Open your Bibles if you would
to Philippians chapter 3. We're continuing our study in
this wonderful book. The name of the message is found in Christ. Found in Christ. Now remember
last week I said that we're going to enter into a text here where
we're going to see four ambitions of Paul. for the Christian life. This is practical stuff for us,
too. You ever hear people say practical
Christianity? It's in the scripture. This is
just living for Christ, living our lives like normal. People
write books about it. Well, let's just live our lives
for Christ. I always have to laugh when someone's
like, oh, I got a book. OK. No problem. You know, they're
people trying to make money off of things, but that's always
the way it's been, isn't it? So, we've looked at this wonderful
book. It's written to the saints at
Philippi who are Gentiles. They're Gentiles, Roman citizens.
So they know what citizenship's all about. We're gonna see another
portion of that near the end of this chapter, too, when Paul
says our citizenship's in heaven. Charlie, this is not our home. We're citizens of heaven. It's
amazing. That's where our citizenship
is. We're just passing through this world. And so it gives them
hope, like it would give us hope too, to know that this is just
temporary, what we're seeing, what we're seeing here. And last
week, we saw that after Paul was converted, he denied any
of his religious works, remember? Which we saw was self-denial.
Self-denial truly is saying, I can't save myself. I have no
ability to save myself. Remember, we looked at Colossians,
where religious people say, touch not, taste not, don't do this,
don't do that, don't do this. But the real self-denial, that's
religion. The real self-denial is saying,
I can't save myself. I give myself to Christ. He's
the only one who can save me. In all my religious works that
I've done, I know what that's like. I did a lot of religious
works. There are nothing. There are
nothing. We used to call them, in Oregon,
fleeces. You ever heard? Oh, just lay
a fleece before the Lord. It's very charismatic. Just lay
this fleece, and well, why don't we just do what David said? Wait
on the Lord. Just wait on the Lord. We ask,
and then we wait. Sometimes the answer's yes. Sometimes
there's the answer's no. And sometimes we have to wait
for it to be revealed, right? We still petition our great God,
right? We talk to him. We commune with
him. We love him. My, oh my. Look at, listen, look at verse
eight in the King James, but I'm gonna read verse eight from
the Greek literal Bible as we're looking at that. Philippians
3.8 in the Greek literal Bible, it says this. But indeed, therefore,
I also count all things to be lost because of the excelling
knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, because of whom I have
lost all things, and esteem them rubbish that I may gain Christ."
So Paul's overwhelmed with Christ. He's overwhelmed, He desires
to grow in grace. One of His ambitions is to know
Christ, to know Him more. That just means to grow in Him,
to have a better understanding of Him. Our understanding is
so limited because we see it through a glass darkly, and we're
humans. Christ is God, but He's revealed Himself to us in Scripture,
hasn't He? And if you look at the words of Christ, this is
something that I marvel about. Here's God in the flesh. And he spoke, when you look at
his words, he mostly spoke in one and two syllable words. Yeah, isn't that amazing? He
didn't speak in lofty language. He could have, couldn't he? He
could have spoken the most lofty language and none of us would
have understood it. He mostly spoke, Brother Brian,
in one, two-syllable words. We can understand that, can't
we? By the grace of God. See, without the grace of God,
the Bible is just words. But now, being born again and
the Holy Spirit teaching us, Oh, I thank God that he's spoken
one and two syllable words. I marvel at that. And Paul, remember, he had all
this learning. I'm not against learning. I'm
not against going to university. I'm not against that at all.
As a matter of fact, I commend it. But this religious learning, Paul went to the seminary of
seminaries. And he says, I counted all laws. Rubbish. All religious works. My oh my. So today we'll look at, we'll
continue looking at a few more verses concerning the fact that
Christ must save us or we perish. We're gonna look at, at, found
in Christ today. Let's read verses three to 11
of Philippians chapter three to see the context of our verses. For we are the circumcision which
worship God in the spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have
no confidence in the flesh. That's amazing. We used to have
confidence in the flesh, now we don't have any. Isn't that
amazing? That's a miracle of grace. Though
I might also have confidence in the flesh, now he's gonna
put his pedigree, his religious pedigree forth, not to exalt
himself, but to show how it meant nothing to him in light of Christ. Though I might also have confidence
in the flesh, if any other man thinketh that he have thereof,
he might trust in the flesh, I more. Circumcised the eighth
day of the stock of Israel, the tribe of Benjamin, the favored
tribe, in Hebrew of Hebrews, touching the law, a Pharisee.
