As I read our sermon text, remember this is God's inspired, inerrant, infallible, clear, sufficient word for his people.
Philippians 3, 1 through 11.
Finally, brethren, rejoice in the Lord.
For me to write the same things to you is not tedious, but for you it is safe.
Beware of dogs.
Beware of evil workers.
Beware of the mutilation.
For we are the circumcision who worship God in the spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.
Though I might have confidence in the flesh if anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I more so.
Circumcised on the eighth day of the stock of Israel, the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews, concerning the law of Pharisee, concerning zeal, persecuting the church,
concerning the righteousness which is in the law blameless.
But what things were gain to me?
These I have counted loss for Christ.
Yet indeed, I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord,
for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him.
Not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith,
that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being conformed to his death.
If by any means I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.
This is the word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
You may be seated.
Oh, Lord, I ask that you please fill your people with true joy that can only come from Jesus Christ again today.
And may our rejoicing in the Lord together be our strength as you promise.
Amen.
The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of the Lord stands forever.
And as Luke 137 says, no word from God shall be void of power.
May it be so through the ministry of his word.
Well, like it or not, we live in the United States of America.
Whose declaration of independence includes the phrase, the pursuit of happiness.
Maybe this American ideal has never been.
So bluntly put forward as Henry Ford himself did.
There is no happiness except in the realization that we have accomplished something.
According to Henry Ford, the pursuit of happiness is to go after whatever your heart desires.
Well, the problem is our hearts are twisted and fallen and dark.
And happiness in this understanding is found in grabbing something in this realm of creation for myself.
Therefore, happiness is dependent upon circumstances.
And Henry Ford pointed out what I think most Americans, maybe maybe all Westerners think.
That if I work hard, I can control my happiness.
It becomes this vicious cycle, doesn't it?
Well, if I'm not happy, maybe I just need to work harder and accomplish something that will then make me finally happy.
The Bible reveals something very different about joy.
Biblical joy is so much deeper and it cannot be shaken.
True joy can't be manufactured, manipulated or controlled by fallen man.
It's not a commodity to be bought or sold.
I was curious, what would Noah Webster's old dictionary say about joy and rejoicing?
1828 defines joy this way.
Joy is when your soul feels deep, contented delight because you possess and appreciate something desirable, pleasant and good.
Let me put that the same words in reverse order.
If you possess, truly have something that is good, pleasant and desirable and you appreciate it, then you experience in your soul an emotion of deep, contented delight.
That's joy.
And rejoicing is to experience that.
And this is different than worldly happiness because this is an inward treasure.
It's a treasure.
It's a treasure that I possess in my soul that can't be taken away from me when my circumstances change.
Joy is the big message of the Bible.
True joy.
The most clear part of Jesus' teachings as they build up in all of the Gospels.
We get these insights in John chapters 14, 15, 16 and 17.
And he pulls his disciples close and he reveals the joy of heaven to them.
And Jesus said in John 15, 11,
See, it's the joy of Christ himself that he wants to fill the soul of a Christian.
And that's our theme for today's sermon.
Verse one, Paul says it.
Brethren, rejoice in the Lord.
I say this again and again to you.
Rejoice.
So, beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, I invite you to reflect, take stock.
How precious is your joy in the Lord?
In our sermon text, I've divided it into six encouragements for us of this precious joy we have in the Lord.
And the first is this, that you must be reminded to rejoice in the Lord and to protect this precious joy.
You and I need to be reminded to rejoice in the Lord and also to protect it.
Your joy in the Lord needs to be protected.
And that's a big reason why we gather in his name week after week.
It's to encourage and exhort and admonish and remind one another, rejoice in the Lord.
No matter what else is hard in life, rejoice in the Lord.
This is his day.
Look at verse one.
Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord.
Experience the joy of Jesus himself.
For me to write the same things to you, Paul says, is not tedious, but for you it is safe.
In other words, Paul's saying, I don't mind repeating this over and over to you.
You need the reminder.
Plus, this joy of Christ is what I'm bearing witness to.
It's real.
It just bubbles up from my own soul.
