I'd like for you to turn back
to Philippians chapter 3 to begin with this morning. I have been using one verse out
of this passage, verse 3, sort of as a base text of scripture
that answers the question, what is a Christian? What is a Christian? And what the Apostle has done
here when he, look at verse three, he says, for we are the circumcision. And you know in the age of the
New Testament and prior to that, circumcision was just a common
way to refer to the ethnic Jew, the national Jew, physical descendants
of Abraham under the law. And so it became common for the
Jews to refer to themselves as the circumcision and the Gentiles
as the uncircumcision. But Paul has made it clear, not
only in this epistle of Philippians, but also in other epistles, that
the circumcision that proves and gives evidence of a person
being a true child of God, being truly saved by the grace of God,
is not physical at all, but spiritual. And he called it circumcision
of the heart. Now that's not just a New Testament
idea. That goes back to the Old Testament.
You can read about it in the book of Deuteronomy, where the
Lord made clear to the children of Israel and the nation Israel
that physical circumcision had nothing to do with their salvation,
with their justification before God, with their hearts being
right before God, that it was the circumcision of the heart.
cutting away the filth of the flesh of the heart. And that's
a way of referring to conversion, the new birth. You must be born
again. You remember, Christ stood before
Nicodemus, a Jew, a physical Jew, who'd been circumcised in
the flesh, and he said, Nicodemus, you must be born again to enter
the kingdom of heaven. You must be born again to see
the kingdom of heaven. You've got to be born, you've
got to be given spiritual life, literally. raised from the dead
spiritually. You must be given spiritual ears,
spiritual eyes. When Stephen preached in Acts
chapter 7, he told, and they rejected the gospel of God's
grace in Christ. Here's the way he described them,
you uncircumcised in heart and ears, speaking to physical Jews. So there's a clear a common distinction
throughout the whole Bible between what is the reality of what Paul's
talking about here. We are the circumcision. And
understand here now, when he says this, he's talking about
believers, sinners saved by the grace of God. Those who are washed
in the blood of Christ and clothed in his righteousness imputed.
How do you know that you've been washed in the blood of Christ?
How do you know that you're clothed in His righteousness and beauty?
You've been born again by the Spirit. You've been given spiritual
life. You have spiritual ears to hear
and spiritual eyes to see the glory of God in the face of Jesus
Christ. And he's talking to believing
Jews and believing Gentiles here. We are the circumcision. We're
the true Israel of God. That's what he's saying. We're
the true children of God. Well, how do you know that? What
are the evidences? And he gives three things. He says, number
one, which worship God in the spirit. Now, I dealt with that
last week. We worship God in the spirit. That means we worship
God as he reveals himself to us in his word, not as we think
him to be. Our knowledge of God is not our
opinion. Our knowledge of God is not by
consensus. We don't vote on who God is and
what God is like. Our knowledge of God comes directly
from Him through His Word as it is in Christ. And so whatever
God says about Himself, that's the way we worship Him. If God
says He's absolutely sovereign over all things, that's the way
we worship God. If God says that He declares
the end from the beginning, that's the way we worship Him. Because
He said it. We don't have an option there.
And we worship Him as He reveals Himself to us in His Word, but
we also worship Him from that circumcised heart, sincerely,
honestly. We're not here just making religion,
playing religious games. We're not here, and we don't
need the outward trappings of false religion to inspire us
to worship. We have the Holy Spirit who has
indelibly written the Word of God on our hearts. And that's
the way we worship God. So that's the first thing. And
then secondly, he says, how do you know? Well, and you can go
by this one. How do you know that you've been born again?
How do you know you worship God in spirit? Here's the second
thing, we rejoice in Christ Jesus. Now that's what I'm gonna deal
with today. We rejoice in Christ Jesus. And then thirdly, and
I'll deal with this next time, and have no confidence in the
flesh. Before I really get started here, let me just ask for your
prayers. As many of you know, if you don't
already, next Saturday, Brother Jim Casey and I are going to
get on a big old jet plane and travel farther than I've ever
traveled in my life. We're going to Australia. Sydney,
Australia. And I'm scheduled to preach there
next week five times in three days. And we leave out of Atlanta
Saturday. We'll go to Dallas. And from
Dallas, we'll go to Sydney, Australia. We'll arrive there 6.30 Monday
morning, it'll be 6.30 Sunday morning here. Because you know
you gain a day and coming back we'll leave on a Wednesday and
we'll get here on Wednesday. They tell me that if you look
real quick you can wave at yourself as you go by. But I'll miss two Sundays here.
