Paul's a nobody. He's nothing. And Paul says, well now let me
tell you something. If you want to talk about if anybody could
stand before God on their own merits. He said, if it was possible,
I could be one of them because none of you have nothing on me.
He's not bragging here. He's going to make a statement
here. He says, I was circumcised the
8th day. That's when God said to be circumcised,
not the 9th day, not the 7th day. I was circumcised the 8th
day, exactly according to the law. He said, I followed, my
parents followed the law. My parents followed the law.
And I'm of the stock of Israel. I am a true Israelite. I'm not
an Edomite. I'm not an Ishmaelite. I'm an
Israelite. I'm an Israelite. And he says, here, I'm not only
an Israelite, I'm of the tribe of Benjamin. You know, Benjamin
was the son of Jacob. It's also the tribe which the
first king came out of, Saul. And guess what Paul's name was?
Saul of Tarsus. I have no doubt his parents probably
named him after King Saul, because that was a kingly tribe. That's
where the first king came out of. And he says, I was of the
tribe of Benjamin. I have the right credential,
the right birthright. And I was a Hebrew of the Hebrews.
Timothy's father was a Gentile, wasn't he? And his mother, a
Jew. Paul said, mine were pure. I got pure bloodline. There's
no mixture of my bloodline. It's pure. Hebrew of the Hebrews.
And as touching the law, I was a Pharisee, the highest you can
go. I was a strictest, this was a
strictest sect when it come to keeping the law. I was a Pharisee
of the Pharisees. I was at the top of the group.
He was the head of the class. He was in the AP program. I was a Pharisee of the Pharisees.
And concerning zeal, He said, I persecuted the church.
I tried to stamp it out. He wrecked havoc with the church.
He tried to absolutely put out the name of Jesus Christ. Nobody hated Jesus Christ any
more than the Apostle Paul. And listen, as he wrecked havoc
on the church, he honestly believed he was doing God a service. He honestly believed he was doing
God a service. touching the righteousness of
the law, concerning zeal, persecuting the church, touching the righteousness
of the law, which is in the law. He said, I was blameless. I thought
I was blameless. He's saying I was blameless.
No, I thought I was blameless. I just held to the strictest
letter of the law. I was blameless. I thought so
anyway. But what things were gained to
me, these things here, he puts his credentials, Dr. Paul, He puts his credentials
at the top of the list. He said, nobody in this room
can match my credentials. And he said, you know what I'm
going to do with my credentials? I'm going to wad them all up,
and I'm going to throw them in the trash can. They're lost. In the matter of salvation, in
the matter of acceptance with God, not one thing that I have
done matters. What matters is my relationship
to that man, Jesus Christ. He's my righteousness. He's my
sanctification. His blood is the blood of atonement
for my sins. He's my sacrifice. He's my high
priest. He's my altar. We don't have
an altar up here in front of this building. Jesus Christ is
our altar. Paul said, we have an altar to
eat of which those who serve the tabernacle or temple have
no right to eat of it. All those things have got to
go. And Paul took all his credentials, wadded them up and threw them
in the trash can. That's exactly what he's doing. He's showing
here that nobody in this room can match what I have and it's
worthless. You know how hard it is to take
all your achievements and throw them away? That's difficult. That's difficult. It takes the
grace of God for you to do that. It takes His grace. But what
things, in verse 7, what things were gained to me? All these
things that I achieved, they were gained to me personally.
They didn't glorify God, they glorified me. They glorified
me. You see all my achievements,
all these plaques I got hanging on the wall, they glorify me.
And Paul walked over one day when God saved him, took all
the plaques off the wall and threw them away. The only thing
that means anything is my relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ. But
what things were gained to me, those things I counted LOSS as
NOTHING for Christ's sake. The only thing that I count as
WORTH ANYTHING is KNOWING CHRIST. Yea, doubtless, I count all things,
you just name it, I count it LOSS for the excellency of the
knowledge of Christ, or for the excellency of KNOWING Jesus Christ. Now listen, WE NEED AN EDUCATION! WE NEED TO HAVE AN EDUCATION
AND BE ABLE TO GO TO WORK AND MAKE MONEY AND PAY BILLS. WE
NEED THAT! BUT WHATEVER KNOWLEDGE I ACHIEVE
IN COMPARISON TO CHRIST IS NOTHING! IT'S NOTHING! OH, TO KNOW HIM! CHRIST SAID
THIS IN JOHN 17-2, ETERNAL LIFE IS TO KNOW GOD AND JESUS CHRIST
WHOM HE HAS SENT. is to know him. Do you know him? There is a difference between
knowing him and knowing about him. You know, I know, I know
some things about, you know, uh, different. I read two or
three books on president Lincoln. I know some things about him.
