Long, long ago in the garden
of Eden Adam fell and I fell in him I'm separated from my
creator And I need to be reconciled back
to Him. But Christ Jesus, my Redeemer,
lived a perfect life. He satisfied all of God's holy
laws. He died and shed His blood and
washed away my sins Christ Jesus my Redeemer done it all The Word
of God declares that I'm a sinner Nothing in this flesh is pleasing
to God And He demands absolute perfection. And perfection's something I
just haven't got. Christ Jesus, my Redeemer, lived
a perfect life. He satisfied all of God's holy
laws. He died and shed His blood and
washed away my sins Christ Jesus my Redeemer has done it all You're wondering why I'm telling
you this story It's because my heart is burning
with your soul All I know is Christ came into this world to
save sinners To free them from the law and make them whole Christ Jesus, my Redeemer, lived
a perfect life. He satisfied all of God's holy
law. He died and shed His blood and
washed away my sins. Christ Jesus, my Redeemer, done
it all. Christ Jesus, my Redeemer, lived
a perfect life. He satisfied all of God's holy
laws. So lay down all your weapons
of warfare And trust Christ the Redeemer to be your all And trust
Christ the Redeemer to be your all And that song and thousands
that are so-called gospel songs today, because the gospel is
a person. And that's what he was talking
about through the whole song, a person. He kept pointing us
to a person, to a person. If you'd like to follow along,
I'm going to be in Philippians chapter 3. Now, I'm going to preach the
exact same message I preached this morning. Well, not really, but it is the
same subject. You'll see that here in Philippians
chapter 3. Now, there's a real danger for
young preachers, all preachers, but especially young preachers.
There's a real danger to want to come up with something new.
Say something new and exciting. Try to impress people that are
listening to them. Try to get a response. Try to
get an amen or whatever. There's a real danger in trying
to preach to that end. But if my object is preaching
to try to impress somebody or try to get something out of somebody,
I'd best be doing something else. I'd better step right down right
now and let somebody else do it. So I need to ask myself.
Why am I here? We all need to ask ourselves
that question every time we set foot in the place of worship. Why am I here? Why am I here? What is my purpose for being
here? Is it to be seen, to be heard, or to learn about Christ,
to worship God in spirit and in truth? Like I said, I'm going to preach
the same message because there's only one message. There is only
one message. There's just different ways of
approaching it. The message is Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
Paul said it. He said, I'm determined. He said,
I've come to a definite conclusion. Paul had been preaching a while
when he said it. He said, I'm determined not to know, not to
be taken up with anything else but Jesus Christ and Him crucified. But He's my only hope. It's the
message, it's the gospel, the gospel concerning God's Son. Let me read you something I pasted
into my sermon notebook a long time ago when I first started
preaching. I saw this in one of the bulletins at 13th Street,
and I pasted this inside of my sermon notebook where I'd see
it before every time I got up to preach. It's entitled, The
Message. The Message. My pastor wrote
it, and he said, if we would seek a true standard for gospel
ministers, we have to go back to the apostles. Particularly,
we should look at the example of the apostle Paul. The writings
and the practices of the apostle to the Gentiles demonstrate the
message which every gospel minister must proclaim. When he came to
Corinth, he said, what I quoted a moment ago, Not to know anything among you.
Now there was a lot going on in Corinth, in Greece. A lot
of philosophy and great oratory and so forth. A lot of religion. But Paul said, I don't want to
know anything. I'm not interested in what you all are talking about
these days. Politics, whatever. I want to know Christ. I'm determined
not to know anything but Him. Christ and Him crucified. Religious traditionalists soon
tire of hearing the message of Christ crucified. They want to
hear what are called practical messages, which serve really
only to increase our self-righteousness. You know, we've got standards.
If we preach standards, people say, well, I reached that. Go to the next one. Let's see
if I got that one down. That's all it does when you dwell on
practical things. Or prophetic messages. I want
to hear a lot of prophetic messages, which have no heart-piercing
power, you know, facts and a whole lot of speculation. Christ plainly said, It's not
given unto you to know the time and the season. Or church messages. We hear a
lot of church messages which exalt their denomination. He
says, I fear for men who tire. of hearing Christ crucified,
for God will be tired of them in judgment. Christ crucified is the message
which was preached by Paul and all the other apostles. This
was the message that pricked the hearts of men in the apostolic
day, that destroyed the vanity of self-righteous tradition,
ritualistic Judaism, superstition paganism. And this is the message
which must be preached today. This is the standard by which
every minister must be judged. Does he deliver the message,
Jesus Christ and Him crucified? Does he or does he not? Every time he sets foot in the
pulpit. That's the standard, Rick, by which every preacher
should be judged. You know, all true preachers
preach the same thing. The same thing. Or rather, I
should say, the same one. The same one. The same message.
