I invite you to turn back with
me now to Philippians chapter 1, where as the title reads,
it reads the epistle of Paul to the Philippians. Philippi
was the chief city in Macedonia during this time, and it was
named after Philip, who was the father of Alexander the Great.
This was a chief city, a well-known city. And you might remember
the early days of Paul's journey there and the conversion of Lydia
and the Philippian jailer. And now he's a prisoner in Rome.
And there must have been many times when he was able to visit
with them and contribute and teach and so on and communicate
with them back and forth before he become a prisoner. But now
he's a prisoner in Rome by false charges from those who are the
enemies of the gospel, the enemies of God. And he sits down and
he pens this letter by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. And the Philippians
knew Paul was in prison in Rome, and they sent their pastor to
him with a gift to take care of whatever provisions that he
might need and to comfort. And then the pastor informed
him concerning the church and its present condition. And being like any other church,
it had its ups and downs, I'm sure. Paul begins to pen this letter,
which he sent back by the hand of their pastor, which he encourages
them not to be ashamed of him, that he's a prisoner of Christ.
He wasn't a prisoner because of evil doings or because of
anything that he did personally. He was a prisoner of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And these were righteous persecutions. and for them not to be ashamed
of him, and not only that, but to endure even their own persecutions
for Christ's sake. He also, as he did in all of
his epistles, assured them of his concern for them and for
his affections of them, and then he encouraged them in the faith. Now I've read and admired what
he said to them in verse six since the very first time I ever
read it. He said, being confident. Now here's a group of men that
Paul's been in on since the very first convert. He's been in,
he knows this group, he knows the foundation of this group,
he knows the factor of this group. He knows All that they did, and
they were generous toward him. They sent a gift to him by their
pastor. They sent their pastor down there
to him, to comfort him. They were concerned for him,
he was concerned for them. He had many things in which he
could have confidence in, is what I'm saying. Many things. Think about the Philippian jailer.
Think about that earthquake that happened and all those things
that happened. We talk about our little experiences. That
was an experience. And Paul said, I've got confidence
because of that. No, that ain't what he said. He said, being confident of this
very thing that he which hath begun a good work in you will
perform it unto the day of Jesus Christ, Philippians one six. And this will serve as my text
this morning. And I titled the message, Confident
of This. Of This. And there's no end of
what men will use as a source of confidence. There's no end
to it. They look to these things as
some source of confidence toward God and and the salvation of
their souls. My brother said before he died,
he said, I've got confidence in the life I lived. I was good to people, I gave
when I had it to give, I did this, I did that, I did this.
I've got confidence in the way I lived. Now most of them cling to a decision
they made based on their acceptance of Christ as their personal savior.
And there's nothing more deceiving or damning to a person's soul
than the concept of salvation being left up to them. It's not
left up to you. If it was, you'd be a goner. Men say God's done all he can
do, and now it's all up to you. That's damning to a man's soul.
And then others cling to their attitude and obedience to the
law. Paul did that. He said, you think
you have whereof to have confidence? He said, I more. I more. But Paul said this, if
righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead and vain. That's the end of that kind of
thinking. And over and over we're told by the works of the law
shall no flesh be justified and yet men do the best they can
do to keep the law and they go out with this hope that they're
going to be justified before God. When he tells you plainly
no flesh, you're going to be justified by the works of the
law. And then yet others cling to
experiences and visions and feelings and a host of things just too
numerous to even mention. But perhaps what plagues the
most of humanity is this thing of good works. We're saved by
good works. Now, good works is a biblical
language, but it's not the way it's interpreted by the preachers
of this world. When he talks about good works,
When these false prophets and so on talk about good works,
they're talking about your church attendance and your tithing and
your willingness to get in and do work and all of these things. Feeding the hungry, reading the
Bible, and you go on and on and on with these things. The Pharisees did all these things
and were cursed of God. Paul said it's touching the law.
