No Confidence In the Flesh

In Philippians, the third chapter,
this statement Paul made in verse 1 reveals much about this man
and his message. He says, Brethren, rejoice in
the Lord, to write the same things to you. To me, indeed, is not
irksome, is not grievous, and for you it's safe. Paul was a
man of one message. He found out what that message
was and he preached it. He said, I am determined to know
nothing among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified. That
was Paul's message. That was his gospel, to preach
Christ. Because he knew that we're complete
in Christ. Nothing can be or need be added
to Christ. In Christ we have wisdom, righteousness,
sanctification and redemption. It's all in Christ. And he said,
I prevail till Christ be formed in you. Christ in you, that's
the hope of glory. And then he talked about the
return of Christ. And he said, when Christ who
is our life shall appear. And then he said again, I'm crucified
with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. Yet not
I, but Christ liveth in me. And the life which I now live
in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who gave himself
for me. Loved me and gave himself for
me. He was a man of one message. because he knew the people needed
that one message, and that message was Christ and him crucified.
And then he warned them in verse 2 about false prophets and false
preachers. He called them dogs. He was a
very strong preacher and had used strong, positive language.
On another occasion he said, if anybody preaches any other
gospel, even if it's an angel from heaven, let him be accursed.
And so he says here, beware of dogs. Beware of evil workers. They are evil workers. They seek
their own. They make merchandise of you.
You're a number to them. They're religious hucksters is
what they are. They work evil and mischief.
They put emphasis not upon Christ and not upon his work, but upon
your work. Not upon Christ and his glory,
but upon your work and your deeds and the law and ceremony and
all of these other things. He calls them evil workers. He
calls them the concision, or people who promote ceremony and
circumcision. And then he says in verse 3,
we are the circumcision. We are the true Israel. We are
the people of God who worship God in the Spirit. Not in the
deeds of the law, not in the works of the flesh, not in the
ceremonies of religion, but who worship God in the Spirit and
rejoice in Christ. Not in our works, not in our
denomination. Not in our righteousness, but
we rejoice in Christ. He is our rejoicing. And then
he says, we have no confidence in the flesh, in anything done
in the flesh or by the flesh. We have absolutely no confidence
whatsoever in the flesh to recommend us to God, to make us acceptable
to God, to present us to God, to justify us before God. We
have absolutely no, not some, no confidence in the flesh. Now
he said, if any of you think that you have reason to trust
in the flesh and to have confidence in the works of religion or in
your righteousness or your deeds, he said, I more than you. Look
at verse 4. Though I might, if anybody, might
have any confidence in the flesh, in the deeds of religion or the
works of the law, if anybody in the world, he said, could
take some comfort in what he had done and what he had given
for Christ and what he had been. Paul says, it's not you, it's
I. I'm the one. And then he begins
to list some of the things that men trust in and rest in and
find some confidence, some comfort in. In verse 5 he says, and this
is, he's speaking of himself. He said, I was circumcised the
eighth day of the stock of Israel. Now, this is the ritual. This
was the ceremony that introduced the Jew to the outward covenant
of Abraham. This was performed on the eighth
day after the birth of the Son, and this was that token of the
covenant of Abraham. It introduced this lad into the
outward covenant of Abraham. Now, if Paul had lived today,
he would have been one of those who was sprinkled as an infant
and regarded as being in some sort of special state. some sort
of outward covenant or some kind of protective state. He said,
I was circumcised the eighth day. Some of you here, mother
and father might have brought you to the church when you were
just a few weeks or I don't know how old you have to be or a few
months old and the preacher said some beautiful words and read
some words from a book and then sprinkled water upon you and
you were considered in a covenant or you were considered in a protected
state. or in a special state before