The same goal. And I ask you, do you get tired
of hearing the gospel? I asked Terry that before I stood
up here. I said, Terry, I popped this question on. Do you get
tired of hearing the same message? He said, no, he said, I'm fearful
I won't hear it. So I'm afraid I won't hear it
again. You know, a woman one time told
Scott Richardson, she said she came up and mocking him one day
after service and said, all you preach is gospel, gospel, gospel. She said, I got it written right
down here in my Bible. I've got it everywhere. Gospel, gospel,
that's all you preach. Well, I hope somebody says that
about me. One woman told my dad one day, she said, you've made
an idol out of Jesus Christ. I tell you what, he is my idol
and I worship him. I worship him. You ever get tired
of hearing the gospel? That's kind of like asking a
hungry man, a man who's dying of starvation, you had enough
to eat yet? You know, we hunger and thirst after righteousness.
That's Christ. We hunger and thirst after Him.
Kind of like asking a thirsty man, a man who hasn't had anything
to drink for days, you want something to drink? You better believe
it. You better believe it. Kind of
like asking a drowning man, a drowning man, you want, you need help
or you want to swim a little longer? Well, I'm going to preach the
message. that the prophets preach, the
apostles preach, the reformers preach, the martyrs preach, all
of them preach. Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
By God's grace, that is. By His grace. So look here in
Philippians chapter 3 with me. This is the only message there
is. The Apostle Paul says this, finally, verse 1, finally, let's
wrap this thing up, he said, let's get down to brass tacks,
let's quit beating around the bush, finally, let's sum this
thing up. Finally, in conclusion, he says,
my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. Now, he said a mouthful right
there. That's a sermon in itself. Rejoice in the Lord. Turn over
to Matthew 10 with me. What or who do you rejoice in? What or who do you really rejoice
in? Your home, your car, your job,
your status in the community, your family? What is it that
you really rejoice in? Look here in Matthew 10. Our
Lord warns us plainly in Matthew 10, verse 37. He says, He that
loveth father or mother more than me, that is, rejoices in
them more than me, is not worthy of He that loveth son or daughter
more than me is not worthy of me." Who do you rejoice in? Scripture says to them that believe,
He is precious. He is precious. He is our cause
before rejoicing. He is the one we rejoice in and
love. Him. Him. He's the one we rejoice
in. He is the deepest, heartfelt
rejoicing of our being, of our person. He's the pursuit of our
lives. That's what Paul said in another
chapter, didn't he? Hold that I may win Him and be
found in Him. That's what I long for. He said
it here in this very chapter. I may win Christ, verse 8, and
be found in Him. Verse 10, that I may know Him.
Him. You know, he counted everything
he was and everything he did there before that as just being
so much cow manure. So he'd know Christ. Win Christ. And Paul says under divine inspiration
in another place, he said, when all things are said and done,
we're to rejoice in the Lord, rejoice in the Lord Jesus Christ.
We've got a million reasons to rejoice in Him, in Him who reigns
and rules, in Him who has our very breath and in whose hands
are our very ways. We rejoice in Him that we're
kept by Him, by the power of God in Christ. Christ is the
power of God. We rejoice in who He is. He's
our Lord. He's our Redeemer. He's our sovereign
ruler and sustainer. And what He did, what He does
for us, that He truly came down here and conquered all the forces
of evil for us and gave us eternal life, we rejoice in Him, in Him,
what He's done for us and where He is now. That's the threefold
message. Who He is, what He did and where
He is now. He's God. He's Savior. What did
he do? He saved. He didn't try to. He got the job done. Where is
he now? He's seated at the right hand of God until his enemies
be made his footstool, waiting on redemption, the final redemption
of our bodies and souls. So he's our cause for rejoicing.
Who or what else do we have to rejoice in, really? Everything
in this life, everything we have is perishing. It's just so much
dust and ashes in our hands. We can't really rejoice in it.
