Now look back at Philippians
chapter 1, verse 6 is my text, where the Apostle Paul says,
being confident, being assured of this very thing, that he which
hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day
of Jesus Christ. That word perform means to perfect. It means to complete. It means
this, it means whatever God starts, he finishes. He doesn't leave
open-ended. He doesn't leave to us, but it's
his work. Perfect. It means to accomplish.
This is an accomplishment that Paul's talking about. It's related
in another form of the word finish. He finishes. Brings to completion. And when we talk about the word
perfect, I think it's important that we always remind ourselves
that he's not necessarily talking about moral perfection, though
it can include this. For example, the same word that's
used here is used over in the book of Hebrews, chapter nine,
when it's talking about the services of the old covenant. It makes
mention here in verse 6 of Hebrews chapter 9, it talks about how
the things of the old covenant, the ceremonies, the sacrifices
were ordained and how the priest went always into the first tabernacle,
that is, in that tabernacle that was given in the wilderness,
accomplishing, same word, the service of God. Now we know whatever
they did, it wasn't morally perfect. It wasn't perfection in the way
of righteousness as perfect satisfaction to God's law and justice. But
they were accomplishing what God told them to do. They were
going through the commandments of sacrifice and offering for
the law and they did that. And so back here in Philippians
1 when he talks about God performing something. He's talking about
God perfecting of it. I've entitled this message, The Perfect Work
of God. The Perfect Work of God. And what he's talking about here
is that salvation as applied to each and every one of God's
chosen people, chosen before the foundation of the world in
Christ, redeemed by the blood of Christ, And he's talking about
that work of God that comes from Christ through the Holy Spirit
when he imparts life in the new birth. Look at it again, being
confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good
work in you. That's a good translation of
that. This is the work of the Holy Spirit in us. Now we know
that the work of the Holy Spirit in us is not the cause or the
ground of our salvation. The new birth, regeneration and
conversion, the giving of the new heart, Ezekiel described
it, God said I'll give them a new heart, a new spirit will I put
within them. That life-giving act of the sovereign
work of the Holy Spirit, Christ described it in John chapter
3, you must be born again or you don't have eyes to see the
kingdom of heaven. Can't enter the kingdom. You
gotta have ears to hear. This work is a literal resurrection
from the dead, isn't it? We're born dead in trespasses
and sins. Spiritually dead. We, having
fallen in Adam, we're born without spiritual life. And at some point
in time, God in His sovereign glory and work through Jesus
Christ, the Lord of glory, who died, was buried, and raised
again the third day, sends forth His Spirit to bring us under
the preaching of the gospel, Ephesians chapter 1, the gospel
of your salvation, the gospel as the power of God unto salvation,
Romans 1 16, and He brings us under conviction of sin and of
righteousness and of judgment as John described it in John
16, 8 through 11. And he brings us in faith, through
faith, to Jesus Christ as our only hope of salvation. That's
the work he's talking about. How do you know? Well, look at
verse 5. For your fellowship in the gospel from the first
day until now. Paul was the first one who preached
the gospel in Philippi. You know the story of how that
all went about, how he was in jail with his fellow laborer
in the gospel, the Philippian jailer. You know the story there.
He talks about their fellowship in the gospel. Look at verse
7. He says, Even as it is meet or appropriate for me to think
this of you all, because I have you in my heart inasmuch as both
in my bonds, he's in prison at this time, And in the defense
and confirmation of the gospel, you all are partakers with me
of grace. Partakers means fellowship. You're
in fellowship with me in the gospel. You believe the gospel.
We have the same hope of salvation. We have the same ground of salvation.
We have the same goal in salvation, that is to the praise of the
glory of God's grace in Christ and everything we say and do
as a collective body A witness here on this earth. And here's what he's saying.
He says, I'm confident of this very thing. I know this. And
in essence, now think about this. You know, somebody says, well,
you know, we can't tell who's saved and lost. And there's some
truth to that if you keep it in its context. We're told in
the Bible. to have fellowship with those
who have the same profession of the gospel that we have, aren't
we? We can read about that in 1 John. 1 John establishes the
parameters of our fellowship. Those who walk in the light,
they believe the true gospel as related and described and
revealed in the word of God. Who is Jesus Christ? What did
he do? What did he accomplish? Why did
he do it? Where is he now? The doctrine
of Christ, John said in 2 John. The truth, the teachings of Jesus
Christ. And those who adhere to the scriptures,
what the Bible says, who is he? He's God in human flesh. That's
who he is. He's Emmanuel, God with us. What
did he do? He saved us from our sins. He
didn't try to save us. He didn't make us savable if
we would do our part. He saved His people from their
sins. He's the Lord our righteousness.