God. Paul said, I had this done to me. I was circumcised on the
eighth day. And then he went on and he said,
of the tribe of Benjamin. Now this was the tribe which
Moses called Beloved of the Lord. That was the tribe of Benjamin.
This was the tribe that gave Israel its first king. And his
name was the same as the name of the man writing here, Saul,
King Saul and Saul of Tarsus. If Paul had lived today, now
watch this, if he had lived today, here he is tracing his lineage
and his heritage back to the tribe of Benjamin. If he had
lived today, he would have been a member of the Church that does
all within its power to trace its heritage back to John the
Baptist. That's right. He would have been
busy tracing the line. He would have been busy finding
the line. He says, I was circumcised on the eighth day. I was dedicated. This ritual was performed for
me, and I'm of the tribe of Benjamin. I'm not from some lost tribe
or some unknown tribe or some tribe that's risen up just yesterday.
I go all the way back to Benjamin, beloved of Jacob. born of his favorite wife. But
not only that, he said, I'm a Hebrew of Hebrews. I'm the cream of
the crop. I'm the cream of the nation.
I'm no ordinary Jew. I'm no ordinary professor. I'm
among the faithful. I'm among the special. I'm among
the elite. I'm among the inner circle. I'm
a Hebrew of Hebrews. If he had lived today, he would
have been a preacher or a deacon or an elder or one of the officers,
high officers in the church. He wasn't just a Christian. He
was a Christian of Christians, the inner circle. He would have
been described the way people describe special people today,
whether he's a praying Christian, or he's a born-again Christian,
or he's a Christian that really loves the Lord. Paul said, I
was a Hebrew of Hebrews. Well, he goes on. And as touching
the law, the ceremonial law, I was a Pharisee. I was Orthodox. I was doctrinally sound. I protected
the ceremonies. I protected the feast days. I
fenced in the ordinances. I protected the ordinances. If
he had lived today, he would have been a person seeing that
everything in the church was done according to the scriptures. to dot every I and cross every
T and every jot and tittle, he would have been a person so faithful
to the direction and pattern and orthodoxy of the doctrines
and scriptures, you'd have got a fire out of him if you'd have
veered either way. He said, as touching the ceremony
law, I was a Pharisee. I made sure they washed their
hands before they ate. I made sure they walked so far
on the Sabbath day. I made sure that they they kept
the Feast of the Tabernacles and the Feast of the First Fruits
and the Feast of this, that, and the other, and had the morning
sacrifice and the noon sacrifice. I carried around all the directions
and made sure everybody was orthodox. And if he'd been living today,
he'd have had his systematic theology all fixed up, and if
you veered either way, why, he'd have cut you off. They tell me
about a fellow that was in a certain church in the state of Kentucky.
He was visiting one Sunday morning. Never been there before, just
a small church. And after the service was over,
somebody shook hands with him, and they said, You're a visitor. He said, Yes, I'm just moved
into town and came to visit the church here. Well, he said, Come
with me. And he took him back in the office,
and he pulled a copy of Pink's Sovereignty of God off the shelf
and hand it to him and say, that's what we believe and if you don't
believe that, you wouldn't like it here. Well, he didn't come
back. Church up in Pennsylvania I was
acquainted with, they're all millennial. And a fellow visited
there one time and one of the headmen of the church met him,
you know, and said, are you a pre-millenarian or a millenarian? And he said,
well, I really don't know. He said, well, if you're not
a millenarian, you wouldn't be happy here because that's what
we believe. That's what Paul was, a Pharisee. He straightened
everybody out. And then he goes on and he says
concerning zeal, enthusiasm, I believed what I believed so
strong that I was willing to kill people who disagreed with
me. I was willing to cut them off.
I was willing to imprison them. I was willing to destroy them.
I made war on everybody who was not orthodox. I was determined
to stamp out heresy and false teaching. What I believed, I
was willing to die for and I was willing to kill for it. And he said, touching the righteousness
which is in the law, that's the moral law. Thou shalt have no
