In the chapter that we're in
here, chapter three, we've been in for a couple of weeks. And,
you know, I notice and I contemplate this often, I think, because
there used to be a time in my ministry and my preaching where
I would open a sermon with a hook, not a bait and switch. I'm not
talking about fallaciously or an error or worldliness. But I would open a sermon in
such a way that it would be engaging to the mind so that it would
draw you in. And I did that because I felt
like, well, I need to engage the hearer so that they will
not lose sight of what we're trying to accomplish. And so
when you go and say, turn to Philippians chapter three, and
we're going to be here for a couple of days, or we're going to be
here and we're going to look at verse nine, or we're going to
do this. I got this idea all of a sudden that that was a very
poor communication. And so I transformed myself for
about four or five years into really just wooing and awing
people in the area of introducing a text. And then after about
that much time, I started thinking, why do I need to do that? If
I say turn to Philippians 3 and somebody goes, oh great, they're
probably not gonna enjoy anything I say anyway. And so what I've
come to conclude is that I'm just going to follow the Lord.
And when we need to get technical and say, OK, we talk about this,
we talk about that, we're going to do this, I'm going to say
that, then that's what we do. If I come in here and I'm crying and weeping
all over the place and just sharing my heart with you and the Lord,
then the Lord's in it all. And the reason I bring that up
is because I've actually had someone in the last week or so
who listened to a sermon and said, man, if you had just started
about 20 minutes in with the introduction like that, man,
people would listen to your preaching all the time. I said, I don't
care. I don't really care. What I care about is that God's
Word is faithfully handled. And it's a fearful thing to handle
the Word of God, but it is a cherished thing because it is only by the
mercy of God that we can even understand it. As I was looking
through this text this week, and even this morning, just refreshing
my mind of the whole of Philippians. It's always good before Sunday,
or on Sunday morning, just to read the whole letter. Because
it really puts you back in the mode of the argument. And I thought
to myself, wow, what I'm going to be preaching today is so simple
it that that I believe if we just read it three or four times,
we probably could just we go, oh. And we just, we got it. Then we could just have us a
dance party for Jesus, you know, we just celebrate the reality
of the power of the gospel. And so I want you to go into
this morning remembering what we talked about last week. That
Paul has given this spiritual resume for himself and he said,
look, all these things, if anyone were to have confidence in the
flesh, it's me. I have reason for confidence
in the flesh because I'm the Jew of Jews, the Hebrew of Hebrews. I'm not one of these guys who
plays with my faith. I was in the top echelons of
not just my bloodline, but of my faith. And I did it all for
the sake of the glory of the name of Yahweh. And I lived and
I breathed with zeal and passion for the things of God. See, Paul
was not this guy who lived in a worldly way, who had selfish
intentions. Paul lived every moment of his
life for the sake of the glory of God. The God of Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob. The God we worship this very
moment. But what Paul could not see is that mystery hidden, who
is Jesus Christ. And when Paul did see with his
worldly eyes Jesus Christ, he's like, there's no way that man
is God. There is no way that that is
Elohim. There is no way that that is
Messiah. No way that is Yahweh saved. No way. That man has been
misnamed. And I will fight to the death
to keep my people from falling into such tragic unbelief. I
will stamp out Jesus Christ and everyone who believes in him,
because it is a blasphemous pock against the truth of God. That
was Paul's heart. Even if it cost me my very life.
If Paul had written some epistles, I'm sure he did. But if Paul
had written some epistles before his salvation, I mean, we know
he wrote letters. He wrote letters to the Sanhedrin.
He wrote letters to Rome. He wrote letters trying to get
warrants for people's arrests. So we know he wrote. If we were
to have copies of those, I bet it would sound very, very Paul-esque,
but it would be very driven to the point of Judaism. And I bet
he would have probably introduced himself, I'm Paul of the tribe
of Benjamin, circumcised on the eighth day, the Hebrew of Hebrews.
Listen to what I say. I'm in the Sanhedrin. I'm a Pharisee
of Pharisees. And I want you to hear me. I
am not just some average Joe Schmoe in the Jewish faith. I am the be-all and end-all of
Judaism. And these people, Christ followers,
are a problem. I mean, could you imagine what
that letter... I wish we could see one. It would be a neat contrast,
wouldn't it? But by the Lord's mercy and his absolute power,
he has not provided us those letters from antiquity. And I
believe it's probably, and I'm just making this as a very insignificant
speculation, what if one of the thorns in Paul's flesh was the
fact he had all this archive? floating around Asia Minor and
going, oh Lord Jesus, please destroy all that junk. Sort of
like me when I came to realize that what I had been preaching
for so long was just such a joke. I'm thinking, oh my gosh, I've
got to go delete all this stuff. I've got to erase myself from
the archives. Thank the Lord it was not as
prevalent as it is today. You didn't share things on the
internet. like you do today. I mean, you could just be walking
downtown and letting your dog do his business and that could
end up on YouTube because somebody put it there. I mean, you just...
But maybe, just maybe, Paul had some anxiety about his past.
But we know how the Lord handled it. He took it all away. And
in this text right here, he shows us what kind of purpose he had. He shows us when he tells us
the confidence that he had in his own flesh and that it was
a God-sized confidence. Paul didn't even, in his flesh,
take it as his own doing. He took it as God's own doing,
that God had purposed in covenant to put him, Saul of Tarsus, into
this place for the sake of the glory and the fame of God. And
so if this is true, then when we see this, that Paul is saying
last week and then into this week, we see that contrast. We see what Paul would have written
in contrast to what he now writes. We don't need all of the past
things that Paul told. What was he saying to the people
in the day in Jerusalem when Stephen was stoned? What had
he been saying that he was recognized with no words as the authority
to give the approval for the stoning of Stephen as every man
who put a stone upon Stephen's head laid his cloak at the feet
of Saul who supervised his actions? What must he have been preaching?
