SPEAKER_01: The reading today is from Philippians three, verse one to eleven.
SPEAKER_01: Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: To write the same things to you is no trouble to me and is safe for you.
SPEAKER_01: Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh.
SPEAKER_01: For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus, and put no confidence in the flesh, though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also.
SPEAKER_01: If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more.
SPEAKER_01: Circumcised on the eighth day, 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_01: But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Indeed I count everything as loss, because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.
SPEAKER_01: 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_01: And so reads God's Word.
SPEAKER_02: Welcome to you.
SPEAKER_02: My name is Mark, one of the leaders here at City Church.
SPEAKER_02: Very welcome if you're uh new uh or visiting with us.
SPEAKER_02: Uh we're going to be looking at the passage that Arena read for us from Philippians chapter three.
SPEAKER_02: So if you have a Bible, uh you could uh flip that up if you've got it on your phone, or uh you could look online, go to Bible Gateway.
SPEAKER_02: Uh we're reading from the English Standard Version uh of the Bible if you if you want to know.
SPEAKER_02: It's important that people have the scriptures in their hands so that you see that what is being said is coming from the passage and not just from my brain.
SPEAKER_02: Uh that actually the authority rests uh with God.
SPEAKER_02: That's our conviction that when God's word is read, his voice is heard.
SPEAKER_02: And so you come now to hear the voice of God on a Sunday morning, not just uh not just some Northern Irish man.
SPEAKER_02: Uh although I think God probably sounds like this, uh, and that's okay.
SPEAKER_02: Um but it would be good for you to have Philippians chapter three uh open in front of you.
SPEAKER_02: Uh what is the uh what is the Christian life like?
SPEAKER_02: Or what do people think the Christian life is like?
SPEAKER_02: I'm sure some of you, at least at some point, and perhaps now, think that uh the Christian life is a a life of uh of abstinence, of giving stuff up.
SPEAKER_02: It's a life of uh of repression, uh of forsaking certain things.
SPEAKER_02: It's kind of uh God's a uh a cosmic kill joy.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe that's what you thought, maybe that's what your colleagues, your friends, or people in your family think.
SPEAKER_02: Or maybe others uh still think that it's a life of hypocrisy.
SPEAKER_02: It's all people who say one thing and they do another.
SPEAKER_02: Uh the Christians are just hypocrites.
SPEAKER_02: Or uh even in your own expression, say, well, I can't really bring how I really am into this space.
SPEAKER_02: I've got to paint on the smile before I come in and pretend like everything's okay.
SPEAKER_02: And so I feel this internal tension, this hypocrisy, and that's just what I gotta do.
SPEAKER_02: Others still think that perhaps the Christian life is a life of ritual.
SPEAKER_02: It's about ceremonies to perform, penance, to undergo uh pilgrimages to go on.
SPEAKER_02: It's a uh it's a a life of insiders and outsiders.
SPEAKER_02: You've got to do the right thing, say the right thing, uh, be part of the right people, be from the right background.
SPEAKER_02: But when you read the book of Philippians, you don't see any of that.
SPEAKER_02: What you see from the whole book of Philippians is that the Christian life is a life of one dominant and overriding emotion standpoint, and that is that the Christian life is marked by joy.
SPEAKER_02: What is essential, what is at the heart of the Christian life?
SPEAKER_02: It's joy.
SPEAKER_02: Joy is the golden thread that runs all the way through this letter, right from chapter one.
SPEAKER_02: It's the golden thread that runs through the letter because it's the golden thread that is at the very heart and seam of the Christian life.
SPEAKER_02: The Christian life at its core is not simply about moralistic abstinence, nor is it about the performing of ritual, nor is it about saying one thing or doing another.
SPEAKER_02: It is about living a life that is full of and increasing in measure of joy, increased rejoicing.
SPEAKER_02: And that joy that we feel in coming to know Jesus, well, it shapes how we act.
SPEAKER_02: It shapes our values, it shapes our desires, it sweetens our good days and it sustains us through the bad.
SPEAKER_02: Joy is not like happiness.
SPEAKER_02: You can pursue happiness and have it for a moment, and like a delicate flower, see it wither in front of you, or like sand, see it slip through your fingers.
SPEAKER_02: You could pursue satisfaction your entire life and never really achieve it.
SPEAKER_02: Find that it always eludes you.