Brother Mark Pennell will be preaching next Sunday and then
Brother Randy wages the Sunday after that and you pray for them.
But you pray for us. This is a congregation in a little
town called Ride, Australia. It's like a suburb of Sydney,
which is the biggest city in Australia. Jim tells me he looked
up on the internet and Ride is the third oldest city in Australia. But the pastor there, he got
connected with me through Sermon Audio as he was directed by three,
well, actually by about five people that I know that go to
that church because they'd been to the United States and they
had come to visit us in Ashland. There were two sisters and a
friend who came and they were touring the United States but
they wanted to come to Ashland and go to the church there because
they were familiar with it. Anyway, they connected the pastor
with me, and he'd been listening to messages for a long time,
and he wrote me and asked me if I would come to preach in
their annual Bible conference. He wanted me to give him a theme,
so I gave him the theme of biblical evangelism. That's what I'm gonna
be preaching on, five messages. But you pray for us as we travel. It's like a 17-hour flight, I
think, isn't it, Jim, from Dallas to Sydney. Things quicker coming
back cause you're going downhill or something like that. But I
don't know. But anyway, they tell you it
has something to do with the jet stream. I don't know. But anyway, just
pray that the Lord will keep us safe and mainly that the Lord
will bless our services there and our fellowship. Hopefully
we will meet some new brethren. And so you pray for us, but that's
what's going on. So I'll be back. We'll return
here on December 3rd. So I'll be back here to preach.
I think it's the 7th, December 7th. So pray for us on that issue. All right, well, let's get back
to Philippians three here. We rejoice in Christ Jesus. You know, back up in verse one,
look at verse one there. He says, finally, my brethren
rejoice in the Lord. You see that? Finally, my brethren
rejoice in the Lord. That word rejoice there in verse
one is a word that means exactly what you would think it means.
It means to be exceedingly glad, happy. Be glad in the Lord. Now, I know there are false preachers
who kind of portray the Christian life as being walking through
a bed of roses all the time and happy, happy, happy. That's not
what the Christian life is. There's a lot of struggle. We
can only, if we just talked about the inner warfare, the flesh
and the spirit, that'd be enough to convince a true believer that
this life is not a bed of roses, that it's a struggle. Though
we also have other enemies. We have the enemy within, the
flesh, but we also have the world and the devil to deal with too.
And of course, our victory with each one of those enemies is
not ourselves, our own strength, our own goodness, it's Christ.
Christ is the victory. I love that passage in Revelation
12 where it talks about how we defeat Satan. And it's not by
calling somebody in with a funny collar with water that he calls
holy. That's not how you defeat Satan.
You defeat Satan by pleading the blood of the Lamb. That's
what it says here in Revelation 12. That's his righteousness.
I have a righteousness that answers the demands of God's law and
justice, and Satan's accusations cannot stick to me. Who shall
lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It's God that justifies. It's Christ that died. So Christ
is the victory. But here's what he says here
in verse one, rejoice in the Lord. Even at my worst moments,
I can be happy, exceedingly glad that I have Christ, that I'm
in Christ, that I'm saved by the grace of God. That's not
presumption, but that's a reality of faith, believing what God
says. God said it and that settles
it. But it says here, rejoice. Now that word means to be exceedingly
glad. And that's a common theme throughout Philippians and throughout
the scripture. Philippians 4, 4, rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I say rejoice, same word
as in verse one. I think about this, you know,
in Luke chapter two, when the angel came to the, shepherds
to tell them about the birth of the Messiah. Listen to this,
he says, and the angel said unto him, fear not, for behold, I
bring you good tidings of great joy. That's another form of this
word rejoice in verse one. Great joy, which shall be to
all people, for unto you is born this day in the city of David
a savior, which is Christ the Lord. Great joy, exceeding gladness. The wise men, when they saw the
star that would guide them to Messiah. It says in Matthew 2.10,
when they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great
joy. Same word as in verse one. 1
Thessalonians 5.16, two words, rejoice evermore. Same word. And this joy, this rejoicing
that's in verse one there, that's part of the fruit of the Holy
Spirit, joy. That's what the scripture says.
