Paul's Confessions

Q: What does the Bible say about confessions of faith?

The Bible emphasizes personal confessions as acknowledgments of one's inner beliefs, especially in expressing faith in Christ. In Philippians 3, the Apostle Paul shares his personal confessions, revealing his true thoughts and beliefs about his past and identity. A confession, in the biblical sense, is an open acknowledgment of one's beliefs and feelings before God and others. It is essential that such confessions contain the personal pronoun 'I,' as they reflect an individual's acknowledgment of their faith, their sins, and their dependence on Christ alone for righteousness. Paul demonstrates this by stating repeatedly, 'I count all things but loss,' indicating that his past achievements and heritage are worthless compared to knowing Christ.

Q: How do we know that grace is central to salvation?

Grace is central to salvation as it highlights God's unmerited favor towards sinners, which is evident in Paul's confessions. The doctrine of grace is rooted in the understanding that salvation comes not from our works but solely through God's kindness towards us in Christ. Paul, in his confession, illustrates that although he has attained various religious accolades and moral victories, they pale in comparison to the grace he received through faith in Jesus Christ. He counts all his past gains as loss because he realizes that true righteousness comes not from the law but from faith in Christ (Philippians 3:9), underscoring salvation by grace alone. Thus, the reality of grace is paramount, as it brings assurance and hope to believers that their standing before God is secure not because of their merit but solely because of Christ's perfect obedience.

Q: Why is it important for Christians to rejoice in the Lord?

Rejoicing in the Lord is vital as it reflects a believer's dependence on and gratitude for God's promises and faithfulness. In Philippians 3:1, Paul encourages Christians to 'rejoice in the Lord,' emphasizing that joy in the Christian life is rooted in the character and works of God rather than outward circumstances. Rejoicing is an expression of faith, reminding believers of God's sovereignty, grace, and the hope found in Christ. It acts as an anchor during challenging times, fostering a sense of peace and security that transcends human understanding. Moreover, it serves to strengthen the community of believers, encouraging one another as they collectively reflect on God's goodness. Therefore, this call to rejoice is not merely a suggestion but a necessity for an authentic and vibrant Christian life.

