If we look at Exodus chapter
4, there's an account there that's mysterious and brief, and perhaps
because of its brevity, it stands out even more in contrast to
the surrounding text. But in Exodus chapter 4, I want
to pick up in verse 21 again. You remember the account where
God is delivering his people from Egypt. He sends Moses to
do that. He sends him with his word. He
gives him promises. He tells them he's sending him
to deliver his people according to the covenant he made many
years prior with Abraham, 400 and some years before with Abraham. And he's going to fulfill that
covenant by bringing his people out of bondage, the bondage of
Egypt, which was teaching us the bondage we're in because
of our own foolishness, our sin, and all the consequences of sin. But in verse 21, we're going
to pick it up there, it says, said to Moses, when thou goest
to return into Egypt, see that thou do all those wonders before
Pharaoh, which I have put in thine hand, but I will harden
his heart that he shall not let the people go." God controls
the heart of the king. It's in his hand to turn it whithersoever
he will. And that's what he did with Pharaoh.
He was a vessel to dishonor. God raised him up to show his
power in him. And yet God has not raised up
all men to show his power of destruction, but he's raised
up his people to show his grace and his glory and mercy, which
we're going to see in a minute. In verse 22, And thou shalt say
unto Pharaoh, Thus saith the Lord, Israel is my son. even
my firstborn. And I say unto thee, Let my son
go, that he may serve me. And if thou refuse to let him
go, behold, I will slay thy son, even thy firstborn." This was
what Moses told Pharaoh just as they were delivered from Egypt
on the night of the Passover. He told Pharaoh that God would
visit him in all of Egypt and the firstborn in Egypt would
be killed unless they let Israel go, which they did not, and God
fulfilled that promise to slay the firstborn in Egypt. But in
verse 24, it seems like a sudden right turn. I was out walking
the other day and there was a hawk flying right towards my face.
And he was looking down. He must have been looking down
for a mouse or something. He didn't see me until he got
about from me to Tom, 12 feet away. He took a right turn there
as if there was a brick wall. And that's what this scripture
seems to do. It says in verse 24, and it came to pass, by the
way in the inn that the Lord met him and sought to kill him. Then Zipporah, his wife, took
a sharp stone and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast
it at his feet, and said, Surely a bloody husband thou art to
me, or art thou to me? So he let him go. Then she said,
A bloody husband thou art because of the circumcision. This is
a strange scripture if we look at it at first and we wonder
who is it speaking of here. Well, it says that the Lord met
him and sought to kill him. Who is the him? Well, it's Moses
because it says in verse 25, speaking about the same him,
that Zipporah took a sharp stone and cut off the foreskin of her
son and cast that foreskin at his feet, which would have been
her husband's feet, because she said immediately there, surely
a bloody husband art thou to me because of this circumcision. God met Moses and was going to
take Moses's life from him. And it seems as if the reason
why he was going to do that is because Moses had not yet circumcised
his son. He had two sons. His oldest was
Gershon. His younger was Eliezer. And
it must have been that Eliezer had reached the age of eight
days old at this time because what God had told Abraham in
Genesis 17 was that all of the male children must be circumcised
on the eighth day. And so when Moses evidently had
not done what he was supposed to do, the Lord met him and sought
to kill him. And so he must not have been
in a condition where he could perform the surgery himself. So his wife, Zipporah, who was
a Midianite woman that Moses had married years earlier, she
took a sharp knife, a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her
son's flesh and cast it at Moses' feet. It seems to me that her
action here reveals her disgust for the operation that she had
to perform. The fact that this was done on
her son, perhaps, we could speculate. As a mother, she would have thought,
what kind of barbarous act is this thing you call circumcision
that God would require this to be done to an infant son of mine? And this is really what we want
to study today. What is circumcision? Why does
God require it? What does it mean to us? And then I think more importantly,
well, to me personally, is am I, have I been circumcised according
to God's requirement? So let's take these things together
here. First of all, what is circumcision? Most of us know what circumcision
is. Babies have this done to them. Male babies have this done
to them even today. But in Genesis 17, God set this
up. If you want to look back in Genesis
17. Because it was God who required
it. And because God required it, it was important. And it
was important to God. For a number of reasons which
we're going to see shortly, but I just want to read through here
in the first few verses of Genesis 17, verse 1. So God was going
to make a covenant. a solemn agreement between himself
and Abram. When God makes a covenant, He
dictates the conditions. And when God made this covenant
with Abraham, it was a covenant made that represented, looked
forward to that covenant, which was an everlasting covenant,
a covenant of grace. And in that covenant, God does
for his people all that he promises, and we'll talk about that shortly. But in any case, he says, I'll
make a covenant with thee between me and thee, and will multiply
thee exceedingly. And Abram fell on his face. No
doubt he fell on his face because God spoke with him, but also
because God spoke to him of such a gracious thing that he would
make a covenant with him. And it humbled him, and he fell
on his face. I can imagine if God were to
speak directly to us in this way, it would cause us to fall
in our face. And so God talked with him, saying,
verse 4, As for me, God says, as for me, behold, my covenant
is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations.
Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name
shall be called, shall be Abraham. For a father of many nations
have I made thee, and I will make thee exceeding fruitful,
and make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee.