Couldn't get any higher than Pharisees. Oh my, in standing
and honor in the Jewish community. Concerning zeal persecuting the
church touching the righteousness, which is in the law blameless
He sees himself. He doesn't see himself as a sinner
does he? When he says concerning the law
blameless We know we know we can't keep the law can we we
know that if you're gonna keep the law You got to keep it all
and there's not one of us who can keep the law Now we don't
want to go contrary to it do we? But we know we can't keep
it. And we rejoice that the Lord
Jesus Christ fulfilled it in our room and place. It's still
there. It's wonderful. It's holy. But Christ fulfilled it in our
room and place. The God-man, by his perfect sin-atoning
work in our room and place. Look at this. But what things
were gained to me? All his religious works were
gained to him. He had power, prestige, honor. He said, all these things which
were gained to me, those I counted lost for Christ. Yea, doubtless, and I count all
things but lost for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus,
my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do
count them but dung. Remember in the Greek, that's
the things to be cast to the dogs, useless. It's useless in
the Greek that I may win Christ and be found in him Look at that
found in Christ. Oh My not having mine own righteousness
So he says I don't want to face God in my own righteousness,
they're like filthy rags Which is of the law? but that which
is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of
God by faith, that I may know him in the power of his resurrection,
in the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable unto his
death, if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection
of the dead. So Paul, we see, counted all his religious works,
all his religious labors as loss. Compared to the priceless pearl
of great price the Lord Jesus Christ God incarnated in the
flesh Everything he had learned everything he had done he counted
as a loss Compared to knowing Christ And
to being found in Christ and for Christ's sake he lost everything
He lost his position as a Pharisee. He lost the honor that he had
amongst the Jews. He lost a wealthy income. And he says, I count it all loss. I count it just refuge. What a change. What a change. He lost the ceremonial bondage
that he was under with the Jewish religion and he gained his freedom,
beloved. Free in Christ. He lost his worldly honor and
reputation and substance and comforts and advantages but he
gained all spiritual blessings in and through the Lord Jesus
Christ. He lost false peace. You know how we know he had false
peace? He said he was blameless before the law when he was guilty
of it all. We lost our false peace, didn't
we? We used to think we could save
ourselves, because we're not that bad. I heard something this
week, just a reminder. This fellow took a police car,
he was having a mental breakdown, took a police car and tore off.
Well, the police finally got up to him, and he wouldn't get
out of the car. He finally got out of the car,
and they shot him to death, right? And you could tell the guy was
having a mental breakdown. It was obvious. And the two guys
that are talking, they said, well, he'll be in heaven. He didn't do anything too wrong.
He kept talking about Jesus in the car, and you could tell he
was having a mental breakdown. But he didn't do anything wrong
other than steal the car. And I thought, that's the works
right there. Right there. See, they're looking at the outward,
aren't they? Oh, he's not a murderer, he's not this, he's not that. Oh, my beloved. My, oh, my. So Paul lost false peace and
he gained true peace with God in and through the Lord Jesus
Christ by his precious shed blood to save his soul and to obtain
eternal redemption for him. He lost pretended glory, you
know, the glory of man, right? Honoring Him and praising Him.
He lost pretended glory and He received eternal glory, which
He's enjoying right now, isn't He? In heaven, all in and through
the Lord Jesus Christ in Him alone. It's wonderful, isn't
it, Brother Brian? It's wonderful. Makes your heart
leap. Because we were there. I used to think my good would outweigh
my bad. Nope, it's all bad, Wayne. When the Holy Spirit finally
revealed to me what's in the scripture, my oh my. Let's read verse nine now. Look
at this. Philippians chapter three, verse
nine. And be found in him, that's Christ, not having mine own righteousness. So we all have our own righteousness,
right? We're born into this world and
our righteousness, the scripture says, is like filthy rags, worthless
rags, dirty rags. My dad used to be a mechanic,
used to be a trailer mechanic. And at the end of the day, when
I was with him in the shop, he'd say, okay, Wayne, go and collect
all the dirty rags and put them in the bucket over there and
take them home and wash them. So I go around and I'm picking
up, man, there's grease all over these things and everything.
