Book of Philippians VIII

That is so encouraging. I really appreciate that. I have discovered that, as someone said to me earlier, that things don't come easily for us. They don't. There's a walk of faith. Ever since last Wednesday night, when I shared a bit of my own journey of healing, I've had a really pretty rough time. The enemy's really coming against me, so I appreciate your prayers for my back. That encourages me, though, Elaine, to know that God's not done. Isn't that true? He's in the process. But sometimes you just stand. You just stand, and it encourages. That's why we have these services. That's why you need to tell someone that's not here tonight, Hey, I need you on Wednesday night to come be part of encouraging the body of Christ when we gather together. I don't know how people... You can't convince me that you can do this walk on your own and really grow it. I just don't know how people think they can do that. It doesn't work. But I'm glad I came just to hear that testimony. It encourages me, and I know you'll be praying for me, and I'll be praying for you, and who knows? Does anyone here believe that we don't have to call this a healing service to be healed? I mean, if you have faith tonight, the Spirit of God is here. I'm just going to believe along the way that He's going to speak to us, and some other people are going to be healed tonight. And if you're open to that, it doesn't have to be some kind of a special event. It can happen all the time. Anyhow, I also want to give place tonight to the Word of God because that's central to what we're doing here. Let's look at Philippians 3. I'm going to read several verses tonight, so if you don't have a Bible, just tune in carefully or look at your neighbor's Bible. Let's read together Philippians 3, verses 1 through 11. Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again. It is a safeguard for you. Watch out for those dogs, those men who do evil, those mutilators of the flesh, for it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus and who put no confidence in the flesh, though I myself have reasons for such confidence. If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more. Circumcised on the eighth day of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews, in regard to the law, a Pharisee, as for zeal, persecuting the church, as for legalistic righteousness, faultless. But whatever was to my profit, I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ, Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, 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 is through faith in Christ, the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, and so somehow to attain the resurrection from the dead. Wonderful scriptures, and I know they're precious to most of us who've walked with the Lord for a while. You know, in our culture, credentials are important. How many of you have a driver's license? See, that basically is my credential that says I can drive a car. About two weeks ago, I went down to Pace Membership Warehouse. You've got to have a credential to get in there. If you don't have one, have this big guy that stands there. You can smile real pretty. You can say, my wife has one. He doesn't care. If you don't pull out the credential, you don't get in. Credentials also mean a lot in some more cultured kind of ways and some more significant kind of ways as well. The president's prayer breakfast a few months ago, if you didn't have the right tag and the right credential, you weren't even allowed in the hotel the morning that the president came and we shared that prayer breakfast together. Some of our best friends and neighbors compete for credentials to have certain things said about themselves. Well, this passage tonight really is about credentials. But more than credentials, dear ones, it's about essentials. And I pray that just a couple of things go way down inside your hearts tonight. This is a Bible study. As in any Bible study, you do best when you really think about it and maybe even jot down some notes to take away with you. I'm going to work real hard at this so that some of you tonight can leave here with an improved heavenly credential. Let's see if we can come into some kind of understanding of this. One of the things that has been on my mind as of late is how many Christians I know who are living underneath their inheritance. It seems to me that a lot of people do not have the signs of the kingdom of God which are righteousness, peace, and joy. How many people here have lots of righteousness, lots of peace, lots of joy? I mean, you should. You really should. Jesus said that's what the kingdom is about, righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. Folks, honestly, I just say this as an observation tonight. It seems like lots of people don't have righteousness, peace, and joy in abundance. They're struggling with it. And it seems to me there's a lot of people out there who would love to be going on but are stuck. And there are people out there who are robbing righteousness, peace, and joy from the people of God. There's a lot of them. Paul talks about them here in just a moment. We're going to look at it. But I believe tonight that if we get a hold of this, at least for me, we're going to find ourselves growing in righteousness, peace, and joy, the gift that God gives as part of the kingdom of God. And notice what Paul says. Let's look right down at the scriptures. He says this, verse 2. Well, first of all, he says, Rejoice in the Lord. Everyone say, Rejoice in the Lord. Now say it and look at your neighbor. Now did they say it? Did you see any white? All right. Paul says it's not worrisome for me to say rejoice. We're supposed to rejoice. We're supposed to be happy here, okay? I mean, if it's not a happy place, then we're missing what the Lord is saying. Paul says, though, verse 2, Watch out, or the Greek word is really beware. Beware of those dogs. Who's he talking about? Who are the dogs that Paul is talking about? How many of you have dogs? How many of you have cats? Let me interrupt this message. I got to share a little. I mean, we're talking about dogs and cats. I want to share a cartoon with you. Now, can you all see this from back there? I hope you can. Are you ready? If you're a dog lover, you'll appreciate this. Go ahead, Nancy. Dogs first. Oh, yes. Dogs are definitely first. Right, folks? All right. All right. What do we say to dogs? Okay, Ginger, I've had it. You stay out of the garbage. I understand, Ginger. Stay out of the garbage. What Ginger hears is, Blah, blah, Ginger. