Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening. And
now for today's program. Welcome to our program today.
I'm glad you could join us. And if you'd like to follow along
in your Bibles, I'm going through the third chapter of the book
of Philippians in the New Testament. This is the Apostle Paul having
been inspired by the Holy Spirit to write a letter to the church
in Philippi. And Paul is talking about several
things here, but this is such a great chapter. Obviously, you
know, the Bible was not originally written in chapters and verses,
but I'm glad we have it that way so we can find things, find
these verses and these truths conveniently. But he'd been talking
about his confidence, the confidence of believers in the Lord Jesus
Christ. And that confidence is totally
wrapped up in the glorious person and the finished work of Christ.
And it's no confidence in self, in our own goodness or our power
or our wills. We have no goodness. Our goodness
is Christ. And that confidence that he spoke
of comes from the gifts of faith and repentance. And that's what
I'm going to be preaching on today, faith and repentance. Now, if you look down at verse
seven of Philippians chapter three, the apostle writes, but
what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Now that is a short statement
that really describes God-given faith and God-given repentance. And we have to understand that
both faith and repentance, the Bible talks about faith. Without
faith, it's impossible to please God. The Bible says in Hebrews
11 and one that faith is the substance of things hoped for,
the evidence of things not seen. And that literally means that
faith is the foundation and the evidence or the assurance of
things that you don't see. You don't see them with the physical
eye, but you believe them because they're in the word of God. But
we have to understand that faith and repentance and every blessing
of the Spirit that connects a sinner, a sinner saved by grace, spiritually
to Christ, is not in us by nature. In other words, we don't have
faith by nature. I always try to make sure that
you understand me when I talk about by nature. By nature means
as we are naturally born into this world as fallen sinners. We fell in Adam. The Bible preaches
the truth of our ruination by the fall. We fell in Adam. Adam
brought sin and death into the world. And as a result, we are
born spiritually dead. We're physically alive. We have
a conscience, we have a spirit that is in man, but it's not
the spirit of God, it's not the spirit of life. 1 Corinthians
2 talks about the spirit that is in man, but we're spiritually
dead in trespasses and sins. Ephesians 2.1 talks about that.
You hath he quickened, made alive. who were dead in trespasses and
sins. And the very fact that Christ
said very plainly that you must be born again, born from above,
proves the condition, the natural condition of man. Well, a verse
that I quote on this program quite often is 1 Corinthians
2 14, which says, the natural man receiveth not the things
of the Spirit of God, neither can he know them for they're
spiritually discerned. And the natural man refers to
all people in their natural state, as we are born into this world
spiritually dead. And we don't have the capacity
or the desire to believe God. That's why the natural man receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God. So in order for us to
receive the things of the Spirit of God, to receive Christ, to
believe in Christ, we have to be born again. And that's a sovereign
act of God through the Holy Spirit, wherein He gives life, spiritual
life and knowledge and faith. And so when we talk about faith,
we're not talking about something that is natural to us, but we're
talking about something that God has given His people. That's what He does. You know,
2 Thessalonians 2 that I went through several weeks ago. One
of the verses there where Paul says in verse 13, we are bound,
brethren, beloved of the Lord, to give thanks unto God for you,
because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through
sanctification of the spirits, being set apart by the spirit,
and belief of the truth. You see, in order to believe
the truth, and it says, whereunto he called you by our gospel,
in order to believe the truth, we have to be sanctified by the
Spirit. And that sanctification of the
Spirit there is being set apart in new birth. You must be born
again. Now, Paul writes here, he says
now, he's come to a conclusion. God brought him to a conclusion
through the gift of revealed knowledge and the gift of faith
and repentance. And here's what he says, go back
to verse seven now, chapter three. But what things were gained to
me? Now, what he's talking about
is things that before he was converted, before he was born
again, before he believed, things that he thought gained him access
to God, acceptance with God, blessings from God, even salvation. And I dealt with that last time.