SPEAKER_02: You could pursue success and enjoy it for a time until that one failure comes and undermines everything that you are, or you look over your shoulder and you see the person who is better than you coming at fast pace up behind to overtake you.
SPEAKER_02: And then you wonder, well, who am I?
SPEAKER_02: But when you pursue joy, real joy, Christian joy, it comes and it takes up residence in your life permanently and with increasing measure.
SPEAKER_02: It's like a a tree that grows and puts deep down roots into your soul that sustain and preserve you, and in its shade you are sheltered from some of the scorching heat that suffering and trial in this temporary existence would throw at you, and its fruit sustains you until it all gives way to unending, eternal and everlasting joy.
SPEAKER_02: What is the Christian life about?
SPEAKER_02: It's not about giving up.
SPEAKER_02: God's not a killjoy.
SPEAKER_02: God wants to maximize your joy, not your happiness.
SPEAKER_02: He wants to maximize your joy this morning.
SPEAKER_02: That's why Paul keeps on banging this drum.
SPEAKER_02: That's why he starts, verse one, finally.
SPEAKER_02: Paul's a great preacher.
SPEAKER_02: Paul says, Finally, right in the middle of his letter.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, it's like when I get up and I say, and lastly, and then speak for another 15 minutes.
SPEAKER_02: Finally is actually better translated as uh so so, in light of brothers, he's just been talking about how uh how God sustained uh Epaphroditus, who had been nearly ill, and his heart was to be with the Philippians, and and and God was merciful to him and merciful to Paul.
SPEAKER_02: That's what you looked at last week, and say, because of God's mercy and Epaphroditus's love to come and to serve you.
SPEAKER_02: So, in light of all of that, again, but brothers, brothers and sisters, that word brothers is uh is encompassing the whole church family, brothers and sisters, therefore rejoice.
SPEAKER_02: And so Paul begins again by saying, Because of this, again, please, brothers and sisters, rejoice, pursue joy.
SPEAKER_02: That's the first point.
SPEAKER_02: Pursue joy this morning.
SPEAKER_02: The word rejoice, it's a it's an active verb, it's a keep on doing this, chase after that, pursue that sort of word, rejoice.
SPEAKER_02: Put it another way, it's uh it's as though Paul is saying, choose to rejoice.
SPEAKER_02: Choose to rejoice.
SPEAKER_02: Don't be a passenger in your own emotional life.
SPEAKER_02: This week for me uh particularly, and perhaps even in these last weeks, you know, there've been a number of challenges, frustrations.
SPEAKER_02: I've just been tired, like I've been kind of dealing with kind of like a low-level sickness and tiredness, and just feeling a little bit kind of discouraged, in the sense that actually the discouragements are just easier to see.
SPEAKER_02: You ever feel like that?
SPEAKER_02: Where it's actually you just end up focusing on the negative stuff, you just focus on the discouragements.
SPEAKER_02: So, one of the things that I've been trying to do this week is to actually choose to turn away from just the discouragements and go, actually, no, I can see I can see the Lord at work here and here and here.
SPEAKER_02: And actually, that meeting went much better than uh than I than I thought.
SPEAKER_02: And uh the Lord is really working in this person's life, and and there's joy to be had in that.
SPEAKER_02: And and so, do you get my point?
SPEAKER_02: That we can so often be be passengers in our own emotional life, we can get taken along by all of the negatives.
SPEAKER_02: And so when Paul says rejoice, he's like, Do you know what, guys?
SPEAKER_02: Choose joy, choose to look at the fact that aphroditus nearly died, but God spared him and he's made his way to you because he loves you.
SPEAKER_02: And so I know that there's suffering, I know that you're uh you're losing your job, which is what was happening.
SPEAKER_02: You're losing your jobs because of uh being a follower of Jesus, because you can't be part of the guilds anymore because of uh idol worship and all of these things.
SPEAKER_02: I know that that's happening, and that's not that that's insignificant, but that can so overwhelm and crowd you.
SPEAKER_02: Whereas actually the Lord's being so unendingly kind, he started this good work in you, he's gonna bring it to completion on the day of Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: He loves you, he's given himself for you.
SPEAKER_02: The Lord Jesus laid down his life, he humbled himself by becoming obedient on the death, even death on a cross.
SPEAKER_02: He is highly exalted, he is ruling, he is reigning.
SPEAKER_02: So Philippian Christians and City Church don't could you choose to rejoice?