I've preached, I suppose, dozens
of sermons from Philippians chapter 3. But when I'm preparing messages
to preach to you on Sunday, Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday
night, and wherever, but especially here, many times when I'm traveling
I'll go back and pick up messages that I preached here at other
times, but when I'm preparing to preach to you like this morning
and tonight, I sit down with the Word and I just go through
it and read and read and read and read and read and try to
think about what God would have me preach. And this morning,
Friday, I worked on this morning's message from John 21, Sweetheart
Love. when I read that 21st chapter
of John, my heart just said, that's it. That's the message
for Sunday morning. That's the message. All right,
that one's finished now and put aside. Now we'll start on Sunday
night. And we began to look. We began to look into the Word
to find what's the message for tonight. And I came to Philippians
3, and I read the first 14 verses again. That's my mind just stopped
right there, just settled on that. Philippians 3. Familiar, but certainly by no means have
we learned all that's there. But as I read it, and I saw the
little letter I, I, I, I, I, I, over and over and over. You
may have noticed while John was reading it, I, I, I. I thought, These first 14 verses seem to
be Paul's confession. What is a confession? A confession. Well, I got up from my desk,
walked over here and pulled out that big Webster's dictionary
and opened it up. What is a confession? You think
you know these words. Well, he said a confession. is
an acknowledgment of one's true thoughts. An acknowledgment of one's true
thoughts. A confession is a revelation
of what's in here. You've heard of spilling your
guts, that's what, well, you spill your guts, you know, well
that's what it is, it's just, it's an admission, that's what
he said, it's an acknowledgment of one's true thoughts. It's
a confession, which is a revelation of the inner being, and it's
admission. I admit, I confess, I admit,
I admit to this being my belief. And a confession must contain
the letter I. We is not a confession. We is
not a confession. We try to worm out that way,
but we is not a confession. A confession must contain the
letter I over and over and over again because it's got nothing
to do with anyone else. My confession. My confession. It is, I confess. It is, I admit. It is, I acknowledge. It is,
I believe. I. I. I open my mouth to honestly
reveal what's in my heart. Now, in this text here, these
confessions, and I'll show them to you in a moment, these confessions
are the personal confessions of the Apostle Paul, the servant,
the bondslave of Jesus Christ. And here's the thing that interested
me especially, is that this is not the spoutings of a novice. These are not the spoutings of
a novice. These are not the words of a
new kid on the block. These are the words of a prisoner
of Jesus Christ. He called himself, I am the prisoner
of Jesus Christ. He was in the jail down in Rome
awaiting execution. This is one of his last epistles. One of the last epistles he ever
wrote, called a prison epistle. And he was awaiting his call
to glory when he wrote this. This man, he was no untried soldier. He'd
been over the road. And he kind of begins chapter
3 with that thought, finally, finally, finally. My brethren, finally. And here are some instructions. He said, now, I don't mind, he
says, brethren, rejoice in the Lord. I don't mind writing the
same things to you over and over again, preaching the same things
to you over and over again. To me, indeed, it is not tiresome,
but for you it's safe. My brethren, whether you're in
prison like I am or wherever you are, rejoice in the Lord.
Rejoice in the greatness of his person. Rejoice in his righteousness,
his atonement. Rejoice in his intercession.
Rejoice in his mercies. Rejoice in his return. Just rejoice
in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. And then
he says in verse 2, sounding another note, he says, And beware
of dogs. Who's the apostle talking about
there? Well, he's talking about false preachers. He's talking
about false prophets. He says, you beware of dogs,
beware of evil workers, beware of the concision. Over in the
book of 2 Corinthians, don't turn to it, but he says, he says,
these fellows are, these fellows are not only false apostles,
but they're ministers of Satan. And they'll come preaching another
gospel, another Jesus, and another spirit, and you want to beware
of them. You say, where does Paul get this thing of calling
these fellas dogs? Well, I will let you turn to
this and see it. It's over in Isaiah 56. He's
quoting the prophet Isaiah. You know, Jeremiah and Isaiah
both were pretty strong on false preachers. He quotes Isaiah here,
and he says, and Isaiah said in Isaiah 56, verse 10, listen,
his watchmen are blind, they are all ignorant, they are
all dumb dogs. The watchmen are dumb dogs. They
cannot bark, sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber, and
