SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining us for a sermon from Sojourn North.
SPEAKER_00: As I was thinking this week about Philippians, I I I've always loved the book of Philippians, but it's interesting how your love and and um can grow and how you can share something more the older you get.
SPEAKER_00: And I find myself just falling back in love with the book of Philippians.
SPEAKER_00: And this week I was thinking about our resume because Paul, in this passage, he talks a little bit about his resume.
SPEAKER_00: But I thought when we meet people that we we haven't met before and we start talking to them, a lot of times we go into a resume type uh conversation about what we do, what we've done, what we're passionate about, the hobbies.
SPEAKER_00: Uh you might go back to your high school days and say, man, in the ninth grade, I scored 12 points in a JV game.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that awesome?
SPEAKER_00: But as you talk about what is important to you in these conversations, these resumes that we have, we all have them, internally and externally, it does point to something.
SPEAKER_00: It shows what we value.
SPEAKER_00: It shows what we're passionate about, what we love.
SPEAKER_00: And I think it's even interesting.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes when we're talking to people, we can be proud of who we know or who we used to know.
SPEAKER_00: I know playing a lot of music in the past, I knew some obscure artists in Nashville that had some songs on television shows on the WB network.
SPEAKER_00: It was like, yeah, I know this guy, and he's he's got this one song on this uh Three Hill Country TV show that no one's ever heard of.
SPEAKER_00: But it was just like I had pride in it.
SPEAKER_00: It was like, I know someone who had knows that has done something.
SPEAKER_00: Well, as we think about our resumes, uh we can look at the Apostle Paul, and he had one of the most amazing ancient resumes in those days and times.
SPEAKER_00: And what's interesting as he starts talking about it, he doesn't want to add to his resume.
SPEAKER_00: He actually takes his resume and he tears it up.
SPEAKER_00: Not because his resume is bad, but because he had found someone who is so far superior to his resume.
SPEAKER_00: And in that someone, he found his identity, he found who he knew, he found his dignity and worth, and he found his passion for life.
SPEAKER_00: And it changed everything.
SPEAKER_00: A resume is bad?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: Accomplishment's good, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: But if we place all of our confidence on those things, it is going to lead us down a path that isn't good.
SPEAKER_00: So in Philippians 3, after he tears up his resume, he talks about what is better.
SPEAKER_00: And so with that in mind, I invite you to stand, if you wish, for the reading of God's word.
SPEAKER_00: We're looking at Philippians 3, verses 1 through 11.
SPEAKER_00: And I'd invite you to listen to the comparisons he makes as well in this passage.
SPEAKER_00: So Paul writes this in addition, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: To write to you again about this is no trouble for me and is a safeguard for you.
SPEAKER_00: Watch out for the dogs, watch out for the evil workers, watch out for those who mutilate the flesh, for we are the circumcision, the ones who worship by the Spirit of God, boast in Christ Jesus, and do not put confidence in the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: Although I have reasons for confidence in the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: If anyone else thinks he has grounds for confidence in the flesh, I have more.
SPEAKER_00: Circumcise the eighth day, of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews, regarding the law, a Pharisee, regarding zeal, persecuting the church, regarding the righteousness that is in the law, blameless.
SPEAKER_00: But everything that was gained to me, I have considered to be a loss because of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: More than that, I also consider everything to be a loss in the view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Because of him I have suffered the loss of all things, and consider them as dung, so that I may gain Christ, and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own from the law, but one that is through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith.
SPEAKER_00: My goal is to know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death, assuming that I will somehow reach the resurrection from among the dead.
SPEAKER_00: This is the word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: You may be seated.
SPEAKER_00: As we've been going through Philippians, we've been doing a little summary at the beginning as well, and I want to summarize it a little bit differently than we have, because there's many ways and angles you can look at it.
SPEAKER_00: But in chapter one, we see that Christ is at the center of circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: The circumstances can be up, they can be down, but Christ as the center, he is the anchor in the midst of all of those.