other God before me. Paul worshipped the God of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob. Thou shalt not make unto thee
any graven images. Paul would not bow down before
nor worship nor regard any other God. I shall not take the name
of the Lord thy God in vain. Paul was so careful, the Pharisees
were so careful about using the name of God in its excellence,
in its power, in its majesty, that they wouldn't even use it.
There was a certain name that referred to God they wouldn't
even use. The Sabbath day? Murder? No way. Adultery? No way. Stealing? No way. Lying? No way. Covetousness? No way,
not Saul. Not Saul. Now you see the foundation
he's laying here? You better see it. He said, Brethren,
to write this gospel of substitution, and this gospel of grace, and
this gospel of faith, and this gospel of Christ. He said, I'm
determined not to know anything but that. I'm determined to preach
nothing but Christ. Now he said, I warn you about
these fellows that come in and command you to be baptized to
be saved, or command you to keep the law to be saved, or command
you to be circumcised to be saved, or command you to become a Baptist
to be saved, or command you to do something else in order to
be saved, or command you to pray so much to be saved, or command
you to tithe or believe certain doctrines. He said, I warn you,
they are dogs, they are evil workers. He said, we are the
true Israel who rejoice in Christ, who worship God in the Spirit.
We are the true Israel who have no confidence in anybody's flesh,
ours, yours, or anybody else's. No confidence in the flesh. Now,
he said, if some of you think you have confidence in the flesh,
look at me. Why, he said, I exceed you in
anything. My life, he said, has been religion.
My life has been the law. My life has been God. My life
has been the church. My life has been the doctrine.
Why, he said, I go back further than any of you. And then he
named all these things, circumcised of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew
of Hebrews, a Pharisee, protective of the orthodoxy of the church,
or the temple, the synagogue. persecuting anybody that disagreed
with me, fighting heresy with everything that's within me,
touching the righteousness which is of the law. I was blameless. But he said, these things that
were gained to me, and they were gained to him, they were important.
They were important. They were his religion. These
things were such gained to him that they were his refuge. They
were his plea before God. Oh God, I've kept your Sabbath.
What more do you require? That's what the rich young ruler
said. Christ said, keep the commandments. He said, I have. Now what do
I do? And this is what Paul is saying.
Outwardly, I'm clean as a hound's tooth. This is my religion. But
when the Spirit of God, now watch this, when the Spirit of God
opened Paul's eyes, to his inward sin. All of this was outward. All of these deeds and feasts
and holy days and ceremonies and obedience and orthodoxy and
all these things were outward. There was something he was doing
and performing and engaging in. And God the Spirit revealed to
him that God doesn't look on the outward countenance. God
says, I'm weary with your prayers. You raise your hands in prayer,
I won't hear you. I'm weary with your vain oblations. I'm weary with your ceremonies.
I'm weary with your burning incense. I'm weary with your rituals.
Away with it! God looks on the heart. And while
Paul did no murder outwardly, The seed of hate was in his heart. You've got to hate somebody to
put them in prison. You've got to hate somebody to kill them.
The seed of lust was in his heart. The seed of envy was in his heart.
The seed of jealousy was in his heart. The roots were there.
The beginnings were there. The fountain was there. The source
was there. All of this on the outside was
a veneer, and on the inside he was full of extortion and excess
and selfishness, and worst of all, self-righteousness. Oh, he felt so good. Oh, when
the Holy Spirit showed him the sinfulness of his heart, when
the Holy Spirit showed him what God did require, not only outward
obedience but inward holiness, not only outward deeds of righteousness,
but inward thoughts of righteousness. When God the Holy Spirit showed
him the true way of redemption in Christ, he said, all of these
things that were gained to me and important to me and were
my life and religion, he said, I counted them loss. I wrote
them off. Flat loss. That's all they were. Total loss. I don't know how
old Paul was when God redeemed him and revealed Christ to him
and saved him. Some say he was over 40 years