they are greedy dogs. which can never have enough.
They are shepherds that cannot understand. And they look to
their own way, every one for his gain from his quarter. That's what's wrong. When he
says they are here in verse 2, they are dogs. He's quoting the
Prophet Isaiah. And I'll tell you, a man that
will use the name of God for his own covetous gain and to promote himself and lie
to people about such important eternal matters as our soul salvation,
he's a dog. Now that's all there is to it,
he's just a dog. Well, that's an insult to the dog. They're evil workers, he said,
they're dogs and they're evil workers. Workers of iniquity, Christ called
them in Matthew 7 when he said, we preached in your name and
cast out devils and did many wonderful works, he said, depart
from me, workers of iniquity. And he calls them here the concision. A better word for that is flesh
merchants. Flesh merchants, these false
preachers, these covetous preachers, these dumb dogs. They're flesh
merchants. They deal in numbers. They deal
in statistics. That's how many bodies. They
count bodies. They count heads. They deal in
flesh. People walk down aisles and make
professions and go into baptistry and join the church and they
get bigger crowds and bigger choirs and bigger numbers and
deal in flesh is what it is. It's just like a fellow opening
a store, trying to see how much cloth he can sell, or how many
boxes of clothes he can sell. And that's the way they do it.
It's not an individual, and that man's heart, and that man's knowledge
of God, that woman's relationship with God, that person's love
for the Savior, it's just a flesh. There's glory in your flesh,
Paul says. They constrain you to be baptized
or to do these circumcised only that they may glory in your flesh.
When preachers meet and talk, these denominational preachers,
there's two questions after they say, glad to see you. That's
the first thing they say, glad to see you. How many did you
have in Sunday school? That's the second question, first
question after glad to see you. How many did you have in Sunday
school? Secondly, how many did you baptize last year? How many? How many? How much? How much
is your budget? Am I telling the truth? And then he goes on, verse 3,
and he says, we are the circumcision. We are the true Israel. We are
true Israel. And he gives three marks of true
Israel. He said, we worship God in the
spirit, heart and soul, not in ceremony and form. We worship
God in heart and spirit. Secondly, we rejoice in Christ
Jesus. We don't rejoice in our works,
we rejoice in Christ Jesus. He is our rejoicing, he is our
joy. And thirdly, we have no confidence
in this flesh. That's the marks of true believers. That's true Israel. You see,
Israel is, when the scripture says all Israel shall be saved,
it's not talking about all the fleshly descendants of Abraham,
it's talking about the seed of Abraham, which is Christ. It's
talking about people who believe God, as Abraham believed God,
and they're children of Abraham by faith. Understand, that's
Israel. That's the true circumcision.
And the true circumcision is those who worship God in spirit,
not in form and ceremony and ritual. They rejoice only in
Christ. They rejoice in his righteousness,
in his blood, in his intercession, in his preeminence, in him, and
they have no confidence in their flesh or yours or anybody else.
They don't build on the church fathers. They profit from what
they say and preach and write and so forth, but they have no
confidence in the flesh. It's all in him. All right, now
here begins the confessions of St. Paul. And here he starts
using the letter I, I, I, I. The rest of the next 11 verses
is I. Paul speaks in the first person,
revealing confessions of his heart. Now here's the first one,
here you can underscore these statements I'm going to point
out to you. Verse 4, he says, Though I might,
I might also have confidence in the flesh, if any other man
thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh,
does anybody think that he has any cause for rejoicing or cause
for hope? By what he's done? By who he
is? He says, do you? Well, I'm over
it. I'm over it. And these are the
things in which men glow. Now watch this carefully. This
is interesting. Verse 5. Circumcised the eighth day of
the stock of Israel. Alright, when did they circumcise
a Jewish baby? Eight days old. when the baby
was eight days old, having to do something with the blood clotting
and so forth, they circumcised that baby on the eighth day.
All right, today me and Glory in this. Mama and Daddy pick
a godfather and a godmother and they bring a little baby in front
of a preacher and everybody's dressed up, you know, and they
sprinkle water on him. They carry that from circumcision.
And so they glory in that. Paul said, you got something
to glory in? You say, I sprinkle, I confirm? He said, I circumcise
on the eighth day. All right, watch this. Secondly,
we say, well, we were born of Christian parents. We were brought
up in a Christian home. We were brought up, taught the
