The Christian Walk

We are going to be in the book of Philippians, the third chapter. Philippians chapter three. Last Sunday, we heard of the high calling of God and how I had to do two parts on it because it's so glorious. The calling of the Lord that calls us out of darkness into his marvelous light.

But because we've been given this calling, we have a changed mind. We have a new heart. We've been made new creatures in Christ, the scripture tells us. And we're no longer looking to the things we formerly looked to. And that's what Paul's talking about here. We're not looking to the physical anymore for evidence or the cause of salvation. We're looking at spiritual things.

And it's by faith alone are we able to do that. Now, a lot of people, they would say that when they were saved, their life changed in a dramatic way, in a certain way, and they did things differently than they did prior. And to the Lord's people, what changed when we heard the gospel was, is we just became sinners and needed a savior. It wasn't a huge moral reformation that happened, it was a I'm a dead dog sinner, I need a savior.

And for this hour, I hope to look at what Paul is talking about. He talks about the enemies of the cross. But I don't wanna focus just on the enemies of the cross. The title of the message is the Christian walk, the Christian walk. In society, that term means the life that you live that I can watch you do. What you do and what you do not do, your morals. where you go, where you don't go, what you say, what you don't say.

But this morning I would like to give, if the Lord be our helper and give us the ability, I would like to give clarity to what the Christian walk really is. Let's read this together, Philippians three, verse 15 through 20. Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded, and if in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. Nevertheless, thereto we have already attained, let us walk with the same rule, let us mind the same thing. Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an example. from any walk of whom I have often have told you often and now tell you even weeping that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly. and whose glory is their shame, who mind earthly things?

For our conversation is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. The Christian Walk. That's what I've titled this, The Christian Walk. There are words here that tell us how we are to view those who do not know the Lord.

And oftentimes I believe we may be tempted knowing that we've heard the truth to look down upon others that don't know or get frustrated with others that don't know the truth. And Paul is talking about the enemies of the cross here and he says, and I'm telling you about them weeping. Well, why would Paul weep? Is he sad that the Lord and the Lord's choice of redemption?

No, it's not that at all. We know the end. We know the end of men that don't know Christ. We know what that's going to be. And it breaks our heart for them because we know that they're not going to choose God, they're going to choose self. And we have the definition of why here in this text, but that's what we are by nature. We're self-pleasers, self-motivated. We look to our service, our sacrifice. We look to our selflessness by nature. And what Paul is saying here is that it's not what you see on the outside, but it's what the Lord has done inwardly speaking for his people. That's what we look to.

We sorrow for those who don't know the Lord because they profess themselves to be wise. And yet, as we heard Wednesday night, they're fools. They're fools. Here we have a description of what the walk, if you will, the enemies of the cross look like, and it's verse 19. It says, whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is their shame, who mind earthly things. That's a few things there, isn't it? Three or four things there mentioned.

The belly translate heart. It also translates heart, the same word. Whose God is their heart. they follow after their own heart. And that puts a exclamation point on the statement that says, God don't want our heart because that's their, they follow after their own heart. That's their own God.

And when he says glory, The glory is in their shame. That translates, they worship in dishonesty. They glory in their own shame. They're worshiping in dishonesty. They're not truthful. And they mind earthly things. Well, that's the point I was saying a while ago about looking at the physical rather than the spiritual. as we often are tempted to do. But the Lord's people look at things eternal. We don't look to what we do as any part of our salvation. We look to Christ alone.

And those who look to what they do as part or evidence of their salvation, he's calling them the enemies of the cross. Why? Because it denies the finished work of Christ. It denies that Christ accomplished everything that he said he was going to do. It denies that Christ was successful in redeeming his people.

And so we see the walk of the soap. And the sad part is, brethren, is a lot of these people that in verse 19 that's being described, they would call themselves Christians. They would call themselves believers. They would call themselves saints. And yet they deceived their own self in the process. This is the walk of every person without Christ, without exception.

