Jesus is Better (Philippians 3:1-11)

Philippians 3, 1 through 11.

In addition, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord.

To write to you again about this is no trouble for me and is a safeguard for you.

Watch out for the dogs, watch out for the evil workers, watch out for those who mutilate the flesh.

For we are the circumcision, the one who worship by the Spirit of God, boast in Christ Jesus, and do not put confidence in the flesh.

Although I have reasons for confidence in the flesh.

If anyone else thinks he has grounds for confidence in the flesh, I have more.

Circumcised the eighth day, of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews, regarding the law, a Pharisee, regarding zeal, persecuting the church, regarding the righteousness that is in the law, blameless.

But everything that was a gain to me, I have considered to be a loss because of Christ.

More than that, I also consider everything to be a loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

Because of him I have suffered the loss of all things, and consider them as dumb, so that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own from the law, but one that is through faith in Christ.

The righteousness from God, based on faith.

My goal is to know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death, assuming that I will somehow reach the resurrection from among the dead.

Let's try it.

Lord, I thank you so much for your word.

I thank you for your love.

I thank you for your care.

I thank you for the salvation that you have offered us through faith in Jesus, through his sacrifice.

I ask, Lord, as we study your word, that you would be glorified, that we would draw closer to you.

I ask that you would fill me with your spirit, as we always say, that you would, so that I would rightly teach, that you would fill the hearers with your spirit, so they would rightly divide and discern what is with you.

Let us fall more and more in love with you today and be glorified in your name.

Amen.

Alright, go ahead and have a seat.

So in this passage, there are three key questions that I want to keep addressing.

And so I'm going to put that up on the screen there.

Three key questions.

Number one, what am I rejoicing in?

Number two, what hinders my rejoicing in the Lord?

And number three, what encourages my rejoicing in the Lord?

So what am I rejoicing in?

What hinders rejoicing in the Lord, and what encourages rejoicing in the Lord?

Because all of these things I see in this passage.

So we're going to keep coming back to that.

That's going to be our default thing so that whenever I'm like rambling and you're like, okay, we're still going here and it's warm and I got an extra hour of sleep, and you look up, it's like, that's where we are.

Somewhere on those three questions, you'll be able to track again.

Okay, starting in verse one, we see an addition, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord.

To write to you again about this is no trouble for me and is a safeguard for you.

I like, okay, we teach out the CSB here.

I like how the CSB tried to like do Paul a favor because a lot of the translations say, finally, rejoice in the Lord.

And it's like, it's chapter three.

There is no final.

You're going to talk for two more chapters.

And so the CSP is like, in addition, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord.

To you, to write to you again about this is no trouble for me and is a safeguard for you.

So this exhortation he gives them.

He's going to say, it costs me nothing to say this over and over and over again, but it's a safeguard to you.

It keeps you from stumbling.

It keeps you from falling.

I'm going to keep telling you over and over and over, rejoice in the Lord.

Okay.

Part one here.

Depending on your temperament, you may read this first verse and say, addition, my brothers and sisters, rejoice.

And you're like, yes, this is great.

If you might be a little bit more polyannic in nature, I will say.

Positive, encouraging, and it's going to be like the passage doesn't stop there.

And so here's the thing is that it's not just rejoice.

It's rejoice in the Lord.

Now, why do I say that?

Well, the temptation is to go off on a rabbit trail about how our current culture, our current like commercial industry of Christianity has equated how I feel with what is true and have married that together and kind of co-opted the gospel with that.

But it's too early in the sermon to do that.

Normally I bury the prophetic edge stuff much later on, so it's more palatable.

So we'll just move on from there.

But it's not just rejoice in the rejoice, it's rejoice in the Lord.

Why does he say that?

We all rejoice in something.

Everybody has rejoicing and places that long term in something, short term as well.

And so rejoicing.

I'm a big baseball fan.

I've been listening to the World Series on the uh the app or whatever.

Those are some seriously loud crowds.

You get 50,000 people in an area, they're rejoicing.

If you've seen this and if you haven't, I'm not telling you to go look it up or whatever.

Have you ever seen the crowd at a Taylor Swift concert?

There is a demographic that is rejoicing.

Rejoicing is a part of our nature.

I would say even the most Eeyore-ish individual is still rejoicing in their perceived authenticity.

Everybody's rejoicing in something.

They're putting their joy in something.

The question is, what are we putting our joy in?

It's not Paul is not telling the Philippian church, guys, put on a happy face.

