SPEAKER_00: Sermon scripture reading this morning comes from uh Philippians chapter three, verses one through eleven.
SPEAKER_00: Philippians three, one through eleven, and you can follow along in your bulletin as we read, or in your Bible in one of your cheers.
SPEAKER_00: We hear now the reading of God's holy word.
SPEAKER_00: Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: To write the same things to you is no trouble to me and is safe for you.
SPEAKER_00: Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: For we are the circumcision who worship by the Spirit of God, and glory in Christ Jesus, and put no confidence in the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: Though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also.
SPEAKER_00: If anyone thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more.
SPEAKER_00: Circumcised on the eighth day, the people of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews, as to the law, a Pharisee, as to zeal, a persecutor of the church, as to righteousness under the law, blameless.
SPEAKER_00: But whatever gain I had I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Indeed I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.
SPEAKER_00: For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
SPEAKER_00: Let us pray.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we ask and we pray that you would strengthen us, that you would give us the sweetness of such glory, so that it would impact our joy and we would be a joyful people.
SPEAKER_00: So Lord, we ask and we pray these things in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: So I wonder if you've ever lost something only to find that in losing it you actually gained something more.
SPEAKER_00: For example, I lost my uh my wallet.
SPEAKER_00: And during the hunt, I gained some coins, some gum, and the benefit of a clean car.
SPEAKER_00: What was initially loss turned out for gain.
SPEAKER_00: Another time I lost my keys and uh I began to hunt for where they were, and and I found these old photos that were the impetus to reigniting some relationships with old friends that distance had allowed to go silent.
SPEAKER_00: In the loss, I was led to experience gain.
SPEAKER_00: But far more important is this perspective we hold in our life in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: I want us to see this morning through this letter and a passage in Philippians is that when it comes to our life as followers of Christ, a mature faith is led to count even loss as gain compared with the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus our Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And so in this passage that we just read, Paul here is writing to uh the believers in Philippi.
SPEAKER_00: He is and he is he's writing to them because they've been key partners in his ministry, and uh and they've sought to uh advance the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: They've sought to come alongside him in this advance, and he's concerned that they continue to press on.
SPEAKER_00: They were all, by all accounts, a joyful people.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, one of the key themes in this letter is over and over the use of the emphasis on joy.
SPEAKER_00: Uh the word joy or rejoice uh takes place uh sixteen times throughout the letter.
SPEAKER_00: And in their joy, they had given kindly to Paul and wanted to contribute toward his needs, even though he was in prison.
SPEAKER_00: These were beloved brothers and sisters.
SPEAKER_00: But they were also people who had experienced themselves severe affliction and difficulty.
SPEAKER_00: And as one of the churches in Macedonia, we know that they had given to uh a collection that uh Paul had taken up to be given to those who had were facing persecution in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: And so that actually begged Paul when he was taking up this collection for the ability to participate in this initiative, to help in relieving the burdens of these brothers and sisters in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: They had given out of their own very limited means, and some of them even beyond their means for this cause.
SPEAKER_00: And so this church, even though they're afflicted themselves, even though they faced impoverished circumstances, because of the abundance of joy, and because of the great grace that was upon them, through the empowering of the Holy Spirit, they gave willingly.
SPEAKER_00: First, giving themselves to the Lord, and then discerning that this was something that he was in, they then gave to this relief effort.
SPEAKER_00: And so there was this great joy in the Lord that they possessed, even in the midst of loss.
SPEAKER_00: And so, in all of this, the apostle Paul is writing to them to say, don't allow anyone to rob you of this joy that you possess.
SPEAKER_00: Continue to go on rejoicing in the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Because there are people around who want to rob you of that joy.
SPEAKER_00: And so, being the shepherd that Paul is, he warns them that there are these Judaizers who were promoting a different message than the one that he had proclaimed to them and shared with them, and was the source and fuel to their joy.
SPEAKER_00: When I was in high school, we had an award, it was called the Duke of Edinburgh Award, and there were certain things that you had to fulfill in order to get this award, and one of them was uh taking a collection up for charity.
SPEAKER_00: And as we went from house to house uh asking if people wanted to give to this, um, I was I was glad for the signs that said beware of the dog.
SPEAKER_00: Because those were the houses we weren't going to collect at.
SPEAKER_00: We we just avoided those places altogether.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm sure if you've ever had a paper route or something like that or had to deliver something at someone's house, you were glad for that sign also.