We thank God for these things, these people, our family, the
things that God's given us, but it's not going to last. We can't
rejoice in it too long. Oh, we enjoy it for a while,
but our rejoicing is in Him. And that's what the apostle exhorts
us to here. He says, He says, rejoicing the Lord. We need to
be reminded of that, that he's our cause for rejoicing. And
look at it here, verse 1. He says, to write the same things
to you, to me indeed is not grievous, to tell you the old, old story. Terry, you get tired of singing
that song? Tell you the old, old story of God's electing love
and sovereign grace in Jesus Christ. It's not grievous to
me, Paul said. Not grievous at all. Well, he said, rejoice in
my heart. It's what gives me hope and comfort
and peace and encouragement. It's the impetus that makes me
go on. Somebody said, if you just believe
the elect to be saved, why don't you preach to the elect? And
he said, Well, he said, No, why do you preach? Just why do you
preach if you just believe you'd like to be saved? The car and
the man said it was virgin, I believe, said the reason I preach is because
I know somebody will be saved if I preach what most people
believe that salvation is in man's hand. Well, I wouldn't
preach at all because nobody be safe is left up to man. But
since God Almighty is in control of salvation and he actually
saves people. I don't know who they are, so
I'm going to go out there and preach, believing somebody is going to be saved
by this gospel that I preach. If I didn't believe that, I wouldn't
preach that God has an elect. But Paul says to write the same
things. He's not grievous to me. And
I asked you that a while ago. Is it grievous to you to hear
it? I hope not. I hope not. He says, well, it's
not grievous to me. But for you, verse 1, for you
it's safe. It's safe. It's safe. Why? Because Christ is our city
of refuge. He's our place of safety. He's
the rock in whom we hide. He's the place we go. Our shelter
in a time of storm. He's our only hope. He's our
only refuge. He's our only salvation. Christ and Christ alone. The
gospel's safe. It's safe. Why? The gospel is
the only thing that will keep us from starving to death. You
ain't been under the sound of preaching that will leave you
hungry, leave you going away from that place with no bread,
no food. You all have been through it,
haven't you? Some others, under the sound
of preaching with no Christ in, no middle C, you know. And this gospel is faith because
it keeps us from self-righteousness. It's the only message that will
keep a man from being lifted up totally with pride. And what
did Paul call pride to Timothy? The condemnation of the devil.
So you'd be lifted up with pride. Pride goes before fall, doesn't
it? So the gospel is the only thing
that will keep us from self-righteousness. Why? Because it puts us in the
dust as dead sinners, dead sinners, totally dependent on Him who
is life, totally dependent on Him. It puts us at the feet of
the Lord Jesus Christ, looking to Him and Him alone. That's
what the gospel does. And it keeps us from being lifted
up with self-righteous pride and keeps us from looking to
our works to accomplish or to make us acceptable to God. And
it keeps us from error and spirit of life. Our motive, the true motive of
a believer is not rewards in heaven. That's not it at all.
The motive of a believer for serving Christ, for serving God,
is not because we're supposed to. I've used this illustration
before. If my wife only cooked and sewed
and washed my clothes and everything because she's supposed to, and
kind of grumbled on the side, you know, I wish I didn't have
to do this, but I know it's required of me, so here's your eggs. That
wouldn't last long at all. But she does it because she wants
to, because she loves me. And that's the service of a believer. That's why we serve Christ. Of
course, we're supposed to, although we are. But because God has put
within us a love, a love for Him, And we want to serve him
out of gratitude, love and gratitude for what he's done for us. And
the gospel is the only thing to keep us from this error of
spirit and attitude. Well, Paul said it's safe to
write the same things to you. It's not grievous to me. I don't
go tired of it. I don't go tired of preaching
it. I preach it as long as God gives me breath. Besides this,
for you, it's safe. It's your safety. Christ is your
safety. Keep looking to Him. Keep depending
upon Him. Verse 2. Look at verse 2. He
said, Beware of dogs. Some people accuse us of being
a little hard in our preaching. Paul said, There's some dogs
out there. Dogs out there preaching. Look at Isaiah chapter 56. Isaiah called them dogs too. If I was an old, gray-haired
preacher, I'd get away with it. Isaiah 56. He said, Paul said,
you beware of dogs, evil workers. A lot of dogs out there, religious
dogs, barking, howling at the moon. You see them. You see them
on TV. You hear them on the radio. Look
at Isaiah chapter 56, verse 10. Look at this. He says concerning
these false prophets, his watchmen, these so-called preachers, God's
prophets, supposedly, are blind. They're ignorant. They're dumb
dogs. That's who they are. They can't
even bark right. You hear them all the time preaching,
right? My goodness, sleeping, lying
down. Loving to slumber. They're greedy
dogs. Greedy. Can't never get enough. They're shepherds that cannot
understand. They look to their own way, every one for his own
gain. Just dogs howling at the moon. Some of them foam at the
mouth when they preach. Rabbit dogs. They'll bite you
and devour you. You ever seen a dog kind of get
this silly grin on his face? That's what some of them remind
me when they preach. Let's just tell it like it is.