SPEAKER_02: Could you set all of this stuff in light of that?
SPEAKER_02: And it's not to say that it makes it insignificant, but it does relativize it.
SPEAKER_02: Could you choose joy this morning?
SPEAKER_02: Rejoice, brothers and sisters, he says.
SPEAKER_02: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_02: Yes, amen.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: And not only that, not only is he saying choose joy, he's saying choose to rejoice together.
SPEAKER_02: I want to just press this, just massage this in a little bit.
SPEAKER_02: That this word that this word, Adelphoi, brothers, is brothers and sisters.
SPEAKER_02: Some of your translations will will show that actually it's an inclusive word.
SPEAKER_02: Who can know gospel joy?
SPEAKER_02: Who can know Christian joy?
SPEAKER_02: Christian people.
SPEAKER_02: Non-Christians, those who perhaps don't describe themselves as a follower of Jesus, they can they can know happiness for a time, but never really this joy.
SPEAKER_02: Not this joy that is eternally unending.
SPEAKER_02: But nor is this joy reserved for the special super holy Christians.
SPEAKER_02: We kind of have this image in our mind's eye of Paul, you know, standing on the on the on the corner of a building, you know, with his cape kind of fluttering in the wind, as some as some super Christian.
SPEAKER_02: So, well, of course he should have joy because you know he's he's a real Christian.
SPEAKER_02: But what do I mean?
SPEAKER_02: No, no, Christian joy is for all brothers and sisters.
SPEAKER_02: Christian joy is for Christian people.
SPEAKER_02: And so he says, finally, brothers and sisters, all of you together, rejoice together.
SPEAKER_02: Lift up your voice, clap your hands, stomp your feet.
SPEAKER_02: Most joyful person that song was, you know, it was Cameron.
SPEAKER_02: He was bopping away.
SPEAKER_02: It was great.
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna have him down the front so that uh so that he can show you all next time I could see him from that row.
SPEAKER_02: It was wonderful.
SPEAKER_02: It's supposed to be a shared experience.
SPEAKER_02: So we lift up our voices and as we rejoice in the Lord, unless we encourage one another with what the Lord has done to us.
SPEAKER_02: And sometimes there can be joy in our heart and we can forget to tell our faces.
SPEAKER_02: And maybe maybe that's an application point.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe if you take a note, you're like, tell your face.
SPEAKER_02: Uh I have joy deep down.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: That it is supposed to be something that's shared because, well, what is I mean, joy is infectious, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02: When somebody is just uh effusive uh about something, you can't help but you you start by almost kind of laughing at them, but you end up laughing with them.
SPEAKER_02: Paul understands that Christian joy is something to be shared, not something to be kind of kept away in our own little uh safe hearts.
SPEAKER_02: It's like, no, give it away, let it infect the whole community.
SPEAKER_02: And he says, pursue pursue joy, pursue joy in what?
SPEAKER_02: So finally, brothers, brothers and sisters, rejoice, rejoice in what?
SPEAKER_02: So joy has an object, it has a direction, it has a focus.
SPEAKER_02: Rejoice in the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: Now, Paul will go on and we'll come back and unpack it more in the rest of these verses to show just how much reason we have to rejoice in Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: But it's worth just noting here that actually the source of and blazing center of Christian joy is Jesus Himself, both his person, who he is, and what he has done for us.
SPEAKER_02: The joy is not a uh a nebulous emotion that you need to uh to search for in some uh in some deep and dark and unknowing corner of your psyche.
SPEAKER_02: No, no, it comes from a source, it has an object.
SPEAKER_02: Rejoice in the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: That as you reflect and meditate and ruminate, uh, Christian meditation is uh is most akin not to emptying your mind, but uh but filling your mind with the right sorts of things.
SPEAKER_02: Christian meditation is like uh it's like a cow in a field.
SPEAKER_02: Uh if you ever look at a cow in a field, it's just chewing all the time.
SPEAKER_02: Christian meditation is like that.
SPEAKER_02: It's like chewing over in your mind, in your heart, what who the Lord is, what his promises to you are, how he has been to you in the past, what he has done for you on the cross and by his empty tomb, what he has declared over your life, what he has promised about your future, to chew and ruminate on all of those things, and to find that your heart begins to ignite again with joy.
SPEAKER_02: Finally, brothers and sisters, rejoice.