of age. And all of this study at the feet of Gamaliel, all
of this intense religion and orthodoxy, All of this hour spent
in language and spent in theology and spent in the study of the
scriptures and spent in transcribing the scriptures and translating
the scriptures. All of this time spent in doing
just the right thing at the right time for the right purpose. All
of this engaging in orthodoxy and zeal and keeping the law
and forcing himself to walk a certain path. All of it, he said, for
40 years. When I met Christ, I counted
it but flat loss. Yeah, doubtless. I count all
things but loss. Everything. My heritage, my family,
my background, my learning, my education, my gifts, my talents,
I count all of them but loss. For the excellence of the knowledge
of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss
of all things." And watch it, he waxes eloquent and he gets
stronger and he says, I do count them, but dumb, that's rubbish,
that's garbage. Boy, I tell you, he counted them
of no value at all. Surely, preacher, surely, this
man gave his life for God. This man gave his time to God.
This man gave his influence to God. This man gave everything
he had to God. That's what he said. But actually, all of these things
are a disadvantage, because they kept Paul from seeing the beauty
of Christ. He was looking on the beauty
of religious deeds, and he couldn't see the beauty of Christ. It
kept him from Christ. All of these things kept him
from coming to Christ for mercy because he didn't think he needed
mercy. He said, I thought I was alive, but when the law came,
I died, and then I cried for mercy. All the way through, Matthew,
Mark, Luke, and John, You have the religious leaders, the religious
Pharisees, refusing Christ's gospel, refusing the message
of mercy, the gospel of grace. They refused it. But you have
the publicans and the harlots and the sinners. You have them
running after him, asking for mercy, reaching out to touch
him, begging for forgiveness, asking him to show them grace.
And you have Christ ministering to these people. and ignoring
these religious leaders because their works kept them from seeing
their need of his works. And their refuge kept them from
seeing their need of Christ as the refuge. And this is what
Paul is saying. These things that were gained
to me actually were lost. They kept me from seeing the
beauty of Christ. They kept me from crying to Christ
for mercy. They kept me from coming to Christ
for His grace. Your righteousness, your goodness,
is actually a hindrance and a stumbling block to you to keep you from
Christ. God doesn't save preachers, He
saves sinners. God doesn't save religious people,
He saves sinners. God doesn't save respectable
people, He saves sinners. God doesn't save self-righteous
people, He saves sinners. And I tell you, the difficulty
is not getting a lost person saved, that's easy. Christ said,
I came to seek and to save the lost. The difficulty is getting
a self-righteous person lost. There's the problem. If the Holy
Spirit ever strips a man and leaves him standing bare before
the holiness of God, he'll cry to be covered. If the Holy Spirit
ever slays a man and puts him in the grave, well, he'll look
to Christ for life. If the Holy Spirit ever knocks
our foundations out from under us and leaves us hanging by a
thread over the pit of God's eternal wrath and fire, we'll
cry to Christ for a foundation, for a place to put our feet. Now, when all confidence in the
flesh is gone, You can then set forth this fourth old request
that Paul set forth in the next verse. But you can't go any further
until you come to this place. And you've got to look back at
your experience. A dear lady said to me just this
afternoon, stayed after the service to talk. They may be here tonight.
I don't see them, but she wouldn't mind me saying this. But we were
talking, and she said, I know I've been saved. I was saved
at one time. Because she said, I felt the
Spirit of God. I know I was saved one time because
I served the Lord. I attended services every Sunday.
I know I was saved one time because I had an experience and felt
good about it. And I lived a good life. And
once you got through, I said, you know, I missed something
in there. You didn't mention Christ. You
didn't mention his blood. You didn't mention he died for
you. And what you just said is the same thing those people said
in Matthew 7. Lord, we know we're saved because
we preached in your name and we cast out devils and we did
many wonderful works. And he said, I never knew you.