And I will establish my covenant between me and thee, and thy
seed after thee, and their generations for an everlasting covenant to
be a God to thee and to thy seed after thee. And I will give unto
thee and to thy seed after thee the land wherein thou art a stranger,
all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I
will be their God." And God said to Abraham, Thou shalt keep My
covenant, therefore, thou and thy seed after thee in their
generations. This is My covenant, which you
shall keep between Me and you, and thy seed after thee. Every
man-child among you shall be circumcised." You shall circumcise
the flesh of your foreskin. It shall be a token of the covenant
betwixt me and you. And he that is eight days old
shall be circumcised among you, every man child in your generations.
He that is born in the house or bought with money of any stranger
which is not of thy seed. And it goes on, it says in verse
14, "...and the uncircumcised child whose flesh of his foreskin
is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people.
He hath broken my covenant." You see that? Here God tells
Abraham, I want you to circumcise your children, all of your male
sons, all of your sons. And I want you to do this on
the eighth day. And what this is going to be is a token, a
token, a sign of the covenant. a sign of the covenant that God
made with him. Now, in the New Testament, circumcision
becomes a big deal, because throughout the history of the Jews, all
the Jews at least attempted to keep this, it seems, because
they made a big deal of it. It was an outward sign, and the
Jews were very interested in outward signs, just like we are
interested in outward religion. But the problem with circumcision,
the problem is that we as sinners turn what is normally meant for
good, we turn it to evil. So the problem with circumcision
is that men have made the outward sign the whole thing. And they've
made that sign to be a way how they can put themselves into
the kingdom of God. In other words, if I'm circumcised,
I'm a descendant of Abraham. All the blessings God promised
him must be mine. But God reveals in Romans chapter
2 that outward circumcision really is of no value in itself. Romans
chapter 2, it says this in verse 28. For he is not a Jew, which is
one outwardly." Do you see that? Many people were circumcised
thinking that because they were circumcised outwardly, they belonged
to the nation of the Jews, they were Jews. But God says, no,
no. He is not a Jew which is one outwardly. And he means only. Outwardly only. Neither is that
circumcision which is outward in the flesh. Whatever you see
outward in the flesh, that's not the true circumcision. That's
what God is saying. That's not the meaning of circumcision.
That's not the real thing. That's just the letter of the
law. That's not the spirit. That's not what God really meant
in circumcision. But he is a Jew, which is one
inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit,
not in the letter, whose praise is not of men, but of God." You
see, circumcision is an outward sign of an inward work. The circumcision that is performed
outwardly is performed by men. It's performed on a baby when
he's eight days old. But the circumcision that's performed,
that's the true circumcision, cannot be performed by men. It's
performed by God only. And that's what the outward circumcision
teaches us, is that inward circumcision. So I want to consider this with
you. Look at Deuteronomy 10, verse 16. There's something here
we learn in Deuteronomy 10, verse 16. He says, God says to the
Israelites, This is the nation, the nation with whom God made
covenant in Abraham. And he says to them in verse
16, "...circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and
be no more stiff-necked." Do you see that? God tells the Israelites
right here, He says, you circumcise your heart. and don't be stiff-necked. It teaches us a number of things.
Number one, God required them to circumcise their heart. Number
two, circumcision is of the heart. That's what God is concerned
with. Number three, Uncircumcised men and women, because women
are included in this, the uncircumcised person is someone who's stiff-necked. And stiff-necked means to be
stubborn, rebellious. It means to oppose and resist
God's truth. And so circumcision was meant
to take away that stiff-neckedness. and to replace it with a heart
that does not resist, but receives God's Word. Look at Acts chapter
7. This was a sermon by Stephen
preached, which was the sermon, the last sermon he preached,
because those who heard him killed him. for preaching this sermon.
And what he preached there was offensive to them. And one of
the reasons it was offensive, because he told them the truth
about themselves. But we're going to look at just
one verse in Acts chapter 7, verse 51. He says there, You
stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you do always
resist the Holy Ghost as your fathers did, so do ye. What is circumcision? It's in
the heart. Why do we need to be circumcised?
Because naturally we resist the Holy Ghost. We will not hear
God. We will not hear Him because
we oppose Him. Our mind is hostile. We're at
enmity with Him. We're not subject to God's law
and by nature we cannot be. Romans 8, 7 and 8, it says the
same thing. And so here he says, you, you
stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart. He was preaching the
gospel of Christ to them. They didn't receive it. They
wouldn't hear it. And he tells them, the problem is, is that
your heart is uncircumcised. You might be circumcised outwardly,
but that does you no good because circumcision must be in the heart. And so you're stiff-necked. If
you're circumcised, if God circumcises your heart, what do you do? You
hear his word. You receive his word. And in
receiving it, you embrace his word. So this helps us understand
this thing about Moses and the circumcision of his son. He didn't
perform. First of all, I think the thing
that's most interesting here that stands out is that God required
that infants, eight-day-old infants, be circumcised. What does that
mean? It means that before they were circumcised, they were uncircumcised,
doesn't it? What they were naturally, they
were born. They had any time hardly to do anything except
to be born. Eight days old. And all the while
they were uncircumcised and God said they had to be circumcised.