ways of the Bible. Listen to him. And I was born
of the stock of Israel of the tribe of Benjamin. He said, I
was not only brought up in a Bible home, in a religious home, I
was brought up My mama and my daddy were descendants of Abraham. I'm a Hebrew. I'm a Hebrew. You want to rejoice in being
brought up right or in a Christian home and find some comfort and
strength in that? He said, I'll tell you where
my descendants are from right on back to Isaac and Jacob and
Abraham. All right? So out of Hebrew of
Hebrews. We know in, I moved to Hurshland,
I found out it didn't, it wasn't important just to be a Christian,
you had to be a Baptist. I never did know that until I
moved here, you know. I found out that Jesus was a
Baptist, and the Bible was a Baptist book, and Jesus walked 60 miles
to be baptized by a Baptist preacher. I didn't know that. He passed
several preachers and walked 60 miles to be baptized by a
Baptist preacher. Baptist of the Bride of Christ,
I found that out after I got up here. I didn't know all those
things. And he said, you want to rejoice in that? Well, he
said, I'll tell you this, I'm a Hebrew of the Hebrews. We're
Baptists of the Baptists. And you can't just be a Baptist,
you've got to be a missionary Baptist. And you can't just be
a missionary Baptist, you've got to be a missionary Baptist
that was organized by a missionary Baptist. who was organized by
Missionary Baptist who goes back to John the Baptist. That's right.
Well, he said, you won't boast about that. I am a Hebrew of
Hebrews. And then other fellows, you know,
they talk about being a preacher or a teacher. He said, well,
we won't talk about that. That's touching the law. I was
a Pharisee. You know what a Pharisee was? A Pharisee was as high as you
could go in religious circles, just about as high as you could
go as a teacher of the Scriptures and a ruler of the Jews. They
made up the Sanhedrin, didn't they? A Pharisee. He was on the committee on committees. He wasn't just on a committee,
he was on the committee on committees. A Pharisee. And then somebody
else says, well, I've I've attended church every Sunday all my life.
I didn't miss a Sunday. And I won souls, and I was zealous,
all right? Verse 6, concerning zeal. Want
to talk about zeal? I kill people for what I believe,
he said. I persecuted the church. I really believe what I believe.
I kill people for what I believe. That's zeal, isn't it? Persecuting
the church. Somebody says, well, I've always
tried to do right. I never had, I never did drink,
never did smoke, never did run around, never did curse. I've
been a moral man, always paid my bills, always been at work
on time, treated my boss right. Touching the righteousness, which
is of the law? Lameless, Paul said. That's me.
That's his confession. He said, I might. I could. If anybody wants to go back here
and talk about what you've done, I'm a walker. I've done all these
things. I've done all these things. And I'll tell you this, were
it not for the grace of God, we would boast in those things. That's exactly right. He said,
I might. I might. And I'll tell you this, if it
wasn't for His grace, we would. But now watch the second one
here, verse underscore this, verse, verse 7. But what things
were gained to me. Now at one time, all these things
were gained to Paul. All of these things were precious
treasures, gained. Who he was, what he was, what
he'd done, where he'd served, what he'd given, how he'd lived,
all these were so important. Those things were gained to me,
but those I counted lost for Christ. Yea, doubtless, and I
underscore this, I count." Here is that I, confession. I might
have gloried in these things, but I tell you, when the Holy
Spirit revealed Christ Jesus and his righteousness and his
precious blood, I saw that these things were worthless in themselves.
For they were imperfect, and being imperfect, they were unacceptable. So he said, verse 8, I count
all things, my heritage, my background, my parents, my zeal, my morality,
my righteousness, my doings, my giving, my associations, I
count it but loss. I'm just lost as if it never
existed. for the excellency of the knowledge
of Christ Jesus, my Lord." I count all these things but loss. And I'll tell you, actually,
when we come to see the righteousness which God commands, Paul said,
you who would be under the law, do you hear the law? Do you hear
what it demands? Do you hear what it requires?
Perfection. And when we see that, We see our righteousness as a
filthy rag, nothing to them. And when we see Christ's righteousness,
His perfect obedience, we are perfectly willing to give up
our righteousness for His. You see, that was a terrible
loss to Paul. He was 40 years old before he
ever came to know Christ, over 40 years of age. And all of those
40 years, from the cradle to middle life, That religion had
been his life. That zeal and that doctrine and
that self-righteousness had been his life, his life. And now he
came to know the Lord Jesus Christ. He came to see him, to believe