Now a person that is redeemed is going to say this, I know
I'm saved because Christ died for me. And there is no other
reason. There isn't. And you needn't
go any further until you can say what Paul says right here.
I look back on my profession of faith, and my good feeling,
and my experience, and my service to the church, and my soul winning,
and my whatever it is. My Sunday school teaching, everything
I've ever given, thought, taught, or bought for God's kingdom are
served. I look on it as being total loss. I look on it as being garbage,
rubbish, of no value, that I may win Christ and be found in Him. Don't go any further until you
can say that. As long as you're sitting around thinking, God's
going to take me to heaven because ever since I've been a child,
I believed in Jesus. Well, you can't find me any child
in this nation that doesn't believe there's a Jesus. They've heard
it ever since they were a foot and a half high. You can't find
a person in this world that doesn't believe a little scripture and
belong to somebody's church or made some kind of profession.
They're all religious by nature. Our religion's got to go. Our
self-righteousness has got to go. Our so-called works of the
flesh have got to go. All the deeds of the law have
got to go. All the experiences and decisions and dedications
and rededications and all of the services that we've rendered
for God have got to go. And we've got to stand before
Him like Paul here, taking every one of them and casting them
aside and say, Lord, I count them but done. I'm like the thief
on the cross. I'm an outcast. I'm a guilty
sinner. That's all I am. I'm like the
woman with the issue of blood, I can find no health and I reach
out to touch the master. I'm like Peter walking on the
water and yet sinking and crying, Lord save me or I perish. Alright,
there's a fourfold request and I present it to you for your
consideration. He says in verse 8, Oh that I
may win Christ. What's that word win there? G-A-I-N,
gain Christ. That I may gain Christ. Now this
word, win, is gain, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him. No more, my God, I boast no more
of all the duties that I've done. I quit the hope I held before
to trust the merits of Thy Son. Yes, I must, I will esteem all
things but done for Christ's sake. Oh, may my soul be found
in Him and of his righteousness partake. That's it. That I may
gain Christ. Stripped, clothed in his righteousness. Empty, filled with his grace.
That I may have Christ. That's all I cling to. I can't
claim my righteousness and his. It's Christ alone. I can't stand
in my fig leaves and also in his holy robe. The fig leaves
have got to go. If I'm to be robed in his righteousness,
I can't plead my works and plead his. I can't plead my obedience and
plead his. So I turn loose of all these
fleshly claims. I turn loose of them. Brethren, I can say with the
Apostle Paul, I've been in the Church since I was nine years
old. I've served in every capacity
I guess you can serve in a Baptist church. I've been preaching for
30 some odd years, since 1944, making some kind of effort at
preaching. I've preached literally thousands and thousands of sermons.
I've been your pastor 27 years. But in my flesh dwelleth no good
thing. I have no hope whatsoever of
God accepting me, or looking upon me, or regarding me, or
receiving me, or redeeming me, except one hope, and that's Christ,
when he hung on that cross, shed his blood for my sin. And I count
anything that I've ever given, any gift or offering or service
or work, as far as redemption is concerned, as far as acceptance
with God is concerned, as far as God taking notice of it. Any
good thing we have, God gave us. It's not a product of the
flesh. You believe, faith's the gift
of God. You repent, repentance is the
gift of God. You can preach, that's the gift
of God. You can sing, that's the gift
of God. God gives us His gifts and then
rewards us for having them. The flesh produces nothing of
any righteous or holy or spiritual value. It's all of God. So I
turn loose of all these things and I want to be found. He said,
I want to gain Christ and be found in him. Back yonder when
the Father made him the surety of the elect, I want to be in
him. Back yonder when He came to this earth as the incarnate
Son of God, as the representative of His people, I want to be in
Him. Yonder when He walked the shores of the Galilee and the
streets of Jerusalem and Jericho and when He perfectly obeyed
God's law as a man in the flesh, I want to be in Him. When He