These little infants. It says that we're born in sin. David said it this way, Psalm
51. In sin did my mother conceive me. I was shapen in iniquity. Naturally, what we are by nature
has to be cut off, has to be removed from us. And God requires
this. And so that's what we see first
of all is that what we are naturally is we're uncircumcised. And what
is it? What is the end result of being
uncircumcised? Look at Ephesians chapter 2.
It's dreadful. It's something to fear. I don't
want to be uncircumcised in heart. I want to be circumcised. Ephesians
chapter 2. He says to these Gentiles, After
spending chapter 1 and chapter 2 up through verse 10 declaring
the tremendous, the amazing grace of God to them. He says now,
he says in verse 11, remember that you being in time past Gentiles
in the flesh who are called uncircumcision by that which is the circumcision
in the flesh made by hands. In other words, the Jews call
you the uncircumcision. that at that time, when you were
in the flesh, you were without Christ. Being aliens, that means
separated, having no claim on the covenant that God made with
His people, His true people. He said being aliens from the
commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise.
Having no hope and without God in the world. Do you see that?
That's what it means to be uncircumcised. Without hope, without God, without
Christ. Having no part in the blessings
God gave to His people. Do you see the importance of
circumcision? God requires it. It's required even of infants. It tells us of our natural condition
before God that we're uncircumcised in our heart. Jesus said, it's
not what goes into a man that defiles a man, it's what comes
out of the man that defiles the man. And what comes out of him?
Adulteries, thefts, lies, All the things that we do that
are evil originate in our heart. And God says our heart has to
be circumcised. And the evidence of being uncircumcised
is that we are stiff-necked. We will not hear the truth of
God. We don't love God. Look at Deuteronomy
chapter 30. So a child is born. He's eight
days old. He's circumcised. Can the child
do the circumcision? No. A child is unable to circumcise
himself. And yet, in Deuteronomy 10, 16,
God told the Israelites, circumcise your hearts. Circumcise your
hearts. Isn't it interesting that God required the people
to circumcise their heart, but isn't that really impossible
for us? Isn't it impossible for us to
circumcise our own heart? How can we change our heart?
How can we change our heart from being this source of iniquity
to actually receiving the Word of God and loving God? How can
we do that? It's impossible for us, isn't
it? And doesn't it bother us? Doesn't it, doesn't it, upset
our natural sense of justice? To think that God would require
something of us and hold us accountable to do something we cannot do?
Doesn't that bother us? Doesn't that really offend us?
Do you know what the result, if you think about that, if God
requires us to do what we cannot do, what is that? That makes
us feel like a victim, doesn't it? And God is the villain. And
yet, if we think about it for a moment, Think about the fact
that uncircumcision reflects our opposition to God, our hostility
towards Him, our lack of love for God. And think that God Himself
is holy and just and pure and gracious and wise and faithful
and loving and everything that God is. We can see right away
that if we don't love God, who alone is good, that makes us
a lover of evil, doesn't it? And therefore it's reasonable
that God would require our hearts to be circumcised and tell us
to do it. And the fact that we think ill
against God because He requires something of us we cannot do.
It shows us that we're only content to live within the sphere of
our own ability, doesn't it? If we could do it, if God required
it and we could do it, we'd be content to live just like that.
But God doesn't work that way. God requires of us what we cannot
perform because in His grace and in His mercy, He does for
us far beyond what we even think or ask. He does all for us. And if He didn't do more than
we could do, we would be in our sins. We would remain in our
sins and we would be under the wrath of God and justly so. So
look at Deuteronomy chapter 13 and verse 6. It says there, "...and
the Lord thy God..." "...the Lord thy God..." Deuteronomy
36. "...the Lord thy God..." I'm sorry, Deuteronomy 30 verse
6. Sorry. And the Lord thy God will
circumcise thine heart. Moses told the Lord his lips
were uncircumcised. Or maybe it was Isaiah. Sometimes I feel like that. You
know, you listen to a sermon and you go, he meant to say this,
but he actually said that. I do it all the time. I don't
even realize it. So I appreciate you pointing
that out. Deuteronomy 30, verse 6. See who's doing the action
here? Who? God is doing the action. This is a promise. This is a
blessing. This is grace. and the heart of thy seed. And
what will the result of that circumcision be? To love the
Lord thy God with all thine heart and with all thy soul that thou
mayest live. Do you see that? To be uncircumcised
is to be without God, without Christ, without hope in the world.
It's to have a heart that cannot hear the gospel, that resists
the gospel and resists the truth and opposes its own salvation.
To be uncircumcised in heart means to not love God. It means
to not have any part in the covenant of God's grace. The covenant
He made with Abraham and to Abraham's seed, the Lord Jesus Christ.