I don't know him. I never met the man. Those books could be wrong, I
don't know. I didn't, you know, this, I tell
you what, this book is God's word. Every other book I suspect.
True, I suspect everything else. But this one I don't. This one's
right. But I count everything lost for
the excellency, that excellent knowledge. Hey, now that's an
excellent knowledge. You can have knowledge as long
as you have it in its proper place. That's all right. You need a
good education. Keep it in its proper place. The excellent knowledge is to
know the Lord Jesus Christ, for whom I've suffered the loss of
all things gladly. Paul said, I've lost everything,
but I gladly, I give everything up gladly to know him. These
things are worthless to me. These things, listen, it's like
this, you know, the Lord gives us these things to use them,
but not be used of them, to use them, but not abuse them, but
use them. All things are yours in Christ.
Everything's yours in Christ. Enjoy what God's given you, but
don't abuse it. Use it, but don't abuse it. And
don't let it use you. And Paul said, I tell you what,
he really makes a point here. He said, I count them all lost. I don't just count them all as
lost, but I count them as done. You know, one of the renderings of
that is dog's meat. I count it as that which is only
fit for a dog to eat. You're not a dog anymore, you're
sons of God. He said, this is all but done.
And here, listen here, that I may win Christ. What does he mean
that he may win Christ? Is he trying to win Christ's
favor? No, we're not trying to win his favor. He's saying that
I may know more and more and more of the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, we'll spend eternity
knowing him. Even throughout eternity, we will not exhaust
the knowledge of God. You know how I know that? Because
God is infinite. You cannot exhaust something
that's infinite. Now if it's finite, you can exhaust
it. You can finally reach the end of it. I can't comprehend
what I'm even saying here. But if God is infinite, and everything
about God is infinite, you can't exhaust it. Throughout eternity,
we will be learning of Him. And then we'll just be more amazed
and more amazed. Oh, what's yet to come. You know,
we know in part, you know, everything I know is only part, is in part. I don't know the fullness of
anything. And you don't either. Someday that part is going to
be done away, and we're going to have the mind of Christ. And
then we're going to really be able to learn. You know, there's
a lot of things right now that we can't... The Lord's not going
to show us. We can't comprehend it. You know,
when God told Job, He said, gird up your loins like a man. I'll
demand of you, and you give me answers. Where were you when
I created the heavens and the earth? When I laid the fountains,
where were you? And He goes through this whole list of questions.
You know how many Job answered? Not one. Not one. In other words, Job, if you would
want me to explain why I did what I did to you, Answer these
questions and I'll explain them. If you can't answer these questions,
you can't understand why I did what I did. So there's a lot of things we
got to wait until we get there to have some comprehension of
it, that we have that perfect mind, a perfect mind. That's amazing. And to win Christ
and be found in Him. That's what I want. When you
come up to the end of this life and you die, where do you want
to be found? I know most people will say,
I want to be found in heaven. Do you want to be found in a place
or a person? I don't know what heaven is like. I don't know
where it is. But I know this, wherever Jesus Christ is, that's
heaven. That's heaven. Paradise is where he is. Today
shalt thou be with me in paradise. He's paradise. He's our heaven.
And I know heaven is a place. There's a place called heaven.
And I know there's going to be a new earth. I know that. But
without him, it'd be nothing, wouldn't it? Because He's the
LIFE of it. He's the LIGHT of it. There's
not going to be a sun. It says there's not going to
be a sun. You know why? Because He's the LIGHT of it. It says
there'll be no more sea. You know why? Because He's the
WATER of life. He's the WATER of it. There's
a water, it says, a stream that flows from the throne of God.
Christ is the WATER of life. We don't need a sun like that
we have here. We have Him. We have the S-O-N
who's the LIGHT of it. But I want to be found in Him,
not having my own righteousness, which He worked hard at. He worked hard at producing it,
only to find out He didn't have one after all. I don't want that
righteousness which is by keeping the law. I want that righteousness
which is through faith in Christ. It's imputed to us through faith.
It's given to us through faith. I want that righteousness. His
righteousness. the righteousness which is of
God by faith, and I want it here for this purpose, that I may
know Him. Though that I may know Him, I tell you, Paul knew Him.