SPEAKER_00: In chapter two, that Christ is the center of relationships between us, between us and God, and that have this mind in you, the same mind of Christ, who humbled himself as a servant, and that this is the foundation of our relationships.
SPEAKER_00: And in chapter three, we're seeing Christ is the center of our identity, of everything we are.
SPEAKER_00: And so that leads us to our outline today that's in your bulletin.
SPEAKER_00: And the first point is to beware of every false confidence.
SPEAKER_00: And as we talk about this today, I want us to think about this.
SPEAKER_00: What is our confidence?
SPEAKER_00: What are we putting our ultimate confidence in within life?
SPEAKER_00: And just as, and we'll talk a little bit about Galatians in a few moments too, but what are we putting our confidence in to say, this is why I'm okay?
SPEAKER_00: This is why I'm okay before God, this is what I am confident in.
SPEAKER_00: I was even thinking about it coming up to preach today.
SPEAKER_00: It's like, what do I place my confidence in as I preach?
SPEAKER_00: I've preached a lot in my life.
SPEAKER_00: And I was thinking, well, there's a lot of things.
SPEAKER_00: And it's easy to not make Christ the greatest confidence and to keep the message the greatest confidence.
SPEAKER_00: Because it's like, will I be funny enough if I need to tell a joke?
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: If my confidence is that, you can see how that's going to be a little up and down.
SPEAKER_00: And I could go on, but beware of every false confidence.
SPEAKER_00: And I love what Paul does here because in verses one through three he says, rejoice, have joy, be glad in grace, but beware.
SPEAKER_00: It's like, okay, what's going on here?
SPEAKER_00: Because verse 1, rejoice, verse 2, beware.
SPEAKER_00: So rejoice, be glad in the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Have gladness in the grace that's been given to you, but beware of these false teachers.
SPEAKER_00: And why?
SPEAKER_00: Well, because false teaching always attacks joy.
SPEAKER_00: The joy of the Lord is our strength.
SPEAKER_00: When our joy gets attacked, our strength can be depleted.
SPEAKER_00: Legalism steals joy.
SPEAKER_00: Performance will steal your joy.
SPEAKER_00: Comparison will steal your joy.
SPEAKER_00: Works righteousness will steal your joy.
SPEAKER_00: You can go keep going down the list.
SPEAKER_00: These things rob us of our joy because the joy that is given by the fruit of the Spirit is from seeing Christ for who he is, for seeing what Christ has done for us.
SPEAKER_00: It's not based on what we can work up.
SPEAKER_00: And then he writes this: Paul says, To write to you again, this is the same story.
SPEAKER_00: To write to you again about this is no trouble for me and is a safeguard for you.
SPEAKER_00: And I thought about saying that to you today.
SPEAKER_00: For me to preach about this again is not a trouble for me.
SPEAKER_00: And it is a safeguard for you and for me.
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's pretty witty.
SPEAKER_00: See, my confidence isn't in the jokes because it's in the gospel today.
SPEAKER_00: But what is Paul warning them about?
SPEAKER_00: He's warning them again, just like he did the Galatian church, just as he's been doing through his whole ministry, that false messages will hook the human heart.
SPEAKER_00: They will hook our hearts every day.
SPEAKER_00: And the application for every point, I'll say it multiple times a day, is to preach the gospel to yourself daily.
SPEAKER_00: Every day, throughout the day.
SPEAKER_00: Preach the gospel to yourself because those messages will hook us.
SPEAKER_00: And he uses this strong language in verse 2.
SPEAKER_00: He says, watch out for dogs, watch out for the evil workers, watch out for those who mutilate the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: And it all goes back to these Judaizers who 12, 15 years ago, when he was writing the book of Galatians, they were saying, in order for you to be saved, it's not Jesus plus nothing, it's Jesus plus the works of the law.
SPEAKER_00: So you have to do this, you have to obey this, you have to physically be circumcised.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul and the apostles, they say, no, no, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: All of that was old stuff pointing to the new reality.