They do. They get this grin on their face,
and behind their eyes are dollar signs, you know. We love you.
God loves you, and I do too. Is it time to quit yet? You see
them grinning like silly dogs while growling. And they'll abide,
and what Isaiah said, they'll abide and devour you for what
they can get out of you. They'll do it. This world is
full of them. And you know, some of them, like Swagger and Baker,
seem to be always in heat. Dogs, they ought to hang signs
on their doors. Beware of dogs. There's a dog
in here. I wish we could do it. The Apostle
Paul said, you beware of dogs. Dogs, evil workers. Why are they
evil workers? They're blaspheming our God.
They're blaspheming his gospel. what they're doing. They're dragging
the name of our God in the dirt. They've got it on their bumper
sticker. They've got God's name on their bumper where all the
fumes and the exhaust and the dirt and everything is smeared
and people look at it and laugh at it. That's dragging God's
name in the dirt. In the gospel, they preach a gospel that won't
save, that defames the glory of God Almighty. They're preaching
another Jesus who wants to and can't unless you let Him. That's
blaspheme in the name of my Lord Jesus Christ. They're dogs. That's what they are. I can't
preach it hard enough. Dogs. They ought to be shot.
Tarred and feathered. Run out of town. Paul said they're
evil workers. He said, you beware of them.
Beware of them. John called them snakes. Verse
2. He said, you beware of the concision. He's talking about
legalism there. Another place he said, if you
be circumcised, if you do anything to be accepted by God Almighty,
to recommend yourself to God, any work, I don't care what it
is, and you think God's going to take notice of it, Christ
died in vain. Is that what he said? If you
be circumcised, Christ profits you nothing. He died in vain.
He shouldn't have come. If you can do anything to make
God pleased with you, And that's what he says about the concision
back there, the circumcision, these Judaizers that encompassed
sea and land trying to establish one proselyte. And when they
found them, they were twofold more the child of hell than they
are. The concision. He said, You beware of the concision.
These folks that preach salvation by works say, Tithe, God will
bless you. Nowhere in the Bible does it
say that. Nowhere in the Bible. It certainly doesn't use the
word tithe in the New Testament. He said, give as the Lord has
blessed you. If everybody tithed, we wouldn't get our bills paid.
Ain't nobody in here makes enough money. Ten percent of your salary,
you wouldn't get it, would it? A hundred percent of what God
gives us belongs to Him. He said, you beware of these
fellas. These fellas will tell you to keep the law and God will
accept you. These fellas will tell you touch
not, taste not, and handle not, except Jesus. It's up to you.
He said, you beware of them. I'm just preaching what he's
saying right here. That's exactly what he's saying. Beware of them.
Don't listen to them. Have your ear tuned to middle
C. Christ and Him crucified. Him alone. Look to Him. Look
to Him. Moses, when he lifted that serpent
on the pole, he didn't say, now, get you some patches and get
you some herbs and some remedies. You get some things and look
too. No, he said, you're in a mess.
You're dying. You just better look. Look. Look. Look. Well, look over at Mark
chapter 7. Mark chapter 7. Mark chapter
7. You stay right there a minute.
You beware of these fellows that tell you this and that and the
other. Pray the sinner's prayer. Join
our church. Get baptized in our Baptist church by our Baptist
preacher. That's glorifying the Baptist denominations, all that
is. Be a soul and be a champion for Christ, as Paul would like
to say. You beware of these fellows.