And so we see the importance of circumcision in these things,
don't we? We see not only that God requires
it, but it's so significant in the negative of what it is if
we're uncircumcised. It's so significant to be uncircumcised,
we can see now why God would require Moses to circumcise his
son. Look at Ezekiel. Let's see if
I can find this verse. It's in Ezekiel, which is after
Jeremiah. In chapter 44. Ezekiel chapter
44. Think about Moses' case with
his son Eliezer, and we'll think about that as we read these verses
in Ezekiel 44. It says here, in verse 6, of
Ezekiel 44, and thou shalt say to the rebellious, even to the
house of Israel, thus saith the Lord God, O ye house of Israel,
let it suffice you of all your abominations, in that you have
brought into my sanctuary strangers uncircumcised in heart and uncircumcised
in flesh, to be in my sanctuary, to pollute it, even my house,
when you offer my bread, the fat and the blood, and they have
broken my covenant because of all your abominations. And you
have not kept the charge of mine holy things, but you have set
keepers of my charge in my sanctuary for yourselves. Thus saith the
Lord God, no stranger "...uncircumcised in heart, nor uncircumcised in
flesh, shall enter into my sanctuary of any stranger that is among
the children of Israel." You see that? God said that if you
bring into my house one who is uncircumcised in heart, and in
those days, and in flesh, that it would be an abomination. It
would be an abomination. Because it means that you have
brought someone in who is an enemy of God, who hates the truth,
who hates God, who is apart from the covenant, and you brought
them in as if they are. It's an abomination to God. And
so it's reasonable that God would require Moses to circumcise his
son, isn't it? So let's review now what we've
seen in these verses that we've read. First of all, circumcision
that's performed outwardly signifies a circumcision that's performed
inwardly. And circumcision is very important
in what it means. Not in its physical act, but
what it means. We must have the true circumcision
applied to us by God. Now Moses was taking his son
with him, and he was taking Israel. And if he took his son who was
uncircumcised with him, along with all the Israelites, to be
God's people, that would be an abomination, wouldn't it? Everyone
who is in God's covenant must be circumcised. And so now we're going to understand
here how God does this. God says, I will do this. How
does God do this? And what is this? There's two
parts. I want you to get these two things about circumcision.
Turn to the New Testament in Colossians chapter 2. circumcision signifies two things. Now, if we understand what the
New Testament says about circumcision, then we'll be able to look at
what Moses did here and what God was about to do to him and
understand what it means, what it signifies. In Colossians chapter
2 and verse 11, it says this, I'll read also verse, it's hard
not to read the whole chapter here, but let me just read verse
9 through 11. In Him, in Christ, dwells all
the fullness of the Godhead bodily. The Lord Jesus Christ is God.
Everything that's true of God is true of Him. The fullness
of the Godhead dwells in Him bodily. There's nothing true
about God that's not true of Christ. God's wisdom, that's
the wisdom that Christ has. God's will, that's Christ's will.
God's power, that's His power too. His justice, yes, that's
His. His right to judge, that's Christ's.
Everything that God is, the Lord Jesus Christ is. And He also
has a human nature. It's in Him bodily. And here,
look at the next verse. This is the most wonderful words,
perhaps, in all that we've read this morning. And you, are complete
in Him. If He's everything that God is
in a body, and He says we're complete in Him, it means there's
nothing that we lack. All that God is, He is to us
in Christ. Everything that God is, He is
to us in Christ. Isn't that amazing? And all that
God is, He did for us in the Lord Jesus Christ. In the words,
in Him, it means that He is in Him as our covenant head. The one with whom God acted,
the one with whom God transacted, the one on whom God placed conditions,
and the one to whom God made all of the promises. Galatians
3 and 16 and 19, it says that Christ is the seed. He's the
one to whom the promises were made. And only in Christ do we
receive any blessing from God. And he says, not just a little
blessing, but all things are given to us in Christ. We're
complete in Him. But then it says, he says, you're
complete in Him which is the head of all principality and
power. He rules and reigns over everything in heaven and in earth.
in whom also in the Lord Jesus Christ also you are circumcised
with the circumcision made without hands." Do you see this? Physical
circumcision, men would do. This circumcision is done without
the hands of men. It's done with the hands of God.
You are circumcised, Paul says, the Spirit of God says to the
believer, you are circumcised with the circumcision made without
hands. And how is that? He says, in putting off the body
of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ. Was the
Lord Jesus Christ circumcised? Well, yes, in fact, He was. At
8 days old, as an infant, He was circumcised. But it's not
talking about the circumcision in His body. Not that circumcision,
at least. It's talking about the fact that
the Lord Jesus Christ... Remember, circumcision is cutting
off and removing that which is natural and is opposition to
God. It's sinful. And so the Lord Jesus Christ
as the one who was the one with whom God made the covenant that
he really was speaking to when God spoke to Abraham about his
covenant. He says in Galatians 3 and verse 16 and 19 as I mentioned
that that covenant was actually made with the son of Abraham
who is the Lord Jesus Christ who would come and it would be
in him as the covenant head that God would make all of the covenant
promises for His people. Now the significance here is
that in order for those blessings to come to His people, the Lord
Jesus Christ Himself had to be circumcised. And that circumcision
by which He was circumcised was a circumcision that He was cut
off. He was cut off Because He took
our sins, the sins of His people. He bore our sins in His own body
on the cross. 1 Peter 2.24 And bearing those
sins in His own body on the cross, He died. He was under the law.