SPEAKER_00: We're not adding works to what Jesus has already done because it's finished.
SPEAKER_00: And when you think about him saying, like such strong language about dogs, dogs in the ancient world were not like dogs we have today.
SPEAKER_00: He wasn't talking about cockpoos and golden doodles.
SPEAKER_00: There's a biblical basis for dogs being scavengers unclean.
SPEAKER_00: In 1 Kings 14, dogs were eating the corpses of the wicked.
SPEAKER_00: That's very unclean.
SPEAKER_00: In Psalm 22, David in this psalm says, Dogs surround me.
SPEAKER_00: This is the same psalm that Jesus quotes parts of while he's on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Proverbs 26, a dog returns to his vomit.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew 7, don't give dogs what is holy.
SPEAKER_00: So the idea here when he says these dogs, it's a separation, it's an exclusion, it's an uncleanness.
SPEAKER_00: Because he's saying, these guys are teaching you lies.
SPEAKER_00: And lies lead to devastation because they take you from the truth.
SPEAKER_00: Don't follow their lies.
SPEAKER_00: Don't put your confidence in yourself, in your own flesh, because it will lead you all the ways that we've talked about many times.
SPEAKER_00: It will lead you to self-righteousness because you think you're doing great.
SPEAKER_00: It's like, look at me compared to this, this, and this.
SPEAKER_00: There's no humility in that.
SPEAKER_00: And it's a distortion of the truth and the reality because you cannot work your way anywhere.
SPEAKER_00: So it leads you to self-righteousness, or it'll lead you to despair to say, I just can't keep up.
SPEAKER_00: I know my own human heart, therefore I can't be accepted.
SPEAKER_00: But Paul comes in and he says, They're not part of the true circumcision.
SPEAKER_00: He says, You're part of the true circumcision, and I am.
SPEAKER_00: And what does he use for descriptions for this?
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's in verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: He says, For we are the circumcision, the ones who worship by the Spirit of God, number one, who boast in Christ Jesus, number two, and three, this is big.
SPEAKER_00: We do not put confidence in the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: So to hear that again, this is the truth.
SPEAKER_00: We worship by the Spirit, we glory in Christ, we boast in Him, who He is, what He's done, and what He promises to do.
SPEAKER_00: And we don't put confidence in our own good works.
SPEAKER_00: And we go backwards again to Galatians, and where he's saying, be careful because you're going to drift.
SPEAKER_00: The human heart will be hooked, you'll find yourself drifting, but to return back.
SPEAKER_00: When you drift a little bit, come back.
SPEAKER_00: Drift a little bit, come back.
SPEAKER_00: Don't drift and keep drifting like the prodigal son, where you end up in a foreign land.
SPEAKER_00: But even if you find yourself in the place of the prodigal son today, what happens?
SPEAKER_00: Come home.
SPEAKER_00: The Father's arms are open wide, and he will run after you and embrace you and welcome you home.
SPEAKER_00: But the less space and time between the drift and coming back, the less damage that has done to our own soul and to relationships.
SPEAKER_00: Again, it's the human heart, and we want to continue to come to it, this message that I want to be able to say, this is why God should accept me.
SPEAKER_00: And most of us aren't talking about circumcision with that.
SPEAKER_00: I've never been in a conversation with anyone in Kentucky, and they say, Why should I say you're super spiritual?
SPEAKER_00: I'm circumcised.
SPEAKER_00: It's like, all right, very good, very good.
SPEAKER_00: But it could be like this for you.
SPEAKER_00: You might find your confidence in your church attendance.
SPEAKER_00: You might find your confidence in your political ideology.
SPEAKER_00: You might find your confidence in ministry success.
SPEAKER_00: This is a big one in the stream that I've been a part of.
SPEAKER_00: This next one.
SPEAKER_00: You might find your confidence in your theological precision.
SPEAKER_00: And is theological precision good?
SPEAKER_00: I like it.