What must he have been doing? What was his life like to have
organized that type of fury? Because the common man of Israel
would have never risen up against the rule of Rome. Paul must have
been an instigator. Paul must have been someone who
had great sway over people. And I do believe Paul in some
sense could very eloquently preach the Old Testament of God. But
yet in contrast to that, we see Paul to the Philippians imprisoned.
We see Paul not raised up as this great leader of Israel,
but this slave. Imprisoned in a Roman cell under
the very orders that he wrote and approved. Imagine that. Here he is, suffering the consequences
of his own hand. And he says that it is for Christ
that he was incarcerated. Here's Saul, who is now Paul,
who has forsaken all that he was for the sake of the joy of
the Philippians. A people who were not even Jews.
A people who were, just a few years before, hated. He would
have called dogs. He would have called Gentiles. He would have called them, by
name, in public, unclean, as they walked by him on the street.
Here is a man now who is giving his life away for the sake of
their salvation. Someone who is willing to stay
alive and suffer so that their joy can be full in Jesus Christ.
This is not an opportunity for us to praise Paul, but it is
an opportunity for us to glory in Jesus. Because Jesus has transformed
this zealous worshiper of the true God of Israel into an absolute
child of God, no longer an academic, no longer a cleric, but a worshipful
child who would lay everything that he has down for the sake
of the gospel. So in verse 7, we see Paul continuing. He says, but whatever gain I
had, there's a but there so what is he contrasting when you see
the word but it's a contrast says this but that I really would
like to go eat at McDonald's but Dairy Queen has half-price
hamburgers you see so that's what you need to understand when
you see those little words if you see the little word for if
you see the little word because these are not just things to
make our sentences sound cool, they actually have great meaning.
Propositions are important in Scripture. As a matter of fact,
it's how we understand the language. And so, before that but, Paul
has said these words. He said, if anyone else thinks
that he has confidence in the flesh, I have more. I was circumcised
on the eighth day of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin.
I'm a Hebrew of Hebrews. As to the law, I'm a Pharisee.
As to zeal, I was a persecutor of the church. As to righteousness
under the law, I am blameless. See verse 7? But whatever gain
I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I
count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing
Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have suffered
the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish in order that
I may gain Christ. and be found in Him, not having
a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that
which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from
God that depends on faith, that I may know Him and the power
of His resurrection, and may share in His sufferings, becoming
like Him in His death, that by any means possible I may attain
the resurrection from the dead." And this is troublesome for me
because if I could preach this the way I wanted to preach this,
I would do like a four hour service and we would start in verse one
of chapter three and we'd go all the way down through the
end of verse eleven. And then we would back up a little
bit and we'd talk about righteousness and then we'd back up a little
bit more and we'd include it. But it's tough when you start
thinking with the word but. Because not all of us, myself
included, can remember everything I said last week. But what we
need to recognize is that we can only do what we can do. And
so the Word of God is going to be powerful in our lives no matter
how we dissect it, as long as that which is argued in the text
is clearly presented to our ears, to our hearts, to our eyes, to
our minds. And the ultimate thing that Paul
is trying to show here is now that was my resume and it was
an impressive resume. Others who had a lesser resume
are counting themselves as something to be looked at and gawked at
and esteemed. And yet my resume is better than
theirs and so I was something to be looked at. I was something
to esteem in the context of my flesh. But it was worthless. It was nothing. It was absolutely
garbage. Now, anybody in that point could
say, well, you know what? A lot of times people in their
foolishness, they get zealous about a specific cause. We can
say that there are some times in our own lives where we go,
we see people, why would they go into that? Why would they
do that? I've got a friend whose younger
brother is a master penman. And I was impressed. And I'm
still impressed, and I'm thinking, what an amazing young man. And he writes, and he draws,
and it's just beautiful stuff. He interned at the White House
for a couple of years under their calligrapher. And it was just
interesting. I can barely read my own writing
when I'm through in the end of the day. And it's just beautiful
stuff. And then I thought to myself, what in the world would
possess him to just go into that? Because that was an affection
for him. It was something that he really wanted to do. It's
just like I see people who have children who are like seven or
eight years old who are virtuosos in the piano. And I hear I have
been playing 30 plus years and just barely bang out some chords.
And I'm thinking, my goodness, what in the world? How does that
work? Because these children love to
play. And so that's what they do. And
so they put the time and the effort and the energy into that
which they love and they become masters. We've seen that. And
so it's easy to say then for Paul, if we look at him in this
light and we'd say, okay, Paul just became a master of Jesus
because in that sense when I say master, I mean he became the
expert, if you will. Because it was an affection,
it was something, wow, his eyes were opened. It didn't make what
he did in Judaism bad. He was willing to give all that
up for Christ, because Christ was then more important to him.
It's sort of like the mindset that some people have. Well,
you know those radical Christians? You know those awesome, zealous
Christians? You know those guys, right? Well,
if I was to steal a phrase from one of my mentors of the past,
that's normal Christianity. Zealousness and radicalness when
it comes to our faith is exactly what God does when he brings
us to life in the gospel. Now, I'm not talking about temperament.
I'm not talking about personality. Some people like to do back flips.