When I think of the church in Philippi and I think of Christ and his work in his kingdom, I want to tell you about this deep joy.
And I want you to experience it.
That's what rejoice means.
Experience this joy.
And he says, for you, it's safe.
Or other translations, for you, it's a safeguard.
In other words, it needs to be protected.
His very next words are, beware.
And he repeats it three times.
Your joy will be under attack.
It will be threatened.
So you need to be reminded to rejoice in the Lord and to protect this precious joy.
Now, let me clarify it.
In verse one, when he says, finally.
One thing you can appreciate about your translation is that it's doing its best to be word for word, but it's still understandable in English.
Now, that word finally might be a bit wooden of a translation, though it's accurate.
But that same word in the original is used just as frequently to emphasize how the writer is now setting up a transition or drawing a conclusion to the arguments this far.
To refresh your memory, it's been a few weeks.
He said to them, rejoice, because the gift that you sent to me through Epaphroditus was received.
And his service to me was a blessing.
And I took his service as a gift from all of you serving me.
Rejoice as I rejoice in you.
He says, rejoice, church.
Soon you will have my fellow soldier back in your ranks serving alongside with you.
Rejoice, he's coming back.
And rejoice, because soon you'll be reading this very letter that I'm writing to you.
Paul says, I know I'm repeating myself.
In fact, he uses this command, rejoice, 14 times in the four chapters of this little letter.
I think Paul understood what we often forget.
Rejoicing is an important part of our Christian armory in the defense against the attacks of the enemy.
This life will put Christians at war with sin, Satan, worldliness and wolves.
And a big part of how we are equipped and strengthened in the battle is the joy of the Lord.
The joy of the Lord is our strength.
And your joy in the Lord is worth fighting for.
So you see how in verse one, it's a command to rejoice, but don't relax.
The two go together.
It's a militant joy.
Right now, we're the church militant.
One day we'll be the church triumphant.
But right now we're militant.
In these past weeks, we sing that beautiful Advent hymn, Rejoice, Rejoice, Emmanuel.
Remember that one?
Repeats rejoice twice.
The first time in a major key.
Rejoice.
The second time in a minor key.
Rejoice.
So it's joyful, but it's militant.
There's war.
But Emmanuel, God is with us, his church.
So we must be reminded to rejoice in the Lord and to protect this precious joy.
The second encouragement is this.
As with anything precious.
Raiders will try to rob your joy in the Lord.
Your joy in the Lord is precious.
It's the treasure inside of you.
Well, you know, the tomb raiders that would try to break into the pyramids to steal the ancient gold, silver and jewelry.
Because it's precious.
They're going to try to get in and take it away.
So his very next words are that your precious joy needs to be protected.
It will be attacked.
In verse one, he says, you're rejoicing needs to be safeguarded.
In verse two, he says, beware three times.
And he uses three very strong words.
These are threats to your joy in the Lord.
Beware of dogs.
Beware of evil workers.
Beware of the mutilation.
What did this mean?
Why these words?
What do they have to do with the joy of the church in Philippi?
We really have to read verses three and four to see how Paul continues building his argument to refute these threats.
The basis of the threat to a Christian's precious joy can be summarized this.
You will lose your joy if you start to put confidence in your own flesh.
That's what he says in verses three and four.
Though I also might have confidence in the flesh.
If anyone else thinks he might have confidence in the flesh, I mourn.
So do you see all three of these words tell us something about the threat to this church in Philippi,
tempting these Christians to put confidence in their own flesh or to feel insecure because their flesh isn't enough.
Dogs, workers of evil, the mutilation.
I love Dennis Johnson's comment that Paul paints the self-righteous Jewish legalists with the dark, unsavory hues of paganism.
He turns the table on him.
And these three words actually have a alliteration in the original language in the Greek.
The first is dogs.
The Greek word is kunas.
It's where we get the word canine.
Kunas.
Kakaos ergatas.
That's evildoers.
And katatome.
They all start with the letter K.
The mutilation.
Scholars have boiled these down into three categories.
And it's almost like it's almost like Paul has just seen this pattern.
God brings the gospel to a church.
Gentiles and all kinds of people are believing.
They're gathered together.