But I don't want to spend a lot of time on that. I did that on purpose. I want to ask this question. What about the walk of God's people? What about the walk of the elect of God? Paul said this in a certain place. He said, examine yourself and see if you be in the faith. What does that mean? Does that mean look at your walk? Look at what you say and what you don't say? Look at what you do and what you don't do? No. Examine yourself.

The heart's the problem. The heart's the heart of the matter. What he's saying is examine yourself and see if there be one thing, anything, other than the finished work of Christ that you're looking to and resting in as all the hope of your salvation. That's what he's talking about.

If there is, then we certainly are not looking to Christ alone, and that's an issue. So in order for me to examine myself, what it really means is what am I looking to? Who am I looking to? Am I looking to what I do or don't do, or am I looking to what he has done?

Now the Lord has given us this breakdown, if you will, of a Christian walk here. And I use the term Christian because it's, widely used in society. But the definition is a follower of Christ, follower of Christ. It's a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ and what he has done.

So really only the Lord's elect bear that title. Just because people go to church, that doesn't make them Christian. Just because they do good deeds, that doesn't make them Christian. Just because they say I made a choice, that doesn't make them a Christian. Christians are those that are the elect of God, chosen by the Father before the foundation of the world.

It's important that I establish that because that's who we're talking about. What does the Christian walk look like? I was asked this one time in this very building. by somebody. And it kind of took me off guard. You know how you have a conversation with some people and it's an engaging conversation, you're back and forth and everything is good.

And all of a sudden, the man asked me, he said, Well, what, what do you do to teach your people how to live their life? I said, What do you mean? And he said, Well, the Christian life, what does that look like in your church? What do you do for discipline in your church? And I was like, We don't discipline in our church, we preach the gospel. And he said, Yeah, but what is it?

What is the Christian walk look like? What would you say it looks like? I was like, Well, it looks like a bunch of dead dog sinners begging crumb from the master's table. He was like, That's not what I meant. I know what you meant. But that's what it looks like. He said, examine yourself, is what he was saying. Look on the outside. Let me see something that you're doing that makes me feel that good about myself or good about you and that we can, you know, come to a understanding of one another, have the same God, is what he was saying, and I couldn't do it. But here we actually have three things that the Lord's given us that is the Christian walk, and it's found in verse 20. The first one is, for our conversation is in heaven. Now you're going to appreciate this, because I love this. That word conversation means citizenship. Citizenship. We are citizens of heaven. Citizens. Therefore our conversation reflects that of the heavenly.

We no longer speak like we used to speak about who God is and about what he's done. We no longer speak about ourselves as us having any part of our salvation. We no longer talk about how good we are, how the good things that we do, how kind we are to people. Those are all good things to do, but they're not going to have any merit or bearing on salvation. We speak what God speaks now. That's what it is to have our conversation in heaven. Whatever God speaks, we say truth, Lord. Truth, Lord.

We're not of this world anymore. We're pilgrims and strangers in a strange land, very dry land, a desert, desolate. That's why we come here, to hope the Lord would allow us to have a drink of the fountain of living water to refresh us. Maybe he would be merciful and wash the dust off of our feet, because you know we come in here dirty. We come in here living this life the way that we do.

You ever been around smoke? It gets on you, and you just, like how that even happened, you didn't try to get it on you, it just gets on you. Well, it's kind of like living in the world, isn't it? We go around and it just gets on us. And, oh, I need to be washed. Lord, cleanse me again and again and again. The walk of the Christian is thus, begging the Lord. That's how we walk. Begging the Lord. We walk looking unto Christ. We walk by faith, not by sight. We don't look at the physical, we look at the spiritual for everything God requires for salvation. We no longer speak what we used to speak. And I'm not talking about foul language. Somebody says, well, I don't say those words anymore.

Well, good for you. That's fine if that's what you want to do. But I guarantee if I was to smash my finger with a hammer or you were to smash your finger with a hammer, there's going to be words that pop into your head. And I would remind us that it's the heart God looks at, not just what we do. And yes, it is true out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh, but the Lord's looking at the abundance of the heart.