He said I'm perfect. Outwardly. Biblical good works are faith. Faith. By grace are you saved
through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of
God, not of works lest any man should boast, for we are his
workmanship created under these good works. What good work? Faith. If God's gracious enough to give
a man that gift of faith, it'll be followed by repentance. It'll
be followed by joy. It'll be followed by peace. These things are the fruit of
faith, and faith is the gift of God. What must we do to work
the works of God? He said, this is the work of
God that you believe on him whom he has sent. Others find confidence in their
idols, their visual aids, wearing crosses around their neck, hanging
Saint Christopher emblems over their mirror in the cars. hanging pictures of Jesus in
their houses and putting all of this religious paraphernalia
all over the house. But here's a man whose office
and wisdom can't be questioned. Paul was an apostle. You can't
question his wisdom. Christ taught him himself. He caught him up to the third
heaven, wherever that is, and he taught him personally. This man's responsible. I know
that God did this through him, but this man's responsible for
more than half of the New Testament. And this man, he had all these outward trinkets
and more. And he said, if any man thinketh
he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more. But when
God opened his eyes to see Christ, everything that he counted as
his competence, everything that he counted to be gained spiritually
become loss. So you see where he's coming
from now when he looks at these Philippians and he said being
competent of this very thing. He which hath begun a good work
in you will perform it unto the day of Jesus Christ. Salvation is the work of God. We just want to take a piece
of that and say this is of God. No, the whole thing is of God. You see, there was salvation
first and then humanity. We've got it backwards. We've
got humanity in the fall and this happened and that happened.
And then God reacted and come up with salvation, and that plan
didn't work, so now he got a new plan. Finally, out of desperation,
he sends his son. No, that ain't how it happened. God purposed salvation before
the foundation of the world. Listen to this. He said, Timothy,
God saved us. and called us with a holy calling,
not according to our works, but according to his own purpose
and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world
began. This salvation was put in Christ
as we were by eternal election in Christ and predestinated to
be children and heirs of God. Paul had all these things, but
when God opened his eyes to see Christ, he said, I discount these
things but don't. Salvation's the work of God.
It's a work purposed by God the Father and accomplished by God
the Son and applied by God the Holy Spirit. It's the work of
God. So don't that make man a puppet? Well, the alternative is God's
the puppet and man's pulling the strings. So if I need to be a puppet,
I'll be a puppet. It don't bother me. Why, man,
do you make man out to be a robot? I'd rather be a robot than know
God. And I don't know so much about
men being puppets or robots, but I do know this, if God doesn't
do a work for us, and a work in us, we'll never do it for
ourselves. He has to do the work, salvations
of the Lord. And the scripture's full of the
testimony of both God and men concerning this work. All right, so how can one know
if God has begun a good work in him? Paul said he'd maintain it. He who hath begun a good work
in you, but how do I know if he begun a good work in me? How
do I know that? Well, let's just say for argument's
sake that you see this work taught in the scripture and you agree
that according to the word of God it must take place. How then can a person know the
work of God from the work of Satan or self or some form of
false religion. And I'll tell you this right
off the bat, you can't but by the grace of God. You never will. You'll go right on in that religion,
you'll go right on in those old concepts just like the Jews did,
but for the grace of God. Let me give you several things
by which this work can be known that it's God's work. And the
first thing is this, the work of God in His elect, I'm talking
about in this world, I'm talking about how do we know God has
begun a good work in us? I'm talking about an active work,
a continual work, that work which God does to save sinners. How
can I know that? How can I know that God has done
a good work in me? Well, I can know this, that when
God does that work, he does it through the preaching of the
gospel. If you got some other beginning, you don't have a beginning.
You just got an old concept. You just got an old tradition.
You just got an old experience. You got an old feeling. You got
an old decision. When God does a work in man,
he does it through the preaching of the gospel. That's where it
begins. 2 Thessalonians 2.13, I quote this
to you all the time. By the grace of God, I'm gonna
keep on quoting it. We're told that God hath from
the beginning chosen us to salvation through sanctification of the
spirit and belief of the truth, whereunto he called you by our
gospel. Is a man called? If God hadn't
called him, he hadn't begun to work. And if God calls him, how's
he doing? He calls him through his gospel.
He doesn't call him through a voice in his closet. He doesn't call
him through an experience out on the lake. He calls him through
the preaching of the gospel. The gospel's preached and he
said, that's it. That's it, I see it. I see it,
I see this is in accordance with the word of God. I see it makes
sense to me now. It's not just religion that you
just accept it and go on even though you don't understand it.
No, you see it and it makes sense. It makes sense. He called you by our gospel to
the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. An election,
which is God's choice, God's determination to save a portion
of humanity for the glory of his great name, is made known
to them through the gospel of Jesus Christ. In 1 Thessalonians 1.4, he said,
knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God. Our gospel came
not to you in word only. It wasn't just a fact. You know how you know if the
gospel comes in fact, Just in fact only. How do you determine
all he wants to do is argue about it? Now you find a man who all
he wants to do is argue, argue, argue, argue over the gospel.