SPEAKER_02: Rejoice in what?
SPEAKER_02: Rejoice in the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: Pursue joy.
SPEAKER_02: But Paul does not conclude there.
SPEAKER_02: Paul does not say uh that all is fine or rosy.
SPEAKER_02: No, interestingly, he immediately pivots, and this will be our second point.
SPEAKER_02: He immediately pivots uh to this idea of guarding your joy.
SPEAKER_02: So, point number two, guard your joy.
SPEAKER_02: It is possible, brothers and sisters, to have your joy stolen from you.
SPEAKER_02: It is possible to have your joy taken.
SPEAKER_02: There are people, ways of thinking, ways of believing or acting that would steal your joy and leave you spiritually impoverished, leave you joyless.
SPEAKER_02: And so Paul wants to warn you this morning, and he does it emphatically.
SPEAKER_02: Did you notice in verse 2 how he repeats this little phrase, look out three times in one verse?
SPEAKER_02: Look at it with me.
SPEAKER_02: Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh.
SPEAKER_02: Who are those people that Paul is saying that you need to guard yourself from that are going to steal your joy?
SPEAKER_02: Well, in the in the ancient context, Paul here is talking specifically about uh about Jewish legalists who were who were saying that if you really want to be a follower of Jesus, if you really call yourself a Christian, then you should also, if you're a male, be circumcised.
SPEAKER_02: That was uh the marker of entering into the people of God in their mind that you need to go through this ritual, through this ceremony in order to truly be a Christian.
SPEAKER_02: They're adding on a ritual, a work onto being a Christian.
SPEAKER_02: And Paul says, no, they're they're evildoers, they're they're not, this is not a ritual, it's a mutilation.
SPEAKER_02: Because Jesus plus anything equals nothing.
SPEAKER_02: You cannot, must not add anything onto the gospel.
SPEAKER_02: Now, I don't know if uh how many of you have experienced or come from legalistic backgrounds.
SPEAKER_02: I know that uh that certainly some of you have.
SPEAKER_02: Um I know I joke about my Northern Irish accent, but there's uh there's plenty of dear, wonderful, gospel-centered, Bible-loving Christians uh in uh in Northern Ireland, but there's also lots of legalists.
SPEAKER_02: People who would uh chain the swings together on a Sunday on the Sabbath uh so that the children couldn't play because that would be seen as work.
SPEAKER_02: Or they would say, uh, you can uh you can call yourself a Christian, but Christians, do you know what?
SPEAKER_02: Uh they uh they don't they don't drink, you shouldn't be seen in a pub.
SPEAKER_02: Or they don't go to the cinema.
SPEAKER_02: Don't know what we can do with all of me.
SPEAKER_02: Sorry guys.
SPEAKER_02: Um you wouldn't you shouldn't go to the cinema.
SPEAKER_02: It's the uh the devil's picture house.
SPEAKER_02: Or you should dress a certain way.
SPEAKER_02: Ladies should wear hats in church, should only wear skirts.
SPEAKER_02: You should think a certain way, speak a certain way, look a certain way.
SPEAKER_02: I remember when when I was about 19 or 20 years old, uh, me and a friend of mine, uh a couple of friends actually, we've been praying for uh for a friend of ours who um who eventually said yes to an invitation to come into the church that we were going to.
SPEAKER_02: It was a pretty traditional church, and so it was a big deal that uh that he said yes.
SPEAKER_02: And uh and he arrived with a with a like a beanie on and sat through the service and we didn't think anything of it.
SPEAKER_02: And at the end of the service, an old lady came up and said, You take your hat off in in the house of God.
SPEAKER_02: And you laughed, but he never came back.
SPEAKER_02: Because that's what legalists do, they steal your joy.
SPEAKER_02: Paul's saying, look out for those people.
SPEAKER_02: Those people who add on to simply trusting in Jesus, seeing that he has done everything necessary for salvation, that you do not need to go through some additional ritual, that you do not need to give up certain foods or certain things.
SPEAKER_02: No, it's kind of bad is like Christian life has Christian ethics.
SPEAKER_02: There are it is going to change the way you live, but it's not in order to gain uh salvation, it's not in order to gain Jesus liking you, it's as a consequence of God sending his love for you that he changes how you think and act and uh and things like that.
SPEAKER_02: So, but these people were saying, no, if you really are a Christian, or if you really want to be like a true believer, then you should go through that.