He's saying, that joy that you have, spend it on Jesus.

Or more appropriately, have it be anchored in Jesus.

Now, I say that, but I also want to couch it in that.

As followers of Jesus, we have an inheritance reserved in heaven that's undefiled, incorruptible, waiting for us.

We went from death to life through no works of our own through Jesus.

So, with that mindset, should we have a more positive outlook than the world?

Probably.

So there's nothing wrong with that.

That's a good thing.

We should probably have that mindset, that eternal perspective.

Also, we're talking long term.

We're hardwired to rejoice in things short term, and that's just fine.

So if you come, if you leave from here and you go have lunch, and that lunch is delicious and it makes you happy, that's okay.

That's actually how God designed things.

Do you ever think about how he never needed to make food taste good?

You'd probably eat more vegetables if food didn't taste any different from one another.

He made certain foods taste really, really good.

I like vegetables for the record.

But with that in mind, there's nothing wrong in rejoicing short-term in things also.

But he's saying that exaltation, that glorying delight of your life, put that in the Lord.

So then the first question with that is what do we put our joy in?

What do we put our delight in?

What captures our affections?

What captures our attention?

When we wake up in the morning, what is the first thing we think about?

What stirs us up?

What invigorates us?

What frustrates us?

All the things, what actually sparks reaction in our life.

And Paul's reminding them anchor that in the Lord.

And in the Gentile world, that has many, many idols, many, many different things.

Paul's telling them, spend it all here.

Spend it all on Jesus.

And he's saying, to write these things about you, it does me no harm to say this over and over and over again, but it's a good safeguard for you.

So not only does he say to put that joy in the Lord, but then he says, watch out.

If somebody yells, watch out, what's your reaction?

I mean, even if you don't know who that person is, even if you don't know what's going on, you may do something along the lines of, if nothing else.

Want to say that again?

Okay, so watch out is to incite response.

What is he telling us to watch out for?

What is he telling the Philippine church to watch out for?

Three things that I would say are all the same category.

He's just using three different descriptors for the same group.

We'll talk about that here.

Watch out for the dogs.

Watch out for the evil workers.

Watch out for those who mutilate the flesh.

What a strong sentence, Paul?

That's not very nice.

What is he talking about here?

Well, if we continue reading in verse 3, we are the circumcision.

We see here, his context here is a group called the circumcision.

That's a heck of a title.

Imagine the business cards.

So he is calling them three different things here.

First of all, watch out for the dogs.

Pejoratively speaking here.

Now, okay, I'm a dog person, I love dogs.

So, like in our current culture, we're like, oh, dogs, pets, cool, whatever.

Um, that was not always the case.

And you can, even just looking at the historical context in scripture, you can say with dogs, if nothing else, we will call their appetites not discriminatory.

That is the sanitized version of saying uh they're gross creatures, they're your garbage disposals in that.

We see in metaphor in uh parable that dogs are like licking a leper's sores, for example.

Or in parable and saying a proverb, it will throw up and then it'll go off, and go back to that and go, I'll try that twice.

Like it's not a discerning thing, it is driven by its appetite.

So a dog is consumed by the flesh.

But and not only just consumed, but hardwired and driven towards its appetite.

What it sees, it wants.

It has no discernment whatsoever.

The evil workers.

There's a fun play on words here because the issue here, which we'll talk about, is works.

Trying to earn salvation based on works.

And he's saying, I'll tell you what they're working, they're working evil, is what they're working.

He's calling this group evil workers.

And then watching out for those who mutilate the flesh.

So he is once again very graphically describing a pejorative term for circumcision.

That's what he's going at with that.

So, once again, Paul is not necessarily being all that PR here in his description of these people.

Clearly, he has an axe to grind.

Why?

What's up with these people?

Why is he so upset with them?

What's the issue?

I'm going to read Acts 15, 1 through 5.

There's too much here to put it up on the screen.

It's too big of a passage.

So if you want to flip there, great, if not, listen to the sultry sound of my voice.

Acts 15, 1 through 5.

Some men came down from Judea and began to teach the brothers, unless you are circumcised according to the custom prescribed by Moses, you cannot be saved.

After Paul and Barnabas had engaged them in serious argument and debate, Paul and Barnabas and some others were appointed to go up to the apostles and elders in Jerusalem about this issue.

When they had been sent on their way by the church, they passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria, describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles, and they brought great joy to all the brothers and sisters.