The spirit's ministering.
But then here comes Satan dressed as an angel of light, twisting them, trying to bind them now to put confidence back in the flesh again.
And it's almost like he's got a shorthand for that pattern.
And it's these three Greek words.
He just rattles them off under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
What is the meaning here?
The dogs are those who rob a Christian's joy by putting confidence in pedigree.
So the three Ps that we can use to help us understand are pedigree, performance, and purity.
So the dogs, it's pedigree.
He says these legalists are the true dogs.
And this is a reference to Gentiles who would be considered dirty animals and scavengers in the land.
This would be a disgusting animal that lives in the alleys and eats trash.
Even in Matthew 15, 24, Jesus used this common phrase of outsiders to the covenant people of God as Gentile dogs.
When that demon possessed, a girl's mom came to ask him and she wasn't a Jew.
And then, of course, Jesus in compassion saves her daughter.
And they believe in him by grace to turn the tables.
And Paul is following Christ's own pattern here.
In the ancient world, most dogs were not pets, but were street mongrels scavenging scraps from stinking garbage heaps.
Disgusting and defiling carpaces were what they would eat for their snacks.
In Exodus 22, 31, listen to this.
It's most likely where this became their phrase.
Exodus 22, 31, God says, you shall be consecrated to me, O Israelite people.
Therefore, you shall not eat any flesh that is torn by the beasts of the field.
These decaying carcasses don't eat roadkill.
Don't do that.
Instead, throw it to the dogs.
See, you people of Israel are clean and consecrated.
Throw the trash to the dogs.
The legalists, following the ministry of the gospel, they wanted to bind Christians to a certain diet, condemning anyone who would not eat kosher food.
And Paul portrayed them as being the ones that are feasting on poisonous food like disease infected tramps.
See how I turned the table on them?
You're trying to say you have to be kosher, have this Jewish diet to be in the people of God.
No, to bind God's true people that way is to be a dog yourself.
Their pedigree is not based on a Jewish ceremonial law.
It's not that at all.
And he's going to explain what the true identity is.
So Christians, beware of dogs.
Who would try to say, based on what you put into your mouth, you're the mutt.
Beware of that.
Number two is the evil workers.
Those are the false teachers who would try to rob the Christian's joy in Jesus by putting confidence in your own performance.
Those who place their confidence of acceptance by God in detailed, obedient keeping of the ritual, ceremonial and ethical demands of the old covenant and the Jewish tradition.
See, they're saying you have to do all these works according to the old covenant laws for the people of God in the land.
And Paul says by telling people that you are the ones, instead of doing good and performing your way to God's pleasure, you are the evil workers.
He turns the table on them in just the same way.
And the third one is the mutilation.
These are the ones who rob a Christian's joy in Jesus by putting confidence in external consecration or external purity.
These Judaizers that followed around the ministry of the gospel by trying to bind the conscience of Christians beyond what Christ intended.
They taught that if you lack this external sign of circumcision, then you are not welcome in God's presence.
And Paul turns the table on them by calling these outward Jews only pagan idol worshipers by calling them the mutilation.
That's exactly what he's alluding to.
Paul selected the very same word that the Greek Old Testament uses of those self-mutilating prophets of Baal.
Do you remember that story in 1 Kings 1828?
How the prophets of Baal come before this altar that's set up as a big, great contest and they cry aloud and they cut themselves.
They self-mutilate after their custom with swords and lances until the blood gashed out upon them.
What's more is that if a priest in the Old Testament had suffered some kind of mutilation, you know, maybe a rope got tangled around the pinky and it snapped the pinky off.
Now that priest was no longer allowed in the presence of the Holy God.
They'd had a mutilation and they were not consecrated, no longer able to be servants in the temple.
So by calling these these legalists that were putting all the confidence in this external sign of circumcision, he calls them now the ones who are not welcome in God's presence.
Because God is not looking for an outward external circumcision.
As with anything precious, raiders will try to rob you in me, just like the church in Philippi of our joy in the Lord.
Number three.
So what do we do?
We must refute the threats to our joy in the Lord.
You and I must refute.