SPEAKER_00: The point is that a warning is there to bring heightened clarity where the potential for danger lurks.
SPEAKER_00: And so Paul goes on to describe these people because of this warning.
SPEAKER_00: And what's interesting here is that in describing these people, he doesn't stop writing only to then get out a sketchpad and try to try to sketch a portrait of these people and their physical features.
SPEAKER_00: We notice that he describes them in terms of their worship.
SPEAKER_00: And that's important.
SPEAKER_00: Why so?
SPEAKER_00: Well, because what we believe will come out in the way that we worship.
SPEAKER_00: It will come out in the way that we relate to and serve God.
SPEAKER_00: These were people who believed that to be perfected, you needed to add something to faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: They were saying that to be in the favor of God, you also needed to observe the legal requirement of circumcision.
SPEAKER_00: And in this case, it was therefore Christ plus circumcision.
SPEAKER_00: Only then were you truly under his covenant like the Jews.
SPEAKER_00: Now, on one hand, there is some appeal to that.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, circumcision was the sign given to God's people in order to set them apart from the other nations.
SPEAKER_00: But even nature reminds us that some of the most beautiful, some of the most appealing things to our senses can often be the most deadly.
SPEAKER_00: I was reading this week of these beautiful plants with names like uh lily of the valley, uh sago palm, and golden dewdrop.
SPEAKER_00: And what you notice about these plants is they're appealing, they're very beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: But the truth is they hide behind the allure, this hidden danger of being highly toxic.
SPEAKER_00: And like these plants, even though this teaching had a potential appeal to it, it was toxic.
SPEAKER_00: Because it undermined the gospel by placing a subtle shift back on an emphasis on the flesh and away from the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Now, Paul in his letter to the Romans is he's clear about this.
SPEAKER_00: He's clear what it means to be a Jew.
SPEAKER_00: He writes this He says, No one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical.
SPEAKER_00: But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter.
SPEAKER_00: His praise is not from man, but from God.
SPEAKER_00: And so notice the emphasis here.
SPEAKER_00: The emphasis is that true can true circumcision, what it means to truly be a Jew, is something related to the work of the Spirit that takes place in one's heart inwardly and not merely something external.
SPEAKER_00: And so his point is those Jews who were promoting this teaching were more acting like Gentiles.
SPEAKER_00: And that even though these believers were Gentiles, they were actually the true circumcision.
SPEAKER_00: You see, the truth is that whether it be the medium of false teaching or otherwise, what's true is that the flesh is always trying to assert itself.
SPEAKER_00: It has its own set of desires and loves, and it's often try found trying to take center stage.
SPEAKER_00: You know, selfish ambition, self-indulgence, my interests, my glory, my righteousness, all of these things are of the flesh, and the flesh wants to put these things forward.
SPEAKER_00: But you see, when we come to know Jesus and the Holy Spirit comes to indwell us, like what often happens beneath the surface of the earth, a fault line emerges within us.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit's presence brings with it, with him, a resistance to the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: And this resistance, you see, is part of the Spirit's conviction to work within us, to draw us away from the flesh and the flesh's desires and loves, and leads us to glory in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: His loves, his desires.
SPEAKER_00: That's a sign that you perceive the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: It's the floodlight ministry of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: There is a new power at work within us to bring us to glory in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And none of that, you see, gives us reason to have confidence in the flesh or in our own performance.
SPEAKER_00: Because it's all of grace.
SPEAKER_00: That's the vital distinction that needs to be made here when Paul talks about us, the way in which he worships, and the Philippians were worshiping, and the worship of those who were promoting this confidence in the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: The flesh, you see, can't do any of that.
SPEAKER_00: And so Paul masterfully sets out to topple this false teaching from his own experience and conversion.
SPEAKER_00: He's like, all right, if I were to indulge the flesh, like they do, I would have things to put confidence in also.
SPEAKER_00: If someone wants to play that game, I have more reason to play that game.
SPEAKER_00: And he gets out as accounting pad, as it were, and it's like he has one column that says loss and another one that says gain.
SPEAKER_00: Two columns.
SPEAKER_00: And he begins by listing off these various things.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Have I mentioned my flawless pedigree?
SPEAKER_00: Have I mentioned my accomplishments under the law?
SPEAKER_00: I'm glad you asked, let me tell you of them.