I'll show you a man who's never heard it. When he hears the gospel, he
embraces it. It's his life. It's life to his
soul. This is his foundation. This is it. I don't have anything
else, and you're not going to take it from me. You want to
argue, go over there and argue. I don't want to argue. I found
what I'm looking for. Like that old fella, he was lost
up in the Tennessee mountains, and he wandered around there,
and finally he came to the home of a very famous guitar player
and singer. And he knocked on the door, and
the guy opened the door and told him, he said, I run out of gas.
He said, can I use your phone? He said, well, yeah. He said,
come on in. So he come in. He looked over
there. Man, there's guitars sitting
everywhere. And the guy, that movie star or whatever you want
to call him, that country and western singer, he said, I see
you eyeballing them guitars. He said, do you play? And he
said, oh, yeah. And he said, well, here, play
me a tune. And he handed him one of them guitars, and the
guy just sat there, and he was bong, bong, bong, bong, bong,
bong on that one string. And the guy said, well, you see
them little bars there? Them's called frets. He said,
if you move your fingers up and down, you can change the tune.
He said, that's for people who are still looking. He said, I
found mine. Bong, bong, bong, bong. That's
the way it is when a man hears the gospel. He don't want to
change. Ain't nothing to change. This
is it. This is it. The gospel came not unto you
in word only, but in power and in the Holy Ghost. 1 Corinthians 121, after that
in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God. They
all think they do. They all say they do. by make some biases i don't believe
in god you won't find one in a minute and he'll be a lot after that in the way of them
about the world by way of them and i've got it please god to
the foolishness of preaching to save them first thing i know about
this work of god it's begun to the preaching of the gospel The
second thing I know about this work of God is that it's formed
by way of a new birth. A new birth. Peter said, blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according
to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope,
a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Now, I think a lot of folks don't
understand the new birth. I'm not sure I understand it
as clearly as I need to. But I can tell you most people,
when they talk about the new birth, they apply that to their
flesh. They apply that to what they
are. And I'm a new person. I don't think the way I used
to. I don't act the way I used to.
I don't talk the way I used to. But John said if we say we don't
sin, that we have no sin, we're a liar. And we're making God
out to be a liar. What's born in us is Christ. Christ in you, the hope of glory. That's what's born. I have a
person And he's all my hope. He's all my salvation. He's for
me to live as Christ. Isn't that what Paul says? That's what faith does. It points
you to that person, that new man is born within you. You want to be like him. You
want to talk like him. You want to honor him. You want
to promote him. You want to preach him. You want
folks to see him. Not talking about this flesh.
Paul said, when I would do good, evil's present with me all the
time. And then he said, oh, wretched
man that I am, who gonna deliver me from the body of this flesh
that rebels against everything, that goes the opposite direction
every time? Who gonna deliver me from there?
I thank God, the Lord Jesus Christ. So then. with the mind, with
the mind. What do you mean the mind? The mind of Christ. He hath begotten us again unto
a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And then Paul said to the Galatians
who were being led astray, he said, I travail in birth again
until Christ be formed in you. Gospel's not a system of theology,
it's a person. It's a person. And by way of
this new birth, the gospel seeds planted in the hearts of men
and they're born of God. Now how do I know if I'm born
of God? Is Christ your hope? Huh? Is Christ your hope? Is everything else gone? There's
Christ and nothing else. Is Christ your wisdom? Is he your righteousness? Is
he your sanctification? Is he your redemption? That's
what it means to be born of God. God takes you suddenly out of
this world, what reason of hope will you plead before God? What right do you have to be
here? What are you gonna say? Christ alone. That's it. I don't have anything here. And
all those born of God enter into that rest. They enter into, they
rest in Christ alone. All right, thirdly, I know this
about the work of God in men. It's a work performed in us by
faith. By faith, all those who were
represented in the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, he
promised that in the ages to come, he would show them the
exceeding riches of his grace and his kindness toward us through
Christ Jesus. For by grace are you saved through
faith. Through faith. and that not of yourselves, it
is the gift of God. Now the Bible tells us in Hebrews
11, six that without faith it's impossible to please God. People talk about walking with
God because they've done something and they feel like they're righteous,
they feel like they've earned the favor of God and so they
walk with God based on that. You can't please God that way.