And that kind of joy can only be associated with the grace
of God in Christ. Now there's joy in other things,
but it's not lasting. We get exceedingly glad about
things of this world sometimes. If you're diagnosed with a bad
disease, it brings sadness, but then if they find the cure and
you're cured, you rejoice and you should. We rejoice in that,
but that's not gonna last because something else is coming, you
know that. Even if it's just old age, but it's coming. We may think about Methuselah
who lived to be 969 years old, we can't even imagine what that
would be like, but you know the last thing that is said about
Methuselah? Three words, and he died. 969 years old, and he died. So we do rejoice in things of
this world, but they don't last. But now this joy lasts forever
and ever and ever, because it's joy in Christ. The scripture
in Romans 14, 17, listen to this, for the kingdom of God is not
meat and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy
Ghost. That's kind of rejoicing. Romans
15, 13, now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in
believing, that means looking to Christ, that you may abound
in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost. So that means
to be exceedingly glad. But now when we get to verse
three and he talks about rejoice in Christ Jesus, God the Holy
Spirit inspired Paul to use a different word. It's a different word. You see that? Verse one, rejoicing
in the Lord. That's exceeding glad. But in
verse three, rejoicing, that's a different word. And what does
that word mean? It means to have confidence in. That's what he's talking about.
It means literally to boast. It means to glory. In fact, this
word is often translated glory. We glory in Christ Jesus. We boast in Christ Jesus. We
have confidence in Christ. If you want to know if you've
been born again, if you've been circumcised in the heart by the
Holy Spirit, what do you glory in? What do you have confidence
in? Now there's two things I want
to deal with, basically. Number one is this. This glorying,
this boasting, this confidence is based on Jesus Christ as our
surety in salvation. So I'd ask you this question,
ask myself this question. Who is surety of my salvation? Is it Jesus Christ alone? His
righteousness alone? His blood alone? The grace of
God alone? Or is it in some way me? myself. Now let me say this. If you believe
or if anybody believes that the difference in salvation is made
by the sinner, then Christ is not your surety. You are. If you make the difference between
saved and lost, between heaven and hell, then Christ is not
your surety. You are. Multitudes of people
today will tell you that Christ died on the cross only to make
salvation possible if you do your part. Well, if that's what
you believe, then he's not your surety, you are. You understand
what I'm saying? He's not your confidence, you
are. He only made you savable. He
only made a possibility for you if you would do something for
Him. He's not your surety, you are. But now if Christ, Jesus
alone, Christ crucified and risen, His blood, His righteousness
makes the difference, then He's your surety. Your confidence
is in Him. You glory in Him. You boast in
Him. Like David of old, you remember
David on his deathbed, 2 Samuel 23 five? Although my house be
not so with God, he hath made a covenant with me that is what?
Ordered in all things and sure. Now who ordered it? God did. Who made it sure? Christ did. He said, ordered
in all things and sure. And he said, this is all my salvation. Not me, not you. But this covenant that's ordered
in all things and sure by Christ, that's all my salvation and all
my hope. That's what it's all about. Christ
in the prophetic scriptures is often called a sure foundation. He's a sure foundation. You're
not a sure foundation. I'm not a sure foundation. No
man is. We're sinners. Christ is a sure foundation.
I want you to turn back to Isaiah 32. Look with me on this scripture.
Isaiah 32. Christ is my surety, therefore
I rejoice in him. I have confidence in him. I boast
in him. I've got something to brag about
today. And it has nothing to do with me or anything I've done
or will do. I brag on Christ. I brag on him in his person.
He's God in human flesh. He's God manifest in the flesh.
He's Emmanuel. I can brag about who he, I can't
brag about who I am. But I can brag about who he is.
And then it's what he's done. He accomplished my salvation.
He brought forth an everlasting righteousness of infinite value
that justifies this old sinner before holy God. And that righteousness
cannot change. It cannot be contaminated. It
cannot be taken away. He gave it to me. He imputed
it, charged it, accounted to me, and I can brag on him. That's
my confidence. Look at verse one. This is a
messianic prophecy. Behold, a king shall reign in
righteousness. That's Christ. That's not talking
about David. David is gone by now. He's been
dead. but a king shall reign in righteousness.
This is talking about the Messiah coming and princes shall ruin
judgment. That's his gospel preachers and
ministers and witnesses and you too who believe setting forth
the gospel of the king who reigns in righteousness. Now I'm not
going to read the whole passage. You go back and read that, but
look over in verse 17. Now this king is coming, he's
going to reign in righteousness. That speaks of the work of Christ
on the cross as the substitute and surety of his people to bear
away our sins by the sacrifice of himself as our sins were imputed
to him. And he died and to establish
righteousness for his people. The righteousness of the kingdom
is the righteousness of the king. And we have it, it's ours. But
he says in verse 17, look at this. And the work of righteousness,
now whose righteousness? The king. The work of righteousness
shall be peace. Peace between God and sinners.