SPEAKER_00: I'm a fan.
SPEAKER_00: But my confidence cannot be in that.
SPEAKER_00: Not my ultimate confidence.
SPEAKER_00: What about your moral performance, your parenting, your financial stewardship?
SPEAKER_00: The list could go on and on.
SPEAKER_00: That we put our confidence in those things, and we we kind of set the gospel off to the side.
SPEAKER_00: So Paul's saying, don't do it.
SPEAKER_00: Don't put confidence in the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: And I was thinking about the implications of this.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Well, it counteracts the gospel message.
SPEAKER_00: For the first, the two different groups I put here, for one group, putting confidence in the flesh can actually keep you from embracing salvation.
SPEAKER_00: Because if someone comes in and says, I go to church and that's why I've done more good than evil, this is why I'm going to get to go to heaven.
SPEAKER_00: And it's like, no, you don't understand the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: It's not about good deeds versus bad deeds.
SPEAKER_00: It's about you needing a savior to pay for your sins.
SPEAKER_00: Because we are all separated from God, apart from the work of Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And now here's another group.
SPEAKER_00: You may be a Christian, you've trusted in Jesus, but you're drifting and you're starting to put confidence in the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: What happens with that?
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's going to show up in so many different ways.
SPEAKER_00: It's going to show up in relationships.
SPEAKER_00: It's going to show up because basically, I was thinking about it like this.
SPEAKER_00: In Philippians 2, when we see this picture of Jesus and we behold Christ, how humble he was, and how he releases his rights of being part of the Godhead, to come be born a helpless babe, and to grow up in a fallen world and to march to the cross.
SPEAKER_00: To have humility like that, we cannot have humility like that unless we are embracing the gospel message, unless we are being reminded who we are apart from Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Because if I'm in this state of going, like, well, at least I'm not like this guy, look at that guy.
SPEAKER_00: How can I even have love or compassion or humility?
SPEAKER_00: If I'm putting confidence in myself compared to others, it's like, wow, at least I'm not saying that knuckle-headed thing.
SPEAKER_00: I'm doing pretty good.
SPEAKER_00: Put my confidence somewhere else.
SPEAKER_00: We have to continue to come back to preach the gospel to ourselves daily that we are in need, that we're saved by grace alone.
SPEAKER_00: That apart from grace we would be destitute.
SPEAKER_00: Destitute.
SPEAKER_00: And even worse than many of the people you are judging.
SPEAKER_00: And you'll find yourself not forgiving others and bitterness growing.
SPEAKER_00: If you see yourself on this moral platitude and above other people.
SPEAKER_00: And the good news is we get to preach the gospel to ourselves and be reminded that we're far more sinful than we could dream, but we're far more loved than we can imagine.
SPEAKER_00: So as we preach the gospel to ourselves daily, application for point one, same application for point two and point three, alright?
SPEAKER_00: You got the application down.
SPEAKER_00: So point two, count every lesser story as lost.
SPEAKER_00: In verses four through eight, Paul jumps into his resume to show, like, hey, if anyone could put confidence in the flesh, I'd be at the top of the list.
SPEAKER_00: And listen to what he does.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I'm circumcised, I'm an Israelite from the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew.
SPEAKER_00: I am a Pharisee.
SPEAKER_00: So he was one of the religious elite, and he was under just great teachers, and he had a trajectory set.
SPEAKER_00: We don't know.
SPEAKER_00: He could have been ruling Israel as a religious leader one day.
SPEAKER_00: But he says he was zealous in persecuting the church, and he was blameless.
SPEAKER_00: What does he mean by blameless there?
SPEAKER_00: Blameless according to the external version of the law that the Pharisees were seeking to obey.
SPEAKER_00: So outwardly you look at his life and you say, He's got it.
SPEAKER_00: He's got it.
SPEAKER_00: And what is his response to this?
SPEAKER_00: He says, I counted all of that loss, all of it loss compared to knowing Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Let's read it again in verse 8 and following because he gets even more explicit.