SPEAKER_00: For starters, he says, I'm a Jew.
SPEAKER_00: No one can question my lineage as one of the people of God.
SPEAKER_00: I was circumcised on the eighth day, which was what the law stipulated.
SPEAKER_00: Done.
SPEAKER_00: Check.
SPEAKER_00: I'm from the tribe of Benjamin, check.
SPEAKER_00: I'm as Jewish as they come.
SPEAKER_00: I have a flawless pedigree.
SPEAKER_00: You want to talk about externals?
SPEAKER_00: I was one who belonged to the covenant people of God.
SPEAKER_00: And not only that, he says I had a good I have a good resume.
SPEAKER_00: Let's begin with the fact that I belonged to the upper ishkelong of lawkeepers, the Pharisees.
SPEAKER_00: Not only that, my zeal was such that I was trained in one of the most strict of schools, so that I wasn't merely a keeper of the law, but I'd progressed so far above everyone else that I was an enforcer of the law.
SPEAKER_00: I was meticulous, blameless.
SPEAKER_00: And we get a little more insight into the reinforcement of this confidence when we consider that Paul got rewarded for his efforts in seeking to establish his own righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: He was rewarded with a sense of belonging.
SPEAKER_00: He was rewarded with promotion.
SPEAKER_00: He was rewarded for his moral superiority.
SPEAKER_00: Who doesn't feel good about putting everyone else in their place and not being under the microscope of anyone else?
SPEAKER_00: In his mind, all of this was gain.
SPEAKER_00: And I think when we stop to consider this a little further, we see why confidence in our own righteousness has a certain appeal to it.
SPEAKER_00: There's a sense in which seeking to establish our own righteousness can be rewarding.
SPEAKER_00: If you have a strong will and you have a moral compass, it can yield you many benefits.
SPEAKER_00: It can be rewarded with job promotion.
SPEAKER_00: It can be rewarded with career opportunities.
SPEAKER_00: It can be rewarded with a sense of honor.
SPEAKER_00: It can be rewarded with respectability, a better paycheck.
SPEAKER_00: All of this can bring about and reinforce the idea that the pursuit of establishing one's own righteousness is gain.
SPEAKER_00: That we are doing the right thing and that God is rewarding us for it.
SPEAKER_00: And yet I think we begin to see beneath all of this and get a little small glimpse into the heart of Saul of Tarsus when we see this violent streak that was underneath all of this pursuit for his own righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: And how that began to take shape in his life.
SPEAKER_00: For example, in Acts, right, we read of this his teacher Gamaliel.
SPEAKER_00: And at this time, Gamaliel, his teacher, is surrounded with other rulers, and they're trying to figure out what to do with the apostles who are teaching in Jesus' name and causing quite the stir.
SPEAKER_00: And Gamaliel speaks up at this point in time and he advises against using violence.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Man, if this is of God, this will succeed.
SPEAKER_00: However, if it's of man, it won't succeed.
SPEAKER_00: It will actually come to be short-lived because we've seen this play out before.
SPEAKER_00: But you see, we need to be careful that we're not found to be opposing God.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that was Paul's teacher's advice.
SPEAKER_00: And the someone who was from the strict form of Judaism.
SPEAKER_00: But Saul's approach was different.
SPEAKER_00: Saul's was a hostile one.
SPEAKER_00: And I think it gives us a little bit of a window into some of the anger that just lay under the surface.
SPEAKER_00: You see, that's the often the sign of a self-righteous heart.
SPEAKER_00: There's usually sustained anger right under the surface, driven by the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: The focus, you see, is what I'm doing, how hard I'm trying.
SPEAKER_00: These things are focused on self.
SPEAKER_00: And so all of this was playing out.
SPEAKER_00: And Stephen begins to testify to Jesus being Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And as they begin to express their fury at what Stephen is saying, at that moment Stephen is led to see the glory of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And the clouds were parted, and he's able to see Christ at the right hand of God the Father, and he begins to testify to what the Holy Spirit is showing him.
SPEAKER_00: And this just enrages them even further.
SPEAKER_00: And so they come at him and they grab him and they drag him out and they begin to stone him.
SPEAKER_00: And yet we remember that while Stephen was on his knees being stoned, in that moment, in the face of great hostility and loss, Stephen cries out with a loud voice and he says, Lord, do not hold this sin against them.