I'm not saying that we've cleaned up every single thing that we speak, physically speaking, that we never say wrong things. That's not what he's talking about. We don't speak wrong things about God. We don't speak wrong things about Christ. We've been given repentance. We understand that he's sovereign. He is seated as the successful redeemer of his people. He's not trying to do anything. He doesn't want for anything. The Lord has given us a conversation in the heavenlies. one that's about the finished work of Christ. He's saying that we've been made not to speak deceitfully or worship deceitfully. Our worship, like they said before, whose glory is in their shame, that's false worship is what that is. That's deceitful worship. That's where they're glorying in themselves.

You remember the Samaritan woman that was speaking to the Lord at the well, or he was speaking to her, however you want to say it. She said, we worship in this mountain. Now that mountain was the mountain found in Deuteronomy that Moses had blessed. And she said unto the Lord, but you say in Jerusalem is where we ought to worship. And the Lord, I love the Lord's response, the time's coming and now is, that they that worship, you won't worship in this mountain or in Jerusalem, they that worship must worship in spirit and in truth.

The problem with her worship was is they had taken, because they were half-breed Jews, they had taken their false idols, they had five of them, their false idols. It was a dog, a cat, a sun, the moon, and a donkey. And they named them Jehovah. That's what they did. Yeah, we're worshiping Jehovah just like you are.

No, you're not. No, it's a totally different God. And so we see that the Lord She left her water pot behind, didn't she? She didn't have anything more to do with those false gods. It doesn't matter the title that we put on something, it doesn't make it God.

He is worshipped in spirit. That literally means what it says, spirit and truth. So it's not about me putting a object in front of me and seeing that object. The children of Israel, they wanted a golden calf. after they come out of Egypt. Why? Because they were used to seeing things to worship. His be our God. This is the one that brought us out of, what do you think they named it? Jehovah. I mean, they would have named it the same thing.

Men and women, by nature, we don't understand that that's what we do. And it's sad. That's why Paul's weeping here. It's like, I see what you're doing and I can't help you. And it's sad because I was the same way. That's the part that grieves us the most, isn't it? I was the same way. But for the grace of God, we would still be the same way.

Yet the Lord has given us a new conversation. He's given us a new heart. One that looks to him alone. Doesn't look to objects, doesn't look to things, it looks to Christ. We've been made to see. Well, who's the one that made us see? Well, he is. I didn't choose to see. Can the blind man choose to see? Certainly not. He would if he could. The Lord has to do the healing, doesn't he?

We've been made to see God as high and sovereign and ourselves as low and utterly sinful. We've been made to see him seated as the successful King of Kings and Lord of Lords. We've been made to see he is righteous and we're sinful. We've been made to see everything pertaining to him is right and good and everything pertaining to us is bad. Somebody said, well, I do some good things.

Not in the eyes of God. Not in the eyes of God, we don't. Because everything we do, everything we touch, we defile. Our bodies are sin, therefore we are sinners. That's what we produce. Thanks be to God, our conversation is in heaven now. It's not of the earth anymore about our salvation. We don't speak like we used to speak. God's the doer of that. We speak of him as right and holy, as just and true.

Our conversation is a reflection of our citizenship. What do I mean by that? Well, we live in America, and I understand there's many languages in America, but That being said, we would talk about this area that we live in, the dialect that we have or whatever, you develop that dialect. I don't exactly sound like I'm from Pennsylvania, but the point that I'm making is our conversation is a reflection of our citizenship.

We're seated in the heavenlies. So that's who we talk about as Him, the finished work. We don't talk about something we need to do, something we need to work towards, something that we need to earn, whether it's favor with God or part of salvation. We don't talk that way anymore. The Lord's changed our conversation, hasn't He? We don't boast in self-choice.

We glory in the choice of God to save His chosen people. We rejoice in the choice of God to elect a people. We rejoice in God's choice and sovereign power in redeeming those people and regenerating those people and keeping those people. That's our hope.

No longer hope in self. This is what the Christian walk looks like. Boasting in Christ alone. You won't hear a believer say something about what they have done for their salvation. A true believer, one that's been brought to the knowledge of the truth by God, is done exactly as Paul said in this very chapter, counted all things but done that I might win Christ. That I can have him and be found in him, not having my own righteousness which is of the law, but the righteousness which is by the faith of Jesus Christ. The righteousness of God.