went yonder mocked and humiliated and spit upon and nailed to the
cross and died under guilt and under the wrath of God, I want
to be in Him. when he was buried and rose again
as our justifier and ascended to the right hand of God and
sat down, I want to be in him. And when he comes again, I want
to be in him. I want to be in Christ. I want
to be found in Christ. I don't have any righteousness
and you don't either. Turn to Isaiah 64. Let me show
you something. You ought to mark this in your
Bible and underscore it and go back and read it every once in
a while. Isaiah 64, verse 6. I want you to look at this. Isaiah
64, verse 6. But we are all as an unclean
thing and all our righteousness is. That's the best thing about
you. are as filthy rags, and we all
do fade as the leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have
driven us away. That's a description of religious
flesh. In the flesh dwelleth no good
thing, in the flesh no man can please God. Brethren, God does
not look upon you and regard you and accept you and pat you
on the back and take you into his bosom, God looks upon Christ,
your substitute, and you in him. Now don't you ever forget that. Outside of Christ, God'd have
to send you to hell. God could not look upon you because
God can't look on sin. And God couldn't walk with you
because God can't walk with sin. Isn't that right? God cannot
deal with you. The eternal holy Elohim, the
eternal God of glory cannot speak to nor be spoken to by a creature
of sin except through a mediator. Now we better find out who he
is. And we better find out, that's what Paul said, I want to be
found in Christ. Not in the right church or the
right baptism or the right doctrine or the right obedience to the
law or the right or anything else. I just want to be found
in Christ because in Christ we're justified, in Christ we're redeemed,
in Christ we're accepted, accepted in the Beloved. His second request is down in
verse 10, that I may know him, that I may know him. Now this
is not the desire of an unconverted man. This is the desire of a
redeemed man. I know his deity. I know he's
God. I know he's God. Do you know
he's God? I know he's God. I know Christ Jesus is God Almighty. I'm just sure I know that. I
know his doctrine. His doctrine is the doctrine
of grace, mercy, love, substitution. I know I know that. I know Paul
knew that. He'd been teaching it. He'd been
preaching it. I know sturdily his example,
and I love it. His example was love, forgive,
mercy, grace, kindness. That's his example. Compassion.
And I love it. I know that. I know his commandments,
and I respect them. I love thy law, David said. I
know his sacrifice, and I trust it. I've read about him and heard
about him, and I know these things. I'm persuaded of these things.
I know that in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. I know that in
Christ dwelleth all things. I know that, but I want to know
Him. I want to know Him. I cannot
know Christ with another person's brain. I cannot love Christ with
another person's heart. I cannot see Christ with another
person's eyes. I cannot hear Christ with another
person's ears. I want to know Him. That's what
Paul's saying. I want to walk with Him. I want
Him to dwell in my heart. Grant, O Lord, that Christ may
be revealed to me, that Christ may come and take up His abode
in me, that Christ may dwell in me, that the power that raised
Him from the dead, His power, might raise me from the dead
pit of depression, despondency, darkness, death, sin, raise me
to walk as Christ walked after his resurrection free. That's
what he's talking about, that I may know him, that I may walk
with him, that I may be so personally influenced by Christ that he
brings to me the joy and the faith and the confidence of a
Son of God, that He reproduces in me, in my actual life, in
my fleshly journey, that Christ reproduces in me the life of
Christ, that He continually transforms me into His image. When our Lord arose from the
grave, and walked this earth, the full penalty was paid. He
had no sin on him. Our sins were not there anymore.
And he walked in such a manner as being totally having the burden
all gone. All gone. Free from the law.
Free from its condemnation. Free. That's the way I want to
walk. When our Lord rose from the grave,
He said, Righteousness is yours. A perfect righteousness is worked
out. He's finished it. Let's wear
it. When He arose, it said full acceptance. When God the Father
raised Him from the dead, it meant full acceptance. We are
accepted in Him. He arose from the grave to die