SPEAKER_00: And we can perhaps read between the lines here and wonder if Paul didn't at some point see himself as an answer to that prayer of Stephen, who loved even his enemy.
SPEAKER_00: So that even Jesus revealed himself to him on the Damascus Road, he was immediately led to see that he had been dreadfully wrong.
SPEAKER_00: That even in all his striving, even in all his zeal, even with his Jewish pedigree, all of this was in fact loss.
SPEAKER_00: And Stephen possessed something that he didn't, and it was to his gain.
SPEAKER_00: And I wonder if that's been true of your experience.
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps it has, where you didn't know Jesus, but you knew someone who did.
SPEAKER_00: And their testimony was a life that gave you the sense that they possessed something that you didn't, something you lacked.
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord used that in awakening you to your true need.
SPEAKER_00: And you see, it's for that reason that Paul, right at this moment, having built up reasons for confidence in the flesh, flips the script.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, Yes, although I had these reasons to put confidence in the flesh, they were all loss.
SPEAKER_00: And so you so listen to his great reversal here.
SPEAKER_00: You see this halting but he says, but, but whatever gain I had, that is, in my upbringing and my achievements, I counted it as loss for the sake of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, when Jesus came to meet him on the Damascus road, it changed everything for him.
SPEAKER_00: Because in that moment he came to see that when Jesus said to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?
SPEAKER_00: He was doing so because Jesus had fixed his heart upon him.
SPEAKER_00: That despite his every sin, despite his every fall, his every evil, his persecuting even of the church, that Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Came to him and opened up to him a way, a new way that was opened to him through his aturing love.
SPEAKER_00: And so he says, he says, even though I had this pedigree, even though I had these accomplishments, at that moment I knew, I knew these things to be lost in comparison to the surpassing worth of knowing Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And the truth is that like Saul, you realize that the when you realize the antidote to being bad is not just being good, you're on the brink of this new life.
SPEAKER_00: When you realize the antidote to being bad is not just being good, you're on the brink of this new life.
SPEAKER_00: What do I mean?
SPEAKER_00: What I mean is this, that the person who tries to remedy their being bad with new resolve that they're going to try better next time is still caught in this trap of works righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: The only difference is that they've added a temporary feeling to feeling a little bit more zealous for a period of time.
SPEAKER_00: But even that waxes cold.
SPEAKER_00: In the end, you see, it's just another form of self-salvation.
SPEAKER_00: One that tries a little harder.
SPEAKER_00: And at the root, you're still attempting to gain acceptance with God by your own works.
SPEAKER_00: But you see, this new life comes in when you realize that any attempt and every attempt to make yourself acceptable to God is rubbish.
SPEAKER_00: The Apostle Paul uses this term, he says it's dung.
SPEAKER_00: It's loss, loss, loss.
SPEAKER_00: Gain, you see, is only found when the heart humbly turns away from looking to sin and self, the flesh altogether, and we embrace a righteousness found entirely outside of ourselves in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And then we fly to him.
SPEAKER_00: And we rest in that perfect righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: And we sleep like a baby.
SPEAKER_00: We have that peace with God.
SPEAKER_00: John Stott speaking to the glory of Christ and his work on the cross, I think just says it so well.
SPEAKER_00: The essence of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man.
SPEAKER_00: Man asserts himself against God and puts himself where only God deserves to be.
SPEAKER_00: God sacrifices himself for man and puts himself where only man deserves to be.
SPEAKER_00: That you bring judgment day forward to today.
SPEAKER_00: And you know that in receiving his righteousness and looking away from your own, you can be made right with God and walk out of here a different person.
SPEAKER_00: That's the power of Christ's righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: A righteousness that he offers to you and me before it's too late.
SPEAKER_00: And so this new righteousness comes with joy.
SPEAKER_00: Because I can say with confidence, what I could never do, Jesus Christ has done on my behalf.
SPEAKER_00: I am a great sinner, I admit that.
SPEAKER_00: But I have gained a perfect righteousness in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: That's the heart of the gospel and the fountain of joy.
SPEAKER_00: Have you come yet to live in this righteousness and knowledge of God's complete acceptance of you?
SPEAKER_00: As long as you're, see, as long as you're just moral, you'll never be happy and know this joy of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: It's something you're never going to really experience.
SPEAKER_00: Because when we receive the righteousness of Christ, righteousness now takes on a new shape and form.