SPEAKER_00: He says, more than that, I also consider everything to be a loss in the view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Thinking about this, the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Because of him, I have suffered the loss of all things, and consider them as dung.
SPEAKER_00: Some translations say refuse.
SPEAKER_00: It really is, it's dung.
SPEAKER_00: And he once again is not saying worldly accomplishments are bad, but he's saying Christ is so beautiful, he is so true, he is so good, he is so powerful, he's so loving.
SPEAKER_00: That compared to knowing him and experiencing that, everything else is as dumb because that is so amazing.
SPEAKER_00: It's so amazing.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to take a journey through Paul's prayers, you can see again and again he's saying, I pray that you may know, that you may grow in knowing, that you may comprehend the incomprehensible, the height, the width, the depth, the love of the love of God that's in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I just pray that you would know him.
SPEAKER_00: And this knowing is not just an intellectual ascent.
SPEAKER_00: This is important.
SPEAKER_00: We do want good doctrine, we want the scriptures to saturate us.
SPEAKER_00: We want to know the story of God.
SPEAKER_00: But it is not just to stay in our head, it is to sink down into our hearts and into our hands and our whole being.
SPEAKER_00: That this is an experiential knowing that I am called to love the Lord my God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength, that it's everything.
SPEAKER_00: And that means I have to be in his presence, because then his presence is where I'm transformed.
SPEAKER_00: Truly knowing this amazing Christ, everything else in comparison, is dumb.
SPEAKER_00: So we find ourselves in the story again and hitting a similar motif as earlier.
SPEAKER_00: What resume do you carry and put your confidence in?
SPEAKER_00: I'm a good parent, I'm successful, I'm respected, I know theology, I've served the church.
SPEAKER_00: And we know that desires are a good thing, right?
SPEAKER_00: But we we've talked about when desires become demands, I have to have it, it can easily lead into idolatry.
SPEAKER_00: And when our confidence, the things we have confidence in, become our ultimate confidence, it leads us to a devastating road because we are putting our confidence in ourselves and we lose sight of the bigger story, and we become insular and we get into this lesser story, and we're not going to live.
SPEAKER_00: Live flourishing lives.
SPEAKER_00: So Paul gives the solution again.
SPEAKER_00: Preach the gospel to yourself.
SPEAKER_00: And now we hit point three.
SPEAKER_00: To gain Christ above everything else.
SPEAKER_00: And so notice the shift.
SPEAKER_00: Paul doesn't merely lose something or throw some things to the side.
SPEAKER_00: What he's doing is he's gaining something, and it's not just something, it's someone, and it's Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: In verse 9, he says, this is a beautiful progression.
SPEAKER_00: The goal isn't self-denial, the goal is Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Being found in him, in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Not having a righteousness of my own from the law, but one that is through faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The righteousness from God based on faith.
SPEAKER_00: Paul's deepest hope and desire isn't heaven.
SPEAKER_00: It is Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And heaven is heaven because Jesus is there.
SPEAKER_00: The new heavens and new earth will be amazing.
SPEAKER_00: But what is the main attraction?
SPEAKER_00: It's to be with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He says, My goal is to know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death.
SPEAKER_00: So to find ourselves in the story, you can see this movement, Paul's own movement from false confidence, and then he's awakened on the road to Damascus as Jesus appears to him.
SPEAKER_00: He renounces false confidence, and then he finds new confidence, his true confidence in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And so I wanted to put up the cross chart again this week.
SPEAKER_00: We pull this out, and I will say it like this like to show you the cross chart again.
SPEAKER_00: This is no trouble for me, and it is a safeguard for you.
SPEAKER_00: I'm back to that verse one joke again.
SPEAKER_00: This is beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to stay here for just a few minutes.
SPEAKER_00: And I know we've looked at it before, but this is the point of conversion.
SPEAKER_00: You might move it over just a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: But what you have to do to be saved is you have to see that God is holy, He's above, He's perfect.