Some people like to sit quietly with a smile on their face. And
that's fine. But in the drive of things, the
purpose of our living, it comes to Christ that we would just
lay everything else down. Paul is showing that that is
the case. And it's also the case, did the
Philippians not have more to worry about than being the church? Was it not costly to them? I
mean, see, here's the insanity of that type of thinking. Oh,
that's just what they chose to be zealous about. It's not that
what he was doing was bad. But Paul says differently. Paul
says that the ultimate aspect of life, the ultimate end of
all things living, is the glory of God, either in redemption
or judgment. And so that if anyone does anything
else except for give glory to God in salvation, then they will
then be glorifying God in their judgment. So that one of two
things is true. We either do it all for Christ,
or we do it all for everything else, which is judgment. Do it
all for Christ, which is salvation. Doesn't bring it, as we see in
just a moment. And so in that, when he says,
indeed, I count, or whatever gain I had, I count it as loss
for the sake of Christ. Then he says, indeed. Indeed. He's bringing out the idea that,
listen, this is not just something I'm saying I lost it all for
Jesus, but indeed I counted it as loss. I calculated it. I measured it. He didn't say
I lost it all. I mean, anybody can lose it all.
You can have a good job and lose it all. And he goes, I lost it
all. I lost it all. And I served Christ
in the midst of it. Good. Paul's saying, I counted
it as loss. I counted, I measured it, I contemplated,
I compared it, I contrasted it, and guess what? I found that
everything that I was, my entire life, now this is not, and see,
American Christianity is really in a bad spot. Because we could
say to ourselves, well Paul just, well I said he gave up going
to temple. That's sad he gave up praying. That's sad he gave
up Bible study. See, that's about as much as
Christianity is to most people who are in churches today. Well,
I'm just not going to go to church for a while. I'm just, you know,
I haven't been to church in a while. That's probably what Paul was
experiencing. You know, he was saying his, you know, his Judaism.
Listen, friends, Judaism was not going to temple praying and
reading the Bible. Judaism was everything they were. They did not eat without worship.
They did not walk without worship. They did not gaze upon the trees
or the dirt or wherever without worship. They did not look and
speak without worship. There was a principle or a precept
of application, theologically. And according to the law, with
everything they did, how they cooked, how they bathed, how
they dressed, how they walked, what direction they were to look
and face and pray, and all of these things, in every aspect
of their lives. Paul is not saying, I just sort
of quit going to church. Paul is saying, my life was worthless.
Everything I was was worthless. All of my relationships were
worthless, my prayers were worthless, my investments were worthless,
everything I was. I had no more confidence in the
culture in which I lived and became an outcast, a reject. I became a dog. I was a nothing. And I used to be an everything.
But I count it as lost. As loss. I count it as loss. And I measure it that way and
it's okay. And so what is he measuring it
against? Look, I count everything as loss
because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. So when Paul is measuring his
life, when Paul is measuring all that he was, listen, there
is no higher place for Paul to have been. It was the Jewish
dream to be where Paul was. We talk about in our economics
discussions in our country, the elite, the top of the top of
the 1%, you know, where most of the wealth sits. And then
it looks like the Grand Canyon to the 40th power to the middle
man. And you look, you ever seen that
on a chart? There's a little tiny group of
people up here that are extremely rich and they hold most of the
world's wealth. And then the guy underneath them is like dropping
into a bottomless pit. And these are the millionaires
and the billionaires down here. And then there's another pit
that drops in and the rest of us are sort of sitting in that
ditch, getting bit by crawdads. I mean, you know, being where
Paul was is up here. And then on top of that, being
where Paul was, there was no greater place to be except be
God himself. Or maybe the high priest. There was no other place. Paul was the man. And he measured it against the
knowledge of Christ and he says, I count it as loss. It's gone. Indeed. Why? Because of the surpassing. What? The surpassing worth. Not
just the worth. Not just the comparable worth.
Oh yeah, Jesus is worth more. No, Jesus is surpassingly worth
more. It's a surpassing worth. It goes
beyond all the worth of the world. I had all the wealth. I had all
the worth of the world in which I lived, Paul would say. And
Christ, in comparison, surpasses that greatly. so that it pushes
everything else into the trash can, he is about to argue. All things are loss. He says, for his sake, I have
suffered the loss of all things and I count them as rubbish in
order that I may gain Christ. Well, counting this as loss for
Paul shows that there's a gladness there. Not imagine, but remember that
Paul has already talked about the joy of Christ. He's already
talked about how Christ gives him the fullness of joy, that
he prays that even the Christians in Philippi, as well as other
places, would find that joy. And he says that the joy is found
in the midst of losing that which takes away from that joy. And
for Paul, it was all his life. It was everything. For the Philippians,
it was their freedom. It was their hope. It was their
world. Everyone who followed Christ was persecuted in this
first century. And friends, I hate to tell you
this, everyone who follows Christ in this century is going to be
persecuted as well. If we are living and following
Christ, if we are loving Christ, we could sit down and write a
list of people who would call themselves our enemies that would
be greater than we would have a list of people who call themselves
our friends. It's going to be that way. And
let me tell you something. When Jesus says the words that
I came to bring a sword, He meant it. We understand that the Word
of God is living and breathing and sharper than any two-edged
sword, Hebrews 4.12 says, and it's active, it's working, it
cuts our flesh and our marrow and our bones, and in between
the bones is the marrow, and then beyond that it cuts to the
soul. And the Old Testament says that God's Word does not return
void. John's Gospel says the Word became flesh and dwelt among
us. And so the Word of God is the living Christ who is the
God of heaven, who is the Savior of His people. And when Paul
has looked at everything the world had, and then he saw for
the first time on the road to Damascus the face of Jesus Christ,
he said, there is no measuring any longer. This Jesus is far
worth more than everything that I've ever had, everything that
I've ever wanted, everything that I could ever dream of. It's
mostly what I hear when I hear Paul pray for the Ephesians.