You know how he went through, he says he was circumcised the
eighth day. Many of the Jews believe that
physical circumcision was a sure sign that they were children
of God. But it's not. It was not. And Paul told them, he said,
beware of those false preachers who come in claiming to believe
in Christ. but who insists that the Gentiles
males be circumcised in order to be really saved or really
righteous. He thought that gained him access
to God, proved he was a child of God, of the stock of Israel,
of the tribe of Benjamin. These are all things that he
thought gained him. Keeping the law, his obedience.
He thought that he could be in good standing with God and be
righteous in God's sight based upon his attempts to keep the
law. But when God, we could say it
this way, when God really laid hold of him, got hold of him,
remember that on the Damascus road, and revealed Christ to
him, God changed Paul's mind. And that's what faith and repentance
is all about. It's a change of mind. Now, when
I say it's a change of mind, I'm not meaning that it's only
an intellectual matter of the brain that doesn't involve the
heart or the whole man. In fact, in the Hebrew way of
thinking, and in the biblical way of presenting things, The
heart involves the mind. Any notion that you have of the
heart as just simply being mere emotion or sincerity without
thinking straight, without knowing the truth, is a false view according
to the Bible. You see, the Bible is full of
the true teachings the doctrine of Christ mainly in the gospel,
the good news of salvation, how God saves sinners. The Bible
is not a hallmark card from God to man. It's not a love letter
from God to man. There is God's love there, but
it's God's love in Christ and outside of Christ there is no
love from God. Now mark that down. First John
four and verse 10, here in his love, not that we love God, but
that he loved us, talking about believers there, his people,
and gave himself, here in his love, not that we love God, but
that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation, the
sin-bearing sacrifice that brought satisfaction, justice satisfied,
righteousness established. Sins paid for, the debt paid.
propitiation for our sins. And the Bible says that outside
of Christ there is nothing but God's wrath, which is God's hatred. And His hatred is not a sinful
hatred, it's a righteous, just judgment. A righteous indignation
upon a just ground. And so, when these things come
down, it shows us that what we think recommends us unto God
by nature, what we naturally think, which would be our works,
our decisions, our will, we see that doesn't gain us anything.
And he says in verse seven, those I counted lost. Now that's repentance. See? And by what standard, Paul,
do you count these things to be loss instead of gain? And
he says it in two words, for Christ, and that's faith. Now, faith and repentance are
both gifts from God. Ephesians 2, 8, that I quote
all the time, for by grace are you saved through faith, by means
of faith, And that not of yourselves, it's the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast. And so that's faith. And then
repentance, the Bible speaks in the book of Acts and several
other places that God grants or gives repentance. Faith and
repentance come together. You see? Faith, one preacher
said it's like a piece of paper. It always has two sides and it
never can be any other way. But faith is the knowledge that
God reveals and convinces us of in our hearts, in our minds,
affections, and will, whereby sinners turn to Christ, rest
in Him, and repentance is turning away from everything else, including
ourselves. So here you see Paul, he's been
turned to Christ, And he's turned away from all these other things
that he thought were gain. It's like an accounting, you
might say. Paul, before he was converted,
before he saw Christ and knew Christ, which also shows us our
sinfulness, before he knew that, before he knew Christ, he put
all those things in the gain or the profit column. And he
didn't think much of Jesus of Nazareth, as you know. Put that
in the loss column. But now that he's been converted,
now that he's been born again, now that he's been given the
gift of faith and repentance, he puts all those other things
in the loss column. Those things that used to be
in the gain or the profit column, they're in the loss column. They
don't mean anything now. And Christ is in the profit column,
the gain column. Now let me, he explains it a
little bit further in verse eight. Look at it. Philippians 3a, he
says, yea, doubtless, and I count, this is an accountancy, and that's
one thing about repentance, it's a change of mind concerning judgment,
how I judge things. Paul's saying I used to count
or judge these things that I listed up there about being a Hebrew
of Hebrews, keeping the law, I used to judge them to be profit,
gain. But now, having been brought
to faith in Christ and true repentance, my standard of judgment has changed. Now what I used to judge to be
profit, I judge to be loss. And what I used to judge to be
loss, I judge to be profit. And how did it come about? Verse eight, yea, doubtless.