The law cursed all sinners. He died to sin. Having died to
sin, what's crucified? A body is crucified. It says
in Romans 6 that our sins, like a body, were crucified with Him. And our sins, having been crucified
with him, we were buried. That body is now dead. Our sins
are dead and is put in the grave. The guilt of our sins, all of
our sins, the guilt of our sins was laid on Christ. He bore them
and he bore the guilt and the punishment for them and died
under the guilt of those sins. And in dying, he was cut off
and our sins were removed. Our sins were cut off and removed
from us and cast away from us because the Lord Jesus Christ
took those sins, bore them, and died. And in His death, our sins
died. It says in Romans 6-11, Reckon
ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sins. We're dead
to sin because of the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. Our sins
like a body were placed on Him. It says in Romans 8, He says
that He was made in the likeness of sinful flesh, and God in the
likeness of sinful flesh condemned sin in His flesh, that the righteousness
of the law might be fulfilled in us. When the Lord Jesus Christ
was circumcised in His death, He fulfilled all that God required
of him in that covenant of grace. He fulfilled all of it in order
that he might do the will of God, all the will of God, and
do it for his people. And that obedience of his in
everything that he did as our Savior and Mediator, our High
Priest, the Lamb of God, the One who is our Redeemer, everything
that he did was to fulfill that will of God for his people. That's
our righteousness. And His being cut off, that's
our justification. We're justified by His blood. His righteousness is imputed
to us as our perfect holiness and standing before God. And
God declares us to be just by that. And so, in the death of
Christ, we're circumcised. in the death of Christ. That's
the first thing. Circumcision, first of all, points to the fact
that the one with whom the covenant was made had to die, and in dying
for us, He would put away the sins of our flesh. We were born
in sin. We could do nothing about it.
God had to circumcise us. The circumcision of Christ is
the work of God entirely alone. It's His work, not ours. We have
nothing to do with it. It was done outside of us. But
there's another aspect of circumcision which we read about already,
is that God commands that His people be circumcised in their
heart. Not only did Christ die for us, but God does something
in us. And that's what we need to look
at here. God does something in us. We already saw what the effects
are of uncircumcision. If we're uncircumcised, not only
are we not part of the covenant, Which is an outward thing. It's
something that we either stand in relationship to the covenant
as one who is part of it or we're not part of it. We can't do anything
about that. We're not even born when God
made the covenant. But there's something else about
circumcision which says the uncircumcised in heart, they resist God. They are opposed to God. They
hate God. They don't love Him. And so this
aspect of circumcision causes us to hear God. It causes us
to receive His Word. It causes us to love Him in our
heart. And that's what we want to look
at now, is what God does in order to circumcise our heart. Look
at Philippians chapter 3, because here we see We see sort of a
little bit of the, this whole thing of circumcision was a really,
really big deal in the New Testament because there were the Jews who
said, if you're not outwardly circumcised, you can't be part
of the nation of Israel. And they understood the Old Testament
to be a physical covenant. But God never meant it that way.
He said, He's not a Jew which is one outwardly, but He's a
Jew which is one inwardly. God doesn't even count those
in the nation of Israel as being Jews, unless they're Jews by
circumcision of the heart. They're not even counted as Jews.
They're not Jews. He says, remember Ishmael? Ishmael was Abraham's son. He
was born before Isaac. He was circumcised. God said
to Abraham, circumcise your son. Abraham circumcised Ishmael.
Ishmael was circumcised. But Ishmael was not part of the
covenant. God required every Jew to be
circumcised. And then later on he says, but
you're not circumcised. Where? In your heart. You're
not part of the covenant unless your heart is circumcised. I
want to be part of this covenant. I don't want to be without God,
without hope, without Christ in the world. And I want to love
God above all things. I want to truly love God. How
do we love Him? Look at Philippians chapter 3.
He says this, We'll read verse 1 through 3. Finally, my brethren,
rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you,
to me indeed, is not grievous, but for you it's safe. Sometimes
we might think, all I ever hear is this constant repetition of
what Jesus has done, who he is, and all his stuff, and it's just
kind of tiring. But Paul says, It's not a burden
for me. It's not grievous for me. It's
safe for you. What does the father do to his
children? He tells them the same thing over and over again. For
their safety. For their safety. Always telling
them. And they get tired of hearing it. And then later on in their
life, they can't get it out of their head because dad has told
them so much. Or you could think of it this
way. Here's a man who has charge as the steward of the king's
treasure. And it's so vast and it's incomprehensible. And he
wants to describe it to you. And so he takes great delight. It's not grievous for him to
tell you about this part of the king's treasure or that part.
Look at this. Have you seen this? It's huge.
It's amazing. It's so incredible. That's what
the preacher of the gospel does. Like a father, he guards, he
protects, as a shepherd, his sheep, the sheep of God. But
also, as the steward over the treasure of the gospel that he's
been given, he never tires of hearing or proclaiming that treasure. And so Paul says this, he says,
To write the same things to you, to me indeed, is not grievous,
but for you it's safe. And then he says, beware of dogs.