We must fight against, push back these threats to our joy in the Lord.
Johnson again commented how the religious recipe in which Paul had been raised.
It was a formula that blended God's initial grace with a person's own best efforts in order to yield divine approval at the final judgment.
So Paul was raised in that Jewish Hebrew tradition.
God initiates you in this walk of faith and then your own best efforts at all this law keeping are what will finally give you a standing before God.
And he'll say you're approved because you did your best at the final judgment.
That's what Paul was brought up on.
I'm afraid many of us were brought up on something similar, a version of that.
And so we must refute threats like that because there will be no joy in Christ if you're living in that kind of false religious formula.
And how does Paul refute it?
Well, first of all, he's establishing his own credibility as one who can say, been there, tried that.
It doesn't work.
And he's going to bring the gospel instead.
So here's Paul establishing his credibility.
Remember those three P's, the pedigree, performance and purity.
Watch how Paul shows how he can speak to any one of those better than any of these other Judaizers.
Regarding the confidence in pedigree, Paul says in verse five, I was circumcised the eighth day.
I got that external sign and I'm of the stock of Israel.
Not only do I have the external sign, I got the internal genes.
I'm of the tribe of Benjamin.
Well, Benjamin was the favorite of Israel's sons and the only one born in the promised land,
according to Genesis 35, 16 through 18.
You remember who else was from Benjamin?
It was the first king of Israel.
Do you remember what his name was?
Saul.
See God's wonderful providence?
Saul in the New Testament, who God renames Paul,
was named after Saul, the great king from the tribe of Benjamin,
who was pleasing to men, but not to God.
Remember who Saul persecuted?
David, the type of Christ, the king after God's own heart,
just as Saul persecuted the church.
And Jesus said, you're persecuting me.
Isn't God's providence amazing?
He says in verse five, I was a Hebrew of the Hebrews.
In other words, I wasn't a mixed breed mutt.
My parents, they raised me going to Hebrew school.
And Paul says that the Jews who follow Jesus,
if you say you follow Jesus,
you have no right to treat another follower of Jesus as second class.
That's not the gospel.
You're the real dog if that's what you do.
Brief point of application.
No one should look down on a fellow Christian based on what denomination they go to, for example.
Don't we so quickly get proud and puffed up?
If someone loves Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior,
and they're growing as a disciple where God has put them,
we should praise the Lord, and we should encourage them in the faith.
There's no room for pride.
There's no room for denominationalism in that proud sense.
We don't compromise on our convictions of the Bible,
but man, we better do it with a gospel tone, right?
Number two, here's Paul's credibility for having confidence in his own performance.
Verse five, he said,
Concerning the law, I was a Pharisee.
I'm the best of the law keepers.
I wasn't like those liberal Sadducees.
I actually believe in the resurrection of the dead.
I believe what the Bible taught.
If you remember, Saul was discipled by Gamaliel,
and we read in Acts 5, 34 through 39,
that Paul's mentor was able to persuade the entire Sanhedrin.
This would be like standing up in the middle of Congress,
where you've got House of Representatives and Senators all together,
and you're able to persuade the whole nation.
That was Paul's mentor.
So you want to talk about performance?
Paul's got that.
In verse six, he says,
Concerning zeal, I was persecuting the church.
I was trying to wipe out the Jesus sect.
Well, if you and I rely on works,
or our own performance,
or things that we think we have done for God,
Paul does not mince words.
He says,
All those things you thought you were doing as a good work,
you were a worker of evil.
One example recently would be like,
Oh, you know, your church didn't do this toy drive,
or, well, I mean, our church not only did a toy drive,
we also brought Santa into the church
so that people could take their pictures with him.
Jesus says,
You're a worker of evil.
Did I tell you to do that?
You're trying to pile on all these burdens on God's people.
That's not what you're called to.
And what about confidence and purity?
Paul says in verse 6,
Concerning the righteousness which is in the law,
blameless.
The Torah, the five books of the law,
and the first five that Moses wrote,
they include, according to the rabbis who have studied them,
613 laws in the Torah itself.
But Paul says,
Not only did I keep all of those,
I also kept all of the traditions of the rabbis.