In other words, there's no argument here. And I count all things
but loss. in what light? For the excellency
of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord." So it's in the knowledge
and by the standard of Christ that Paul measures all things
now. What is going to profit me as
far as salvation? What is going to profit me as
far as a right relationship with God? All right? And what is not going to profit
me? What is less than profit? Well, I count all things. Now, what does that mean? That
means all things except the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, what does
he mean, Christ profiting? Well, he's talking about Christ
in the glory of his person. Who is Jesus Christ? The Bible
is very plain. He is God in human flesh without
sin. He is God and man in one person. He's God manifest in the flesh. He's not a sub-God or a lesser
God or a little God. He's God. The Trinity. God the Father, God the Son,
God the Holy Spirit. One God who subsist in three
persons. Christ is the second person of
the Trinity, God the Son, who was made flesh and dwelt among
us. John 1.14. His name shall be
called Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins, Matthew
1.21. And Matthew 1.23 goes on to say his name shall be called
Emmanuel, which being interpreted is God with us. Now what Paul's
saying there is that the only thing that's going to profit
me as far as my salvation and as far as a right standing and
relationship with God is who Jesus Christ is, not who I am. You see, salvation is not about
who I am and my reputation and my glory. I have no glory. It's in Christ, the person of
Christ. Salvation's in a person. His
name is salvation. Back in the Old Testament, whenever
you see the word salvation a lot of the times, it's the name that
is given for Christ. And it goes something like Yahweh,
Jehovah, Moses said in Exodus 14, stand still and see the salvation
of the Lord. Now he was talking about the
Red Sea, but that was a type, a picture, a lesson that leads
us to Christ because Christ is our salvation. His name is salvation. His name shall be called Jesus,
Yeshua. That's another way to put it.
For he shall save his people from their sins, God our Savior.
And then the next thing that he's talking about is the glorious,
effectual, successful, completed work of Christ on the cross as
the surety the substitute and the redeemer of all whom the
Father gave to him before the foundation of the world. So what
are we talking about here? When he talks about the excellency
of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord. We're talking about
the glorious person of Christ, and we're talking about the finished,
successful, completed work of Christ on the cross. Not to try
to save anybody, He wasn't trying to save you if you would let
Him. Not to die for everybody without exception if they would
let Him, and saved if they receive Him. No, but to die for His sheep. And He said of them that all
that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh
to me I will in no wise cast out. Now what did Christ complete
on that cross? Well, he completed the full payment
of the debt of the sins of God's elect, his sheep, his church,
who are identified when God brings them to Christ and gives them
faith and repentance, the full payment of all their sins imputed,
charged, accounted to him. That's what the Bible means in
2 Corinthians 5.21 when it says, God made him to be sin for us. That means that Christ was the
sin bearer, the sin offering. The debt was accounted to his
charge. He is the surety of his people. You know what a surety is? It's
one who takes responsibility to pay the debt of another when
that person can't pay it. Well, we who are sinners, we've
never been able to pay the debt. Christ was our surety. He's called
the surety of a better covenant. That is, it's not a covenant
of works, it's a covenant of grace. God chose a people, gave
them to his son, laid all the responsibility of their salvation
upon Christ, and sent him into the world to die for those sins,
to make the payment. with the price of his blood,
that's called redemption. But hold on, he's the surety,
and then in order to pay the debt, he had to become the substitute
of his people. He had to pay that debt, he had
to actually take the place of his people under the law to do
what? To die for their sins, that's
what the cross is all about. Paul wrote in Galatians 6.14,
God forbid that I should glory save in the cross. The finished
work of Christ on that cross as God manifest in the flesh
when he died for the sins of his people. And then he was buried
and he arose again the third day. We're gonna be talking about
his resurrection here. Now, why did he arise again?
Because he paid the debt. He finished the work, John 19,
30. It is finished. And he made an end of sin, he
finished the transgression, and he brought in everlasting righteousness. that God has imputed to all His
people. He redeemed us from our sins.