SPEAKER_02: And that is wicked.
SPEAKER_02: He's right to call them evildoers.
SPEAKER_02: They are dogs.
SPEAKER_02: And the the irony there in calling them dogs is that uh the uh the Jews looked at uh looked at the the Gentiles and called them dogs, and he said, No, actually, they are the ones like uh like scavengers.
SPEAKER_02: No, uh, don't think uh little Bichonfries in your purse.
SPEAKER_02: Um uh think feral, rabid uh dogs that are looking for someone, something to devour.
SPEAKER_02: Snuffling through the trash.
SPEAKER_02: It's that sort of idea.
SPEAKER_02: And again, I just want to uh just press the the strength of Paul's language.
SPEAKER_02: Dogs, evildoers, those who mutilate.
SPEAKER_02: Paul here is being a good shepherd.
SPEAKER_02: He's being a good shepherd in telling us to watch out for these people.
SPEAKER_02: Good shepherds don't play nice with wolves.
SPEAKER_02: Good shepherds don't play nice with false teachers.
SPEAKER_02: We warn people say, look out, look out, look out.
SPEAKER_02: Well, Paul's language is very harsh.
SPEAKER_02: Yes, it is necessarily harsh, so that he might guard the flock and preserve their joy.
SPEAKER_02: Why does legalism steal your joy?
SPEAKER_02: Well, because it moves your source of confidence, your boast, your the thing that you glory in from Christ and places it again on yourself, on your own performance, on your own doing.
SPEAKER_02: So Paul in verse three essentially is saying that the mere ritual, circumcision, uh, can never be a substitute or lead to vibrant faith.
SPEAKER_02: Circumcision that was all the circumcision that was always necessary was the circumcision of the heart, that the heart would be set apart, not just the physical flesh, that the heart would be changed.
SPEAKER_02: That's what's necessary.
SPEAKER_02: That's where you get joy from.
SPEAKER_02: So he says verse 3, for we are the circumcision.
SPEAKER_02: You've already been circumcised.
SPEAKER_02: Didn't expect so much talk about circumcision on Sunday morning.
SPEAKER_02: You're welcome.
SPEAKER_02: Uh but we are the circumcision.
SPEAKER_02: The circumcision happens when?
SPEAKER_02: When we worship by the Spirit of God and glory not in ourselves, but in Christ.
SPEAKER_02: We glory in Christ and put no confidence in the flesh.
SPEAKER_02: And then Paul now goes on to show that if putting confidence in your flesh is what would lead you to enduring Christian joy, then he never would have become a Christian in the first place.
SPEAKER_02: Because all that was necessary for him to fulfill by legalism and by rule keeping, he did it.
SPEAKER_02: So he goes on and he lists essentially his CV, his resume in verses four to six.
SPEAKER_02: He gives himself as an example of how he had confidence in the flesh.
SPEAKER_02: So let's just let's just go through Paul's resume.
SPEAKER_02: He begins by saying that he himself was circumcised on the eighth day.
SPEAKER_02: That was uh the perfect day.
SPEAKER_02: That was the day that was laid down in the Old Testament law that if a baby boy was born, then eight days later he would undergo a small operation.
SPEAKER_02: He'll be circumcised on the eighth day, marking him out as part of the people of God.
SPEAKER_02: And so Paul is saying, I had the right beginnings.
SPEAKER_02: And he goes on and says, verse 5, circumcised on the eighth day of the people of Israel.
SPEAKER_02: So he's not somebody who converted into Judaism, he's not a proselyte.
SPEAKER_02: He said, I'm from the right people, from the right nation.
SPEAKER_02: He focuses in and saying I'm on the tribe of Benjamin, one of the best of the 12 tribes.
SPEAKER_02: He had the right family, a Hebrew of Hebrews, the right upbringing.
SPEAKER_02: Paul's saying, I have the I have the right pedigree.
SPEAKER_02: I have the perfect pedigree.
SPEAKER_02: I have the perfect bloodline.
SPEAKER_02: I'm better than these guys who are coming along and saying that you should get circumcised.
SPEAKER_02: If you want to go resume to resume, mine beats theirs.
SPEAKER_02: He goes on, says, as to the law, a Pharisee, then not only was he a zealous uh Jew, that he was part of the inner circle, the most religiously zealous and particular and legalistic group of people, the Pharisees.