Have you ever seen those signs? Walking up to the house, beware
of the dog. What do dogs do? Well, they bite. They bite. And
you don't want to be bitten by a dog. I was bitten by the dog
my first time when I was a little kid. I wanted to pet the dog,
so I raised my hand into the window of the car and he bit
me. Ow, man, it hurt. I've been bitten by a dog a couple
of times, and they didn't really bite me that hard. One thing
I noticed is that dogs' teeth are very strong. I've seen them
bite things in two, like cans and stuff. It doesn't seem like
it hurts them at all. Just think what they could do
to me. Crunch up my bones. Dogs are always biting. They
follow after in packs. Because in pacts they feel stronger,
and they chase after it, and they're always nipping and biting
into the heels of those who proclaim the gospel. And they bark at
things they don't understand. Always barking. My dog's always
barking. He hears something outside. Bark, bark, bark. Doesn't even
know what it is, but he's barking at it. That's what a dog is.
Always opposing. They're vicious. And they're
not part of the kingdom of God. He says, beware of dogs, beware
of the evil workers, beware of the concision. It's a word that
means those who mutilate the flesh. But he doesn't just mean
mutilating the flesh. He's concerned here that these
people who preach, that in order for you to be accepted by God
and be brought to God, you must do something like circumcise
yourself. Or whatever it is. So many things
are put in the way of a sinner in coming to God. The truth of
the gospel is not You need to do something in order to make
yourself acceptable to God. Or you need to do something in
order to take what God has done and then make yourself acceptable
to God. The truth of the gospel is you're
already unacceptable to God. And God has done something entirely
outside of you to make you acceptable to Him. Believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ. Believe Him. And so he says here,
he says, So beware of these dogs. Beware of the evil workers. Beware
of the concision. Those who attempt to not only
mutilate your flesh, but would also mutilate your soul and separate
you from God. He says, for we are the circumcision. Do you see that? And what is
the evidence that we are the circumcision? Because God, remember,
has to do this. God has to do this. He says,
we are the circumcision, and the first thing he lists here
is in verse 3, which worship God in the Spirit. Do you see
that? Now, you know from scripture
that it says that we were dead in sins. Dead in sins. What does it mean to be dead?
Well, if you are spiritually dead, it means your spirit is
dead to God, right? You have no life to God. No life.
You can hold your mirror over the mouth of the person dead.
There's no breath. There's no pulse. There's no
activity in the brain. No action in the eyes. No movements
of the body. They're dead. They have no life.
You can do things to them that they don't care. Spiritually
dead people have no life to God. That's what we are by nature.
We're spiritually dead. But he says, we're the circumcision
who worship God in the spirit. What must have happened if we
can worship God in the spirit? Something had to occur. God had
to raise us from the dead in our spirit. He had to give us
life in our souls. To be circumcised in heart is
another one of those things that God uses to describe how he brings
us to life. There's many different ways in
scripture that God describes what He does for us, or does
in us, in the Gospel. One of them is circumcision.
Others are this. If any man be in Christ, he is
a new creation. Remember that? 2 Corinthians
5, 17? We're a new creation. We've been created. God has created
us. And not only created us, but
He's created us... I'm just going to read this to you because I
don't want to... Well, in fact, you can turn there if you want
to. It's in Colossians chapter 3. And He says, I was going to put my finger
right on it. Yes, in Colossians chapter 310, he said, but we
have put on the new man. So another thing is not only
we're called a new creation, we're called a new man, which
is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created
him. Do you see that? were created by God in the image
of Christ and were renewed in knowledge." In other words, circumcision
brings with it a spiritual understanding. 1 Corinthians 2, it says that
the natural man cannot understand the things of God. They're foolishness
to him. Neither can he know them. But
God has made them known to us by His Spirit. And God teaches
us the truth By giving us life in our spirit so that we could
know Him. We don't know Him otherwise.
And when He does that, it's called giving us life. Making us a new
creation. Circumcising our hearts. We're
a new man. We're a new creation. We're born
of God. We're born of the Word of God
and the Spirit of God. All these things speak of the
same thing. We're sanctified by the Spirit. Being sanctified
by the Spirit, being born of God, being regenerated, being
made a new man, being created in Christ Jesus, being renewed
in the Spirit of your mind in righteousness and true holiness.
All these things speak of that same activity of God in our spirit
causing us to live to God. And what do we do when we live
to God? Well, he says it here in Philippians 3, 3. We worship
God in the Spirit. When you worship God in the Spirit,
you're worshiping Him in the understanding, in the spirit
of your mind, in the truth. Jesus told the Samaritan woman
at the well in Samaria, He said, They that worship the Father
must worship Him in spirit, and in truth. You can't worship God
in error. If you believe error, you can't
worship God. Isn't that what that means? You
worship God in spirit and in truth. And what is the truth?
Well, look at Acts 24. He says this. He says in verse
14, But this I confess, Paul says, this I confess to thee,
that after the way, which they call heresy, So worship I, the
God of my fathers, believing all things which are written
in the law and in the prophets." How did Paul worship God? He
worshiped Him according to the way they called heresy. And what
was that way? That was the way of the Lord
Jesus Christ. He's the way, isn't he? He's
the way. The way that God reconciles sinners
to Himself by the death of Christ. The way that God justifies the
ungodly by the righteousness and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The way that God brings many sons to glory by making His Son
an offering for sin. God does all this. That's the
way that Paul worshipped God. He worshipped Him by that way.