That's called the Mishnah.
And if you read reports of those who were grown up,
even today,
in that type of legalistic faith,
they will say things like this.
You're not allowed to walk more than six feet
once you wake up in the morning,
until you wash your hands with water
that you had prepared
and left by your bedside the night before.
You must wait six hours after eating chicken
before you can eat any dairy product.
You're not allowed to light a lamp.
You're not even allowed to ask your non-Jewish friend
that's in the same room to light the lamp
or turn on the light for you.
But instead you have to hint at it.
Isn't it a little dark in here?
And see if they'll pick up on your hint
and turn it on for you if it's the Sabbath
so that you're not breaking the Sabbath commandment.
You can't even rip toilet paper on Shabbat or the Sabbath.
And you have to go to sleep on your left side
and then wake up on your right side.
And if you hear the references,
where is this from?
It's not from God's inspired word.
It's from, they'll refer to rabbis
who are then scholars of rabbis.
They'll say things like it's from Shabbat
based on the Rambam.
And so you really have to understand
all the teachings of the law keepers
in order to be able to say like Paul
concerning the righteousness
which is in the law, blameless.
You can almost hear his tone.
I hate the law.
I did it all.
I tried it.
You don't want to know the true God of the Bible.
You want to keep loving an idol that you call Jesus,
which is piling on wickedness
because now you're blasphemy.
You're calling this idol in your own mind, Jesus.
But you don't really want to know
the true God of the Bible.
And yet you condemn someone who loves the Lord Jesus.
It says, have mercy on me.
And who's a chain smoker for smoking?
You know, they're not pure.
Well, do they love the Lord Jesus?
Paul says everything else is evil works.
They're the mutilation.
If you think it's your lifestyle
that gives you access to the Holy God,
you're a mutilator.
You are unfit to be in the presence of the Holy God.
Well, you and I, like Paul,
even though our context is different,
we need to refute those subtle ways
that the gospel will be undermined
and our joy in the Lord will be robbed.
The way we do that is number four.
It's we rehearse our grounds
for rejoicing in the Lord.
That's what Paul does really
with the rest of this passage.
He rehearses with the Philippian church,
third person plural,
we together, Paul and the church.
Here's our grounds for rejoicing in the Lord.
Who is it that truly belongs to God's kingdom?
Who is his covenant people?
And Paul says in verse three,
we are the circumcision.
The Jew of Jews saying,
I am one with you, Philippians.
You know, it only took 10 men
to form a synagogue,
a place where you could read the word of God.
And historians have found no evidence
that there was ever a synagogue
in the city of Philippi.
It was a very Gentile city
in a very Gentile church.
And here's the Jew of Jews
after laying out all of his credentials,
his resume,
so the Judaizers can't get a foothold.
He says, I'm with the Gentile church.
I'm with these believers
who love the Lord Jesus, nothing else.
He identifies with them
just as Christ identified with his people
while they were still his enemies.
And he tells them, church, rejoice.
We are the circumcision.
We are the covenant people of God.
Rejoice because to the church believers
from all nations,
to us belong the fullest flowering
of all of God's promises.
You know these.
Let me remind you of a couple.
Isaiah 53, 5.
You're condemned people of God.
You're banished away because you're sin.
You lost the land.
But the punishment,
the chastisement that you deserve
that will bring you peace
and restore you to God,
it will be laid not on you
but on the coming Messiah.
Jeremiah 31, verses 31 through 34,
there will be a new covenant
cut between God and man
in which God will remember
the sins of his people no more.
Now the revelation we get
through Jesus Christ
and the Holy Spirit breathing out
the New Testament
is that this has happened.
Colossians 2, 11.
In him, Jesus Christ,
you also were circumcised
with the circumcision made without hands
by putting off the body
of the sins of the flesh
by the circumcision of Christ.
Christ's death on the cross
was his circumcision.
He was cut off
so that you could be grafted in.
He was punished
so that you could be blessed.
Paul says in Romans 2, 29,
a Jew is one inwardly.
Circumcision is a matter of the heart
by the Spirit,
not in the law.
Because Jesus was cut off,
he was crucified.
