Where is Judson?
So sleeping quietly.
So I better not do anything to disturb him.
Okay, let's bow our heads and pray.
Heavenly Father, we pray that as we come to your word now,
as I preach it, that you would speak to us by your spirit,
that you would grow us in Christ,
and that you would help us to stand firm in Christ,
holding onto the righteousness that you have given to us in him.
And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.
Who am I?
You put your hand up quietly if you think you get this one.
And if you're at the first service, you're not allowed to say.
I was one of three brilliant brothers,
all trained at Eton and Cambridge in England.
The three of us were in the Eton Rowing 11 in the same year.
I was described as the best all-round English batsman in my day.
My brothers and I were all converted to Christ independently on the same day.
Well done, well done, Vanda.
I played with other notables, such as W.G. Grace.
I was part of the English team which lost to Australia in 1882,
and the Sporting Times published the following epitaph after the match.
In affectionate remembrance of English cricket,
which died at the Oval on the 29th of August, 1882.
Deeply lamented by a large circle of sorrowing friends and acquaintances.
R.I.P.
Note well, the body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia.
That was a lie, wasn't it?
They've kept them.
I inherited a large fortune.
I gave it all away and became a missionary to China.
I was distinctive because I was amongst the first missionaries
to try to take on the culture of the people that I was trying to witness to.
My name is C.T. Studd.
The biography of C.T. Studd is the story of a man who became passionate about his faith.
In human terms, he had it all before him.
He had wealth.
He had popularity.
He had great sporting ability and he had brains.
And probably things that we crave for our children.
And he turned to Christ and he was no longer satisfied with what he had
and he was no longer satisfied with what most people crave for.
When his brother nearly died, C.T. Studd wrote this.
He said,
All those things that had become as nothing to my brother,
all those things had become as nothing to my brother,
he only cared about the Bible and the Lord Jesus Christ.
And God taught me the same lesson.
And in his love and goodness, he restored my brother to health.
And as soon as I could get away, I went to hear Mr. Moody.
And there the Lord met me again and restored to me the joy of his salvation.
And still further and what was better than all,
he sent me to work for him
and I began to try to persuade my friends to read the gospel
and to speak to them individually about their souls.
And I cannot tell you what joy it gave me
to bring my first soul to the Lord Jesus Christ.
I have tasted almost all the pleasures that this world can give
and I do not suppose that there is one that I have not experienced.
But I can tell you that those pleasures were as nothing
compared to the joy that the saving of one soul gave me.
So the Bible passage I'm preaching this morning and was just read
is Philippians chapter 3 and it begins with these words,
Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord.
And it's a call which comes several times in Philippians.
It's there again in chapter 4.
Rejoice in the Lord always.
I will say it again, rejoice.
Rejoice in the Lord.
And it's not really like this call to happy, clappy feelings.
It's a call to the deep joy that comes from a thriving life
lived in faithful service to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Last week I spoke about Philippians chapter 2,
not in this service but at 8.30,
and God calling us to a life of humble service of him.
Verse 3, chapter 2,
And that is the life that we are called to live in response to the humble service,
the humility of the Lord Jesus Christ.
He is the one who, though he was in the form of God,
did not count equality with God something to be grasped,
but made himself nothing,
taking the nature of a slave,
and he humbled himself and became obedient to death on a cross.
And so really in simple terms, a simple summary,
our wonderful saviour left the safety of heaven,
was executed by his creatures,
and God lifted him back into heaven
and gave him the name which is over every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven
and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord
to the glory of God the Father.
Christian joy comes from receiving and following
the humble servant-heartedness of the Lord Jesus Christ.
One of the themes of this letter to the Philippians
is that not only has God humbled himself,
Paul and his team have humbled themselves,
and we are to humble ourselves
if we are to be true partners of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Verse 2 is a real change in tone,
and it contains a passionate warning.
It says,
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 put no confidence in the flesh.
It's a pretty ugly contrast.
It's a hot denunciation of a group
whose teaching and ways pose
a considerable threat to the Christians
in the early church,
and especially here at Philippi.
The enemy is not identified,
but what they teach is.