Paul says they're evil workers. Beware of them. Look at Mark
chapter 7 with me. Our Lord says this. Look at Mark
chapter 7, verse 5. The Pharisees and the scribes
asked him, Why don't your disciples walk according to tradition?
of the elders, but eat bread with unwashing hands. He answered
and said unto them, Well, hath Isaiah prophesied of you hypocrites? It is written, This people honors
me with their lips, but their heart is far from me." A lot
of people taking the name of Christian, but their heart is
far from me. In vain they worship Me. Look
at it. Uselessly they go about this
thing they call worship, teaching for doctrines, commandments of
men, their traditions. They lay aside the commandments
of God, the Word of God. Very few people preach in this
book, are they? If they do, they take one verse
and enclose the Bible. Very few people. Lay aside the
commandment of God. You see Swagger, you see him
doing it. He might take one verse of Scripture and the rest of
the time he's waving it as a prop, a religious prop. Isn't he? Lay aside the commandment of
God. Behold the tradition of men, such as washing of pots
and cups and many other such things like you do. He said,
under them, full well you reject the commandments of God. Frustrate. That's what my margin says reject
means. Frustrate God's Word by making it say what it doesn't
say and withholding it or adding to it that you may keep your
tradition. Oh boy. Keep your place there
and look back over to text in Philippians chapter 3. But the
apostle says in Philippians 3 verse 3, he says, You beware of these dogs and
these evil workers and the concision, but for we are the true circumcision."
Now, wait a minute, Paul. Who do you think you are? Do
you think you're right and everybody else is wrong? Paul said, yes. That's what he said. And what
is he saying? You think you're right and everybody
else is wrong, don't you? Well, we have the mind of Christ. He said there in 1 Corinthians
2 that we read this morning, God has revealed them unto us.
John said, We are of God, and the whole world lies in wickedness.
Who do you think you are saying such a thing? How can you say
such a thing? Well, I'll tell you how. Here's
three marks, three marks that prove it, right here. Philippians
3.3, We are the true circumcision, that is, the true people of God.
We bear the real marks and evidences of being God's true people, God's
true preachers. How? This is how you know it.
First of all, we worship God in the Spirit. Thank you. in the Spirit. We worship God
in the Spirit. We read back there in John chapter
four a while ago how that woman... Now, get a load of this. Here's
a woman that had been married five times. I mean, she was a
notorious woman. That's the reason she came to
the well all by herself in the middle of the day. People talked
about her. She was a... And you run into
this all the time. The people that are most The
most critical of the truth are the people that we were discussing
these things today. People that are most critical
of the truth are people that, you know, have lived, have gone
off into all sorts of wild things, and maybe even now living it.
There ain't nothing down at that church, and they're living in
adultery or whatever. You know it's so. That's the
people that find fault. But this woman had been married
five times. And she was coming in the middle
of the day because everybody talked about her and she didn't
want to be seen and so forth. And when Christ, God himself,
came and approached her, she wanted to talk about where the
right place to worship was. What do you think about Armageddon?
What do you think about this? What do you think about that? If she knew He was a real prophet,
like she said He was, a prophet from God, you'd think she'd say,
do you know of any way I can get rid of this sin? Do you know
anything about the Messiah? I hear He's going to come and
get me, and He's going to put away my sin. Can you tell me
something about Him? She wasn't interested in that.
She was interested in where you're supposed to worship, how you're
supposed to worship, what you're supposed to look like. So that's
what she was interested in, wasn't it? And Christ said, true worshipers
worship God in spirit, didn't He? They worshiped God in spirit.
It's not important where you, the building and so forth. You
don't worship according to place, family tradition, ritual, ceremony,
law, rules, dress. But spirit. Did you hold your
place there in Mark chapter 7? Look at this, Mark chapter 7,
verse 14. When He had called all the people
unto Him, He said unto them, you listen to Me now. After these
Pharisees left, these religious fellows, they left his presence.
He said, Everybody listen up to me now. Listen very carefully.
Hearken unto me, everybody, and understand this. There is nothing
from without a man that entering into him can defile him. Nothing. Is that what he's saying?
That's what he's saying. But the things which come out
of him, that's what defiles him. If any man has ears to hear,
let him hear. Christ came down here to reveal
the truth. He who is the truth. And he said,
sin is not what you put in you. Sin's already in you. Already
in you. So it's got to be a work starting
in here. This is where salvation starts,
in the heart. In the heart. And then it will
manifest itself outwardly. These outward habits and so forth,
they'll change if you change the inside. But he said of the
Pharisees, you cleanse the outside first. You got this thing backwards.
You cleanse the outside of the cup, when within you're full
of extortion and excess. You look pretty good on the outside,
but on the inside... And Christ said true worshipers,
Paul said true worshipers here in our text, they worship God
in the Spirit. Why? Because they've had something
done on the inside first. They don't worship God in...
The kingdom of heaven is not in meat and drink. It's not meat
and drink. It's not in forms and rituals
and so forth. God doesn't see His man. See?