SPEAKER_00: And we have to see that we are sinners in need of salvation.
SPEAKER_00: And the only thing that can bridge that gap, there's nothing we can do to bridge that gap.
SPEAKER_00: It's just the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Now, as we go through life, we are in the Word, and we're studying and we're seeing, and we see as we grow by God's grace, we see God's more holy than I thought.
SPEAKER_00: Wow, He is more perfect and beautiful and lovely.
SPEAKER_00: And I am worse than I thought because I'm starting to see my own heart, my own motives, and it's kind of scary.
SPEAKER_00: But what happens is we see the cross grows bigger because he's bridging the gap.
SPEAKER_00: The cross is bigger than any of us could dream or imagine.
SPEAKER_00: Because as we continue to grow, however far we get in this life, God is holier than we can imagine.
SPEAKER_00: We are more sinful than we can imagine.
SPEAKER_00: But the cross bridges the gap, and God looks at us with joy and delight because he sees us positionally as we are in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: He is the prodigal fathers, he's the prodigal's father, and he embraces us and says, I did this for you.
SPEAKER_00: For the joy set before him, he endured the cross and all of its shame to win back a people who are you and me.
SPEAKER_00: Now, for all of us, there's a temptation to not let the cross get as big as it can be.
SPEAKER_00: And this next slide shows us what we do quite often.
SPEAKER_00: If we consider the holiness of God, and if our vision of the cross stays small, what happens is we we feel like we have to fill in the gap.
SPEAKER_00: So we can fill it in with religion, moralism, self-justification, legalism, pride.
SPEAKER_00: It's like the cross just can't get me there, so I gotta add to it.
SPEAKER_00: And then we can see our own sinfulness, and it's like, well, the cross can't reach down.
SPEAKER_00: If people knew how awful I was.
SPEAKER_00: So we live with guilt, fear, shame, and insecurity, despair.
SPEAKER_00: And God is gently saying to us as a people, and he's saying, My child, I've bridged the gap.
SPEAKER_00: You may carry some of these things through your life, but they are not your ultimate reality.
SPEAKER_00: You can try that stuff real hard, but I'm gonna let you get tired while you try it because it's never meant to bring life.
SPEAKER_00: Can we flip back to the other one, Canon?
SPEAKER_00: The cross bridges the gap.
SPEAKER_00: All Jesus, none of me.
SPEAKER_00: It is by grace that you're safe through faith.
SPEAKER_00: Not your own works.
SPEAKER_00: You can't boast in it.
SPEAKER_00: I can't boast in it.
SPEAKER_00: I can leave today and think, man, I had a pretty good sermon today.
SPEAKER_00: I'll help out with us two tonight.
SPEAKER_00: I'm a good pastor.
SPEAKER_00: Is that what I'm putting my confidence in?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: I hope not.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe y'all can call it, text me later.
SPEAKER_00: What are you putting your confidence in, Chad?
SPEAKER_00: Or if I feel rocky about my sermon and I'm like, I didn't make that clear enough.
SPEAKER_00: I stumbled on these points, and then tonight I'm like real present.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, ah.
SPEAKER_00: Either way, the cross is huge.
SPEAKER_00: And this is where words seem to fall short.
SPEAKER_00: It's like, my people, can we glory in the cross?
SPEAKER_00: Preach the gospel to yourself.
SPEAKER_00: When you're having awful thoughts and temptations come up, don't be surprised.
SPEAKER_00: It's part of your flesh.
SPEAKER_00: But come to the cross.
SPEAKER_00: If he is for you, who can be against you?
SPEAKER_00: The answer is nobody.
SPEAKER_00: Who can separate you from the love of God that's in Christ Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Nada.
SPEAKER_00: You can look at the list in Romans 8.
SPEAKER_00: I've done it before, I've told you.
SPEAKER_00: I started listening out the things that cannot separate you.
SPEAKER_00: And then if the list isn't long enough, by the time he says, nothing in all creation.