He spent three years in the backside of a desert learning the gospel
from Him. Paul did not get the gospel, he did not learn the
gospel from any of the apostles. He learned it directly from the
Lord Jesus Christ. Christ met with him and taught
him the gospel, revealed these things to him. And he comes away
from that and he says, oh, I just want to know more of him. That
wasn't enough. You ever been somewhere or enjoyed
something so much you just want to go back? It just wasn't enough.
You had to have more of it. Christ is one that you have to
have more of. If you've ever met him, if you've ever met him.
And the fellowship of his sufferings. His suffering people. I want
to know His suffering as a substitute. I want to know that. I want to
know that. If by any means I might attain
to the resurrection of the dead, Paul said, my desire is to, listen,
is to obtain that special resurrection in Christ. And that special resurrection
at the end of this life, that resurrection that ends in life
and not death. There's gonna be a lot of people
that's gonna be raised, they're gonna be resurrected all right,
but it ain't gonna be good. Paul said, I want that resurrection
that's in him and that gives life and leads to life. Now he says, not as though I
had already attained. I'm not saying I'm perfect. I'm
not perfect. Listen here. Here's the experience
of a believer. I have been saved by the grace
of God. I am being saved by the grace
of God. And I shall be saved by the grace
of God. I haven't arrived yet. I haven't
arrived. I don't have perfect faith. My
sanctification in Christ is perfect, but not in me. I sin, I sin every
day. Oh, he said, I haven't attained
yet, but I follow after him. I seek
him. I seek to grow in him. But I follow after, if that I
may apprehend, I lay hold of that for which also I am apprehended
of Christ. Christ has apprehended me. Oh,
that God give me the ability to apprehend Him. Brethren, I'm going to close.
I count not myself to have apprehended. I'm not there yet. There's never
a time in our lives, no matter how old we live, that we have
arrived, that we've got it. Some of God's choice servants
had their greatest fall toward the end of their life when they
was older. Some of the greatest sins happened then. David, Bathsheba,
murdering Uriah. That didn't happen when he was
an unbeliever. That didn't happen when he was a young man. That
happened when he was a sweet psalmist of Israel. And God let
him fall. Take heed, let him that thinketh
he standeth, take heed lest he fall. I don't want to do that. I don't count myself to have
apprehended, but it's one thing I do. It's one thing I do. Here's one of the hardest things
to do. forgetting those things which are behind. Can you forget
your sins which are behind? Can you quit bringing them back
up? Can you quit taking a shovel outside and digging them back
up? And woe is me, woe is me, woe is me. Can you quit? Believe
me, there's enough woe is me for today without bringing yesterday's
back into mind. Can you quit digging those sins
back up that Christ died for? Can you do that? Can you quit
going back to this experience and that experience? Forget it,
it's behind you. I have to learn this as someone
who preaches the gospel. And I've done this before. I've
preached a message, and the Lord gave me much liberty. And I think,
I'm going to preach that again somewhere. And I preached it
again somewhere, and it just flat as can be. I was trying to live off of it
yesterday. It's Lord, what would you have
me to preach today? Today, forgetting those things
which are behind, forgetting my experiences, forgetting everything,
and just keep reaching forward. Keep, he says here, pressing,
pressing forward is the idea of someone running a race. Have
you ever, have you ever tried to run a race back with looking
backwards? You'll hit a signpost or a telephone
pole every time. You'll fall in the ditch, you'll
stumble in a mud hole. You can't run a race looking
backwards. The race is forward. If we can
just quit looking backwards and keep looking to Him, running
forward. I messed up so bad yesterday,
that's yesterday. That's yesterday. I may feel
lost today, but I tell you what, I'm still looking to the Lord
Jesus Christ to save me right now. I still look to the Lord
to save me right now. I still do. I'm reaching forth unto those
things which are before me. Thank God our best is yet to
come. It's yet to come. And I pray
for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Oh, Paul
is talking to me here about the crown of life and righteousness
and glory that will never fade away. I press toward the mark for the
prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. My goal,
my goal is to finish the race and obtain that heavenly prize,
that incorruptible crown of life and righteousness and glory and
to be found in Him. When this life is over, I'm standing in Christ. I'm going to spend eternity.
I'm going to spend eternity. That's why the scripture says,
set your mind, your affection on things above, not on the things
of this earth. Everything on this earth sooner
or later, it's going to burn up. It's over with. People can
think I'm a fanatic. That's all right. As soon as
they die, they won't think that. I tell you what, there is not
one atheist in hell. Everybody there believes God.
It's just too late.