I pray that you may be filled with all the fullness of God, Now to Him who is able to do
far more abundantly than all we ask or think according to
the power at work within us. To Him be the glory and honor
and the church and Jesus Christ throughout all generations forever
and ever. Amen. So, this surpassing worth
brings joy to the hearts of Christians when they lose everything else
for the sake of Christ. Jesus himself teaches this very
thing. He says that the kingdom of heaven
is like a simile, a treasure hidden in a field. And a man
working the field discovers the treasure. He covers it back up
and goes and very clearly, Jesus says, and with joy sells all
that he has that he may buy the field. You see that? That's what
Paul is preaching to us. That's what the Word of God is
teaching us happened in the life of Paul. That with joy he was
willing to go and give everything away. Jesus even in reality put
this to the test in the life of a very holy and wealthy young
man. who had been esteemed in his
community as someone who was an up-and-coming leader, a rich
young ruler, if you will, and he comes to Jesus, bows before
Him, calls Him good, even in rebuke, stays in the position
of worship, and says, what must I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus, in a way of expressing
Himself, says, you, He says this in a paraphrase, you must be
holy as God is holy. When he says to him, you must
obey all the law. And in doing that, the man says, I've kept
these laws since birth. And Jesus puts him to the test,
doesn't he? Exactly what Paul is preaching here, Jesus puts
this rich unworthy to the test. He says, then go and take all
that you have and sell it, I mean, and give it away to the poor.
And you will have riches in heaven. And then he commands him, come
follow me. He says, you give it all away for that which is
yours eternally. And then I command you to come
follow me. And the man walked away. Because he looked at Christ
with a human eye. And he contemplated all that
he had and he said there's no way there's no far surpassing
worth here. I could buy this man the original
ruler thought. And so if if it takes me giving
the power that I have that seems greater than him to gain what
he says he has he doesn't have it. And why was he dejected? Because he had much wealth. What
was that dejection? I think he was disappointed because
he believed in that moment this man was not the Christ. He's
not the Christ. Jesus' worth, according to Paul,
was far surpassing all the worth of his life. And he calls Him
Jesus Christ. Christ Jesus my Lord. This is
not just some passing phrase. Paul doesn't do what we do. Oh
Lord Jesus. That we'd say as we ride a roller
coaster. Or we'd say Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior as we pray. Not having any meaning with the
word. I would suggest to us that when
we do that, we need to be careful because that is using the Lord's
name in vain. vain is emptiness, devoid of
any worth or meaning. And when we just use phrases
this way, we are utilizing the Lord, His office, His title,
His name, with no meaning and no purpose. Paul, in this sense,
is not just saying, Christ Jesus, my Lord. He's saying, Christ
Jesus, my Lord. What does this mean? Well, the
far surpassing worth of Jesus Christ in comparison to all that
Paul has and all that Paul was is Bound up in the reality that
Jesus is the master of Paul now. No longer is Judaism the master
of Paul. No longer is Paul's prestige
the master of Paul. No longer is anything that Paul
had accomplished in this life, his education, his genealogy,
his pedigree, his obedience to the law, his zeal, his teaching,
none of that. controls him any longer. None
of it. I could preach a sermon right
now on the idea that our nationalistic pride is probably an idol. And I say probably because I
don't want to impose that you are idolatrous because you are
proud to be an American. But you probably are. Probably. Probably. I know that I was. Maybe you are too. We can preach
that in different ways. But what I want to do today is
just show you just the generality of what Paul is saying that is
greater than his argument for nationalistic idolatry. He's
saying that Jesus is the master of him now. That no longer does
his theology even master him. No longer does his doctrine matter.
No longer is the Septuagint that which Paul is studying any longer.
To see how he's faring and how the people are faring in their
obedience to the Lord. He's looking at Christ. And all
that stuff just went... Has no control over him. At all. Jesus is the master of Paul's
everything. And he's saying, this is worth
something. Is it worth something to you? Is the mastery of Christ
as Lord, as your King, worth something to you? Because let
me tell you what we've discovered in about the 1950s or 60s, there's
this evangelistic idea that came about
that said that you can have Jesus as Savior and He doesn't have
to be your Lord. That you should make Him your
Lord, but He can be your Savior, and you can still live your life
without Him as Lord, so that He becomes your Savior, and then
at the end of maturity, He ends up being your Lord. But friends,
I think Paul says that He was his Lord, and that's why He's
his Savior. Because God, Jesus Christ, saved
Paul from the idolatry of his religion. Jesus Christ saved
Paul from the morality of his nationalism. Jesus Christ saved
Paul from his misplaced faith in Yahweh without Christ. Jesus Christ saved Paul from
all the zeal of honoring God in an improper and humanistic
way. Jesus Christ was Paul's Lord
well before he was Paul's Savior. And the Lord of Paul met him
on the road to Damascus and revealed himself as Savior. There's a
big difference. I would say it this way, if Paul
were to speak, if we are to speak. We should say all I have is Christ. Christ is my all, Christ is my
mind, Christ is my heart, Christ is my hands, Christ is my feet,
Christ is my motion, Christ is my mission, Christ is my worth,
Christ is my King. And the list goes on and on and
on. And we, as God's people, we sing
that song in our hearts. We sing that song with our lives.
We sing that song in such a way that the world looks on and says,
what fools. We sing that song continually
that those who are downtrodden among us look at us and say,
there is hope in Jesus. We sing that song because it
is what our heart truly knows. The knowledge of Jesus Christ
as Lord, as King, as Savior. He said that Christ has so much
worth. So much worth. His surpassing
worth that for the sake of Christ and His surpassing worth I have
suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish. Let's
talk about that a second. For His sake. Paul is not saying
that I lost it all because Christ is worth more and I just suffered
but at least I have Christ. Paul is saying for the sake of
the worth of Christ I have suffered and I throw it all away as trash.