If you and I worship God, we're gonna worship him in the Lord
Jesus Christ. Jesus said to the woman at Samaria
again, he said, you worship, you know not what. She says,
should we worship in this mountain or at Samaria or in Jerusalem? And Jesus said, you don't know
what you worship, but we know what we worship because salvation
is of the Jews. In other words, we worship the
God who saves. We worship the God who saves.
Look at Genesis 22. The first place in the Bible
worship is even mentioned. The word worship is used for
the first time in Genesis 22. And it's worth our look here. I'll just take you there briefly.
Genesis chapter 22, he says this. It came to pass after these things
in verse 1 that God did tempt Abraham and said to him, Abraham,
and he said, behold, Here I am. And he said, Take now thy son,
thine only son, Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the
land of Moriah, and offer him there for a burnt offering upon
one of the mountains, which I will tell thee of. And Abraham rose
up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two
of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and claved the
wood for a burnt offering, and rose up, and went into the place
which God had told him. And on the third day, Abraham
lifted up his eyes, and he saw the place afar off. Here he is,
his son, laden with wood, carrying the wood up the hill, about to
carry it up the hill, and Abraham looks far off, and he sees that
place that God told him of. In verse 5, And Abraham said
to his young men, Abide ye here with the ass, and I and the lad
will go yonder and worship and come again to you. I and the
lad are going to go, we're going to worship, and we're going to
come again. Abraham was taking his son Isaac. Isaac was the
son of promise. All of the blessings to all of
God's people were wrapped up in Isaac. God swore by an oath
to Abraham that he would keep this covenant through Isaac. And Abraham believed God. Because
he believed God, even though God said to offer up his own
son, his only son Isaac. He takes him with the wood to
offer him and to burn him up and he believed. that when he
offered him up, God would raise him from the dead, and all the
promises God made were vested in that son. And God had to raise
him back up to life in order to fulfill those promises. So
he reasoned, it's going to have to happen. And so he takes the
wood, the burnt offering, he laid it upon Isaac, his son,
and he took the knife. It says in verse 6, And they
went, both of them, together. And Isaac spake to Abraham his
father, and he said, My father? And he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold, the fire
and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? And Abraham said, Listen to these
words very, very carefully. My son, God will provide himself
a lamb for a burnt offering. God will
provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering. So they went both of
them together, and they came to the place, and you know the
story. Abraham stretched forth his hand to slay his son, and
God speaks from heaven and stops him. And then he provides the
ram in the bush. But Abraham believed God, and
believing God He was worshiping God. Believing God, he offered
up his son. He believed that God would provide
himself a lamb. And that was his worship. We
worship God, believing that God has provided himself, the Lord
Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, and that in providing him, he's
provided everything. He requires of me all of my salvation,
all of my hope. And remember, the uncircumcised
heart, it resists the truth, it resists the gospel. But the
circumcised heart, it welcomes, it embraces, it confesses, this
is all my hope. And this is all by which I worship
God, what God has done for me in Christ. And the circumcised
heart worships God that way. And you know what that knowledge,
that understanding, that faith towards God in Christ does? It
causes us to love Him, doesn't it? We love Him because He first
loved us. This action of worshiping God
that Paul says, I worship God of my fathers according to all
that was written. By this way, I worship in this
way that they call heresy. And Abraham said this, I worship
God because He's the one who has provided all. This, this
is the the subject of our life. This is what bubbles up from
our heart. If God has done this in you,
it's the action of God, isn't it? He's taken your heart that
was stiff-necked, He's removed from you your sins in Christ,
and He's opened your eyes to see it. He's created you a new
creature in Christ. He's made you a new man. He's
made you a spiritual man, giving you the mind of Christ to think
God's thoughts after Him. What's important to God is suddenly
important to you. What's dear to God is dear to
you. What God loves, you love. It's Christ and Him crucified.