They arrived in Jerusalem.

They were welcomed by the church, the apostles, the elders, they reported all that God had done with them.

But some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, It is necessary to circumcise them and to command them to keep the law of Moses.

So, what's the issue here?

There is a group of people in the midst of people, Gentiles, giving their lives to Jesus, and then you have people called the circumcision who are coming in and saying, okay, that's cool that you have put your faith in Jesus through confession and belief, but you need to be circumcised in order to be saved.

That's a big deal.

He's not just saying, hey, you should probably do this.

They're literally saying you cannot be saved.

The cross of Christ has no effect, they're saying, without circumcision also being in effect, without the law of Moses also being in effect.

That's why this is such a big deal and why Paul has such a big ax to grind here, because he is speaking against people who are actually putting a physical works-based stipulation on the salvation that was offered from Jesus that was received by faith and no works of our own.

So that's a big deal.

You can say a lot, and Paul can deal with it and be okay with it, but when you start to put conditions upon salvation, he gets real mad.

So here he is saying, these people who are telling you that you must be circumcised, that you must follow the law of Moses in order to be saved, these people are just like dogs who only follow their flesh, who only seek after the flesh and are not discerning.

They're slaves to the flesh.

And they say they are evil workers.

They are that's intense.

Because I would assume that the circumcision, that group, thinks that they are doing the work of God, and yet they're doing evil work because they're putting a stipulation on salvation apart from faith alone.

And then those who mutilate the flesh.

Paul is going to then contrast what a follower of Jesus looks like.

And he's also going to give three things that contrast those three things.

So I have a slide for that that I'm going to put up.

I love how when we're talking about circumcision, and you say, I have a slide for that, everyone's like, I'm not sure I'm ready for this.

So, who is the true circumcision?

The ones who number one, worship by the Spirit of God.

Number two, boast in Christ Jesus.

Number three, do not put confidence in the flesh.

On one side, you have dogs, those who serve the flesh.

And here, you have those who follow Jesus worship by the Spirit of God.

How do you get the Spirit of God?

How do you earn that?

You can't.

It's only only by faith in Jesus is that a gift is that imparted to you, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

Fun thing for those of you who like, there's a few of you who are like Greek grammar nerds and everything.

The normal word for worship actually has the word dog in it, proscomeho, which is like to like lick a master's hand like a dog.

He didn't use that word.

He actually used the word serve.

So it's like a full-on, like multi-layered inception joke that Paul does there that nobody cares about but me.

And he's saying we serve not by our works, not by the flesh, not by our base desires, but by the Spirit of God.

And then he says that they are evil workers, but we are boasting in Christ Jesus.

There is something somewhat unnatural about boasting in somebody else's work.

We're as humans, we have the tendency to boast in our own efforts, in our own doings, in our own work.

And what he is saying here is what we boast about, what we glory in, what we exalt is what Jesus has done.

That's the contrast.

Works of evil boasting in Jesus.

And then finally he says, they mutilate the flesh through circumcision.

We do not put confidence in the flesh.

We don't put trust, our trust, our hope, and our confidence in the flesh.

That's the contrast.

So is Paul just anti-circumcision?

No.

We actually see that he had one of in the book of Acts, he actually had one of his Greek followers circumcised in order to not be a stumbling block.

That's commitment.

And in that idea, he's not anti-that.

So what's his e what's his deal here?

What's his deal with circumcision?

We can see that in Galatians 6.

I'm going to put it up here.

Galatians 6, 3 through 15.

Even the circumcised don't keep the law themselves, but they want you to be circumcised in order to boast about your flesh.

But as for me, I will never boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The world has been crucified to me through the cross, and I to the world, for both circumcision and uncircumcision mean nothing.

What matters instead is a new creation.

So to Paul, bless you, this is a non-factor.

Circumcision is a non-factor.

It's not that he is saying, if you have been circumcised, you're doomed, or you're evil, or that's bad.

He's like, guys, this has nothing to do with salvation.

It has everything to do with national identity.

And that was the big issue with that.

Is they're saying, like, the circumcision was largely saying, okay, you need to, you can follow Jesus, but really you need to become Jewish.

You need to become a Jewish proselyte in order to receive that gift, because that gift of the Messiah can only come through Judaism.

And Paul's saying, like, it just doesn't matter.

One way or the other?

Okay, cool.

What matters is a new creation.

How does that come about?

Through the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ.

So, what then can hinder rejoicing in the Lord?