For the sake of Christ, I have suffered the loss of my life. I have suffered the loss of my
home. I have suffered the loss of my
friends and my family, my place of worship, my place of business,
my place of residence, the power that I had. I've lost my purse.
I have no earthly hope left. None. There is no one standing
around the bend to come and give me a hand in this issue. I have
lost it all, and I count it as rubbish." And these are some
strong words here. Paul is saying that everything
that I had, everything this world provided for me, as righteous
as it looked, as godly as it looked, I count it as rubbish.
Now I want you to understand that in this Greek context here,
that word rubbish is referring You ready? To human excrement.
Human excrement. The word there is related to
explicitly human feces. So Paul is saying everything
that I was is like a potty full of it. Everything I had is just
a bunch of garbage. Just a bunch of sewer. Just a
bunch of Whatever you like to call that stuff. Poop. I knew all the kids would laugh
when I said that. And that's strong language to
me. I think, isn't that a little out of taste, Paul? Why would
you use that? And I like how our translators,
rubbish. We don't even use that word. Garbage, who says garbage
when they're talking about that? If I go to my kitchen and pull
that bag out and there's some poop in there, That's not a garbage
can anymore, that's a toilet. And we're gonna have a bad day
at the Tipton's house. Somebody's gonna come clean on that one.
I'll never forget one time as a little child, I don't know
how old, I was probably 10, nine or 10, and I go out to the carport,
and you know, I come from a long line of hoarders. We save anything
of value, if it's a penny, it's worth two and a half cents in
copper, so we're gonna save it if it's old enough. You know
if it's a can we wash it out and save it if it's a lid to
a can we don't have anymore We're gonna save it because that another
can may come along without a lid and we could join them together
We're all about reconciliation. And so we're That's terrible. We're looking a comedy acts coming
out now. So we're just we're hoarders
we have and so one day there was some cans out there that
my mother had washed and I I walk outside, and there's one of the
cans. I notice things out of place, like that dustpan that's
been sitting over there all morning. I'm like, what's that over there?
Now y'all are gonna look at it. But there was a can over behind
the azaleas right there next to the carport. And I can see
it like it was yesterday. And I'm like, what's that can
doing there? I look over there, and there's poop in it. And I thought, that's odd. So
I go and show my mother, my mother starts to inquire all the sons,
who did that? Of course, the guilty party comes
in and says, I saw a dog come and do that, you know. Well,
that's an amazing dog. We didn't even have a dog. I
mean, you know, some dog, pardon me, I'll borrow your can. I mean,
you know, and he comes and he uses it. And so my mother had
her ways and she found out the culprit and it wasn't really
a big deal. It was just odd. It was out of
place. And sometimes I feel like that's what, I'm like, Paul,
isn't that out of place? Why would you use that term there? That's
a private thing. We don't use those types of terms
because this isn't cordial. It's not civil. It's just, this
is potty talk, no pun intended. But there's no other word that
Paul could think of that could perfectly display
how worthless his life was in comparison to the knowledge of
Christ. When we see Luke 15, when we
see the parable of the prodigal son, or the faithful father,
or whatever you want to call that, when we see where that
son goes and gets into his life, and he ends up eating the slop
of a hog, which is mixed with feces. Hogs are nasty. You can clean them up, but they're
nasty. But they taste so good. Paul is saying, this life of
mine is Matter of fact, it's down to the nth degree of nothingness. But even that had value. And
so I think Paul was trying to think of the most worthless thing
that he could think of. We can't legally use human feces
for anything. You can't even use it as fertilizer. Now imagine that. Imagine going
into last Wednesday. Was it Wednesday that the Pope
was in New York? And we were eating out that night and it
was on every television. No football that night. And all that pomp and all that
money and all that stuff and all that power and all that stuff.
And Paul's life was greater than that. Imagine walking up to those
men and saying your life is like a bucket of poop. Your religion
ain't nothing but a can of turds. I mean that's mean. But it's not me. Because Paul
is saying it right here. He's saying the religion of my
brothers in Judaism, their lives and everything they live for
is just a can of turds. It's just a box of garbage. Why would He say that? Because
He wants them to understand that if they keep putting their faith
in this, they will die and stand in eternal judgment against God.
I mean, against God's justice. They will stand in judgment forever. So what's worse? We won't offend
anybody. And friends, it's not just Catholicism,
or cultism, or whatever. There are Baptists who are in
that same boat. There are Baptists who put faith, and Protestants
who put faith, you know, Presbyterians who put faith, Methodists, Lutherans,
all of them, that put their faith, and their church membership,
and their attendance, and their Sunday school, and their Bible
reading, and their confirmation, and their baptism. They have
got their lives together. They look in the mirror every
single day, and they say, look at what a good godly man I am.
Thank you, God. And when we teach them in the
Philippians, we say, look, all that is garbage. We got a lid
that will go to that. We saved it. We'll seal it up
for you. You can take it to heaven and see if you can exchange it
for the crown of life. Can you put it in perspective of what
the Bible teaches? What do we have to bring to Jesus? Nothing but a bag of garbage. But a toilet. All the righteousness
I can muster, Father, here it is. And he's like, go ahead and
flush it. For the sake of Christ, I suffered,
Paul said. It wasn't just, oh man, you know
what, I gave all that junk away. It wasn't junk to Paul when he
had it. It was priceless. And it wasn't easy to lose it.
It was costly. So because it was costly, it
caused Paul to suffer. He went hungry. He was hated. He was in prison. He was beaten.
He was shipwrecked. He was arrested. He was in prison.
He was beaten. He was stoned and left for dead.