Is He your righteousness? Or are you looking somewhere
else for righteousness? He's our holiness. He's our salvation. He accomplished redemption for
His people and what He accomplished through His blood not only secured
the salvation of all for whom He died, it demands it. Demands
it why because righteousness demands this to sin demands death
righteousness demands life Is that your hope? Well, that's
your hope. You're my brother. You're my
sister in Christ. That's what the scripture says But look at
what he talks about in his confidence He says being confident of this
very thing That you all are such a good group that you're going
to persevere and make it to the end It's not what he says, is
it? He says, I'm confident of this
very thing. That he which hath begun a good
work in you. Now who began this thing? Who
began this good work? God did. I'm confident. Here's what he's saying. I'm
confident that God who began the work, he'll finish it. He'll
complete it. This is a work of God. He said
He will perform it. He will perfect it. How are we
as born-again people perfected? And understand what I'm talking
about. I'm talking about completed. It's not by our works and our
efforts. Look over at Galatians chapter 3 with me. Look at verse 1. Now you know
what the problem was at the churches of Galatia. Jewish professors,
really unbelievers, but who claimed to believe in Christ, wanted
to bring Gentile believers back under the law in order to be
perfected, in order to be finished, completed. They'd say, you may
be a Christian, but you're incomplete as far as your salvation and
the assurance of it is concerned. I know we're incomplete in ourselves.
We're not yet finally glorified. I'm gonna talk about that in
just a moment. My friend, we're complete in Christ, the scripture
says. Colossians 2 verse 9, in Him dwelleth all the fullness
of the Godhead bodily and you're complete in Him. But look at
verse 1 of chapter 3 of Galatians. He says, O foolish Galatians,
who hath bewitched you, who put a spell on you, that you should
not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently
set forth crucified among you. What he's saying is, I've set
forth, I've preached to you how Christ finished the ground of
our salvation. Christ accomplished this for
us. All the righteousness that God requires of me, I find finished,
complete, perfected in Jesus Christ. Listen, all the satisfaction,
all the payment for sin, the payment of the debt that God
requires of me, I find only in Jesus Christ who paid my debt
in full. Jesus paid it all. And that's
how Christ was set forth among them crucified. That's how Paul
preached Christ to them. He didn't preach a Christ, an
incomplete redemption, an incomplete salvation. He preached a full
salvation accomplished by Jesus Christ as the author and finisher
of our faith. He says in verse 2, This only would I learn of
you, received ye the Spirit by the works of the law or by the
hearing of faith. In other words, the Spirit whom
we receive under the preaching of the gospel, how did you receive
him? Was it under the preaching of
the gospel of this completed salvation and righteousness in
Christ, or did you receive it by salvation based on your works
of the law? Well, it was by grace. So look
at it. Verse 3, Are you so foolish,
having begun in the Spirit? That means beginning this thing,
looking to Christ, resting in Christ, having its accomplishment
in Christ, Having begun in the Spirit, are you now made perfect?"
Same word as perform in Philippians 1. Are you now made perfect by
the flesh? The answer is no. You're not
completed by the flesh. You're completed, perfected by
God through His power and grace in the Lord Jesus Christ, being
confident. of this very thing, that he which
hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day
of Jesus Christ." In other words, here's what Paul's saying. It's
God who saves us by His grace through the Lord Jesus Christ.
It's God who keeps us by His grace through the Lord Jesus
Christ. And it's God who will bring us to glory by His grace
through the Lord Jesus Christ. It's all of grace. It's all based
on the righteousness of Christ and not the righteousness of
men. He'll bring what he started into perfection in every way. And it does include moral perfection
in this sense. When we're glorified, we will
totally... Right now, we're free from condemnation. We're free from the dominion
of sin because guilt has been removed. Righteousness has been
established. But when we're glorified, when
God finishes this whole thing up, what He began in the new
birth will be finished when we're glorified in Christ. And when
that happens, we'll be free from the very presence, influence,
contamination of sin. We'll be resurrected under glory. There'll be no sin, there'll
be no sorrow, there'll be no sickness, there'll be no death.