him, to love him, to receive him. And he said, boy, what a
loss. I don't think it really was a
loss at all. It's like taking off an old filthy
coat for a brand new one. It's like shedding old dirty
rags to receive a perfect robe. I don't think it was a loss at
all. I think he readily, readily and willingly said, I count these
things but loss, putrid. In fact, go on, he says, for
the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I suffered
the loss of all things, and I don't count them but dumb. What is
dumb? It's garbage. That's how he looked on them.
Now, let me ask you. Some of you right here. Some
of you right here were brought up in church. I was. I was brought
up by well-meaning, well-meaning, sincere parents who took me to
a church where they didn't preach the gospel. I was brought up
in this rules and regulations. You don't go to the picture show
on Sunday. You don't play ball on Sunday.
You give your tithe regularly and religiously. You win souls. You don't go to dances. You don't
drink. I was brought up in all these
rules and regulations. You don't go mix bathing. You
go to the Baptist church. I was brought up in all these
rigid rules and regulations. And I say they were well-meaning
and they were sincere, but you don't play cards except Old Maid. You couldn't play Old Maid or
Rook. But we were brought up established
in righteousness. Huh? Were you? Some of you brought
up in this self-righteous, keep on hunting and you'll be
an angel someday. Keep serving and working for
Jesus and he'll reward you and all this sort of thing. And that's
the way Paul was brought up. And one day I heard the gospel,
right here in this town, I heard the gospel. of Jesus, because
gospel is grace, free grace, free and sovereign grace in Christ
Jesus. And so is righteousness. And
I look back at all of this other, my trying to establish a righteousness
before God, and I count it but rubbish! Rubbish! That's the way Paul
felt. It's just dumb! It's garbage in the sight of
God. I really tell you this. If you're
going to be charged with a crime before God's judgment, I must
carefully say this now, but it's truth. If you're going to be
charged with a crime, it'd be better to stand before God, having
been a murderer, than having been a man who sought
his acceptance by your works. You'll come out lighter. That's
right. Now, you can do what you want
to with that, but I know it's so. I know God saves sinners.
God saves sinners, and I hold out for others. And I know murder
is distasteful. We think, oh, take the life of
another. Hire, hire up, hire us to take. I agree with you.
But I tell you, when you haul your self-righteous rags to the
judgment of God and say, these be my righteousness, oh God,
you wish you was a murderer. In fact, you are. You hung his
son on the cross. That's right, so he counted it
but dung. All right, what's the next things he deals with here?
I. Verse 8, I count them but dung that I may. I may. You with me? This is what I saw
here, brother. He said, I might glow in the
flesh, if you want to talk about it, but no, I count it but dung.
And I count it but dung that I may. I may what? Win Christ. that I may gain Christ, when
he shall come with trumpet sound, O may I then, O may I, may I
then in him be found, dressed in his righteousness alone, faultless
to stand before his throne. I count these things but done,
that I may lay hold on Christ." You see, you can't lay hold on
these things and lay hold on Christ, too. You can't have your
works and his works. You can't have your righteousness
and his. It's got to be one or the other.
He said, I release these, count them but done, that I may win
Christ. In verse 9, and be found in him,
that I may win Christ and be found in him, not having mine
own righteousness. That's what I've been talking
about. That's what I gave my early life to establish, which
is of the law. but that I might have that righteousness
which is through the faithfulness of Christ, the obedience of Christ,
and that's the very holiness which is of God by faith. That's
what I ministered. Oh, what a beautiful confession.
I could, he said, I might. But no, I cannot but done that
I may win Christ. and be found in him,
gain Christ and be found in him, not having my own righteousness,
but his. All right, watch verse 10, that
I may, here it is again, I may know him, know him. And the power, the
glorious power, the power to put away sin, the power to give
new life, the power of his resurrection, the power of his resurrection.
I want to know that, the power of his resurrection. I want to
know the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his
death, if by any means I might attain to the resurrection of
the dead. Now I know, I know with most
folks in 1990, 1989, 1990 in America, Ashland, Kentucky. This is almost
a foregone conclusion. We're all going to heaven. That's
just almost a foregone conclusion. Everybody's going to heaven.
Nobody goes to hell. Everybody's going to heaven. When the trumpet sounds and the
archangel's voice sounds and the Lord Jesus comes, Every grave