And so he says here in Philippians 3, not only do we worship God
in Christ Jesus, but he says here in Philippians 3, we rejoice
in Christ Jesus. We worship God in the Spirit,
we rejoice in Christ Jesus. And the word rejoice here means
that we're bold, we're confident, and we glory in Christ. We read last week about how Paul
told Timothy, he says, don't be ashamed of me, of me, the prisoner of the Lord,
or of his gospel. Don't be ashamed of it, because
God, from the beginning, has saved us, and he's called us with a holy calling,
not according to our works, but according to His own purpose
and grace which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world
began. Don't be ashamed of that. Don't
be ashamed of the Lord Jesus Christ. And here he says, we
joy, we rejoice, we are boasting in this. Look at Galatians chapter
6. I want you to see this. Galatians 6. In Galatians, the
whole subject there seems to be opposing this action of circumcision
as necessary either to justify or to improve me after I'm justified. Anything I do will not make me
acceptable to God, and anything I do after I understand God's
grace will not improve my acceptability or make me more holy before God. It's what God has done in Christ
alone. And so he says in Galatians chapter
6, verse 14, this is the Apostle Paul, the Apostle Paul who was
the least among all the Apostles in his own mind, but God used
him in an incredible way. He wrote, he had to write at
least, what, a third of the New Testament? And he explained the
Gospel in ways that are so rich and so free and so Christ-exalting
that we can't do without them. This Apostle says this, I can
imagine at the end of his life he would be tempted to boast
in himself. Though I might want to boast in myself, he says,
no. God forbid that I should glory, that I should boast in. What do you think of the thing
that's most that captures your attention, and draws out your
affections, and gives you confidence before God, and makes you want
to tell other people the good news about. That one thing, Paul
says, God forbid that I should glory, and you would think that
he would say something stupendous, but he says no, save in the cross
of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ignominious, shameful, thing,
the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, on which the Lord of Heaven suffered. He says, by whom the world is
crucified to me and I to the world. God forbid that I should
glory in anything but my Lord Jesus Christ, who made himself
of no reputation, took upon him the form of a servant, became
a man, and under that gave himself for my sins, and put away my
sins by the sacrifice of himself, and rose again, and reigns in
heaven. The Lord of heaven stooped to take me to glory by the sacrifice
of himself." That's my hope. That's all my glory. The thief
on the cross, he realized it. Lord, Lord, remember me. Thomas
realized it. He says, my Lord, my God, he's
everything to me. But in Philippians 3, he says,
not only do we rejoice in Christ Jesus, we boast in Him only,
but he says, we have no confidence in the flesh. Paul was one who
had a reason to boast in his flesh. I don't. But Paul could
have. I'm glad that Paul found no reason
to boast in his flesh, because I can't find any to boast in
mine either. And I have good reason to be
ashamed for everything that I do. But I can boast in Christ." And
he says, we have no confidence in the flesh. To have no confidence
is a debilitating thing in this life, isn't it? You go out to
do something, you say, I don't think I can do that. I don't
even want to try. I can't step out of my house.
I can't get out of bed. I don't want to do anything.
I'm afraid to look at my own face in the mirror. That's a crippling
kind of thing. In a physical life, confidence
is a necessary thing, isn't it? But in spiritual things, confidence
in the flesh is damning. It's a thing that you have to
shun. You have to run from it. All
confidence in the flesh, Paul says, the true circumcision,
they worship God in Christ. They say, Lord, by your divine
prerogative, you can save me. I'm leaving it in your hands.
And they look to Christ and they rejoice that the Lord Jesus Christ
by himself has purged their sins. And they rejoice. My answer before
God is what Christ has done. Everything I need that God requires
of me in the past for my sins, in the present for my holiness,
and in the future for my answer before God's judgment is found
in Christ. What could give me greater joy
and satisfaction and peace and rest in my soul? And praise to
God and worship and love to Him. And not only that, but He doesn't
look for anything from me. I have no confidence in the flesh.
I take no confidence in what I can do or what others can do
to me or for me or anything. I don't even look to my faith.
I look to Christ. I look to everything God has
done in Him and in Him alone. That's what it means to be circumcised. And we have to be circumcised
both by the Lord Jesus Christ and in our flesh and in our spirit,
that is. Remember, circumcision is a sign
of the covenant. Moses didn't circumcise his son.
God was going to kill Moses. The Lord Jesus Christ had to
be circumcised. He had to die in order that his
children might be circumcised. Do you see the connection? Moses
didn't die. His son was circumcised. Christ
did die in order that His people might be circumcised. Not only
by putting away the sins of their flesh by His death, burial and
resurrection, but also in bringing the reward of that by His Spirit
and giving us faith in Him and life in Him. circumcision in
our heart looks back to Christ and him crucified and says this
is everything to me all my righteousness is in him in heaven in glory
now and he who overcame death reigns now and will bring all
the blessings of that covenant to me by the virtue of what he's
done that's what circumcision does it enters the holiest by
the blood of Jesus not with an uncircumcised heart but with
a heart that looks to God in faith That's the true circumcision. We worship God in the Spirit. We rejoice in Christ Jesus, and
we take no confidence in the flesh. Not in my flesh or your
flesh. If anyone tells you, this is
what you have to do to be saved, and they start listing the things
that you have to do, you know right away, that's the barking
of a dog. That's the concision. But if
they tell you, look to Christ, He suffered. He died. God accepted
him. God turns you because of what
he received from the Lord Jesus Christ. He thinks of you because
of what he received from him and what he thinks of him. And
if he doesn't receive me on that basis, I have no hope. If Christ's
death is not all my satisfaction to God. If His answer before
the throne of glory is not everything that God needs to have an answer
from me, I have no other answer. Let's pray. Father, we have no
confidence in our flesh to make ourselves acceptable, to bring
anything to God by which we might make ourselves holy or improve
ourselves. We don't look to ourselves for
anything. But we do look to the Lord Jesus
Christ and we don't look to him just a little, but every day
of our lives. You've given us this grace to
hang, to lay hold upon him, to hang upon him, to trust and rest
in him and to rejoice in him and to worship you through him.
We are so thankful that you have the power to save and it was
your will to save. And in this covenant that you've
given to your son, the Lord Jesus, He fulfilled the requirements,
offered up Himself, made it ours by His death, and now gives it
to us by giving us life and faith in Him. Lord, would you grant
us today, because of what Christ has done, to be turned in our
minds, to love you in our heart, and to worship you in our spirit? Would you grant that to us today?
Would you speak to our souls? Would you say, I am thy salvation,
in the very heart of our souls, so that we would be taken by
this grace and lifted up so that we might not doubt, but have
confidence in you, not in ourselves. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.