He was ridiculed. Imagine his mentees. Imagine
the proteges of Paul who he was developing and teaching. as they
saw that he was in prison, as he came out of those prisons,
as he walked the streets in Damascus. And they thought, what's wrong
with him? And then they ridiculed him and
they called him dogs and they called him names and they ostracized
him. This is suffering. And he says
it's worth so much. The suffering of Paul, he said,
was worth so much because it was for the sake. of Christ. The glory of the worth of Christ
devalued the life of Paul to its actual worth. The glory of the worth of Christ
devalues our lives to their actual worth. And do you know what's
crazy? Paul's life then became worth so much. Our lives in Christ are priceless. Because Jesus gave His life which
was priceless for our lives. We have been purchased, therefore
we are priceless. That's a hard line, especially
for us hard-nosed doctrines of grace people. We don't ever make
ourselves feel good about being in Christ. Do we whip ourselves when we
get home? I'm feeling too joyful. No, we ought to celebrate that.
We ought to celebrate that and be able to say, in the body of
Christ, I have been redeemed. In the suffering of Christ, I've
been made whole. And He's taken everything from
me to keep me from being an idolater. I'm suffering for the sake of
the true, worthy, glorious treasure. I've suffered so that, look what
he says, I've suffered the loss of all things, and to count them
as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in Him."
And I'll stop there. Look at this. That I may gain
Christ. Paul's already said to the Philippians
that to live is Christ and to die is what? Gain. He says, to
die is gain, it's far better. If I could die, that is exactly
what I'm living for. I've given up everything else.
All I'm looking forward to is the gain of Christ. But for your
sake, for the sake of Christ, I remain. your joy may be complete,
that you may have wisdom and discernment and understanding."
As he prays to the Corinthians, he says, I pray that you may
understand the fullness and be compelled by the love of Christ. To the Ephesians, he says, I
pray you may be filled with all the fullness of God and understand
the breadth and the height and the depth and the length of the
love of Christ that what? Surpasses all understanding. To live and give up everything
that is worthless for the sake of Christ who is worthy, infinitely
worthy, is absolutely wonderful and it is absolutely gainful
for me. So I have not lost anything,
but I have gained everything. That's what Paul's saying. I
have lost nothing. All I've lost is a toilet can.
And I've been given the cosmos, the glory of the universe, Christ
as my Lord. It's big. This isn't little. This isn't easy. This is stuff
that just, I mean, right now, I just want to pause for a minute,
you know? In my own spirit, I just don't
know how to swallow that. I don't know how to swallow it. It's just such a quick word.
But when we unpack it, we let it settle in our laps, it moves
up to our soul, and our minds just explode with mystery and
wonder and awe, and we're silent. And I could come up with a list
of things in the world today in my life. Oh, I just wish this...
Let it all go, James. For the price is gain of Christ.
Don't hold fast to this garbage. John says it. 1 John 2.15. Don't love the world. It's junk. It's fading away. It's already
rotted meat. It's in the garbage can already.
Quit living for it. Do not labor for the bread that
perishes, God, Jesus says in John 6. but labor for the bread
that endures to eternal life. I've suffered that I may gain
Christ." What does it mean to gain Christ? This is Paul's goal. That he may press in and receive
and hold fast and gain Christ. That he may gain Christ. You
may think, well what is Paul doing to gain Christ? Nothing.
But his life is a picture of that gain. He's running the race. He's striving. He's pressing. He's enduring. He's fighting
the fight of faith. And he explains it right here.
that I may gain Christ and be found in Him." I think that that
answers the question of what it means to gain Christ. It's
at the end of the days that you are found in Christ. And Paul knows that without the
miracle of God to take away his affections for this worldly stuff
and his worldly faith, that there would be no way that he would
see Christ this way. And if God did not by His grace
and mercy and love, remove this stuff from his life, he would
never hold fast in his faith. So that it is the work of God,
ultimately and completely, from beginning to end, that is working
in the life of Paul, it's working in our lives as the church, and
there is no hope in anything but Christ. In Christ alone,
solus Christus, solus Christus. We say it all the time. This
is where it comes from. This is what it means. It means
that we are gaining Christ at all costs so that there is nothing
but joy and treasure and glory and wonder and worship and infinite
worth for our hearts forever and ever and ever. That that
which we hold fast to here is our reward for heaven. And that our lives are found
in Christ. This is what gaining Christ is.
Being found in Him. Let's unpack that. That might
be another sermon. Being found in Christ. is in
opposition or in contrast to being found in the world. We
see the epistles as they identify. Do not even let this be named
among you, Paul would say to the Ephesian church. Do not let
these things, don't even let coarse joking come out of your
mouth. Don't even let anyone able to say, those people are
crude. It should not be named among
you, any of you. So that there's a picture, we
see what it looks like. When we're found in Christ, we
don't engage in sexual immorality. It's not our identifier. We're not looked at as worldly
people that go to church. We're looked at as people who
are set apart and most of the time we're hated for our righteousness. Being found in Christ will cost
one the world. Being found in Christ, as Paul
has already said, as we looked last week, means that we have
no confidence in our flesh. No confidence in our flesh. He says in verse 9, "...and be
found in Him, not having then a righteousness of my own that
comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in
Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith, that
I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and may
share in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, that by
any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead."
So in a shotgun form, listen to these thoughts for a moment.
Being found in Christ means that He has taken our minds captive.