The only one who has ever pleased God is Christ. And we walk by
faith in Christ, and we please God, same way Enoch did before
God translated him. Before he left this world, he
left this testimony, he pleased God. But without faith, it's
impossible to please God. And the Christian walk is a walk
of faith. He said the just shall live by
faith. He doesn't feed on his works
and his experiences and his obedience or his dedication. He feeds on
Christ, who's the bread of God. Colossians 2, Paul said in verse
six, as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, have we received
him? Have we received him as it's
set forth in the scripture? We received him as our sin bearer
and substitute, as our righteous representative, as our lord and
king, and as our wisdom. All right, walk that way. Walk
that way. Rooted and built up in him, established
in the faith as you've been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.
And don't let anybody spoil you. Don't let anybody move you from
that. For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily,
and ye are complete in him who's the head of all principality
and power. If you're looking to Christ alone,
you're walking with God by faith. And in John 6, 29, our Lord said,
this is the work of God that you believe on him. Has God begun
a good work in you? He has if you're walking by faith,
if he's giving you the gift of faith. And what does that faith
do? Faith believes, that's what it
does. It believes. And because it believes, it dedicates,
it consecrates, it comes, it serves, it loves, because it
believes. That's faith. Believers don't question the
word of God and the testimony of our fall. If God said we fell
in Adam, we fell in Adam. I wasn't there, were you? What do I know about it? Well, I just
think, well, throw that out the window. Faith operates in us based on
God's testimony of the matter, no matter what we feel, no matter
what the world agrees on or religion swears by. We believe God. Let God be true and ever a man
a liar. There's all kind of ways. There's
a way that seems right unto a man, makes perfect sense to him. But
the end thereof is destruction. And it doesn't matter how you
feel about it, or what the world says about it, or what philosophers
say about it. Let God be true. He's the only
one who really knows. He's the source of all of our
wisdom. And faith doesn't question the effectual particular redemption
of Christ. Actually, it's the only thing
that ever made any sense to me. I just didn't know about it when
I was in religion. I didn't understand a sacrifice
that could save me one minute, and then I'd be lost the next
minute, and then I'd, you know, be, you backslide, and then he
calls you back, and then you're back over here again. One minute
you're saved, one minute you're lost. None of that made any sense
to me. I just didn't understand it.
Didn't understand it at all. And then I heard. And man showed
me in the scripture that effectual particular redemption of Christ.
God said you should call his name Jesus, for he shall save
his people, not the world, his people, from their sins. Good shepherd giveth his life
for the sheep. The scripture doesn't say, well,
who shall lay anything to the charge of whosoever will? No,
that's not what it says. Says, who shall lay anything
to the charge of God's elect? Faith submits to the word of
God. That's its foundation. And to profess faith and walk
contrary to truth is a false profession. God's work in us
is based on truth. So what do we know about this
work of God in the center? I know it begins with gospel
preaching. I know that. I know it's begun
by a new birth in which Christ alone becomes my hope. I know that this work is a work
of faith, God enabling me to believe. God has made us meet to be partakers. with those enlightened saints. He describes it in one place
as God making us meet to be partakers. And I know this work causes his
people to submit to God's truth and God's means. Until then,
he'll just argue about it. And even if he don't argue about
it, he still won't believe it. He won't walk that way. Talking about knowing the election
of the Thessalonians, Paul said they become followers of us and
the Lord. That's what they did. And then
lastly, very quickly, the work of God in us is a work which
cannot be destroyed. Now he said, the just shall live
by faith. He said this in the very last
verses of Hebrews chapter two. He said, the just shall live
by faith. But if any man draw back, my
soul shall have no pleasure in him. But, he said, we're not
of them that draw back. We're of them that believe to
the saving of the soul. You can't destroy what God has
begun. You can't destroy his work. And that's what these trials
and persecutions are all about. It is to prove that this is God's
work and can't be destroyed. Peter said we're kept, now listen
to this, we're kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation. Does that sound like something
can be destroyed? Something can be... They went out from us,
John said, but they weren't of us. If they had been of us, they
no doubt would have continued with us. Now here's my confidence in myself
and in you. That He would have begun a good
work in you. Has He? Has he? He'll perform it unto the day
of Jesus Christ. We just need trust in him. Isn't
that right? That's what we're gonna do. Trust
in him. Trust in him. He which hath begun
a good work in my soul, if God has begun the work and not me,
and not me, then I can have confidence. I can have confidence. All right,
thank you.