out there is going to open up and they're all going to have...
That's what we think. That's what folks think. Paul wasn't
so sure about that, was he? In this confession, I don't find
an overconfidence. I find a man saying, if you want to talk about what
you deserve and what you've done, I can top any of you, say, because
I did all these things. I did them all, sincerely and
conscientiously. But I count them but dumb. I
count them but rubbish. And I'm serious, he said, that
I might win Christ and have his righteousness, that I might know
him, not just know about him and tell everybody else I know
him and profess to know him, but know him, know him. That when he comes again, I might
have part in that resurrection. That's what he's talking about.
If by any means, look at that verse, if by any means I might
have part in that resurrection. You know one of the best illustrations
I've heard in a long time? Right here I'll give you verse
13, verse 12 first. Look at this. I haven't attained
my goal, this is what he's saying. If by any means I might attain
the resurrection, but verse 12, not as though I had already attained. I haven't already reached my
goal because I'm not yet perfect. I'm not either, we're already
perfect. I'm not perfect. But I follow
after, I follow after that I may apprehend. You know what that
word apprehend is? It's marching about, it's laying
hold, that's what it is, it's laying hold. That I might lay
hold upon that for which I have been laid hold of by Jesus Christ,
that's what he's saying. Now he's saying, I haven't reached
my goal. But I'll tell you what, I'm not
perfect yet, I'm not perfected, I'm not like Christ. But I'll
tell you this, he said, I follow Christ. that I may lay hold on
that for which he laid hold of me." How many times does the Bible
say, lay hold of eternal life, lay hold of eternal life, lay
hold upon the hope that's set before you, lay hold upon it.
Turn loose of some other things and lay hold of the Son of God.
That illustration, Darden Pruitt gave it several years ago here. He witnessed this. He was in
a restaurant down in Louisiana having dinner, he and his family.
And a man was there who had a little three-year-old son in the restaurant. I've been in this restaurant.
And they served seafood and they served boiled corn. They had
these delicious, yellow ears of boiled corn rolling on that
in that butter, you know, and under the light. There's something
else. And this little boy, the dinner was over, and he had that
ear of boiled corn. He was gnawing on it. He was
about three years old, gnawing on that boiled corn. He didn't
want to give it up. His daddy said, put the corn
down, son. We gotta go. Well, lay the corn down, son.
And the more he laid down, the tighter he gripped it. He was
not parting with that boiled corn. That was the best stuff
he'd ever sunk his little teeth in. And he just kept gnawing
on that ear of boiled corn. And his daddy threatened him.
His daddy shook him. His daddy did everything he could,
but those little butter-soaked, grimy hands held on to that ear
of boiled corn. And the owner of the restaurant,
a very smart man, walked over to the counter there where the
cash register is, and he slid it back and reached in and got
a beautiful Hershey bar. chocolate Hershey bar. And there
stood that little guy, upset, mad, holding on to that ball
of corn. His dad mad, his mama mad, and everybody in the restaurant
watching. And the owner just reached out to him and held out
that Hershey bar. And he saw that Hershey bar,
he flew that ear away and grabbed it. That's all there was to it. Found
something better. Paul found something better. And he could turn loose of his
religion and turn loose of his righteousness, turn loose of
his old cohorts, turn loose of his old friends. He could turn
loose. Because he said, I want to lay
hold upon Christ, who's laid hold of me. Huh? Brethren, look
at verse 13. I love this, I follow after,
I may apprehend or lay hold upon that for which I have been laid
hold. Brethren, I count not myself to have arrived. I tell you,
I can understand a man being a little confident who's a physician.
I can understand a little cockiness. I can understand a man being
pretty proud if he's a real good carpenter, a real good automobile
mechanic, but I can't, to save my life, understand anybody that
entertains any kind of pride in reference to spiritual matters. It's so great and vast and wonderful,
you don't arrive. That's what he's saying here.
This is the Apostle Paul, verse 13. I haven't arrived, I haven't
apprehended, I haven't reached the goal. I'm not perfect. But I'll tell you this, one thing
I do. Boy, you know I'm always interested
in a fellow to boil something down to that. One thing I do.
One thing. And it's in a two-fold, got two
parts. One thing I do. Forgetting those
things which are behind. All right, what are we going
to forget? I'm going to forget my rebellion. I'm going to forget
my iniquity. You know, I hear people talk
about their days of sin with a certain amount of pride. You