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, Ginger. Blah, blah, blah. How many of you have dogs? It's just like that one, right? Okay. Now, but really, this is my favorite. This is for you cat lovers and owners. What do we say to cats? Well, Fluffy, you've clawed the furniture for the last time. I'll not tolerate that behavior anymore. What Fluffy hears is, Fluffy does what Fluffy pleases. All right. Now, you have to know, I've had that cartoon in my file, and I've wanted to use it for so long. Forgive me. I mean, it's just like it's... But dogs. Paul is making a reference here to the depths of his feelings about people who are distorting and twisting the liberty that we have in Jesus Christ. He calls them further. Look at verse 2. Those men who do evil. And then he goes on and even says, Those mutilators of the flesh. Now, what he was referring to, if you'll forgive me for being blunt, was that there were men who were coming along behind Paul and the apostles and the believers at Philippi and saying, To really be saved, you not only needed to trust Christ, you needed to keep the ceremonial law, and you also needed to be circumcised if you were man. And he was saying, These men were literally adding to what God said was needed to be acceptable in his sight. And to do so was really just mutilating the flesh. It had no purpose in the eyes of God. By the way, where it says there, Beware or watch out, literally in the Greek it says it three times. It says, Watch out for those dogs. Watch out for those men. Watch out for those mutilators. Anytime the Bible says something three times, it's trying to make a very strong point. It's like when it says, Holy, holy, holy. I want you to hear something. He's saying, Beware, beware, beware of anything that wants to come and add a burden to your liberty in Christ. Beware of it. Remember, Paul is writing this from a prison cell in Rome. He has no way to get there to help the people himself, and so he says it in the strongest of terms. Watch out. I want to say to you tonight, North Way people, Beware, beware, beware, because there are joy robbers out there. There are people, there are situations, there are circumstances that are robbing us of joy and of peace and of the righteousness that we have in Christ. And Paul detested that spirit. Now, I'm going to tell you what exactly I think that is in just a moment, but let's look at the next verse where he says, These are the marks of a true believer. Verse 3. These are the three marks of those who have godly credentials. Number one, he said, We worship in the Spirit. We worship in the Spirit. Do you want to know if you're really moving in what God's provided? Then you have a joy and a liberty in worshiping in the Spirit. Can I say to you, there's a whole lot more to this worship business than just, well, we do it differently than the Episcopalians or the Presbyterians or this church or that church. You name it. It isn't a matter of denomination, is it, church? It's a matter of worship in the Spirit. Jesus said, Those who worship Me, worship Me in Spirit and in truth. And that's why we just can't let this thing go. We have to keep pressing ourselves and growing, worshiping in the Spirit. Paul also says another mark or godly credential is glorying in Christ Jesus or boasting in Him. When's the last time you said, you know something, you told some other person, I'm so proud of God. I'm really excited about what God's doing. Not necessarily about the church or about whatever, but God is doing great things. I hope some of you are able to say after Elaine's testimony, I'm so proud of what God's doing. He's healing people. I'm so proud of what God's doing. He's restoring relationships. I'm so proud of what God's doing. He's alive among us. Boasting in Him, glorying in who He is. The cross, the atonement, the gift of forgiveness. Or Paul says number three, a godly mark is to not glory in the works of the flesh. To not glory in the things that we accomplish. Now, by the way, those next several verses, Hebrew of Hebrews and all those kind of things, circumcising, that doesn't mean a whole lot to you or me, does it? I mean, to the Jew, those things were powerful. These works of the flesh, circumcised on the eighth day, the people of Israel, and so on, so on, tribe of Benjamin. Let me replay that for you, may I? This is how it may read for some of you tonight. These are some works of the flesh that you may think, well, this is what gives me credential. He says, I was baptized as a baby on the eighth day. I'm the sixth generation Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Lutheran, you name it, Methodist. Beyond that, my family was the founding family of this church. Well, beyond that, they were upstanding moral leaders in the community. Well, beyond that, I taught Sunday school for 27 years. Beyond that, I used to resist those silly new churches that popped up everywhere. Well, beyond that, I've never consciously sinned. Now, those eight little characteristics are the counterparts that I hear people