Now the Holy Spirit
applies his circumcision,
his death on the cross for sin,
he applies that now
to your heart and mind
through regeneration.
He melts your heart of stone.
He gives you the circumcision
of the heart
that's inward wrought in us
by the Holy Spirit.
So you can rejoice
because now you can
approach God
in Jesus Christ.
In verse 3,
Paul says,
you now worship God
in the Spirit.
Church, we too can rejoice.
We are in the unprecedented era
that Ezekiel prophesied
in chapter 37,
verses 26 through 28.
We are now God's nation
that is marked by
a central blessing
that God dwells eternally
in the midst of his people
in an everlasting covenant.
This is what we get
to be part of
by belonging to him
in his church.
So the question was,
if you're not to put
your confidence
in your own flesh,
what do you put
your confidence in?
And he answers that
very clearly in verse 3.
He says three things.
Here's where true confidence
that you belong to God
is found.
Number one,
you worship God
in the Spirit.
Number two,
you rejoice
in Christ Jesus.
Number three,
you put no confidence
in your flesh.
When we get to approach
the Holy God
through the work
of Jesus Christ,
we are experiencing,
we are rejoicing,
we are taking
what he has purchased
for us
with his own blood.
Worship is a privilege
and a right we have
by belonging to him
that he purchased
at such a high cost.
There's no way
that sinners like us
could be with the Holy God
except for Jesus Christ
who came to satisfy
all righteousness
and to make a way
for sinners like us
freely
to be in the presence
of God.
When we're in his presence,
you stirred up
to rejoice.
that's the Holy Spirit
applying to us
the joy of Christ.
Zephaniah 317 says
that the Lord God
is in your midst,
a mighty one
who will save you
and he will rejoice
over you
with gladness.
It's Jesus rejoicing
over us
with gladness
and that
stirs up
and pulls out of us
a rejoicing
in response to him.
So the true
identifying mark
of the covenant
people of God,
those who truly
belong to him,
is that you worship
the triune God.
Ephesians 218,
it's through Jesus Christ
that we have access
by one spirit
to the Father.
We must rehearse
our grounds
for rejoicing
in the Lord.
The reality is that
as much as we rehearse
this and we keep
coming together
and reminding one another,
we're always under attack.
We are in a battle.
So my fifth encouragement
for us is that
when we do have
those waves of doubt,
those spiritual doubts,
we need to follow
Paul's example,
look back on our own lives,
take stock,
and we calculate
what is most precious.
Because if we're honest,
we'll be reminding ourselves
that there is only
one precious treasure
and it's deep inside my soul
where no one can steal it.
So we battle
our spiritual doubts
by calculating
what is most precious
in your life.
Paul says,
Church,
don't let these false teachers
lead you in the wrong way.
Take my own example.
I've laid out
my credentials for you.
Don't fall into that
poisonous religious recipe.
Don't do it.
Because if you do,
it'll push you
in two directions.
you will either live
with nervous uncertainty
that you're not pure enough,
you have not performed enough,
you have not done enough,
and you'll never have
an assurance of faith.
Or,
you will be proud
and puffed up
and overconfident
in your own flesh,
in your own self.
That ambitious overconfidence
in what you'll be doing
is burdening other believers.
So don't follow that path.
Either way,
you will come up
disappointed
and hurting
the very one
who saved you.
In verse 7,
Paul says,
what things were gain
to me.
So Paul looks back
at his resume
and he said,
I used to think
that was a star
and this was a star
and all these things
made me shine.
But now I look back
and what I thought
was gain,
I had rested
my confidence
of those things.
Now I have counted
them loss
for Christ.
In the light
of the gospel,
he now finds
all those
personal achievements
repellent
and defiling
before the face
of God.
In verse 8,
he says,
indeed,
I also count
all things
loss.
The word loss
that he's using
really means damage.
What I thought
was helping
was doing damage.
He's using
banking terms.
See,
in verse 7,
he says,
what I thought
was gain to me,
I thought that
was a profit.
He says,
it was actually
counted loss.
You know,
this is true.
You get a credit
card.
You'll never
grow in your wealth
if you keep
plunging yourself
further and
further into debt.