Well, thinking that our works and our pedigree make us holier in God's eyes.

Thinking that it's like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, salvation, that's great and everything.

But I have this and that makes me truly saved.

That hinders rejoicing in the Lord.

Why?

Because it takes some of that credit and places it upon ourselves or upon our parents or upon.

Upon our ancestors, rather than taking that whole lump and putting it all on Jesus.

So when he first says, Rejoice in the Lord, he's not going through a laundry list here of like, hey, rejoice in the Lord, also watch out for this, also watch out for this.

It's one flowing thought here to where we have rejoice in the Lord, and with that in mind, watch out for this, because this is what diminishes our rejoicing in the Lord.

If we are putting confidence in the flesh, if we are boasting in our works.

So in this kind of situation, it is easy to think, well, yeah, you think that because you're not that.

That if somebody is like, oh no, no, that's not important, and it's like, well, yeah, you think that's just because you don't have that skill, and now you're compensating for that.

Paul's gonna go through that here.

He's gonna say, look, I, if anyone in verse 4, I have reasons for confidence in the flesh.

If anyone else thinks he has ground for confidence in the flesh, I have more.

So he is arguing from expertise.

It's not something he's unfamiliar with.

When he says that anybody else, if they think they have confidence in the flesh, he has more reason for that.

And yet he's still saying this.

And he's gonna give a list.

First of all, we see his pedigree, circumcised the eighth day, of the nation of Israel of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews.

He had nothing to do with any of that.

No baby who is born eight days later goes, Father, I wish to be circumcised.

You don't have a say in that matter.

You don't have a say about being born of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin.

This is what you are born into.

And he said, Look, I have the pedigree.

Also, regarding the law, a Pharisee.

So, we saw in the book of Acts that the issue, a lot of the people of the circumcision were of the tribe or of the group of the Pharisees.

Paul was a Pharisee.

We see his resume throughout scripture that he grew up under the feet of Gamaliel, one of the greatest teachers of that time, that he was a Pharisee of Pharisees.

He was the top, he was the expert.

When they made their posters of Pharisees, he was on it.

That was his extent.

He was a Pharisee.

He wasn't just a law-abiding Jew, he was the top.

And then his zeal, regarding zeal, persecuting the church.

He was so in on the law, so in on Judaism that he actually persecuted the church, the followers of Jesus, to try to put an end to it.

Also, regarding the righteousness that is in the law, blameless.

As far as a human could be blameless, Paul asserts he was blameless.

That's a lot of zeal, which is funny because that seems a little incongruous.

That is like, I persecuted the church, dragging off men, women, and children, having them killed, assenting to the stoning of Stephen, we see in the book of Acts, ascending to his murder, all these different things.

Like, and I was blameless.

This is what happens when we have religiosity apart from Christ.

You get a crusader spirit, where the unjustifies the means, and I am right, and therefore whatever I do is right because I am in the right.

So, and he is saying here, I will put myself and put myself against the righteousness of the circumcision, and I come out on top.

Verse 7, but very big statement, but everything that was a gain to me, I have considered to be loss because of Christ.

We're gonna keep reading.

More than that.

I consider everything to be a loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

Because of him I have suffered the loss of all things, and consider them as dumb, so that I may gain Christ.

And we'll stop there for a moment.

He says, as far as what is valuable to this group of people who would compel you to be circumcised, I had it all.

I checked every box, and he doesn't go, man, those are the good days.

But now not only am I awesome, I am double awesome because now I'm a follower of Jesus.

He says, but everything that was a gain to me, I've considered to be a loss because of Christ.

I consider everything to be a loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ.

Because of him I have suffered the loss of all things, and consider them as dumb.

I apologize, by the way, if this in advance, if this is over the line, but like I walked by my poor son yesterday, and I'm like, hey, by the way, tomorrow in church we're talking about circumcision and poop, and kept walking.

And he was like, I don't know if I want to go.

But uh think about this for a second.

How many of you have bought a diamond before?

Okay.

That is a fun adventure, especially when you're not qualified to be on that fun adventure.

Like suddenly you have to learn about the five C's.

Color, carrot, cost.

Yes, I rock.

Um, so all these different things.

But you walk into a diamond store, and if you say, I would like to purchase a diamond, and they're like, cool, one second, and they turn off the lights, you might want to leave.

Rather, some of those are the brightest, most bright, white, painfully bright rooms I have ever been in.

You examine a diamond in the light.

You scrutinize it in light.