They could be some zealous Jews
who are forcing their true blue Judaism
in the face of Christianity,
or perhaps they are Christians
like some of the Christians
in the early church in Jerusalem
who do not know yet,
or don't yet know how to let go
of their Jewish ways,
and are pushing them against
the international believers.
When he says,
Watch out,
it means consider carefully their ways
and beware of them.
They are a formidable enemy
who needs careful watching.
Their beliefs might not seem so bad,
but they are a disaster to Christian faith.
They're people who probably take away
from Christ as the centre,
and they might be pushing law,
and they might be pushing
Ten Commandments,
and they're certainly pushing circumcision,
but they are not pushing Christ.
And he calls them dogs,
men who do evil,
the mutilation.
They're great words to bandy
around the church, aren't they?
Don't really encourage you
to do that at morning tea.
But he's using biting irony,
and he is ripping apart
those who are trying
to push their Judaism
against Christ.
The things that they are proud of,
he tears apart.
He calls them dogs.
These are people in the church
or around the church
who think of themselves as clean,
who think of themselves
as the holy people of God,
and he calls them dogs,
unclean animals,
unable to come anywhere near
a holy God.
People who do evil,
not keepers of God's holy laws,
the mutilation,
a clear reference to circumcision,
not a sign of consecration to God.
A little bit hard for us to identify,
but it's almost like coming into a church
where people are not really on about Christ,
but they're on about tradition,
and they're on about the outward things,
and so people might be saying to you,
I've been baptised,
I've been confirmed,
I've been ordained,
and Paul is ripping in and saying,
just because you've got the outward things
doesn't make you holy at all.
And it's a tremendous insult.
He castigates what they're preaching.
He wants believers to understand
how wrong these peddlers of religion are.
And he contrasts it with true Christian faith,
and he reassures the Christians
with the words in verse 3,
these guys haven't got it outwardly perhaps,
but they've got it inwardly,
and he says,
we are the circumcision,
we who worship by the Spirit of God,
who glory in Christ Jesus,
and put no confidence in the flesh.
We mightn't have it outwardly,
but we do have God's grace inwardly.
Don't be put off, friends.
When we cling to Christ,
we have what it means to be truly circumcised.
We do worship by the Spirit of God.
We don't trust in our own religious acts
or achievements.
I think I had the experience
very early in my Christian life.
I came to Christ in February,
and by the middle of the year,
I was really actively involved
in my local church,
and probably three-quarters of the way
through the year,
I was also involved in the Christian group
at New South Wales University,
which in those days was student life,
or one of them was.
And we would get together in small groups.
We'd go out witnessing.
We'd have our big group meeting
through the week.
But one of the things that also happened
is pastors would come in from churches
sometimes to get alongside
and encourage the students.
And one of the men who came alongside us
seemed like a guru.
He was from an independent Baptist church.
He was an older man.
He was opening up the scriptures.
But on reflection,
he was always opening things to us
like the book of Revelation
and the book of Daniel.
And explaining the end times
and how everything was going to work out.
And we were sort of goggle-eyed in amazement,
wondering how it was going to happen,
and marvelling at the wisdom of this man.
And I was a young Christian
who had outwardly changed.
And my friends knew I'd changed.
My family knew I'd changed.
And I was eager to speak about
the Lord Jesus Christ.
And this man discovered one day
that I was an Anglican.
And I'd been baptised as a baby.
And he asked me if I'd been baptised.
And I said,
oh yeah, I think I was baptised as a baby.
And he said,
no, you haven't been baptised properly.
And he pushed that line over a period of time
and actually became a considerable stumbling block
to me and my faith.
Because I was a young, tender-hearted Christian,
eager to serve the Lord Jesus
and do what he wanted me to do.
And this man was actually,
started to say to me
that I was a disobedient believer
who wasn't honouring the Lord Jesus Christ
by doing the externals right.
And it's a longer story
how God brought me out of that,
but it took three or four years.
And I look back
with a different sort of maturity now
and think that my brother,
as well-meaning as he was,
threw a considerable stumbling block at my feet.
Paul is passionate and strong here.
These are people who look religious
and may be intimidating to the people of God,
but they actually pull people away
from Christ at the centre.
And he comes back and he says even more,
verses four to six.
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.
He says,
I know about these things.
I know what I'm talking about.