Now go back to verse eight of Philippians 3. Yea, doubtless,
and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge
of Christ Jesus my Lord, His glorious person, His finished
work, for whom I've suffered the loss of all things, all those
things that I have repented of now, and do count them but dung
that I may win. or gain Christ. In other words,
those things, when I look at Christ, I see the completeness
of my salvation without any contribution from me. And then Paul says in
verse nine, then I want to be found in him, listen, not having
mine own righteousness, which is of the law. but that which
is through the faith of Christ. Now mark that down. It's not
talking about faith in Christ. Now, when we're born again and
God brings us to believe in Christ, we do have faith in Him. But
the righteousness, which is of the law, is not brought about
by my faith in Him. The righteousness of the law
was brought about by His faithfulness to do what He agreed to do as
the surety of His people. Before the foundation of the
world, Christ agreed willingly to do for His sheep, His church,
God's elect, what we could not do for ourselves. Pay that debt,
establish righteousness. And He was faithful in all that
He came to do. He set His face like a flint,
the scripture says, to do the work. He loved his own, his own
people, the ones whom God gave him, to the end, to the finishing
of the work. And the Bible says in Romans
10, 4, that Christ is the end, the finishing, completion, perfection
of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. So
he says, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the
law, this is verse nine, but that which is through the faith
or the faithfulness of Christ. And he says, the righteousness
which is of God by faith. Now, faith receives and believes
in Christ by faith. as our only righteousness before
God. As my sins were imputed, charged,
accounted to him, his righteousness was imputed, charged, accounted
to me. And you see, he died for those
sins, he paid that debt, he established righteousness. He is the Lord
my righteousness. Jeremiah used that term in the
transliteration of the Hebrew, it would go something like this,
Jehovah Sidkanu. Jeremiah 23 and Jeremiah 13.
He is my righteousness. I have no righteousness before
God, no perfection of the law before God, except in Christ,
which has been charged, accounted to me. And as a result of that,
there is salvation, there is the new birth, there's life.
He says in verse 10, that I may know him and the power of his
resurrection. and the fellowship of his sufferings
being made conformable unto his death. Now what is the power
of his resurrection? It's life. Life from the dead. Life given on a just ground. Romans 5 21. As sin hath reigned
unto death, see the just punishment for sin is death, even so might
grace reign Now grace is the gift of God. We don't earn it,
we don't deserve it. Even so might grace reign, but
on a just ground. Grace reign through righteousness. Okay, there's the just ground.
That's the righteousness of God in the gospel, Christ. So grace
reigns through righteousness unto eternal life. That's the
power of his resurrection. Unto eternal life by Jesus Christ
our Lord. And with the heart, Romans 10,
10 says, with the heart man believeth unto righteousness. In other
words, when God gives us the new heart in the new birth, that's
what part of the new birth. He gives us a new heart, new
life, new spirit, new knowledge, new heart. What do we do? We look to Christ for righteousness.
Because of the power of his resurrection, which is life from the dead,
that's what the new birth is. It's a spiritual resurrection
from the dead. You who were dead in trespass
and sin, hath he quickened. That's what he says. And so we
know the power of his resurrection, and then we know the fellowship
of his sufferings. That can be given two ways. Legally, when he died, I died. When he was buried, I was buried.
When he arose again, I rose again because he did it as my surety,
my substitute, my redeemer. And then when we're brought into
faith in Christ and repentance of dead works, we enter into
his sufferings because the world hates us. He told his disciples. He said, marvel not if the world
hates you. It hated me before it hated you. And then he says,
in the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his
death, verse 11, if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection
of the dead. That is, that no matter how this
happens, it's all of God that I'll be glorified in the end. That's the resurrection of the
dead. And that's all because of what Christ accomplished in
the glory of His person and in the success of His finished work. That's faith and repentance. Turning to Christ, submitting
to Him as the Lord your righteousness, and turning away from everything
else, even the things that men call good, but looking to Him. I hope you'll join us next week
for another message from God's Word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
a copy of today's program or to learn more about Reign of
Grace Media Ministries or Eager Avenue Grace Church, write us
at 1102 Eager Drive, Albany, Georgia. Contact us by phone at 229-432-6969
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today and may the Lord be with you.