This is the reason for our simplicity in worship. Why don't we have
crosses? Why don't we wear a robe? Why don't we have choirs and
all this stuff you have to have on the outside to get people
all drummed up? That's the reason that people
have these things. They don't have any message.
I'm preaching that gospel. So we've got to have something
to keep everybody's attention. Got to have something to interest
people, something to bring people in. But, buddy, the word, the
bread of life, the water of life is all sheep need. Just leave
me beside the pastures. I don't care what you look like.
We have this treasure in earthen vessels, earthen vessels. We worship God in spirit. We
don't need emotional aids. We just need the naked Word of
God Almighty is what we need. Let's sit down and carefully
look into this book, see what God's saying. That's what we,
that's how we worship here. Worship God in spirit, in heart.
My son, give me thy heart. Listen to these scriptures. My
son, give me thy heart. With the heart man believeth
unto righteousness. Out of the heart the mouth speaketh. God said, when he went down looking
for David, he said, I've sought me a man after my own what? Heart. Heart. Worship is a heart business. Remember that story how Scott
came up to Tim James when Tim was just a young preacher, you
know, and stuck that bony finger in his chest after he preached.
He said, son, salvation's a heart work. Scott said this too. He said, true preaching is from
the heart of God. to the heart of a preacher, to
the heart of the people. And I've stood up here, and other
men in their pulpits and so forth have preached that didn't feel
the heart of God in them. And it wasn't fresh in their
heart, and it ain't going to touch anybody else's either. And what
is at the heart of God? What is the apple of His eye? What is He rejoicing in God?
God said it out loud from heaven. That's my son. I'm well pleased
with him. You hear him. If you're going
to say anything, you talk about him. If not, shut your mouth. That's what he said. Worship's
heart business. And it's not according to talents
or looks or abilities, but it's in the heart. God looks on the
heart. We might be able to say the right
words, look the right way, fold our hands just right. and be
able to say, shibboleth. But worship. God looks at the
heart. He's looking at the heart. That's
the reason I'm pressing for a true relationship with the living
Lord. Not just the head knowledge, but down in here, real heart
faith. Because we're in a generation
of pomp and show, aren't we? That's what we're in. This religious
generation. Not many people just worshiping
God. Just coming in and playing old simplest It's bowing down
and worshiping God. All right, just having a big
old time, you know. Barnard said, they're entertaining
sinners on the road to hell. Everybody's having a big time. Well, look at this, too. Paul
says, I'll tell you how I can say that we're the true circumcision.
He says, we worship God in spirit. And then secondly, he says, we
rejoice in Christ Jesus. He said up there, he said, finally,
you rejoice in the Lord. And now here he says, we rejoice
in Christ Jesus. He's one and the same. He is
Lord. Christ is Lord. Men say it, but
we define it here. Don't we? We mean that He is
absolutely sovereign in control of all men's destiny. It's not
in our hands or our decision, our free will. It's in the hands
of our sovereign Lord to save whom He will. It's in His hands. And that's the reason we appeal
to Him. Lord, save us. Peter finally found out, didn't
he, whose hand salvation was in. When he started sinking,
Lord, save me, or I perish." And every sinner, every child
of God comes to that conclusion. They'll all be taught, John 6,
45, they'll all be taught of God, who Christ is, that He's
Lord. We rejoice in Christ Jesus. I
said it a moment ago. When you rejoice in Christ Jesus,
you're in tune with God the Father. Yeah, you are. I tell you what,
anybody in here, if you start bragging on my daughter, well,
you'll get on my good side. You better believe it. You'll
get my good graces. Yeah, better. Just start talking
about my daughter. Oh, my heavenly Father. Oh, He loves His Son. I've said this before. I'm just
going to say the same thing over and over again. Y'all be prepared
to hear it for the next 30 years. Barnard said this, he said, God
looked at his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and loved him so much,
admired him so much, was so pleased with him, he said, I've got to
have a whole bunch of boys just like him. And that's the reason
He chose to make a world and come down here and save them,
to predestinate them to be conformed to the image of His Son. There's
one. He's making you just like His
Son. Someday you're going to be just like Him. We're all going
to come in and Christ is going to say, leading us in there,
here they are, the children, the rest of them, they look like
me, don't they? Yeah, they do. They look good. Bring them in
here. I'm going to put them on my knee and dangle them a little
bit, like a proud parent. You're in tune with the Father
when you rejoice in Christ. You're in tune with the Spirit.