You can never
enjoy a rich
spiritual life
if you keep
digging yourself
deeper and deeper
into a self-righteous
hole.
Paul tells
his testimony
in verse 8,
for the excellence
of the knowledge
of Christ
Jesus,
my Lord.
Everything else
pales in comparison.
This is the only
time
in the New Testament
when Paul
refers to Jesus
as my
Lord,
my God.
His testimony,
we get in the letter
to 1 Timothy 1,
verses 13 through 16.
Paul wrote,
though formerly
I was a blasphemer,
persecutor,
and insolent opponent,
but the grace
of the Lord
overflowed
for me
with the faith
and love
that are in Christ
Jesus.
In Christ,
Jesus came into
the world
to save sinners
of whom
I am the foremost.
Why?
That in me,
Jesus Christ
might display
his perfect patience
as an example
to you
who now believe
in him
for eternal life.
In verse 8,
he says,
yes,
I've suffered
the loss
of all things
for Christ.
Paul had forfeited
his reputation,
his self-respect,
his standing
in the community,
his personal safety,
and more,
but he says,
I gained Christ.
I'm found in Christ
and I know him.
He bears witness
to the same thing
that James does
in James 1,
2,
and 3.
He says,
consider it
pure joy,
my brethren,
whenever you face
trials of many kinds
because you know
that the testing
of your faith
produces perseverance.
When you suffer
for Christ's name,
consider it joy.
James says,
no,
consider it pure joy
to suffer for Christ.
Paul says,
all of those things
that I thought
were adding my value,
this is like revenue,
profit on my account.
That was a massive debt
and I had to declare bankruptcy
before the Holy God.
those things
were damaging
my standing before God.
In verse 8,
he says,
I count them
as rubbish,
refuse,
which is rotting food,
or dung.
Children,
dung is what we flush.
That's why he says,
compared to Christ,
it's garbage.
It's worse than worthless.
If you're like me,
this is searching
because my flesh
so often wants
to go there again.
Am I doing enough?
Am I going to be,
you know,
show up before the Lord
and he's going to look
at my life?
Will he be pleased
with my performance?
And then I'm exposed
to his law
and I'm just laid low
once again.
And if the Holy Spirit
is breaking up
the hard soil
in your heart
and in mine,
we will want to weep.
I'm so encouraged
by the passage
we read earlier.
Justin read for us
Nehemiah 8
in verses 9 and 10.
After they had read
the law of God
and the people weep
and mourn
over their sin,
the Leap Knights
taught the people
and the people
all wept
as they heard
the words of the law.
But then God
said to them,
and God says this
to us now
after you've repented,
do not mourn
or weep.
This is the holy day
of the Lord your God.
Do not be grieved
for the joy
of the Lord
is your strength.
You see how quick
God is,
how ready he is
to forgive us
and to restore us.
And we rest
in Jesus Christ
and we say,
this is my only gain,
my only treasure.
This is the precious possession.
I have Christ.
I know him.
I'm right before God
because it's his righteousness
covering me.
There's an infinitely
more valuable treasure
than anything
this world can offer
and it's to have communion
with God
through Jesus Christ,
to have the spirit
of the holy God
dwelling in your soul,
the place where no robber
can break in and steal,
where moths and rust
can't destroy.
He is your treasure.
So Paul says,
I count it all.
An easy loss.
No brainer
because I got Christ.
There was a missionary
who moved to Ecuador
and into the jungles
of Ecuador
to take the gospel
to an unreached
people group there.
And he died.
He was speared to death.
His name was Jim Elliot
along with others
on his team.
But his wife
kept his story
and Jim Elliot's testimony
even dying
at a very young age
was this.
He is no fool
who gives
what he cannot keep
to gain
what he cannot lose.
So we need to battle
our spiritual doubts,
calculate what is most precious
in this life truly.
And the sixth point is this,
that when you meet your maker,
make sure
you'll be able
to rejoice.
grace.
We will all meet our maker.
Your soul will meet him
the moment you die.
And in the fullness of time
when Christ returns,
there will be a great resurrection.