And by the time I'm done, I'm like, Dad, can I use that fun
soap? You know, that fun soap they had that takes all the grease
off and everything. I used to love it. And so he'd
say, yeah, son, go and wash your hands. And so I'd be over there
doing that. But those are the kind of just
rags that are dirty. And our rights is like ones that
are worthless. You just don't use them again.
They're worthless. My oh my. And so Paul says here, and be
found in Christ, not having mine own righteousness, which is of
the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness
which is of God by faith. So in the next few weeks, we'll
be looking at four ambitions that Paul had. Number one in
verse eight that I might win Christ and be found in him That's
not like winning him in a prize. It's not like that at all Paul
saying I want to know more about him. I want to I want to learn
more about him I want to increase in the knowledge that I have.
And we do, too. And we pray like Paul did, that
the Holy Spirit would increase our knowledge about Christ. Not
so we can boast, but so we can be in awe together. Right? And in verse 9, we see the second
ambition, and be found in Him. Found in Christ. And in verse
10, we see the third ambition, that I may know Him. That I may
know Him. And number four, the fourth ambition,
in verse 11, if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection
of the dead. And all these ambitions are centered
around Christ. They all find their focus in
Christ. Christ rose from the grave for
our justification, and because he rose, we're gonna raise. It's wonderful. So today we'll
look at the first two ambitions. of the Apostle Paul. Number one,
that I may win Christ and be found in him, Philippians 4.8. Now the life of the born-again,
blood-washed believer is a lifelong pursuit of Christ, isn't it?
We desire to learn more of him. And the more we learn, we hunger
even more for him. Not, again, not so that, because
knowledge puffeth up, not for that reason, but to know Christ
more, to know more about Him and what He's done, what He's
done. And we look to Christ by faith.
Have you ever noticed, too, Charlie and I were talking about this,
and I said to Charlie, could you imagine our 25-year-old selves
being in this building? No way, brother. And here we
are. Hearts knit together. Think of
that with you and I, too, sister. When we were in our 20s, would
we ever think we'd be here? Last place. All of us. Think of that. Wanted nothing
to do with us. And here we are. I'm going to
tell them, Charlie texted me this morning. Is there Sunday
school? Yep. Sweet, right? I love that. Here he is. But
we said we wouldn't desire that when we were in our 20s, would
we, brother? Not at all. God made us different. And now he's knit all of our
hearts together like this. And the bond is his love. The
spirit in us. It's wonderful. So Paul here,
he wants to be found in Christ. And what this has is that the
more we learn about Christ, the more we want to learn more about
him. The more our love increases.
Think of this, sister. Your love for Christ, has it
increased over the years? Absolutely, right? Absolutely. We know more about him now than
we ever knew about him before. When the Lord first saved me,
I just knew I needed a Savior. And that's by God's grace. Right? I didn't get tied up in
all these doctrines. I didn't know any of them. Did
you? I had no idea. All these great doctrines of
the faith. I just knew I needed Christ. Isn't that the truth? Now, we've
learned wonderful truths, haven't we? Wonderful doctrine. But Christ is the one who saves. Do you know a man can know or
a woman can know all kinds of doctrine and still not be saved? But if you're born again and
you're resting and trusting in Christ by faith alone, give God
all the glory. That's a gift of God, not of
works. Lest any man should boast And
now we humbly, right, by the grace of God, desire to learn
more about him. Steve, you said a long time ago,
you said that now you know who you're
believing in. Now you trust Christ. That warmed
my heart so much. And that's God revealing himself
to you. And I know I was in the same
boat, and it's just incredible. And the more he reveals, the
more we fall in love with him, the more in awe we are of him.