If it's a dim room, it might be kind of sketchy.

So picture this.

Before Jesus, we were in darkness.

Imagine Paul.

He's clinging to something, he's holding it as valuable, and everyone has told him that's a diamond.

All his historical context, all of his neighbors, all of his friends, and he has done everything to preserve and polish this diamond and make it as beautiful as possible.

And then he encounters Jesus, and the lights are flipped on, and he's holding excrement.

That's gnarly.

But that's what he's saying here.

Everything that was so important, everything I knew to be beautiful, everything everybody else said, when it came to what is true, under the light, when the lights came on, it was waste.

But that's not even the miracle.

The miracle is not that he says, I was enlightened.

Because what he says here is that he gained Christ.

Imagine the one who turned on the lights, then going, let me just, I'm, I'm just gonna, let me just take that, and then handing him the real thing.

And saying, it's free.

You can't earn that.

You can't pay for it because you can't even begin to afford it.

Imagine the God of the universe exposing what was not truly valuable, and then instead replacing it with something of indescribable worth, giving it to him and saying, You can't pay for this, don't even try.

Instead, just accept it.

That is the salvation that we see Paul preaching.

What he earned in comparison, he considers to be dumb in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ.

But what did he gain?

He gained Jesus.

That is so epic.

This is why Paul cares so much about this topic.

When he's real mad at the circumcision, it's not because he feels inferior, or because he doesn't like them, or because they had an awkward encounter in the past and now they are blood enemies.

It is because he knows what it's like to be them.

He knows the slavery firsthand.

He knows the freedom now firsthand.

And he doesn't want these Gentile believers in, predominantly Gentile believers in Philippi, to be similarly enslaved.

Not by circumcision, but by works.

By thinking your works earn you righteousness.

So, what's the goal here?

He is seeking in verse 9 to gain Christ.

He has gained Christ.

He is found in him not having a righteousness of his own from the law, but one that is through faith in Jesus Christ.

The righteousness from God based on faith.

So he lays out what's truly valuable here is the righteousness, not from his own and not from the law, one based in faith in Jesus.

That's how he received it.

And the goal here in verse 10, my goal is to know him.

Who can know God?

How do you know somebody?

How do you know the divine?

Isn't that crazy?

Like that's we are uh sufficiently like in the soup of Christianity often that we're like, yeah, we know God, cool.

He's our child, yay.

I mean, we're his child, Jesus, yes, but it's like, how mind-blowing is that God can be known.

He's not a God who's afar off.

He did not set things in motion and then split.

He didn't come back, just come back, pay for our sins, and say, I really don't want to deal with you again.

He is a God who's knowable.

And not only to know him, but the power of his resurrection.

The power of his resurrection.

Now, what I believe about this is that knowing the power of his resurrection is not knowing a power that is Paul's to wield.

I know this is a little outdated.

I have teenagers bear with me, or whatever.

It's not like the power of his resurrection is an infinity stone that you put in the gauntlet and you gain more power.

It was lost on a lot of you, but that's okay.

He is knowing what the resurrection has accomplished.

He's experiencing the power of God in action through the resurrection.

And we want to stop there.

Because that's cool.

But the next part is and the fellowship of his sufferings.

Paul seems really hung up on the sufferings thing.

I don't really appreciate it.

I would prefer not to be a part of this.

Do we see how suffering is an expected thing as a follower of Jesus?

Yeah, yes.

Yeah.

Now, I'm gonna be real with you.

I'm not gonna go looking for it.

I'm just not.

I don't feel too bad about that.

However, it should be expected.

And in some ways, we see it expected and lived out around the world in crazy ways today, now.

Even now.

The things that we are consumed with are not the things that pastors in China right now are consumed with, or that the Christians in Nigeria are currently consumed with.

There's a slight difference of life experience and priorities going on there.

But having that said, that's not a guilt thing.

We live here.

What do you want me to do about it?

But except pray.

And with that in mind and give and such.

But it's expected.

He is saying, because he's writing from prison.

And they're concerned about him.

And he's saying, hey, this is part of the gig.

I get to be in fellowship with Jesus through his sufferings.

I get to be a part of the team as a result of the sufferings.

I get to participate in what Jesus is doing through this.

So he's not even upset about that.

We keep talking about this, but it keeps being important.

Paul first time through Philippi, wrongly accused, beaten as a Roman, which should never have happened, thrown into prison, gnarly prison, by the way, very unsanitary, is all I'm going to say.