If anybody's a true blue Jew,
I am.
Cut in the flesh.
On the right day.
In the right way.
An Israelite.
From the tribe of the first king,
Saul.
Born of Hebrew parents.
He can trace his genealogy.
There's no dark skeletons in the closet.
He's a Pharisee.
He's won by conviction.
He's bound himself not only to obey the law of Moses,
but also the hundreds of commandments contained in the oral law.
He's absolutely faultless in keeping the legalistic requirements of the Pharisaic regulation.
He tithes his mint and cumin.
If he was a kid at school,
he would have been bringing home achievement awards by the bucket load,
and we would have been praising him for it.
He was a very,
very good man.
He's proved his zeal by being a persecutor of the followers of Christ.
In Acts,
Paul was there nodding with approval as Stephen was stoned to death.
Paul was standing there thinking,
this is a righteous thing to do.
And so as a Jew,
he is as good as they come.
Faultless.
He had it all.
One of the Bible study questions this week
is to write your own pedigree.
Write your own religious CV.
So I'll give you mine.
Baptised by Bishop Dudley Ford in 1958.
Something I remember well.
Not.
Confirmed by the Bishop of Grafton
before I came to Christ.
That worked, didn't it?
Nurtured amongst a wonderful group of believers,
Christian believers at Narrabeen.
Tutored in the scriptures at Mork Theological College
by Archbishop Peter Jensen.
Ordained deacon by Archbishop Donald Robinson.
Ordained presbyter by Archbishop Harry Goodhue.
Numbers of years in full-time Christian ministry
at Currajong and Normanhurst and Macquarie Fields
and Weewall and Norwest and now at Chatswood.
Those of you who are believers,
you can write your own.
But then he writes,
whatever was to my profit,
I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.
And 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.
Our English Bible softened the impact of these words.
Whatever was to my profit,
I now consider rotting, stinking garbage
for the sake of Christ.
I consider them dung that I may gain Christ.
It's a load of crap.
It's as bald as that,
what it says in the scripture.
I've invested in junk bonds
that have taken me backwards and not forwards.
Knowing God,
knowing Christ,
becoming righteous
has nothing to do with the life that we live.
It is a gift of God
which only comes through faith
in Jesus Christ.
He was an outstanding Jew.
Very religious man.
astonishing pedigree.
And by the grace of God,
he was brought to Christ
and he was able to look back at his past
and see that everything he did to please God
was an absolute and total waste
in terms of knowing him.
Rubbish,
dung,
stinking garbage.
The things that he used to glory in,
the things that made him a big man
in other people's eyes,
actually made him less in God's economy.
And that's why he's so opposed
to these peddlers of religion.
Dogs,
doers of evil,
mutilators of flesh.
They're peddling a way of pleasing God
which was totally focused
on the life that we live,
wearing the right badge,
keeping the law which cannot be kept,
having the right surgery,
it's all outward human observance.
Stuff that can be seen.
They're focused on the outward,
they're not focused on the inward.
And Paul has been through a reversal.
God has turned him around in his tracks.
He's come to know Christ.
He's been brought face to face with him.
He's come to see
that you can only become acceptable to God
through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Total dependence on him
and on what he has done to save us.
We trust him.
For our salvation.
And that's where the rubber
really hits the road for you and me.
The new St. Pauls,
we are the new St. Pauls.
Steve used that expression the other week
in the Vision Sunday service.
It's made up of people with a long,
proud evangelical history
which goes back more than 100 years.
And we are also a young,
ethnically diverse church with hope
who became the new St. Pauls
in January this year.
And the combined experience
of all our members
brings much to thank God for.
So, you know,
across our body,
we've taught scripture
and Sunday school
and we've knocked on doors
and we've done evangelism in the mall
and we've served full time
on parish council
and we've looked after the grounds
and given generously
and preached
and led services
and we've cleaned
and served
and given
and we've worked hard
for God's church.
We've been baptised.
We've been confirmed.
We've attended prayer meetings
and Bible studies.
We've led people to faith in Christ
and you name it,
we've done it.
And if you haven't done it here,
you've probably done it in church
somewhere else.
And they're all great things to do
but when you recite a list like that,
like I've just recited a list like that,
it really is about what we have done.
It's about us.