Now, the Holy Spirit, this generation, they've got this thing all wrong
now. I don't find in the Scriptures where it says the Spirit just
gives us some wild emotional frenzy to get into. I just note
this nonsense. I don't read where Paul said,
God's not the author of confusion. What does he say the Spirit's
office is? What did Christ say? When the Holy Spirit comes, what's
He going to do? He's not going to talk about Himself. You hear
this preaching on the Spirit, the Spirit this, the Spirit that.
They're talking about the Spirit, aren't they? Christ said when
the Spirit comes, He'll not speak of Himself. He'll take the things
of mine and show them to you. The Holy Spirit's office is to
point men to Christ, to create repentance, faith, To make men
look to Christ and Him alone, not to the Spirit. So if you
preach rejoicing Christ, you're in tune with the Holy Spirit.
When He comes, He'll glorify me, not Himself. Me, Christ said. Me. Because in Him, you know,
there's Trinity, right? Father, Word, and the Holy Spirit. But the Scripture says in Christ.
dwells all the fullness of the Godhead body. But if you rejoice
in Christ, as the true circumcision do, you're in tune with the angels.
Scripture says, Let all the angels worship Him. And they do. They're around the throne of
God, the cherubs, the seraphims, the angels. What are they doing?
Worshipping Him who loved us. The elders, all of God's people
worshiping Him. They're singing about Him, aren't
they? The Lamb and the redeemed, unto Him who loved us and washed
us from our sins in His own blood. And the prophets, unto Him give
all the prophets witness. Right? That's what the whole
Old Testament is about. It's history. His story. His story. That's what it is.
We rejoice in Christ. We rejoice in who he is. We rejoice
in his deity, his God. We rejoice in his incarnation,
that God was manifest in the flesh. We rejoice in his righteousness. He lived a perfect life as a
man and imputed that to us, enabling God to accept us into his presence. We rejoice in his death. He had
our sins upon Him. He went to the cross and was
punished for us. We rejoice in that. We rejoice
in His resurrection. If He hadn't arisen from the
grave, that means God didn't accept it, but He did, so we
are. We rejoice in the Lord Jesus
Christ. We rejoice in His intercession that because He lives, we live. Because He sits at the right
hand of God, therefore we are accepted in Him, the right hand
of God. At His return, we rejoice that
He's coming again someday to receive us to Himself, that where
He is, we may be also. We rejoice in Christ Jesus. We're
not taking up with America. We're taking up with Jesus Christ.
But let's talk about Him and nothing else. Him. What He's done. Not what we can
do for Him. What He's done for us. There's
the difference. And Paul said this. Look at it.
Verse 3 again. He said, here's proof, here's
further proof. We worship God in spirit. We
rejoice in the heart, that is. We rejoice in Christ Jesus. He is the object of our faith.
He is our faith. And we have no confidence in
the flesh. No confidence in the flesh. No
confidence in any outward or fleshly duties. Anything we can
do, no confidence. Feelings come. You know, sometimes
we feel pretty religious, don't we? Pretty righteous. Pretty
saved, don't we? Like Martin Luther wrote, though.
Feelings come. Feelings go. You know, one day
you might feel pretty good. Next day you might feel like
a rotten wretch. Like you ought to go to hell.
And you ought to. Every day. Not just the days
you feel bad. But feelings come. And feelings
go. Feelings are deceiving. The devil
can give you real good peace, can't he? He can. He can give
you a false refuge, a refuge of lies. Feelings come, feelings
go. Feelings are deceiving. My hope
is in the Son of God. No one else is worth believing.
Not this heart. This heart is deceitful, desperately
wicked. Deceitful above all things, desperately
wicked. Who can know it? We don't even know our own hearts,
Rick, do we? We don't even know our own hearts. We put no confidence in the flesh,
no confidence in the Levitical law, no confidence in Sabbaths,
Sabbath keeping, circumcision, washings, fastings, baptisms,
confessions, the Lord's table, church going. The flesh, the
flesh, outward doings, no confidence in these things. These aren't
our trust. These aren't the things we're looking to. And experience,
no confidence in that. Where is our confidence? That's what he just got through
saying. We rejoice in Him, who He is, what He did, where He
is at right now. Not in anything we do or ever
will do. Can't trust it, can we? Can't
trust it. No confidence in the flesh. No
confidence in days. Christmas, Easter, Sunday, Saturday,
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Every day is the Lord's
day. No confidence in a day. No confidence
in our efforts to keep the law and our morality. I'm a good
fellow. Liquors never touch these lips,
you know. Never smoked a cigarette in my life. No confidence in
that. No confidence in that. No confidence in one another.