SPEAKER_02: As to zeal, verse 6, says, You want to you want to judge my religious fervor?
SPEAKER_02: Well, I was so religiously fervent in my Judaism that I became a persecutor of the church.
SPEAKER_02: I went to the high priest when I was still a Pharisee, and I asked for arrest warrants, and I would travel around uh the uh around Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria, and I would arrest people who were following Jesus because they were they were, in my mind, polluting the uh Judaism.
SPEAKER_02: They were a heretical sect.
SPEAKER_02: And so I would go and I'd round them up and I'd throw them in Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: I was a persecutor of the church, and it was on my way to persecute the church in Damascus to arrest more Christians.
SPEAKER_02: But the Lord changed my heart.
SPEAKER_02: He says, as to the law, blameless.
SPEAKER_02: Paul here is not saying that he was sinless, but that he always fulfilled what the law required.
SPEAKER_02: Every sacrifice, every festival, every ritual, every Shabbat, everything, every observance, every tithe was given, blameless as to the law.
SPEAKER_02: And yet he concludes that self-righteousness came to naught.
SPEAKER_02: Self-righteousness can either be religious or non-religious.
SPEAKER_02: You could come from a background that you could map on some of these, even from your Christian, uh, Christian upbringing, from your from your legalistic church.
SPEAKER_02: You say, well, I went to I went to church twice on Sundays.
SPEAKER_02: There's a Bible study every week.
SPEAKER_02: I I served in the in the worship band.
SPEAKER_02: I did all of these things.
SPEAKER_02: Or it can be non-religious.
SPEAKER_02: Might be saying, well, look at look at what I've achieved, look at what I've done, look at the family that I was born into, look at the background that I have, look at my moral superiority without religion.
SPEAKER_02: I'm a good person.
SPEAKER_02: Or look at my success, my prestige.
SPEAKER_02: Self-righteousness can either be religious or non-religious, but it only has one of two results.
SPEAKER_02: Self-righteousness will either lead you into pride or despair.
SPEAKER_02: Self-righteousness will either lead you into pride.
SPEAKER_02: I did it! I've achieved it.
SPEAKER_02: Look at those people.
SPEAKER_02: They're weak and better than them.
SPEAKER_02: Pride or despair, I can't do it.
SPEAKER_02: I feel crushed under the weight of expectation.
SPEAKER_02: And this is what legalistic churches do to people.
SPEAKER_02: I feel crushed under the weight of expectation to be a certain way, to think a certain way, to act a certain way.
SPEAKER_02: And I can't do it, I keep on failing.
SPEAKER_02: And it's making me more of a hypocrite.
SPEAKER_02: And because I'm leading more of a double life, and it's driving you to despair.
SPEAKER_02: Where self-righteousness never takes you is to joy.
SPEAKER_02: It never takes you to joy.
SPEAKER_02: So how do you find it?
SPEAKER_02: How do you find joy?
SPEAKER_02: And that's this is our third and final point.
SPEAKER_02: So pursue joy, guard joy, find joy.
SPEAKER_02: How do you find joy?
SPEAKER_02: Joy comes from loss and from gain.
SPEAKER_02: Joy comes from the strategic loss of certain things in order to gain something of infinite value.
SPEAKER_02: What does Paul conclude in verses seven and eight?
SPEAKER_02: But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.
SPEAKER_02: Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord.
SPEAKER_02: Paul puts his entire CV in one column on the balance sheet, and over it he writes one word, he writes loss.
SPEAKER_02: It was all loss.
SPEAKER_02: And in the other column, he writes two words Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_02: And knowing him.
SPEAKER_02: Indeed, he goes on in verse 8, for the say for his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ.
SPEAKER_02: Lots of ink being spilt over this word rubbish.
SPEAKER_02: It is sometimes translated trash.
SPEAKER_02: In other places it is it is translated as the coarse word for excrement.
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
SPEAKER_02: In a sense, Paul is saying that all of my straining for perfection, all of my straining for achievement, all of my straining for God to accept me, I may as well have been straining on the toilet.
SPEAKER_02: Just before he died, uh Johnny Cash uh recorded a cover uh of uh a nine-inch nails song.
SPEAKER_02: Uh I'm sure you're all massive nine-inch nails fans, so you'll be right there uh with me.
SPEAKER_02: Uh but uh but in it uh there is a uh there's a lyric where and the image is very evocative.