ever hear somebody talk that way about what he used to be
and what he used to... And he talks about it with a little
bit of pride. Boy, I used to be around it. You bragging? Never
could get me in church when I was growing up. You proud of that?
You know what I'm saying? We ought to look on these things
with shame. I forget. Forgetting those things
which are behind. Not only forgetting my sin, but
forgetting my professions. Can you do that? Can you forget
that little profession of faith you made way back then? Can you?
Forget my experiences? Forget my works? Now let me bring
it up close now. And even forget those things
I've done under the grace of God in the name of Christ. That reaches me in years, doesn't
it? Even forgetting that. Forgetting the things which are
past. What's the second part of that?
One thing I do, forgetting that which is behind. And anything
from here an hour ago is behind. Also forgetting trials, forgetting
misunderstandings, forgetting hard feelings. I tell you, my
friend, nothing about us is worth remembering. Is it? Nothing about us is worth remembering. It's not worth remembering what
somebody said, what they did. It ain't worth remembering. It's
just part of the mess. So forgetting those things which
are behind, I reach forth. I reach forth unto those things
which are before me. I reach out to Christ. Oh, somebody wrote a poem one
time, said, uh, I wish there was a wonderful place called the
land of beginning again where all our heartaches and
all our mistakes and all our poor, selfish grief could be
dropped like a shabby old cloak at the door and never put on
again. There is, there is, in Christ. And that's today. God does not
remember our sins. He said that, I remember their
sins no more. Forget the past. Can you? Can
I? What Paul says here, one thing
I do. forgetting what's behind. I'm
not going to bring it up. It's like, you know, when you
were in school and the teacher handed out paper and a pencil,
and you messed yours up, and you were stuck with it. But what if she'd have come by
and said, give me that old paper, here's you a new one, start over.
My God does that every day. He gives me a new page every
day. Doesn't he, you? And takes my old one away. And
we all do that for one another. Give me a new page and let me
start over. I messed up that last one. Let me start over. I think that's what he's saying
here. One thing I do, forgetting what's behind me, reaching out.
Now watch this, I'll quit. I'll press. I'll press. I'm not indifferent. I'm not
careless. Don't get indifferent. Don't let that awful disease
of indifference lay hold on you. Careless presumption. Oppressed. Oppressed. You know around here
everybody's gone basketball crazy since that Yankee came down here
from New York. And one thing he's made famous
is the press. He calls it his mother-in-law
defense. A lot of pressure and a lot of
harassment. But press. But do you ever watch
him play? You ever watch his teams play?
They own you. They pressure you. Pressure you.
That's what Paul, the words Paul's using. Paul used athletic illustration. Did you know that? He talked
about shadow boxing. I fight not as one who beat at
the air, but one who has a real enemy. He talked about crossing
the goal line, didn't he, John, and being crowned. Only one gets
crowned when it crosses the line. He talks about running a race.
He talks about the Olympics. And Mr. Gill and Mr., who's that other, well, the other
commentator, he says, verse 14, he's talking about a runner in
the Olympic race who keeps pressing towards the finish line. He never
looks back. see how far he's come. He never
looks to see who's running with him. He presses, presses, presses,
presses. That's right. I press toward
the goal line. I press toward the finish line. I press toward the mark. Because
I want that prize. I want that prize of the high
calling. You call me to be your pastor,
but there's a higher calling. You called your beloved companion
to be your wife. That is a higher calling. That high calling is the high
calling of God in Jesus Christ. I've got to go. I've got to go. And that is to win Christ and
be found in him, to have part in that first resurrection, and
to lay hold upon that for which he's laid hold of me. And I'm
going to keep on going toward that finish line until I am crowned
with that crown of life, the incorruptible crown. That's right,
isn't it Cecil? That's right. That's the confessions
of St. Paul. I hope they're helpful.
I hope they're a blessing.

Paul's Confessions

What does the Bible say about confessions of faith?

How do we know that grace is central to salvation?

Why is it important for Christians to rejoice in the Lord?

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Paul's Confessions

What does the Bible say about confessions of faith?

How do we know that grace is central to salvation?

Why is it important for Christians to rejoice in the Lord?

Sermon Transcript

About Henry Mahan

Comments

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