Can't do it. You've probably seen some folks
leave here, haven't you? Some folks you might have had
confidence in. You've probably said it. Boy, he's a believer. He's a fine man. You know, he said that one time,
they went out from us because they were not of us. But if they
had been of us, they no doubt would have remained with us.
But they went out from us, why? That it might be made manifest
to whom? To us. Prove us, teach us a lesson. But they were not of us. Not
to put any confidence in them, even preachers. That's the reason
Jim Byrd went to where he is. Because a preacher, a gospel
preacher, split lickety-split. No confidence in even preachers.
Oh, my soul, my soul, no confidence in this man. God, if you're God,
He'll bring him down. Please. I shudder when people,
you know, brag a little bit. Oh, you're setting me up. That's
what I think. You're setting me up. for a fall. You ever feel that way and somebody
starts bragging on you? You're setting me up. I'm going to fall
real fast if you hush. I'm nothing. I'm nothing. Leaders come and go. Come and
go. Well, look at it again here.
We are the circumcision which worship God in the Spirit, and
we rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. Paul said, verse 4, Though I
might also have compass in the flesh." See, if any man thinks
he has something to brag about, trust him, I'm on. You want to
do some bragging? Let me tell you. Let me do some
bragging here, Paul said. I speak as a fool, he said, in
another place. He said, I circumcised the eighth day. How many of you
were? Probably on the fifth. He did it all wrong. No good.
Didn't work. Circumcised the eighth day with
a stock of Israel. Buddy, I can trace my bloodline
all the way back to Abraham himself. The tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew
of Hebrews, is touching the law. I was careful to maintain every
bit of it as a Pharisee. Buddy, you better believe it.
I kept the law, he said. Concerning zeal, nobody was more
zealous than I was. I persecuted the church. I went
out killing people for what I believed. Touching the righteousness within
the law is blameless. I could say, like that rich young
ruler, all these things have I done, I've done from my youth
up. Shut them down. But these things
that I once thought, verse 7, were gained to me, I once thought
they would make God have favor upon me. I'd count them lost now. That's
lost time. It's worthless lost time. I did
this in vain. I wasn't worshiping God in spirit.
I wasn't rejoicing in Christ Jesus. I was putting confidence
in my flesh. He says, Doubtless now by his
mercy and grace I count all things but loss, worthless vanity for
the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. And
now, for him, I've suffered the loss of all things." And you
will, too. Christ said, you'll be hated
of all men, for my name's sake. He said, time will come when
they'll think they do God's a service by killing you. He'll put you
out of the synagogue. He said, I've lost all things,
but I've gained everything. But I count that stuff I've lost
just cow manure. I wish I could say it like it's
written. Cow manure. It's what my old
religion was, cow manure, dung, that I may win Christ and be
found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is of keeping
the law, but that which is through the faith..." See that little
word there again? "...of Christ." His faithfulness,
what he did, he alone was faithful. I'm not even faithful. He was
faithful. And He's the object of my faith.
The righteousness which is of God, that is, imputed righteousness,
the righteousness that God takes, that Christ established and puts
it on me. I didn't have anything to do
with it. Running from it. He said, hold it right there.
And He stamps me. It's God's brand. C. Christ. Righteousness. R. brands us with his righteousness,
makes us one of his people, that I may know him. Now, he said,
I'm taken up with knowing him and the power of his resurrection
and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable unto his
death. Well, Paul says, finally, brethren,
rejoice in the Lord. In light of all that, everything
He's done for us, we've got cause to rejoice, don't we? We've got
something to rejoice about. And as I say again, as this world
goes on and on with this foolishness, bragging on one another, bragging
on me, what I've done, God's true people are bragging on Him.
They're bragging on Him and Him alone. They're worshiping God
in the heart and not trying to do anything to be seen of men.
But they just want to worship God, know Him, win Christ, be
found in Him. God, let me worship You. Let
me worship You, really. Let me learn about You. Let me
keep my big mouth shut. Let me be still and know that
You're God. Come and sit and listen and worship.
And let me truly rejoice in the Lord Jesus Christ, Him alone.
Not anything I've done or do. Don't let me put any confidence
in my flesh. rejoicing in Him and Him alone.
There he is, the song picked up. Come up and lead us in song.