SPEAKER_02: I encourage you to look at it on YouTube where Johnny Cash at the end of his life, you know, June Carter, his his his wife has died a few months prior, and and he's he's sitting with this this large banquet in front of him and this kind of quasi throne.
SPEAKER_02: And the uh the records, uh the platinum records are are lying smashed on the on the floor, and they the pictures are all broken and faded, and there are uh there are rats kind of running over the table, and he picks up with his shaking hand his goblet of wine, he pours it all over the food as he sings the line, you can have it all, my empire of dirt.
SPEAKER_02: At all of the things that he had achieved, all of the success, all of the adulation.
SPEAKER_02: He looks at it all and he says, You can have it all.
SPEAKER_02: It's all just an empire of dirt.
SPEAKER_02: Brothers and sisters, be very careful that you are not pursuing in the end what will amount to an empire of dirt.
SPEAKER_02: I consider it all loss for the sake of knowing Christ.
SPEAKER_02: That is where joy comes from.
SPEAKER_02: You know, people think that people think that freedom is having unlimited choice and options.
SPEAKER_02: It's not.
SPEAKER_02: Freedom, true freedom, comes from the strategic loss of certain freedoms in order to uh gain those things that would maximize your joy.
SPEAKER_02: You do that every time you fall in love.
SPEAKER_02: You do that when you marry someone.
SPEAKER_02: You're saying, uh, you're saying to that person, I am no longer free with respect to every other uh member of uh the species.
SPEAKER_02: I'm no longer available to them.
SPEAKER_02: I am limiting my freedom with respect to them because I am binding myself to you, and that's what gives me joy.
SPEAKER_02: Or you limit uh your your freedom now as you study or as you work, you're you're building a future, you're building a career.
SPEAKER_02: And so what you do now is uh you say, no, actually, I'm I'm not gonna I'm not gonna do that thing.
SPEAKER_02: I'm not gonna go out five five nights a week because, well, I can't afford it, and I'm trying to save up for this thing.
SPEAKER_02: And if I did that, then actually I wouldn't I wouldn't be able to kind of progress in the in the chosen field of study because I wouldn't be able to do very well come exam time, I wouldn't get those assignments done.
SPEAKER_02: So you limit your freedom in order to gain something, in order to gain that thing which gives you joy.
SPEAKER_02: And so this loss-gain dynamic happens all the time.
SPEAKER_02: And Paul is saying, you need to look at your life, you need to look at your your CV and all those things that are giving your you identity and meaning and value and worth and significance and comfort and control and say loss in order that my eye might know the surpassing worth of knowing Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_02: The only way to find true and lasting joy is to look at your life and see it as loss, to see success as loss, achievement as loss, wealth and comfort and security, as loss, position, as loss, power and prestige, as loss, food and clothes and stuff, as loss that I might gain Christ.
SPEAKER_02: And just take a moment just to focus on the beauty of of these words that he he goes on to say, let's pick it up again uh in the middle of verse 8.
SPEAKER_02: For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish in order that I might gain Christ.
SPEAKER_02: And be found in him.
SPEAKER_02: Not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ Jesus, the righteousness of God that depends on faith, that I might know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share in his sufferings, and may become like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection of the dead.
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna park verse 11 and move it into next week.
SPEAKER_02: But just for now, what Paul is not saying is he's not just said, uh, don't try and achieve your salvation, and then at the very end say, what I'm trying to do is achieve my salvation.
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
SPEAKER_02: Um it is it is that unbelievable that some way I'm just as Jesus was raised, he might raise a sinner like me, that I might, that I might get to be raised.
SPEAKER_02: It's more like that.
SPEAKER_02: More on that next week.
SPEAKER_02: It's a little trailer for you since we're in a since we're in since we're in a cinema.
SPEAKER_02: But those words that start verse 9 and being found in him.
SPEAKER_02: That all of my all of my restless wandering, trying to figure out who I am, looking for myself.
SPEAKER_02: The world tells you to look to look inward in order to find yourself.
SPEAKER_02: When you are in Christ.
SPEAKER_02: That's where you begin to truly know yourself and being found in him.
SPEAKER_02: That he would embrace me, that he would make me his own.
SPEAKER_02: Again, I had lots of songs in my head, obviously, as I was writing this uh this week, but I was thinking of uh I was thinking of the Foy Vance song, Indiscriminate Act of Kindness.