say all the time about who they are. Oh, they'll say, oh, I'm a this, I was baptized that way, my parents did this, I did this, I taught that, I was available to this, all my life that, all my this, that, and they think somehow that those credentials are what is pleasing to God. Well, may I say to you tonight, if you know people like that, I trust that you're praying for them to realize that those credentials before a holy God do not cut it. And may I say furthermore that if tonight, somehow you think that there's things that you can do, oh, I work in the nursery, oh, I'm in the parking lot ministry, oh, I go to all Gene Yannikos' Bible studies, that somehow that's a credential that you flash to God. It doesn't work that way, church. And what you find is when those things begin to be so important in your life, they'll push out the joy and the peace and the righteousness that God came to give. There's only one way to walk in that, and those of you who are being baptized, listen carefully. The way we walk in righteousness, peace, and joy is by focusing entirely on who Jesus Christ is. Quite a few of us try to cover an awful lot of bases to make sure that we're going to keep in the flow of joy. We have a lot of people that zip in here one weekend and zip out another weekend and go over here another weekend and do this another Wednesday night, and they're all over the place trying to find the joy someplace and keep rolling in their life. I want to say to you, if that's what you're doing, then you're going to be frustrated. All you're doing is you're pushing an experience in your life and not the fact that Jesus Christ came to give you joy and peace and righteousness. One of the things that I think has become a danger really in a lot of charismatic-type churches is that people look for experiences or they look for this or that. Our joy is simply found in who Jesus Christ is in our life, and that does not change. Oh, yes, circumstances will affect us, but the joy of our lives is found in knowing Christ and who He is. Now, there's nothing wrong. Let's move on quickly to verse 7. Paul says, Whatever was to my prophet. Now, all those things that we just talked about aren't bad. Folks, there's nothing wrong with being born in a Christian home and the sixth generation of that or baptized, whatever. I mean, there's nothing wrong with any of those things, but if that's where the source of your joy or your confidence or your credential, you're in trouble. I know you know this, many of you, but a lot of you don't recognize what a knot that's formed around so many of our lives. Paul says this, There's nothing wrong with that, but compared to knowing Christ, look at verse 8, I consider that a loss. Verse 8, What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. You see, our relationship with Jesus is so vastly superior to anything that we bring to the table. Knowing Christ is so much better than being a Methodist my whole life or a Catholic or a Presbyterian. Knowing Jesus is so much better. My great-great-grandfather, most of you know, was the one who founded the hospital. I have this wonderful book about his life. I meant to bring it tonight. I mean, it's just humbling. He did more on horseback than I'll ever do in a car. He had no computers. Can you imagine a ministry with no computers? And he wrote books and he established all these churches in the area and all that stuff. But you see, none of that stuff, none of it, knowing Christ Jesus. You see, the credential that he shows to his Heavenly Father is the same one I'm going to show another hundred years later. It's knowing Christ and the power of His resurrection. Whatever it is tonight, some of you are very discouraged in your ministry. Or maybe you've been trying to share the Lord with someone and they keep rebuffing you and you don't know why and you're down about that or whatever it might be. Dear one, listen, tonight, the basis of joy, the basis of peace, the basis of righteousness is knowing Christ. Just knowing Him. Focusing your affections on Him. You see, the reason this is so is because Jesus gave you something that no one else could give you. Watching the hockey games, there's one going on here shortly and I know a lot of you are thinking about it, I can tell. But a while back, Tom Barrasso committed a foul and something interesting happened. He's the goalie, in case you don't know that. And Tom Barrasso committed a foul but he didn't leave the ice. Someone else from the team on the ice had to pay the penalty. Someone else left the ice, went into the penalty box. I thought to myself, what a neat illustration of what Jesus did for us. I committed those sins. I lived selfishly and pridefully. I violated the goodness of God. But the Lord said, no, you don't have to die, you don't have to leave the rink of life. I'll pay the price. That's part of what Jesus gave to you. How many of you know that's true? That's a tremendous thing. Many people don't know how to be forgiven. It's so simple. But here's the other part of it. What's the other part, by the way, of the atonement? Part of it is forgiveness of sins. What's the other part? That's what God took away. What's the other part? What He gave to you. He took away sin. He took away all the dirt and the filth of our sin. But what did He give you? He gave you righteousness. The Bible calls it, He imputed righteousness. He gave you a gift so that you literally now, in the eyes of God, have been forgiven. But more than that, you've been given righteousness so that when God the Father looks at you, He doesn't see the broken, discouraged, or prideful, and rebellious, sinful person. He sees one cleansed in Christ and wearing the robes of His righteousness. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. What a gift God's given to us. And so that's why it says, knowing Christ, Paul says, is the most excellent thing in all the world. That's what I want to focus on. That's what I want to give my life to. Let me end with this one thought. Notice what it says here. Verse 10. I want to know Christ. Let's all say that. I want to know Christ. Is that the cry of your heart? I want to know Him. And the power of His resurrection. You know what the problem with so many people is? They come in to the Christian faith. They have an initial rush, an initial experience, an initial high. And then they just kind of float around aimlessly for months, sometimes years, and never begin to really know Christ. A little boy rolled out of bed and fell on the floor. His mom came in and said, What happened? He said, Mom, I guess I stayed too close to where I got in. That's exactly what happens. A lot of people stay too close to where they came in and they roll out. How many of you know someone that came to Christ in the last six months that's not walking with Him now? I do. The key is knowing Christ. Let me give you just a couple ways you can do that. Number one, it's right there in the Scripture, by faith, look what it says, that which is through faith. I'd like to develop this. I won't take the time, but dear ones, the only way we know Christ is by faith. We know Him as we learn to trust Him. Faith is an active trust. And how do you learn to trust God? How many of you learn to trust God when everything is going great? How many of you learn to trust God when things aren't going that well? I hate that. I wish there was a better way. Don't you? I enjoy when things go well, but I don't have to trust God. Why do trials come into our lives? Why do problems emerge? Why do you bang the car into a pole? Why do your kids drive you nuts sometimes? Why does your job become difficult? Why? God lets these things come in, James 1 verse 2 says, and we should count them as joy. Welcome them, the Phillips translation says, as friends. Why? So we can trust the Lord. Grow in faith. Grow in faith. It's a vitally important thing. I was talking to a businessman yesterday. He's been working diligently for two years on a project, and it just appears that everyone around him is doubting the project. And I said to him, listen, know this one thing. Count it joy. This is a trial. This is a real test. But draw near to the Lord right now, and no matter what happens with the project, you're going to be a better man. You're going to be blessed with God because you're going to have faith. It's far more precious than any gold or silver. The second way that we grow in faith is by fellowshipping in His sufferings. And I don't want to get anyone down tonight about this, but let me just say this. Fellowshipping in sufferings, folks, is a necessary ingredient in knowing Christ. I'm not talking here about you, you know, climbing up on a cross and getting beaten like Jesus did, or, you know, like in the Philippines where they flagellate themselves around Easter. I'm not talking about that. We're talking about sharing in what Jesus sacrificed. That's what fellowshipping in His sufferings is. And to me, those sacrifices were things like being misunderstood, not only by your antagonists, but by your friends. You know, Jesus' disciples didn't understand Him all the time. His sufferings were things like being inconvenienced. Oh, Master, come right now. My daughter's dying, but I'm exhausted. I'm tired. Come right now. Suffering with Jesus is like being attacked by the enemy. Jesus was continually battling attacks from the enemy. We read about several, but there's probably lots of times that happened. I mean, how many times are we really, really identifying with His sufferings? You know, I say to myself, Lord, I want the deeper walk. How many of us say, I want the deeper walk? I want to know Christ. You see, there's a price to this thing. It's faith. It's the fellowship of His sufferings. And I don't know if I want that, but that's what the Bible says I have to have. And thirdly, Nancy, it's growing in the fullness of the Spirit. How do you know Christ? You let His Spirit carry you through these times. Dear ones, one thing that I love about this church, I know when I come in discouraged or facing a struggle, I know the Spirit of God meets us here, and I feel carried. I'm going to leave here tonight. I might be tired from standing and ministering, but I'm going to be lifted in my spirit. That's why I need you. That's why we need to be together. That's why we need our groups to meet so the fullness of the Spirit can carry us through. I want to know Christ, don't you? And I want to share in the power of His resurrection. When I stand before God, my Father, I'm going to have one credential. And it's not going to be that my great-great-grandfather was a wonderful Lutheran. It's not going to be that my mom and dad raised me in a Christian home or I was baptized as an infant. It's not going to be that I went to every charismatic meeting you can imagine. I had every faith hand laid on me you can imagine. That's not going to matter to God. It's not going to be that I was a pastor of a wonderful church. The only credential I can present to my Heavenly Father is that I know Christ and the power of His resurrection. And you can know that too. Those of you who are about to be baptized, what you are saying publicly here tonight is this. You're saying, God, I'm laying aside all my other credentials. I'm taking this public statement that's saying the only credential that I'll ever trust in is Jesus and His blood that He shed for me. That's all that baptism really is. It's a public statement of what you're believing in your heart to have. Let's stand together, shall we? If the elders could come prepare themselves, please. Lord, as we come to these waters of baptism just now,