Saved and unsaved
will be resurrected
and stand before
the creator
of all.
My encouragement
to you who God
has brought here today
once again
is make sure
you will be able
to rejoice
that day.
How?
That's what Paul tells us
in verses 9 through 11.
See heaven
where our souls go
and the new heavens
and the earth
where the glory of God
fills the earth
as the waters
cover the sea.
It's a place
where the angels
are rejoicing
in his presence,
delighting in him,
where the souls
of those he saved
are singing before him.
That's why C.S. Lewis
I think rightly said
joy is the serious
business of heaven.
Make sure you'll be able
to rejoice as well.
On what basis
can you know this?
When you have to give
an account to your God,
what will he accept?
According to verse 9,
your only hope
of rejoicing in heaven
when you meet your maker
is to be found
in him.
to be found
in Christ's righteousness
not your own merits,
but in him.
The holy life
of Jesus Christ
roping,
covering you
completely
so that that's all
the holy God can see
is Christ
clothing you.
Paul writes
in verse 9,
not having
my own righteousness
which is from the law,
from things
I must do.
Whatever brings
you glory
in this life,
it's really like
a big bag of sand
tied to your ankle
pulling you deeper
and deeper
into the ocean.
If it brings you glory,
it's pulling you
toward hell.
You don't want
anything
of your righteousness.
You want
the righteousness
of Christ,
that which
he freely
put onto you,
the only way
he gives it.
He says also
in verse 9,
you get this
righteousness
that is Christ
through faith
in him.
Not by works,
but by receiving
freely.
As Calvin said,
faith is the
poor beggar's hand.
It's the instrument
that God puts
the blessings
of Christ
and makes him
your savior.
You bring nothing
to the equation.
The uncompromised
only criteria
that the holy God
will accept
is the righteousness
which is
from God
by faith.
It's faith alone,
not faith
plus anything else.
And when you
behold God
in Jesus Christ
by faith,
God promises
verse 10
that you will
know him.
You will have
such close union
that he is
already sharing
with you
now in this life
the power
of the resurrection.
It says,
Holy Spirit
making you
a new creation
already,
killing sin in you,
growing your love
for God,
causing you
to rejoice.
You see how
suffering prepares
you to rejoice
in heaven.
The more closely
you and I
identify with Christ
right now
in his suffering,
in his death
on the cross
to save us,
the more he
strips our souls
away of our own
flesh and our
remaining sin.
It's suffering
that he uses
to sanctify
and prepare us
to rejoice
in his presence.
In verse 10,
Paul calls this
the fellowship
of Christ's
suffering.
We are
fellowshipping,
we are partners,
we are communing
with Jesus Christ
when we suffer
in Christ,
which God uses
to make you
more and more
conformed
to his death.
Not alive to
yourself and your
flesh,
but conformed
to the death
of Christ.
He died for you,
now he lives
in you.
You share
in his death
on the cross,
you belong to him,
and you will
share in his
resurrection.
Fellowship
with our
Lord Jesus Christ,
especially in
suffering,
is the way
that God
purifies you
and it's the way
that he grows
your assurance.
God proves
himself over
and over
because in
that suffering
you are not
alone,
the Lord Jesus
was with you
through it.
And that's
the confidence
we need to
know that when
I meet my
maker,
I will be
able to
rejoice.
That's what
it means to
attain the
resurrection
from the
dead with
rejoicing.
Well,
Henry Ford
had said
from the
perspective
of proud
fallen man
under the
curse of
a covenant
of works,
this lie,
there is no
happiness except
in the
realization
that we
have accomplished
something.
You see how
Paul just
totally destroyed
that statement.
the truth
of the
gospel is
this,
that there
is no
joy except
in communion
with the
triune God
because Jesus
Christ has
accomplished
everything for
those who
love him.
Make sure
you love
the Lord
Jesus Christ
and you
commune with
him again
today.
Remember
Jesus'
words in
John 16
22,
you have
sorrow now,
but I
will see you
again.
Your hearts
will rejoice
and no one
will take
your joy
from you.
When you
meet your
maker,
make sure
you'll be
able to
rejoice.
Let's
pray.
Amen.