And the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance forever. That's the fruit of righteousness.
Quietness, that speaks of the peace of conscience that we have
by pleading the blood of Christ before God. We can have peace
with God. Somebody says, well, if you're
not wallowing in the slough of despond, you know where that
phrase come from, slough of despond, come from Pilgrim's Progress.
Somebody wallowing in the slough of despond. I've heard preachers
say, if you're not wallowing in the slough of despond, you're
not saved. No, the slough of despond is for unbelievers. We
rejoice in Christ. We have confidence in him. Our
confidence is not in ourselves. You understand what I'm saying?
Our boast is not in ourselves. Peace and quiet. Verse 18 says,
my people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation and in sure dwellings
and in quiet resting places. That's what it means to rejoice
in Christ. You see, Christ made the difference.
Isaiah 55 verse 3 says, the chastisement of our peace was upon him. That
is the punishment that it took to bring peace between God and
sinners, reconciliation, was upon Christ. Not upon you, not
upon me. He did it all. Christ is called
our surety. And that's what he is. All the
promises of God in him are yea and in him, amen. That means
they're sure and certain. So when the apostle says we rejoice
in Christ, he means we glory in him. It's all based on Christ
accomplishing and performing the duties of his surety ship.
He is our surety. He's our substitute. He's our
high priest. He did all things necessary,
all things required. He met all conditions. He fulfilled
all righteousness. He said in John 19 30, as he
hanged on that cross, it is finished. He arose from the dead, ascended
to the Father, and what did He do? He sat down. Why? Because
He purged our sins. He put them away. He didn't make
it a possibility for those sins to be purged. He didn't make
it just a mere offer in the sense of it may or may not be successful. He's our surety. You see, that's
what keeps a truly safe sinner from boasting in himself. Many
people today, they don't have faith in Christ, they have faith
in themselves, faith in their faith, as one preacher put it. But this is all based on what
Christ did in the righteousness that he established as our surety.
We have none other. We don't need any other. If we
have Christ, we have it all. God has given us all things freely
in Christ And that's it, even spiritual life, even the new
birth comes from him. Righteousness demands, you know,
if he had not established righteousness, there'd be no new birth. If he
had not established righteousness, there'd be no faith. You remember
Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15, if Christ be not risen, your
faith is in vain. If he didn't do his work, then
believing, it'd just be nothing to it, be in vain, be worthless,
powerless. but because he lives, because
righteousness was established, the Spirit is life and our confidence
is in him. Here's the second thing. Turn
to Ephesians chapter two. Listen to this. Now this word,
rejoice in Christ, remember it means to have confidence in.
It means to boast in and it also means to glory. The second thing I want you to
understand is what is the fruit of Christ's work as our surety?
Well, Paul wrote there, he said, we rejoice in Christ Jesus. I rejoice in Him. I boast in
Him. I glory in Him. I have confidence
in Him, not in myself. The moment the Holy Spirit brings
you to have confidence in Christ, He'll also bring you to have
no confidence in the flesh. One is faith, the other's repentance.
They come together. We'll talk more about no confidence
in the flesh in another message. But it goes together. These are not different stages
of being a Christian. This is what a Christian is. And he says here in Ephesians
chapter two, look at verse eight. He says, for by grace are you
saved through faith, that is, by means of. In other words,
you lay hold of salvation. And that not of yourselves, even
that faith not of yourselves, it's the gift of God. Not of
works, lest any man should what? Boast. That's the same word that
Paul used in Philippians 3 to rejoice. In other words, lest
any man should have confidence. Lest any man should rejoice in
their works. Or in anything they do, he says,
for we are his workmanship. What is a Christian? He's the
workmanship of God. You're not your own work. You're
not a self-made person if you're a Christian. You've heard the
term self-made millionaire? You know, really, there's no
such thing. God, with just a snap of his finger, could take it
all away. Look at Job. There's no such thing. But listen,
when it comes to salvation, we're not self-made people. We're His
workmanship. He's the potter, we're the clay.
And He says, we're His workmanship. Created where? In Christ Jesus.
The new creation is not a self-creation. Created in Christ Jesus. How
are we created in Christ Jesus? Christ as our surety, as our
substitute. He is the Lord, our righteousness.