And what is he, how does he respond?

Singing.

Singing praises to God.

That is the work of Jesus.

That's not, your works can't build that up.

So what I with that in mind, he says, assuming I will somehow, or the fellowship of suffering has been conformed to his death, and assuming I will somehow reach the resurrection from among the dead.

Some of that goes really well with next week, so I'm not touching on too well with that.

He is expecting his hope, his expectation is that there is a reward in heaven, an inheritance in heaven paid for by Jesus that can't be touched, and that resurrection is coming.

So what can they take from him now?

What can he lose on earth?

That diamond of value is so secure.

I'll put it this way: when God is the one watching it, he doesn't need to put it behind glass.

Because there ain't nobody touching it.

There's a Louvre joke in there that I'm not going to make.

So he is secure in that resurrection from among the dead that this is not all there is to life.

So, what causes rejoicing in the Lord here?

Was the third question.

Well, number one, knowing Jesus.

That causes rejoicing.

Nobody goes to Jesus disappointed.

I'll put it that way.

We don't, if we truly encounter him and he saves us from death, he brings us from death to life and from darkness into light, we don't go.

Huh.

I thought it would be better.

Truly encountering Jesus causes rejoicing.

And also knowing what his resurrection has accomplished.

It has brought about our salvation.

We cannot add to that.

We cannot be more saved as a result through our works.

And then understanding that the suffering when following Jesus, it's a fellowship with Jesus.

It's a partnership with that.

And that fellowship is greater than the bonds of heritage, circumcision, law.

You are partnering with Jesus in that, in that suffering.

So coming back to those three questions, what holds our affection?

What do we rejoice in?

What holds our attention?

What holds our joy?

May we know it to be Jesus and may we dig even deeper into Jesus.

And how do you do that?

Through his word, through the fellowship of the saints, through his Holy Spirit.

It's not something that you can drum up.

Although we were right back where we started.

What causes us to minimize the miracle of our salvation?

I would argue anytime we put ourselves in the picture is really what it boils down to.

Anytime we put, yeah, but I did this cool thing.

That's the problem.

Imagine you have the painting of the Sistine Chapel, and then his kid's like, I got this corner, and draws like a stick figure.

It'd be like, I don't think that, I mean, that's endearing, but I don't think that really uh added to what's happening here.

We don't add to what God has done.

We participate in what he is doing.

Praise the Lord for that.

And then what stirs up our rejoicing in the Lord is continuing to know him and to really dive into what he has done for us, what he has done through Jesus, and to know we could not have earned that.

It's a thing the two be received.

And so just closing here, we know him by his word, we follow him by his spirit, we fellowship together as a result.

And in 1 Peter 1, 8 through 9, we see, though you have not seen him, you love him.

Though not seeing him now, you believe in him, and you rejoice with inexpressible and glorious joy because you're receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

This is what Jesus has done on the cross.

This is what he offers us through his blood.

When we were separated from God in our sin, in our wrongdoing, God himself offered the way to be restored to him.

Not by our own works, not by accomplishing tasks, but rather by his son, Jesus, a sinless sacrifice on the cross, taking our sin upon him, paying the price for that sin, dying as the penalty for that sin, rising again, and not only indicating the price was paid, but also the new life that he offers us.

And all that is received only, only through faith in Jesus.

There is no other way to be made right with God, but there is a way, and we should rejoice in that.

Let's pray.

Lord, I thank you so much for your gospel, the good news of salvation.

I thank you for what you have accomplished through the person and work of Jesus.

I thank you that when we were in darkness, you sent Jesus the light of the world to illuminate how not only we have fallen short, but how he has accomplished everything on our behalf.

If we would just receive it and take hold of it and be willing to let go of our perceived righteousness, which is filthy rags in comparison.

Lord, for anybody who hears this, I ask, today would be the day of their salvation, that they would simply go, I want that.

All spiritual religiosity aside, all crazy words with that, that they would think about what God, what you have offered them and go, I want that.

And that they would just be willing to take that through saying, I believe.

I believe that is offered to me.

I believe I can't earn it, and I want to receive that.

Lord, I ask that by your spirit you would work on hearts for that.

I ask that for those of us who know you, that we would rejoice in you, that we would put all of our chips on you.

That we would not boast in our flesh or our works or our pedigree.

Let us continue to know you.

The power of your resurrection, the fellowship of your sufferings, the glory of what you've accomplished.

Be glorified in your name.

Amen.