It's amazing. And the more our love increases,
and therefore then faith will willingly forsake all, the world
doesn't have the hold on us it once had, does it? It's like trinkets. You know, I was talking to someone
the other day, and they're all worried, oh, we're going to go
into depression, we're going to go into this, we're going to go into that,
and all this. And I said, well, I'm glad I don't have to worry
about that. They said, well, what do you mean? I said, because
my God's on the throne. I said, listen, I've lived through,
I've lived through now, when I first came here from Canada,
Clinton was in power, okay? So Clinton was a Bush senior
too, wasn't it? Or yeah, Bush senior, Bush junior. Obama, Trump, Biden, and now
Trump again. My life hasn't changed, how's
yours? Yeah, a few things are different.
Eggs are a little higher, but they're coming down, right? But
they're coming down again. That's inflation. It happens. We've went through recessions.
But is God still on the throne? Is he always taking care of us?
We don't have to worry about it, do we? We can be aware of
everything. Nothing wrong with being aware
of what's going on. That's good, actually. But don't let it stress
you out so much that your mind is off Christ. And I'm preaching
to myself here, too, eh? Yeah. Oh my. Keep our eyes on
Christ and Him alone. My oh my. Let's read verse 9
again. And again, what's the one thing
needful for us? Christ. And Christ alone. He's the one thing needful. We
must have Him. He's the only true Savior of
sinners. There's no other one. He's the
one thing we must have. And what a great ambition, then,
for Paul to say, this is one of my great
ambitions, that I may win Christ, that I may know more about him,
that I may grow in grace. Then let's read verse 9, and
we see the next ambition of Paul, Philippians 3, verse 9, which
is to be found in him, to be found in him. and be found in him, not having
mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which
is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of
God by faith. Now the words be found brings
forth, they're used in a semi-technical sense here, found in post-classical
Greek, with the meaning of turn out actually to be. turn out to actually be in Christ. Now, one thing I'm going to say
right away, it has nothing to do with our works being in Christ. Nothing. We're in Christ by the
grace of God and the mercy of God. Period. Period. Paul uses this similar expression
And in Galatians 2.17 where he says, we ourselves are found
to be sinners. We're found that, what it means
is our character reveals that we're sinners. And what Paul
is saying here, to be found in Christ, he says, he's talking
about his character revealing that he's in Christ. Because
he's not the same person he was before. He's a new creature. Jim, you and I have talked about
this. This is practical Christian living. This is living a life
for Christ. And others take note of it. Even when we don't know they're
taking, we don't want to know when they're taking note of it,
because it'll make us all proud, won't it? We're such sinful beings. But you see what I'm saying?
That people know, well, man, they're different. They're different. My, oh, my. And here's some practical
Christianity for us every day. The idea of being found in Christ,
again, has nothing to do with us putting ourselves in that
state. Only God puts us in Christ. And
he did that before the foundation of the world. Isn't that amazing?
It's absolutely amazing. Oh, my. He chose us in Christ
from before the foundation of the world. This has to do with
revelation of character. of character. As Paul wants his
life to demonstrate that he is in Christ. Isn't that amazing? Is that not
what we want? My oh my. That's why we don't
live like we used to live. We don't want to dishonor Christ,
do we? No, that's the last thing we want to do. So he wants to be found by observing
men and women to be in Christ. Is that not true for all born-again
blood-washed believers? It's true, isn't it? My, if we
live our lives, see, again, this is practical Christianity, isn't
it? This is living our lives every day. We're saved, we're
redeemed, we're blood-washed saints. Praise be to God. And
now we desire to live that way. To live that way. Oh my. Living this life and resting
and trusting in Christ is the hardest thing for a believer
to do. to enter into the rest of Christ. But we see here, Paul says, I
want to live in Christ, so much so that others will say, something different about that
fella. Something different about him. And then he brings forth the
righteousness of Christ. by which we have a legal standing
of a believer in Christ. Before God as Christ is all our
righteousness. He's everything to us. He's everything to us. The only
reason we're accepted in Christ or accepted in the beloved is
because the beloved is Christ. The only reason we can stand
in God's presence is because we're clothed in the perfect
spotless righteousness of Christ. The only reason we'll reach our
final destination is because Christ was raised for our justification. And where he is, we're gonna
be. It's wonderful. And so here we see Paul told
us that all his religious duties, remember, that he performed as
a Pharisee, counted as useless, it was useless, fit to be cast
to the dogs. Let's read verse nine in light
of that again. And be found in him, so live in a life as a believer,
not having mine own righteousness, now look at that, he separates
those two things, And what he's talking about now is being justified
before God. We can't justify ourselves before
God by our works, which is of the law, and the law killeth,
right? Law condemns. But that which is through the
faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith. This
world is not our home, beloved. We're just passing through. And it's the Lord Jesus Christ.