SPEAKER_02: In that that song, that beautiful song, uh, there's a line that says, How is it that you can see past me as I am?
SPEAKER_02: Each of you here know what you're like internally.
SPEAKER_02: And that you might come to Jesus and say and say, How is it that you can see past me as I am and have him embrace you warts and all, sins and all, darknesses and all, secrets and all and be found in him.
SPEAKER_02: Not, Paul goes on, having a righteousness of my own that comes from legalism, law keeping, moralistic achievement, not having a righteousness of my own, but having a righteousness that is gifted to me.
SPEAKER_02: A righteousness that comes through faith.
SPEAKER_02: One of the things that that is required of all of us as we are followers of the Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: So if you're looking at becoming a follower of the Lord Jesus, one of the things that is required of you is to admit that you uh come to him with empty hands.
SPEAKER_02: To admit that you come bringing nothing of any consequence, nothing in my hands I bring simply to thy cross I cling.
SPEAKER_02: And it's so freeing, it's so liberating.
SPEAKER_02: This is why it results in joy, because you're no longer twisted and distorted by pride, or crushed by despair, or given to anxiety, constantly looking over your shoulder to think, will somebody be a better version of me than I am?
SPEAKER_02: But you can rejoice that you come with empty hands and you receive grace.
SPEAKER_02: You come naked and find yourself clothed.
SPEAKER_02: Clothed with what?
SPEAKER_02: Clothed with the righteousness of Jesus, not having a righteousness of my own, but a righteousness that comes from faith in Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: You, believer, brothers and sisters, sisters, are clothed in the righteousness of Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: This is seen for us, Jesus describes this for us in the in the story that he tells us about the prodigal son.
SPEAKER_02: The prodigal son, he wants his father dead, and he uh he runs away with half the inheritance and he squanders it all on uh on you know fast living and fasting, you know, whatever, all of the uh all of the hedonism that this world can offer, and he finds himself with nothing destitute and at his lowest ebb, starving and longing to eat the the pods that the that the pigs are snuffling up.
SPEAKER_02: He says, I'll go back to my father and I'll say, Don't treat me as a son anymore.
SPEAKER_02: I'll be a slave and I'll and I'll work in your in your fields.
SPEAKER_02: If you just give me a job, if you if I could just have a roof over my over my head.
SPEAKER_02: And and he begins to make his way back.
SPEAKER_02: And and and what do we read?
SPEAKER_02: What does Jesus tell us?
SPEAKER_02: He tells us that the father is looking for his son, and when he sees his son, he runs to him and he embraces him.
SPEAKER_02: And he doesn't let his son get to, uh, if I could just be, if I could just be a slave, if I could just kind of work in your in your fields.
SPEAKER_02: He doesn't hear any of that plan.
SPEAKER_02: He looks to the to his to his people, to the people in his household, he says, come and bring the best robe and put it on him.
SPEAKER_02: Come and put it on my son.
SPEAKER_02: Have you ever thought in that parable, who owned the best robe?
SPEAKER_02: Father.
SPEAKER_02: Father owns the best robe.
SPEAKER_02: He's the head of the house.
SPEAKER_02: The best robe belongs to him.
SPEAKER_02: He's saying, go and get it.
SPEAKER_02: It's in the wardrobe.
SPEAKER_02: And put it on my son.
SPEAKER_02: You're clothed in the righteousness of God.
SPEAKER_02: How could that not well up in you?
SPEAKER_02: Joy and thanksgiving and gladness as you consider and ruminate on it.
SPEAKER_02: Joy is found when we lay our deadly doing down, all down at Jesus' feet, and find ourselves in Him alone, gloriously complete.
SPEAKER_02: You can know joy this morning.
SPEAKER_02: You can this morning rejoice with brothers and sisters, who together, perhaps even with state with tear stained face faces, cry out in favor.
SPEAKER_02: And thanksgiving to Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Say, Jesus, we thank you, we love you, we worship you.
SPEAKER_02: That you might see past us as we are and clothe us in your righteousness.
SPEAKER_02: I might look at all of this effort, all of this exhausting wandering, trying to make myself something or someone.
SPEAKER_02: When I say I am invited to discover who I am in you.
SPEAKER_02: You are our boast.
SPEAKER_02: You are our glory.
SPEAKER_02: You are our righteousness, our king and our God.