As Paul would say to the Corinthians, that He's been captivated by
the love of Christ. The Spirit of God has captivated
Him. He is bound by that. It means
the knowledge of the truth in Christ Jesus is far surpassing
the worth of the knowledge of the Academy of Judaism. And how
does that apply to us? Well, we just put it in whatever
box we want to call it. The knowledge of our doctrine. Friends, there
are a lot of people who would claim to be in Christ, who desire
fellowship around the saints because they like the headiness
of the dialogue. Now, I do like it. I could stand
here all day, not go to the bathroom or eat, and talk to somebody
about theological things. But if it's not pressing out
of me worship for Christ and living in Christ, I'm not gaining
Christ through that. I'm just gaining knowledge. And so that when Paul is showing
that being found in Christ is far worth more than anything
that he was ever found in, he is contrasting the knowledge
of the truth of Jesus Christ to the knowledge of the truth
of Judaism. The knowledge of the truth of their understanding
of the Old Testament. The knowledge of the truth of
all the things of Israel. It's all just worthless now because
Jesus Christ has given him the full knowledge of absolute truth.
Jesus is the truth. Being found in Christ means that
he's taken not only our minds captive with the understanding
of the knowledge of Christ, but our hearts captive. That we have
an affection for Jesus to whom all truth points, rather than
just knowing the principles. We don't have the five points
of our theology, or the twelve points of our doctrine, or the
thirty-eight points of our theses, and say, look at there, we've
got our Christianity, right? All of those things may be true in
our organization, but ultimately they are true because our hearts
are captive for the truth. Ultimately, these things are
active and effectual in our lives because our heart is wanting
to know more, and be more intimate with Jesus, and as we learn these
things, we learn Him. Not about Him. I had a young
man even say that years ago when we lived in California. He came
to visit. And he says, I found out in my life, these are his
words, that I talk about God and I talk about Jesus. And I never talk with Him. And I never lead others to Him.
Just talk about Him. I thought, wow, there's something
there. Being found in Christ, He's taking
your mind and your heart captive. It also means He's taking the
whole of you captive. Paul says, I have a righteousness
that's not of my own, but it comes from God that depends on
faith. I have a righteousness that's not from the law, but
comes through faith in Jesus Christ. This righteousness means
that God has done something in us, God has done something in
Paul, where Paul has no personal standing in his righteousness.
Paul can't say, you know, I'm right with the Lord. I wasn't
really that bad of a sinner. Paul says he was the chief of
sinners. Paul says to Timothy, he says that this is of great
importance and worthy of understanding, worthy of meaning, worthy of
remembering, worthy that Christ came into the world to save sinners
of which I am the foremost. But then Paul says over here
that if anybody followed me around, they would never see sin. So
if Paul is the chief of sinners, oh my gosh, where are we? Just
like Paul, the chief of sinners. And why was Paul the chief of
sinners in his own heart? Because he was ignorant and blind to
the truth of the gospel, and he persecuted him. He persecuted
Jesus. He persecuted the church. He
was forgiven of that, but he never wanted to forget that. He's taken our whole captive
in that no personal righteous standing. matters because Christ
alone is our righteousness. He's taken our whole selves captive
because no personal gain of obedience has any bearing on our relationship
with God in salvation, in righteousness. Christ alone is gain, not obedience. The obedience of faith is gain
in Christ. I mean, many people could obey
God. Many people could follow the rules of the Bible and go
straight to hell. The question is, is the righteous
works of our hearts and lives, are they the work of God or the
work of our flesh? If they're the work of our flesh, they count
as nothing. No personal hope in the flesh
either. When Jesus takes us captive, when we're found in Christ, there's
no personal hope in the flesh, but faith in Christ alone. And what
does it mean? We see Paul saying that there
twice. See, we're going to have to come back to this. I found in him not having a righteousness
of my own that comes from the law." No obedience. No following
the rules of religion that makes me righteous. He's not throwing
the law out. But in this sense he's not talking
about the obedience of the commands of God and the commands of Christ.
He's talking about the following of Judaism. But that which comes through
faith in Christ, the righteousness from God, that depends on faith.
Let me see if I can understand that a little bit clearer. Faith
alone in Jesus Christ, we call, we have that on the wall somewhere
right here. It's over there somewhere. We like to say it constantly.
Faith alone, faith alone, faith alone, faith alone. What does
it mean? Now there are some people would
argue, I don't want to get into this, but some people would argue that
they're talking about the faith of Jesus. In other words, Jesus'
personal faithfulness. That is not here, y'all. That
just ignores everything that we see in the entire letter,
much less the entire New Testament. Now, it's true that Christ is
faithful. Paul even teaches that to Timothy. When we're faithless,
he remains faithful. But right here, it's about faith
in Jesus Christ as our righteousness. Right here, it's about faith
that comes from God so that our righteousness is effectual, so
that our righteousness is given. It's an imputed righteousness
that's not our own. Paul is arguing here. It's given
to us. It is infused in us. It's imputed.
It's not ours. So faith alone in Christ does
some things. It brings some things. And let's
get our minds in this way, and then we'll pick up some stuff
next week. Faith alone in Jesus Christ brings
lordship over everything in everyone's life. So that we can honestly
say that Jesus Christ and His righteousness effectually moves
us in every aspect of our life. It conflicts with our flesh.
It conflicts with the world. It knocks heads with us. And
we're given an opportunity then by the power of this righteousness
to effectually obey God. To honor God with our choices.
To honor God with our lives. To honor God with our day. To
honor God with our attitudes, our minds, our hearts, our glimpse.
That's what faith does. Faith also brings knowledge of
the truth. We understand, we see, we behold, we receive. We understand that Christ alone
is our righteousness. We don't have to sit around and
wonder and hope as a wish upon a star but have a certain hope
that Jesus Christ is our righteousness. That He is a guaranteed Savior.
That He is a perfect Savior. That He's an effectual Savior.