You ever think of this? He's taken possession of our souls. He purchased us with His blood.
He's cast out the strong man, hasn't He, which is the enemy
of our souls. But never think that we're going
to find rest in this world, because we never will. We never will. We've ceased from our religious
works for acceptance, yes, with God. We enjoy the blessed rest
of faith in Christ, trusting in Him alone as our Savior. And
yet we're in a state of ceaseless warfare. The spirit battles the flesh. And let us ever seek grace from
God to save us from such assaults from hell, and cast away all
confidence in ourselves, in our flesh, in anything we can do,
and glory in none but Christ alone for the salvation of our
souls. Jesus Christ our Lord is all
our hope, he's all our righteousness, he's all our wisdom, he's all
our sanctification, and he's all our redemption. We're nothing
but sin, and all our righteousness are like filthy rags, and we
renounce any works we had before, don't we? that we were trying
to justify ourselves before God with, and we cling to Jehovah
Sekindu, the Lord, our righteousness. My, oh, my. So the born-again,
blood-washed, saint of God is renounced all for Christ, all
for Christ. And our hearts are enamored with
Christ now, aren't, isn't it? Brian, we're enamored with Christ.
We're in love with him. It's amazing. We wake up with
a pep in our step, don't we? Oh, oh my. Whom have I in heaven but thee? Christ. There's none upon earth
that I desire beside thee. Let's read verse 9 one more time.
We'll finish this up. And be found in him, not having
mine own righteousness, which is the law, but that which is
through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of
God by faith. Now look at this. The phrase
faith of Christ refers to the faith which Christ kindles and
gives us. Religion will say what comes
first, faith or regeneration? And they say faith. That's not
true. Regeneration always comes first. You must be born again, right?
But how does that, well you hear the gospel. Faith comes by hearing
and hearing by the word of God. And the Holy Spirit takes that. We're born again, given faith.
How can I tell if I'm a believer? Who am I trusting my soul with?
And I mean totally. Who is the keeper of my soul? Who saved me by His grace? Brian, we can't save ourselves,
can we? But we're trusting in the one who can save all who
come to Him, the Lord Jesus Christ, God in the flesh. So the faith
of Christ here refers to the faith which God gives us. For
by grace ye are saved through faith, and not of yourselves.
It's a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. It's
a gift of God. He's the author of it, and He's
the finisher of it. He's the center of it. I like,
you know, the red wings that got the spoke wheel. There's a hub in that wheel with
a bunch of spokes. The hub is Christ. Yeah, all roads lead to him,
eh? Of course I had to use a hockey
reference, right? You guys, I love you guys. Oh my. So this faith is furnished to
the believer by God himself. Listen to Weiss' Greek translation
of this verse, verse nine. Yea, in order that I might, through
observation of others, see, be discovered by them to be in Christ.
That's what we were looking at earlier about be found in Christ,
okay? Not having as my righteousness
that righteousness which is of the law, but that righteousness
which is through faith in Christ, that righteousness which is from
God on the basis of faith. And that's God giving faith.
Salvation's of the Lord. It's all of him. So praise be
to our great God for saving our souls By the perfect sin atoning
work of the Lord Jesus Christ in him alone. She shed his precious
blood to redeem our eternal souls What a Savior What a Savior is
Jesus Christ our Lord My oh my brother Brian. Can you close
us in prayer?