And in our text, as I said, this good work refers to our initial
regeneration and conversion, the new birth, which finds its
completion in us, our experience in final glorification. So this
work is not yet completed, only in the sense that we've not yet
been finally glorified. John said it this way in 1 John
3, right now we're the sons of God. That's an amazing thing. But we don't see him as we will
see him. The world doesn't know us. We
don't seem as we will seem, but we will one day. Look across
the page here or turn the page to Philippians chapter 3. Paul
had already established in the gospel message that we who are
saved by the grace of God, we are right now. righteous, as
righteous as we'll ever be in Christ Jesus as far as our justification
before God is concerned. Having been born again of the
Spirit, that's the first thing we see, our sinfulness and His
beauty, His glory, His righteousness. But he says this in verse 11,
look at Philippians 3 and verse 11, he says, if by any means
I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead, that's where this
whole thing will be finally completed. in our journey as sinners saved
by grace. The resurrection of the dead
where we'll be changed in the twinkling of an eye. When Christ
comes again to receive us up into his glory and he'll change
us and we'll have new bodies, spiritual bodies. I don't know
what all that's going to be like. A lot of people speculate. We
have some revelation of it in 1 Corinthians 15 and in some
other places. But he says in verse 12, not
as though I had already attained, either were already perfect.
Same word, already, already complete. Now what's he talking about?
He's talking about our final glory. He's not talking about
our justification before God now. That's completed. He's not
talking about our redemption by the blood. That's completed.
By one offering He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified.
His one offering perfected me as far as my legal standing before
God. Listen, God does not charge me
with my sin. I'm a sinner. God sees it. God deals with me. God chastises
me. But He will not condemn me. Who
shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It's God that
justifies. Who can't condemn us? Who can't condemn us? It's Christ that died. He's our
mediator. Yea, rather He's risen again
and seated at the right hand of the Father. But in this sense,
as far as final glory, At the second coming, where we'll be
totally free from this body of flesh, the body of this flesh.
You remember Paul talked about that? O wretched man that I am,
who shall deliver me from the body of this death? This is what
he's talking about. He said, I haven't attained that
yet. Either we're already perfect or complete. Now, what God started,
He's going to perfect. What God started, He's going
to perform. It's sure and certain that I'm
going to be right here, but I'm not there yet. He says, but I
follow after it that I may apprehend that for which I'm also apprehended
of Christ Jesus. In other words, I'm laying hold
by faith of that which Christ has already laid hold of me.
He holds on to me. And that's the power of God's
grace that saves me and keeps me and will bring me to glory.
So he says in verse 13, look at it, Philippians 3. Brethren,
I count not myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do, forgetting
those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those
things which are before. I press toward the mark for the
prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Now who's going to do all that?
Well, God is. Philippians 1.6, being confident
of this very thing, that he which hath begun that good work will
perform it. Will perform it. So you notice
back here in Philippians 1.6, the Apostle's confidence is not
in the Philippians. His confidence is not in himself.
Our confidence is not in ourselves. Our confidence is in Christ.
Now what the Scripture says? Look at Philippians 3 and verse
3. Verse 3, we are the circumcision. What is that? That's born again.
Circumcision in the Old Testament being a type of circumcision
of the heart. We're the circumcision. If you've
been born again by the Spirit of God, which means you're looking
to Jesus Christ as your confidence, as your hope, as your assurance,
as your righteousness, You have a new heart, a circumcised heart.
We're the circumcision. What do we do? We worship God
in the spirit. We worship God according to the
Holy Spirit's direction, and we worship God according to his
word, and we worship God from our spirit, a new spirit, life
given from the heart. And we rejoice in Christ Jesus.
That word rejoice is translated in other places as glory. It
means to boast. It means to have confidence.