He's not a possible Savior. Did you hear that? Jesus isn't
an opportunity Savior. He is a certain Savior. I came
to seek and save the lost. He didn't say, I came to try
to save the lost. I came to find and try to find
the lost. He says, I will find and I will save. Either that
or Jesus failed. Did Jesus fail? No. Jesus satisfied
the wrath of God for all who believe on Christ. Alone. Not the whole world, not every.
If they die in this world without faith in Jesus Christ, Jesus'
cross and work on the cross has no effect on them, except that
it judges them. There's no righteousness there.
You can't just join a church and say, I'm in Christ. You have
to have faith in Christ alone. Faith in Christ alone brings
lordship, brings knowledge of the truth. It also brings holiness
that is God's work. It is the righteousness from
God. Now, we could argue yet, I am the righteousness that comes
down from God, I'm the bread that came down from heaven, no
one has seen God except He who came from God. We know what Jesus
says. But friends, let's not play games with the Word of God.
We know what it's saying. The righteousness is God's to
give and He brought it in to us through Jesus Christ by faith.
And that's the only way we get it. It's the only way we can
have righteousness. There is nothing. Faith alone
in Christ is saying there is no way in any fashion, in anything
in my DNA, with any molecule of my soul, that I could do or
effectually cause any point of God's holy gaze to show me favor. And if Christ does not cover
my sins in His body, I am damned. That's faith alone. And that's
not even enough. There's a book over here, maybe
we'll open it up in a minute. Faith alone in Christ brings
faith that is effectual. We hold fast to Christ because
God gives us the gift of faith. In Ephesians 2 we see, By grace
you have been saved through faith, and this is not of your own doing,
but is the work of God, that no one should boast. For you
are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works,
which God created before the world began, beforehand, before
your new life began, before you were born again, for you to walk
in. Why? So that He gets the glory
for it. And now I've got about 14 scriptures
in my head. Faith alone in Christ brings hope in nothing but Christ.
We see the error, the stupidity, the foolishness, the vanity of
looking to ourselves or to our friends or to anything in this
world that would give us hope. Nothing gives us hope. Nothing
gives us hope but Jesus Christ. Faith does that. Faith alone
in Christ brings praise to God. Paul says earlier in chapter
1 verse 29, it says, "...and it has been granted to you for
the sake of Christ that you should believe in Him." What? For the sake of Christ, to the
praise of His glorious grace, that you should believe in Him,
that Christ is worshipped and honored through the faith of
the saints. That's why God created us. That He would be glorified
in saving us. It is a work of the Spirit of
God. It is a work of God the Father. It is a work of the Son
who gave redemption to any and all who believe in Christ. And faith alone in Christ is
a very explicit truth. It's a very explicit faith. Faith
then in turn brings intimacy through knowledge of the truth.
And Paul clearly helps us understand that. He says that by any means
possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. That I may know
Him and I know the power of His resurrection. That I may know
sharing His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death. That by
any means possible, let me show you what that looks like. That
I may know Him. You see what the Scripture, when
we see Jesus, I think it's in Matthew's Gospel, where He says,
depart from Me, I never knew you. He's talking to people who
say, we know you, Jesus. We know you. We've served in
the church, we've taught Bible study, we've preached in the
pulpits, we've prayed for people, we've seen ministry, we've done
it all, we've exercised our faith, we've done this, we've done that,
we've done this, and Jesus says, well, get away from Me because
I don't know you. Salvation isn't, do we know Jesus? It's, does
Jesus know us? All who come to me, I will never
cast out. No one comes to me except the
Father, bring him to me. And all that the Father give
me, come to me. Did you hear that? All the Father give me,
come to me. John 6. And all that come to
me, I will never cast out. No one comes to me except the
Father, give them to me. And all that come to me, I know. I know them. I know them. They are mine. My sheep know
my voice and they hear me and they obey me. And when I command
them to come, their dead heart goes, yes, Lord. I'm telling
you. It brings intimacy with the Lord.
Faith alone in Christ. And Paul says, I want to know
Christ. He's not saying that he doesn't know Him. He's just
saying, this is why I live. I don't want to know my faith.
I don't want to know my culture. I don't want to know this stuff
anymore. I've got all this stuff in my head. I want to know Christ.
so that I would know the power of His resurrection, that I would
be raised to life. I want to know the fullness of
the power of God that saved me through Jesus being raised from
the dead. I want to know that I could share in the suffering
of Christ, that this suffering that I'm experiencing right now
is not worthless, but it's infinitely glorious, and it's infinitely
worthy, because I'm sharing in the death of Jesus, so that I may become like Him
in His death. so that I may attain the resurrection from the dead."
See, this is the hopes of Paul. He knows they will be his. And he says, by any means possible.
What's that mean? He's not saying it's not by faith.
He's just saying whatever faith produces in me is the means to
be found in Christ. My faith in Jesus Christ alone
is sufficient and I will press in this life by any means possible. If I die, I die and I give glory
to Christ in my death. If I live, then the church is
continued to be blessed through my ministry and it's for the
glory of Christ. When it's all said and done, I stand proud
before the Lord for His work is evident in you. It's all for
Christ. It's all for Christ. I guess
the question is then, are you in Christ? Do you find yourself
in Christ today? Forsaking everything else. Forsaking
everything you know. Forsaking every attempt you've
ever made. Are you in Christ by faith alone? We love You, Lord. And we thank
You that You are a faithful God. And I pray that this word, Lord,
has just been sufficient today. Take that which is good and root
it deep in our souls, that it may produce fruit in its season.
that we may live for your glory, that we may share your grace,
that we may be empowered by your love for us, that we would see
this world as, for what it is, a temporary passing glimpse,
and that we would put our eyes on eternity. And Lord, we thank
You for the gift of Your salvation through Jesus Christ alone. It's
in His name we pray. Amen.