no more. He did not fear death because
He couldn't die. He'd already died, so He couldn't
die. Well, you and I are not to fear death because in Christ
we can't die. Or we may lie there and sleep
someday, but not die. We may be put in the grave, but
not in hell. When he arose from the grave,
he kept saying to his disciples, Peace I give unto you. My peace
I give unto you. That's the resurrected life.
It's the life of confidence. It's the life of righteousness.
It's the life of acceptance. It's the life of assurance. It's
the life of rest. It's the life of peace. And the
more I know Him, the more I'll enjoy and live and walk in the
power and blessings of this resurrected life. The more I know Christ,
the more confidence I have in Him. The less confidence I have
in me and the more I have in Him. I told this dear lady today
that was so troubled, so depressed, so despondent, I said, when you
are tempted to look into your own heart, And to find there
these things that cause you so much fear and anxiety and guilt,
look away. Look to Calvary and say, Christ
died for my sins. Christ suffered for my transgressions.
God accepts me in the beloved. I say that to you. When you're
reading the Word of God and you see these scriptures that cause
you to be depressed and cause you to feel fear and guilt, and
cause you to feel your evil heart. Don't let this judgment and this
condemnation take you down unless you're resting in your righteousness.
Now, if you're resting in your righteousness, that's what it'll
do to you. If you're resting in yourself, you have to say,
well, I hadn't done it. I haven't kept it. I haven't lived up to
it. I'm doomed. I'm damned. I'm condemned. I'm
cast out. I'm lost. That's right, too.
But, oh, if Christ died for you, if Christ intercedes for you,
if Christ is your high priest, if Christ offers his blood and
righteousness, you can say, Satan, be gone. You can say, Law, be
gone. You can say, accuser, adversary,
be gone. My Lord already paid my debt.
He's already satisfied the law. He's already fulfilled God's
righteousness. He's already satisfied God's
justice. I'm accepted in the beloved.
And if you've got any argument, you take it up with him and not
with me. I don't do business with Satan.
I do business with the Lord. I'm his child. I'm his servant.
I'm his son. Satan can lay no charge to God's
elect. He can lay no condemnation. In
Christ, there is no condemnation. Isn't that what he said? The
blood of Christ, God's Son, cleanseth us, not from some sin, not from
most sins, but from how many? All sins. In Christ, I'm holy,
unblameable, unreprovable, perfect in the sight of God. Why? Because
of who I am and what I've done? No sir, Paul said that's dumb,
that's garbage, that's rubbish, that's of no value. It's what
Christ is and what He's done. Now if you want to go on in your
righteousness and in your fear and guilt and despondency and
resting in your self-righteousness and experience and keep trying
to prove to God that you're better than He thinks you are, you go
right on. You're welcome to that prison of the damned. I want
no part of it. I want the liberty of the sons
of God. I want the sunlight of his presence. I want the assurance of his promise.
I want the confidence of his blood. I want the rest that comes
from ceasing from my own labors and entering into his rest. And
brother, I claim it. I claim it. How about you? I
go out of here singing. Singing I go along my way. Christ has lifted my load. He
said, come unto me all you that labor in the heavy laden. Come
to me and see if you can win rest. No, you come unto me and
I'll give you rest. You come to my Lord and see if
you can keep it and I'll accept you. No such. He said, come to
me and I'll give you rest. All right, the third request,
and I've got to quit. Paul said, verse 11, "...if by
any means I might attain to the resurrection of the dead." Boy,
I want to be there, don't you? "...when the world is called
up yonder." I don't know much about that song. When the world
is called up yonder, I will be there, but I sure hope to be
there, don't you? I sure hope to be. I'm telling
you, that's what Paul is saying here. I want to attain. I want to gain Christ. I want
to know Christ. I want to attain to the resurrection. I want this old, filthy, sinful,
wicked, weak, wretched body to be put into the grave. And I
want God someday to raise me in His likeness and transform
my body just into the likeness of His Holy One. I'll be satisfied,
David said, when I wake with His likeness. And then the fourth