So the first thing that the Christian walk looks like, we have our conversation in heaven. Second thing, look at verse 20. For our conversation is in the heaven from whence also we look for the savior. From whence also we look for the Savior. We look, we walk looking. We walk looking to Christ in everything. Everything that God requires, Christ provided. We walk looking to what God provided.

Abraham and Isaac were going to worship. Abraham said, Lord had told Abraham, take your son, the only son of Isaac and offer him up as a sacrifice unto me. And because God had gave Abraham faith that cannot fail, Abraham obeyed the Lord. They were going and the, and Isaac says, father, here's the wood. Here's the fire. Where's the sacrifice for the burnt offering? What did Abraham say?

God will provide himself a sacrifice. And that's exactly what he did. In the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, he provided himself. He provided himself the sacrifice. John saw him afar off and said, behold, the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. That was the reason he was born, is to take away the sin of his people, his chosen people. The Christian walk looks like this. like us looking to Christ alone as all of our wisdom, as all of our righteousness, as all of our sanctification, and all of our redemption.

Now, if you were to say that to someone, they say, okay, yeah, but I need to see something on the outside that you do that's evidence. We look by faith, not by sight. The things of the earth are temporal. The things of the heavens are eternal. We look to the eternal. We've had a changed mind. Lord's changed our mind. We see this place, this earth that we're on. We see time as we see what it as what it is. We're not We see our life as a vapor, don't we? We see how fast time is fleeting. We see how every second that's passing, we're getting closer to the grave. And we know that there is a God with which we have to do, the scripture says.

And we have a place of rest in Christ alone. Christian walk is not trying to do more, more good deeds to please God, more good deeds to earn favor with God, to sit up a little bit higher than their peers around you so the Lord will recognize us and reward us. Christian walk has nothing to do about us getting a reward for what we do. Christian walk is all about looking to Christ and desiring him as the reward.

Can I just have him? Isn't that the plea we have? Lord, save me. Can I just have Christ? I don't. Somebody said, we're going to get a robe and a crown and we're going to do this. I'm going to do that. First of all, that's the robe of righteousness. That's Christ. That's a crown of righteousness. That's Christ. That's the point. He's the reward. He's the reward. False religion. They were seven jewels that you could get in your crowns or seven crowns that you could win.

I can't remember how it went now. And I don't know what they would do with those crowns. You only wear one at a time, but The idea was is, well, some people are just gonna be standing there empty handed. They don't have anything to give back to the Lord. The Lord don't want anything from me. And the Lord don't want anything from you. That's the only way you can approach God is empty handed.

That's when he gives you the robe of righteousness. That's when he gives you the crown of life. Approaching him with nothing. That's what the Christian walk looks like. Coming to Christ with nothing. Nothing. In my hand, no price I bring. Christian walk is not doing in order to have part or to show evidence of our salvation.

As a matter of fact, we know that doing is actually our undoing. If we do anything as part or evidence of our salvation, we know that that's our very undoing. The Lord's the one that changed that. We had it all backwards, didn't we? Brethren, we look to His provisions, what God has provided. We look to His life. We look to His death. We look to His burial. We look to the resurrection as evidence of our justification. We look to His redemptive work, His election, His regeneration, His keeping. You're kept by the power of God. We look to Him for all, meaning there's nothing that we do not look to Him for pertaining to spiritual things. Blind Bartimaeus said, Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me.

And the Lord didn't say, well, what good deeds have you done? Didn't say that, did he? Well, the disciples heard him first and said, you need to be quiet, you're bothering the Lord, but he had a need. He had a need. You wanna know what the Christian walk looks like? Blind Bartimaeus, that's what it looks like. He had a need. Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy upon me. Oh, be quiet, you're bothering the master. And he cried louder. No, you don't understand, he's the only one who can meet my need. He is the only one that can save me. He's the only one that can make me see, because I'm blind. And the Lord heard him and said, fetch him, bring him to me. And he left his robe behind, which I love that, that's a picture of false religion, all self-righteousness, just left it gone. Came to him with nothing, wearing nothing.