He put away my sins. He made me righteous. He gave
me life from God. And he says, created in Christ
Jesus, not because of good works, but unto good works. There's
the fruit, you see, which God hath before ordained that we
should walk in them. Turn to 1 Corinthians 1. I've
got two more scriptures I want you to look at and turn to. So
1 Corinthians 1. This word rejoice. We have confidence
in Christ. We rejoice in Christ. We boast
in Christ. He is the Lord, my righteousness.
I have none other. How? Paul said this in Philippians
3 as he went on through. He said, I want to stand before
God. being found in Christ, not having
mine own righteousness, which is of the law. In other words,
he's showing there. I boast in him. I rejoice in him. My confidence
before God now and forever is Christ in him, crucified and
risen. But look at 1 Corinthians 1 verse 29. He's talking about
how God brings salvation, not by the works of men, but by the
grace of God in Christ. And the reason is, verse 29,
that no flesh should glory. Same word. No flesh should rejoice
in his presence. Now, look at verse 30. But of
him, of God, are you in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto
us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. Those four words
cover the whole realm of salvation, right there. And it's all in
Christ, verse 31, that according as it is written, he that glorieth
Same word, let him glory in the Lord. And then turn to Galatians
chapter six. Brother Mark read this one as
our scripture reading. You know back there where it
says, be not deceived, God is not mocked, for whatsoever man
soweth, that shall he also reap. You know how a lot of preachers
take that, don't you? It's almost they make it a work salvation.
You're gonna sow what you reap. Well, let me tell you something.
There is absolutely no doubt that we're going to sow, we're
going to reap what we sow, rather. We're going to reap what we sow,
no doubt. But Paul's not talking about
reaping our works or anything like that, or sowing our works
and reaping rewards. That's not what he's talking
about. He's talking about how this whole book of Galatians is about how
God justifies a sinner. It's either by the grace of God
in Christ or by the works of men. That's impossible. The works
of men, it's impossible. So if you sow works, expecting
to be saved, expecting to be righteous, expecting to be accepted
with God, what are you gonna reap? You're gonna reap damnation. But if you sow grace, pleading
Christ, Looking to Christ. What did the writer of Hebrews
say in Hebrews 12? Looking unto Jesus, the author
and finisher of our faith. Boasting in Christ. That's what
we're sowing here this morning as I preach to you. As we sing our hymns. As we pray. As we take the Lord's
Supper. That's what we're doing. We're
sowing grace. We're not expecting God to save us or keep us or
bless us based on our works. That's sowing to the flesh. But
we're looking to Christ, boasting in Him. But look at verse 14
of Galatians 6. Paul writes, but God forbid that
I should glory. Now that's that same word rejoice
in Philippians chapter three and verse three in the original
text. God forbid that I should boast. God forbid that I should
have confidence in save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.
God forbid that I should have confidence in anything but Christ
crucified. And he says, by whom the world
is crucified unto me and I unto the world. In other words, I
stand in opposition to the world because that's my boast. The
world boasts in a lot of things. They boast in religion. They
boast in morality. They boast in works. They boast
in dedication. They boast in baptism. They boast
in joining the church. We don't boast in any of that.
We boast in Christ. We glory in him. And that sets
us in opposition to the world. And verse 15, he says, for in
Christ Jesus, neither circumcision availeth anything nor uncircumcision,
but a new creature or a new creation. The Jews boasted in their circumcision.
Paul said, I don't boast there anymore. I used to, but I don't
have any confidence in the flesh now. You see, it's not whether
or not you're circumcised in the flesh or not, are you a new
creature? born again by the Spirit and
looking to Christ. And verse 16, and as many as
walk according to this rule, this doctrine, this truth, what
rule and doctrine? God forbid that I should glory
save in the cross. Peace be on them. There's our
surety. Christ is our peace. He's the Prince of peace, the
King of peace. And mercy, how do I know God's
been merciful to me? Are you looking to Christ, boasting
in Him? and upon the Israel of God."
What is the Israel of God? That's all who look to Christ
and boast in Him. Glory in Him. Our confidence of salvation is
Christ. Our confidence of justification
before God, righteousness before God is Christ. Our confidence
and acceptance in worship and prayer and service is Christ. We come to the throne of grace
by the blood of Jesus, having confidence because God said it. Our confidence of final glory
is Christ. The scripture says God's going
to judge those who come before him in righteousness by that
man whom he hath ordained and that he hath given assurance
unto all men and that he hath raised him from the dead. What's
your confidence then? What's your confidence of judgment?
What's your confidence, your boast, your assurance of righteousness? That man whom God raised from
the dead, the God-man, the Lord Jesus Christ.