request quickly, verse 12. Not as though I'd already attained,
I'm not already there yet. I'm still bent, bowed down, and
broken over. But I'm going to be. He said,
I follow after, if that I might lay hold, that I might actually
experience, that I might actually lay hold upon that for which
I have been laid hold of Christ. Now God Almighty, back in eternity
past, determined to save a people. And he gave them to Christ. And
Christ came down here and died for them. And Christ purchased
for them and bought for them, by his blood, a perfect righteousness
and a resurrected life and a second resurrection from the tomb and
a perfect home and glory. He said, I go to prepare a place
for you. So my friends, my object and
desire and goal is to lay hold actually by experience and in
reality. I want to lay hold upon that
for which I've been laid hold of Christ. I want in my possession
what he bought for me. I can't earn it. It's a gift. I can't merit it. It's a gift. I can't do anything in this world
to gain it because in that way I'd get some of the glory. But
the glory's all got to go to him. So here's the only way I'm
going to get it. In my hands, no price I bring.
Simply to the cross of Christ I cling. Look to Christ. You
say, but it's so simple. Well, if it's so simple, why
haven't you done it? It's profound. It has to be revealed. And men won't turn loose of their
righteousness. That's your problem. See, you
can't lay hold on Christ while you're holding these other things.
You still want to go back and prove you're saved because you
believed on Jesus when you were a little boy. You still want
to go back and prove you're saved because you hadn't been as bad
as the fellow next door. And you want to prove you're
saved because you've been a pretty good little girl. God doesn't
save good little girls. He saves sinners. You're still
trying to prove you're saved because you've been in church
and read your Bible and prayed and felt good. Now you're going
to have to turn loose of that and lay hold on Christ. You're
going to have to let it go. You're like that monkey that
stuck his hand in the cookie jar and wouldn't turn it loose,
so they caught him. And you've got your hand down there holding
on to these things. Paul said, I count them but dumb. I throw them down. They're filthy
garbage. And I wipe my hands of all of
it, my sprinkling and baptism and orthodoxy and phariseeism
and self-righteousness. I wipe my hands of all of it.
And I say, Lord, let me lay hold on you. Let me lay hold on Christ. And I embrace him with empty hands. You better
come that way. That's the scriptural way. That's
the reason our Lord said this terrible thing to the Pharisees,
the religious people. Oh, they were so good. And he
said, the publicans and the harlots enter heaven before you, and
you're going to find them in heaven rejoicing in yourselves
cast out, because they wouldn't turn loose. They held on to their
righteousness and wouldn't lay hold on His. I turn loose if
I was you, because these things won't do anything in the world
but keep you from seeing Christ and embracing Christ and keep
you from God. And when you get to glory, you'll
find that God will call them works of iniquity. Works of iniquity. But we believe with all our hearts
this is the gospel, the gospel of free grace, the gospel of
thy glory, the gospel of Christ's perfect work and sacrifice. Lord,
empty our hands and empty our hearts and empty our minds of
all these things that prove to be nothing but stumbling blocks,
hindrances, not helps at all. And let us look to Christ, rest
in Him, believe on Him. Sink or swim, I go to Him. Find
in Him our perfect righteousness. Lord, do a work of grace for
us. Don't leave us to ourselves. The way that seems right to us
is a way of death and destruction. Bring us to him who is the way
of life. For Christ's sake, for Christ's
glory, for our good. Amen.

No Confidence In the Flesh

Sermon Transcript

About Henry Mahan

Comments

Joshua

Articles

Featured Authors

Podcast

Sermons

Featured Preachers

Books

Browse by Format

Music

Recent Comments

About

Legal

Subscribe

Account

Articles

Featured Authors

Podcast

Recent Comments

Sermons

Featured Preachers

Books

Browse by Format

Collections

Music

About

Legal

Subscribe

No Confidence In the Flesh

Sermon Transcript

About Henry Mahan

Comments

More from Henry Mahan

Related Sermons

Same Scripture

Articles by Henry Mahan

Books by Henry Mahan

Joshua

Where this book stands in the tradition

Plato

Augustine

The Western Christian Tradition

This Book