We have confidence in Christ Jesus and no confidence in the
flesh. What Paul says in Galatians 6.14,
God forbid that I should glory, that I should rejoice, that I
should have confidence save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Our confidence is in Christ Jesus
crucified and risen from the dead. How do we know we're going to
live again? What is our confidence in that? Christ arose from the
dead. How do we know our sins are put
away? Christ died, was buried and rose
again. How do we know there's a work
of the Holy Spirit within us? How do we know we've been born
again by the Spirit? What is our hope and confidence
of salvation? What is our glory, our boast?
Where is our faith? My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest
frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name. On Christ the solid rock
I stand, all other ground is sinking sand. You see, our confidence
even of being born again is not in an experience we had as children.
It's not even in being baptized. We may have had an experience
and that experience may have been real and it may have been
truthful. It could have been if it was under the preaching
of the gospel. We are to be baptized. We who
are believers are to confess Christ in believer's baptism.
But our confidence is not in the fact that several years ago
or how many years ago I was baptized. Our confidence is right now today
looking unto Jesus the author and the finisher of our faith. That's the difference. What assurances has God given
us that what He started He'll perform? What assurance? Let
me give you a few. First of all, turn to Ephesians
chapter 2. Ephesians chapter 2. First of all, the fact that all
of salvation, all of it, is by God's free, sovereign grace conditioned
on the Lord Jesus Christ. It's all conditioned on him.
Look at Ephesians chapter two and verse eight. He says, for
by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves,
it is the gift of God. Now he's talking about all of
salvation. Some say, well, he's just talking about faith. No,
he's talking about all of it, including faith. It's all the
gift of God. We didn't earn it, we don't deserve
it. And here's the thing. Some of you here today and some
listening on the internet, you may be newly saved, newly regenerated. Some of you may have been regenerated
and been under faith for years and years and years. But here's
the point of fact. Right now, today, there's not
one of us who deserves salvation and who can say we've earned
it. Is that right? How many times have I told you?
I've preached this gospel for over 30 years. Right now today,
I still don't deserve it and I still haven't earned it. It's
all in Christ. And that gives me confidence.
Because if God had a day and he said, now Bill, on this day
you're going to earn it. I know myself. I can't even hardly get
through a day without complaining. How about you? That's unbelief. Murmuring. That's what it's called
in the Old Testament. They murmured. That doesn't mean they just went
and murmured, murmured, murmured. That means they didn't believe. It
means they complained. For by grace are you saved. And
he says in verse 9 of Ephesians, Do not of works, lest any man
should boast. Now remember what he said in
Philippians 1-6. The good work that God began. Look at verse
10. For we are his workmanship. We're not self-made. A sinner saved by grace is the
work of God. Isn't that right? Not the work
of man, not the work of any preacher, not the work of any denominator.
It's the work of God. Not the work of mama and daddy
or grandma. It's the work of God. And he says, created in
Christ Jesus. There's the ground of salvation.
This new creation that he speaks of. It's created in Christ. It's based on His blood and His
righteousness. He fulfilled all the conditions,
all the requirements, all the stipulations. Christ did it all. He is our all and in all. And
He says unto good works, not because of good works. Which
tells me this, you can't get assurance from your works. If
you do, that's nothing more than self-righteousness. Good works
are the fruit of what Christ accomplished and they spring
from confidence in Him. which God hath before ordained
that we should walk in." The fact, listen to this, here's
our confidence, Christ is my surety. If you believe the gospel of
God's grace, if you've been brought by the Holy Spirit to believe
the gospel, that means you are a member, a participant of the
everlasting covenant of grace. Now, who does the Bible say is
the surety of the covenant of grace? Jesus Christ. He's the surety. You're not the
surety of it. I'm not the surety of it. You
see, the gospel that most people are hearing today makes them
the surety of their salvation. Did you know that? God's done
everything he can do. Christ did everything he can
do. Now the rest is up to you. The moment you say that, you're
making the sinner to be the surety of salvation. Do you understand
that? Because Christ didn't make it
sure. He did everything He could do. I mean, I've heard preachers
stand that Christ died for multitudes who are in hell. Well, that makes
man the surety of his own salvation. How can you have any real confidence?
Well, the only way you can is to think too highly of yourself. But you see, Jesus Christ is
the surety of our salvation. Our sins were charged to Him.
His righteousness is charged to us. He's our surety. David
said it on his deathbed. Although my house be not so with
God, He has made a covenant with me that is ordered in all things.