That's how we approach the Lord. That's what the Christian walk looks like. That's a daily thing that the Lord's people do. This isn't just a one-time thing where I made a choice and walked the Nile and prayed a prayer, and now I'm good, I don't have to ever do that again. We're mercy beggars from the time we beg the first time to the time we draw our last breath. That's how God has made it.

We are continually begging, Lord, have mercy on me, the sinner. Lord, I need my sight. I need your salvation. I need you to do all the work because I can't fix what I am. They brought Brian Bartimaeus to the Lord, and the Lord healed him. He saw. He saw, didn't he? Christian walk is not looking to things around us. It's looking to Christ alone. Our walk is a spiritual walk, looking into the Savior alone as all in salvation. That is what the Christian walk looks like.

Lastly, in verse 20, for our conversation is in heaven for whence also we look for the savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now I love the fact that he said the savior comma, the Lord Jesus Christ calls him savior first and then Lord, because he's both. There's a lot of people that don't have any problem with the Lord being a savior, but when they find out he's the Lord, they have a big problem with that.

He's both. Can't separate that. He's absolutely sovereign. He's God. He's Lord and Christ. He's Lord and savior. And lastly, we live, we walk living in him. We walk living in him. We look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. How is it that we're able to look? Because we walk living in him. It's in him we live, we move, and we have our being. He's the doer of it. He's the doer of it.

When we were elected, we were given to Jesus Christ, united in perfect oneness unto him for the purpose of redemption. It was not an attempt, it wasn't a try, it wasn't a maybe, there's nothing by chance. God chose to save his people and being in Christ as our substitute from the time everything that he did, the time he was born, every thought that he had, every action that he did, every deed that he did, was charged to the elect's count, was given to the elect by the substitution of the Lord. That means everything that you do wrong, the Lord don't see it. He only sees what Christ has done for his people. He only sees the perfect walk, the perfect talk, the perfect mentality and mind.

Tell me I'm wrong on this, brethren. We come here and our minds will just float away, won't they? Be sitting here, I wanna hear, I wanna enter into this. My mind's thinking about, name it. I mean, then our bellies will growl or something with thinking about food. I mean, it's always something, isn't it? That's how the flesh is.

You know, he never wavered from looking to the Father in all things, perfectly. And it was laid to our behalf. The Lord said, you have never one time not looked to me and been perfectly faithful. Why? You're in Christ, that's why. Isn't that glorious? He doesn't see us. He sees the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. He doesn't see our sin because he took the, penalty, the payment that we owe for that sin, and put it away by the sacrifice of himself. It's gone.

When we see him as Lord, when we're made to realize that he is our Savior and our Lord, we see ourself in him, that's the desire. The Christian walk is the desire to be in him. Just as it says, look at verse eight. I've quoted this already, but, yea, doubtless, 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 done that I may win Christ and be found in him, not having my own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness, which is of God by faith. You wanna know what the Christian walk looks like? the desire to be found in him all the time, all the time.

I just want to be found in him. Those who are not found in him are lost to self. There is no other alternative. Either I'm lost to self or I'm found in Christ. And if I am found in Christ, God is the doer of it and gets all the glory. God has given us the ability to know and believe that that's our only hope.

He's changed our conversation from who he is and who we are. We don't talk like we used to talk. He's caused us to look to the Savior as all of our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. And he's caused us to desire to be found in him as perfectly righteous.

That's our only hope. That's what the Christian walk looks like. It looks like mercy beggars coming to Christ over and over and over, not getting better, not cleaning up their life more and more, not getting straightened out, begging Christ for his blood, begging him for his forgiveness, begging him for his righteousness. It's the desire that only God can put there because he gave us repentance and faith.

We want him alone. The true Christian walk means we don't move a muscle. Think about that. We don't move muscle. Not when it comes to our salvation. We don't move a muscle. we come to Christ by faith alone. And that is the gift of God by grace. It's what the Christian walk looks like. Let's pray. Father, take this and bless it according to your will and to our understanding and our good. Thank you. In Christ's name, amen. Let's take a break.

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