SPEAKER_00: What's everything in all creation?
SPEAKER_00: Everything but our triune God.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing can separate you from the love of God that's in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You're safe.
SPEAKER_00: You're sealed.
SPEAKER_00: You're precious in his sight.
SPEAKER_00: As we wrap up in chapter 2, Paul says, have this mind, the same mind that's in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And then in three, chapter 3, he says, Whatever gain I had, I'm setting it to the side because I've gained Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And here's your sentence to carry for the week.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel invites us to let go of confidence in ourselves so that we may find our confidence and joy in Christ alone.
SPEAKER_00: That's our hope.
SPEAKER_00: That's our dream.
SPEAKER_00: And so the application, what's the application for point three?
SPEAKER_00: It's the same as point two and one.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna have to give it to me.
SPEAKER_00: Somebody.
SPEAKER_00: I'm getting ready for BBS.
SPEAKER_00: I'll have interactive time with it.
SPEAKER_00: Let's preach the gospel to yourself every day.
SPEAKER_00: See, now I'm gonna have no confidence in the sermon because y'all can repeat that back to me.
SPEAKER_00: I'll have to go back to the cross chart and look at it.
SPEAKER_00: Preach the gospel to yourself daily.
SPEAKER_00: Yep, okay, I'm good again.
SPEAKER_00: I'm good again.
SPEAKER_00: Preach the gospel to yourself daily.
SPEAKER_00: If you need it, look at the end of Philippians.
SPEAKER_00: I love going to Ephesians chapter 2.
SPEAKER_00: Man, the first verses are gonna tell you the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Who you were and who you are.
SPEAKER_00: It's such a stark contrast, and it is grace, grace, grace, grace.
SPEAKER_00: Because it was his desire and his love to do so.
SPEAKER_00: And every week we come to this table that this is another way we preach the gospel to ourselves and each other.
SPEAKER_00: Because by taking the bread and taking the juice, we're doing the sacred symbol that's been done for the last 2,000 years that Jesus set up in the upper room when he redefined Passover for his followers, pointing back to that escape from Egypt where the firstborn were slain.
SPEAKER_00: And here, the Son of God is slain for us.
SPEAKER_00: And if you're a Christian here, I'd invite you in a moment after I pray to come take some bread and juice back to your seat.
SPEAKER_00: You can hold it there, and I'll lead us to take communion all together.
SPEAKER_00: But as you come, preach the gospel to yourself.
SPEAKER_00: In a non-shaming way, ask, what am I putting my confidence in?
SPEAKER_00: Where have I drifted?
SPEAKER_00: Say, Lord, help me come back.
SPEAKER_00: And know that He is there.
SPEAKER_00: The posture of the Father is this: open arms, saying, Come, come.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus saying, Come to me, all you who are weary and worn out.
SPEAKER_00: I will give you rest.
SPEAKER_00: So we come today and preach the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_00: Father, we thank you so much for this passage and for Paul's life that Paul could have easily lived in shame because of what he did before he was a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, by persecuting the church and by arresting people and seeing people put to death.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, just hurting families left and right.
SPEAKER_00: He could have had so much shame, and I'm sure he dealt with so much of that, Lord, but he didn't stay stuck there.
SPEAKER_00: He had so many accomplishments, but he didn't put his confidence in those accomplishments.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, his confidence was in you because you were greater.
SPEAKER_00: And for each of us, no matter how many gifts we have, no matter how much we've done or haven't done, the cross is the same, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: It covers the gap and you delight in us.
SPEAKER_00: And so in your mercy, help us to grow, to have confidence in you in the cross.
SPEAKER_00: And as we partake in this sacred meal, and we we just are reminded again that Jesus, you were crushed for us, you bled for us, you died for us, but that you rose again and you sent the Holy Spirit and you promised to come again one day, that all of this is your story, your bigger story.
SPEAKER_00: Help us to see this bigger story and embrace it and live in it this very day.
SPEAKER_00: And we ask this in Christ's name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.