SPEAKER_00: It's no longer there to condemn you, but to grow you.
SPEAKER_00: That Christ was willing to impute his righteousness to your account and take upon himself your unrighteousness, upon himself on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: But you see, there's more to it than what Paul's saying, because he's saying it's not only an imputed righteousness, it's also an imparted righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: It's a righteousness that's not only found in Christ, but it's found through our continued walk with Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You see, these believers that already received this righteousness, they were already in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: They were already believers.
SPEAKER_00: So what he says next speaks not only to his conversion, but to his whole outlook on life.
SPEAKER_00: You'll note the shift from the past tense to the present tense.
SPEAKER_00: He says, indeed, I count, that is present tense, I count everything now as loss compared to the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Now that is an amazing statement.
SPEAKER_00: Not merely in his past life, but he counts everything as loss, even in the present.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, what sustains Paul in suffering the loss of all things, staying in prison, lost everything in many respects, is the confidence that by turning his back toward even the precious things in this world, he is gaining something more.
SPEAKER_00: Something more precious, and that is Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You see, putting our confidence in that same righteousness by faith and drawing upon this resurrection power allows us even in this life to count all of our losses as gain.
SPEAKER_00: Let me give one example of that in Job.
SPEAKER_00: Job says to God, I had heard of you.
SPEAKER_00: This is after all of his suffering that he experiences.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eyes see you.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_00: You remember Job had been a godly person.
SPEAKER_00: He had been someone who sought to live with an upright heart before God.
SPEAKER_00: He was someone who had lived a righteous life in that sense before God.
SPEAKER_00: And then he experienced this great and heavy loss.
SPEAKER_00: Great pain.
SPEAKER_00: Hard loss.
SPEAKER_00: But notice that the difference between his form of prosperity and what he came to know through adversity and suffering and affliction was the difference between hearing and seeing.
SPEAKER_00: We might say he gained an experiential knowledge of God that deepened his walk with him.
SPEAKER_00: It's the kind of knowledge that can lead one to say, yes, the loss was hard.
SPEAKER_00: But having come through it, I wouldn't trade it for the world.
SPEAKER_00: I counted, in fact, as gain because it brought with it a deeper knowledge of God that surpassed any loss.
SPEAKER_00: It's the kind of knowledge that says if love demands that I give up time, if love demands that I give up wealth, if love demands that I give up relationships, status, promotion, lands, then even in the loss of these things, I can count it as gain compared to the surpassing worth of Christ Jesus my Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And the truth is that this may be a process.
SPEAKER_00: It's not always an instantaneous understanding or counting, as it were.
SPEAKER_00: And in no way is this meant to trivialize grief, which is often also a process.
SPEAKER_00: But just as the fruit on a tree eventually ripens, even though it goes through harsh seasons, so also maturity is able to look beyond the harsh circumstance or season that we might face, only to see that it has brought with it the ripening of one's faith and gained a more precious esteem of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And so, in that sense, it says, I wouldn't have it any other way.
SPEAKER_00: How often have we been led to give up something only for the Holy Spirit to give us more of Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: How often have we lost time that we thought was ours and he has filled it and made our walk with him all the more sweet?
SPEAKER_00: How often have we been willing to lose our own ambition?
SPEAKER_00: Only to find a greater gift and finding sweet solace in his plans and purposes.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, to have more of Christ is gain, gain, gain.
SPEAKER_00: A righteousness found in him and given to us through him that will never fade, never perish.
SPEAKER_00: Stable, certain, steadfast.
SPEAKER_00: All working toward our glorious inheritance when he comes again.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, may we press on to make it our own, Christ Jesus having made us his own.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Let us pray.
SPEAKER_00: Gracious and merciful Father, we we praise you, we thank you.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for the gift of your spirit that has indeed and continues to fight for us against the assertion of the flesh and enables us to glory in Jesus Christ a much more precious, surpassing worth than anything else.
SPEAKER_00: Oh Lord, we ask and we pray that you would continue to strengthen us.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, none of us we would acknowledge has come to a place of perfection by this in any regard.
SPEAKER_00: But Lord, we do ask and we pray that you continue to enable us as we press on to grow in our apprehension, to grow in our understanding of this knowledge that you would give us, the precious worth of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Oh Lord, may we be led to many more glorious sightings of Jesus Christ, in whom we are found and in whom we rejoice.
SPEAKER_00: For all these things we give you thanks in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.