That's the sovereignty of God, isn't it? God ordered it. And
sure. And this is all my salvation
and all my hope. Christ is the surety. He fulfilled
all conditions. This salvation is all of grace.
Do you know our sins cannot condemn us? Now I know people what they
do when they hear things like, oh well you're just saying you
can go out and live like the devil. No. The fact that our
sins cannot condemn us does not give a child of God freedom to
sin. But it gives him a reason to
give thanks. a reason to serve now, not as a mercenary or as
a legal slave trying to pay a debt, but as a willing, loving bond
slave. Our sins cannot condemn us. Blessed is the man to whom
the Lord imputed righteousness without works. And then Christ being our surety
is this, the righteousness by which we're justified before
God is the righteousness of God himself in the person of his
son Jesus Christ. It's not the righteousness of
man. How could we have any confidence if it were the righteousness
of man? Somebody said, well pick the
best man on earth. And did he? Did he reach the
goal? Well, who would you say was the
best man on earth? I'll tell you who I'd say. I'm talking
about just mere man now. Adam before he fell. And what
did he do? He fell. Would you have done
any better? If you think you would, you think
too highly of yourself. No. But we are saved by the best
man that ever lived on earth, the God man, Jesus Christ. It's
His righteousness. And then here's another thing.
Here's the assurances that God gives us. All of salvation is
by God's will and power. It's not by our will and power.
He changes our will. He gives us a new will. He changes
our heart. He gives us a new spirit. He
makes us willing in the day of His power. But it's all His power. Paul said, I know whom I have
believed and I'm persuaded that He is able to complete, to save. He is able
to keep that which I've committed unto Him against that day. Now
what have I committed unto Him? My whole salvation's committed
to Him. He's able to save to the uttermost them that come
unto the Father by Him. Here's another thing. He promises
He'll never let us go over in John chapter 10. Listen to this
in John chapter 10. Talking about the good shepherd
who gave his life for the sheep. You've read this, I'm sure, several
times, a lot of times. He says in verse 27 of John 10,
my sheep hear my voice, I know them and they follow me. I give
unto them eternal life. They shall never perish, he says. Neither shall any pluck them
out of my hand. My Father which gave them me
is greater than all, and no one, literally, no man, no one is
able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. I and my Father
are one." He said, I'll never leave you nor forsake you. He promises he'll never let us
go. And then, he has begun this work so that
he has made it impossible for us to leave him. Did you know
that? 1 John chapter 2. Look at that. It says, He who has begun a good
work will perform it to the end. He'll perfect. He's done this
in such a way that He makes it impossible for us to leave Him. Now how does He do that? Well, look at 1 John chapter
2 verse 18. John writes, little children,
it's the last time. As you've heard, that Antichrist
shall come. Even now there are many Antichrists, whereby we
know it's the last time. They went out from us. They left.
But they were not of us. God didn't begin the good work
in them. They weren't of us. They would, for if they had been
of us, if God had begun the good work, they would no doubt have
continued with us. because God finishes what he
starts. But they went out that they might
be made manifest, but they were not all of us. Now how does God
do this work so it makes it impossible for us to leave him? Look at
verse 20 of 1 John 2. But you have an unction, an anointing
from the Holy One, and you know all things. Now what is that
unction? What is that anointing? My friend,
that's the work of the Holy Spirit in the new birth wherein He gives
life and He comes in and abides within us for the rest of our
days. He'll never leave us. Now we
can grieve Him. We can quench Him in certain ways. That's another
message. But my friend, He'll never leave
us. And He gives us the ever-abiding presence of the Holy Spirit,
and He gives us spiritual life. And just like Jeremiah said in
his prophecy of the new covenant, when God revealed it to him that
God's gonna have a people, and he says this, he said, I will
make an everlasting covenant with them that I will not turn
away from them. He will never leave us. This
is Jeremiah 32, 40. He said, I will never turn away
from them to do them good, but I will put my fear in their hearts.
That's faith in Christ and worship. and they shall not depart from
me." Jeremiah 32, 4. So here's the bottom line. Our
assurance, our confidence does not come from looking within
at ourselves. Now there, listen, that's not
to say we're not to look within and examine ourselves, we are.
But that's not where our confidence, our confidence comes from looking
to Jesus Christ, the author and finisher of our faith.