It's a list which is focused on us
and our service
and we need to be really careful
when our eyes are on us
and what we have done
that the focus has not slipped off Christ.
Paul was warning people
who thought of themselves
as close to God
who were actually a long way from him.
That's what the Judaizers had become.
You can do the externals
and you can actually lose your heart and soul.
It's a terrifying thought.
More than anything,
the Christian is called to be on about
what Christ has done.
Not who I am,
not what I have done.
He has saved me.
He has given me faith.
He has made me acceptable to him.
He is helping me to grow in righteousness.
To him be the praise forever and ever.
Amen.
C.T. Studd came to the point
early in his life
where cricket,
national acclaim
and even international acclaim
no longer satisfied.
Even as a Christian.
And he was passionate
for that greater goal
of serving Christ
and seeing men and women
won to him.
And God brought Paul
to a point
where he saw
that his old ways
of pursuing righteousness
through the Jewish system
were absolutely futile
in the face of what Christ
had done for him
and he turned his back
on the lot
and his creed
became
what's written here
in verses 10 and 11.
Very personal words.
He says,
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
to the resurrection
from the dead.
I think
that's a magnificent
creed
for every one
of us.
It's not about
who we are
it's about Christ
it's about
what he's done
it's about
what it might
cost us
to follow him
and to know him
and in the end
we're called
to follow his humility
we are brought low
as we share
in his sufferings
and our eyes
are fixed
on the hope
of sharing
in his resurrection
after death.
Not about us
it's about Christ
it's about us
humbling ourselves
and giving him
the glory.
It's an unforgettable
moment
there was an
unforgettable
moment
at the 1996
Olympic Games
in Atlanta
Georgia.
Australian
Samantha Riley
was our
golden girl
and she was
the absolute
hot favourite
to win the gold
medal
in the women's
200 metre
breaststroke event.
It was one
of the goals
that we were
just bound
to win.
and the
South African
Penny Haynes
beat her
in a
magnificent
race
and the
Aussie
interviewer
Channel 7
got to her
first out of the
pool
dripping wet
puffing
had just
finished the
race
congratulated
her on her
swim
and her
first words
out of the
pool were
I just
went out
there today
to try
to do
my best
I put
everything
into the
Lord's
hands
and he
really
honoured
me today
and I
give him
all the
praise
they edited
those words
out of every
replay
a gold
medal
victory
and her
words
and her
testimony
were not
focused on
what she
had done
she was
centred on
Christ
and she
gave him
the glory
in a
most
magnificent
moment
when
Qantas
Flight
32's
engine
blew up
the other
night
and more
than 460
people realised
that they
could have
died in a
catastrophe
and we
have listened
to story
after story
being told
about that
event in
the media
through this
week
not once
have I heard
somebody say
thank God
for his
mercy
and kindness
and protection
in that
circumstance
it's not
about us
it's about
Christ
it's about
his glory
I think
I wonder
whether you
do something
with me
this morning
and that
is to
take these
words to
heart
and even
to make
them your
personal
creed
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
to the
resurrection
from the
dead
will you
say that
with me
if I say
it out loud
will you
repeat it
with me
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
to the
resurrection
from the
dead
I wonder
now whether
we might
just bow
our heads
and pray
about those
things in
our mind
and I'll
finish by
praying in
a minute
Heavenly
Father we
thank you
for this
most
magnificent
scripture
and for
the
extraordinary
transformation
you brought
in the
life of
the
apostle
Paul
and for
the way
that he
could throw
all his
human
achievement
and ability
and status
to the
side
for the
absolute
joy
of knowing
you
and we
pray Lord
Jesus
that as
men and
women
at St
Paul's
Chatswood
that we
would be
people who
are absolutely
on about
your glory
who delight
to do
your will
who
thrill to
know you
who deeply
desire to
grow and
know you
even deeper
and we
would pray
that from
the overflow
of our
lives that
many people
would be
brought to
faith in
the Lord
Jesus
Christ
help us
to give you
glory day
by day
to realise
that every
breath we
take is
by your
mercy
and that we
would live
lives of
humble service
to you
Lord Jesus
and we
pray this
in his
name and
for his
sake
Amen
will
be
who
know you
want to
to come
to you