Are You Ready to Let Go? | Philippians 3 | Rickie Jenkins

Who are in the other classes this morning, the students as well as the teachers.

Pray that you'll bless them as well.

Pray that you'll bless Brother Ricky as he speaks to us today.

We're thankful for him and for his ability and for his willingness to be here this morning.

Pray that you'll continue to bless this church, bless your church the world over, we ask.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Well, that's quite an introduction.

It's good to be with you this morning.

Thank you for the opportunity that uh you've given to me this weekend.

I've enjoyed the weekend that we've had so far together.

Yesterday was just really good.

Friday night got started off very, very, very good too.

I've enjoyed the opportunity to be with this group.

I'd like to open your Bibles to Philippians chapter 3.

Philippians 3 · chapter mention

We'll be there in just a few moments to do our study and our work this morning.

The theme for this weekend has been, are you ready?

And what I have been asked to talk about this morning is, are you ready to let go?

Are you ready to let go?

I was trying to think about a way to to begin this and try to make a visual for each one of us.

And you don't have to do this if you don't want to.

I'll just illustrate it for you, and maybe that will be sufficient.

But if you want to do this, it's fine with me.

If you just take your hand and you just make a fist as tight as you possibly can.

And just hold on to that as long as you possibly possibly can.

Until it just becomes white knuckles.

When you hold on to something so tight like that, there's no room for anything else.

To make room for something else, you have to open your hand to let go.

And so when we think about this aspect of holding on to things and letting go of things, at least this morning in the main, we're not talking about things that are bad.

We may talk about a few things along the way just by way of mentioning them.

But we're not talking about things that are bad, things that are necessarily sinful.

We're talking about things that are good.

But we just we just hold on to them, hold on to them so tightly.

We cling to them, and we don't want to let go.

When Paul writes this book, his hands are wide open.

He's got nothing to hold on to.

He's in prison.

And certainly there would be nothing there that you would want to clasp your hand around and grab and hold on to.

And he's going to help us understand something about what it means then to be ready to let go.

I'm going to begin reading in Philippians chapter 3.

Philippians 3 · chapter mention

And I'm going to begin reading in verse 4.

But as you think about this, when Paul writes this, and he talks about letting go of some things, he's not talking about regret.

He's not no bitterness here.

There's no uh no denial, there's no fretfulness, no bitterness that he's expressing here.

He's not letting go of those things.

Uh he's making a deliberate choice about something.

And so when you read, beginning in verse 4, he will say, Though I also have confidence in the flesh, if anyone thinks he has confidence in the flesh, I more so.

Circumcise the eighth day of the stock of Israel of the tribe of Benjamin, the Hebrew of the Hebrews, concerning the law a Pharisee, concerning zeal persecuting the church, concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.

What things were gained to me, these I have counted for loss.

Now, before we go forward in some things he says further, I don't want to run by those things too quickly.

He's talking about letting go of something here.

And I don't really know if we have a way to appreciate a lot of what Paul has just described.

If there was ever a person who had a reason to have confidence in the flesh, if there was something in the flesh that could give confidence, Paul said, I had it all.

If you could think about just creating the best possible, glowing, fantastic, enormous resume you could ever imagine constructing for yourself.

If you can't imagine it, then just ask the chat on GPT and he'll help you fashion that.

Paul has just given a resume that is a resume of resumes as far as a Jew is concerned.

He talks about the confidence that he would have in the flesh.

And he talks about circumcised the eighth day of the stock of Israel.

Again, we're so far removed from what the purpose of circumcision was that I'm not really sure we appreciate what he's talking about there.

But that was a special sign that God had begun with Abraham to indicate this, these are my people.

What Paul is saying here is I have been one of God's chosen.

Circumcised the eighth day, not of the stock of somebody else, but of the stock of Israel.

And then he says, of Benjamin.

So you have a very special tribe here.

In fact, when Jacob thinks Joseph is dead, Benjamin takes over first place and becomes the favored son of all the sons.

Furthermore, whenever the boys, the brothers, show up in Egypt to have relief because of the famine, Joseph recognizes them.

You remember that.

They don't recognize Joseph.

And Joseph begins to inquire about them, and they let the cat out of the bag and talk about their younger brother.

Joseph is not interested in the ten staying.

He's interested in getting Benjamin there and having Benjamin stay with him and getting rid of the other ten.

So the tribe of Benjamin was a special tribe.

And then he goes on to say this: a Hebrew of the Hebrews.

When you have that kind of doubling, what he's saying is, there was nobody more Hebrew than I was.

There was nobody more Pharisee than I was.

We think about the Pharisees, they were the strict keepers of the law.

Do you get a picture of who this man is?

And he said, concerning zeal, there was nobody who had greater zeal as far as God was concerned than I did.

He said, persecuting the church.

We scratch our heads about that and say, how can you say you had zeal doing that?

Paul said, What I did, I did in all good conscience.

Paul was not a rebel, he was not a rebellious person who thumped his nose at God's and said, I'm going to do what I want to do.

He thought that if you die on a tree, you are accursed.

And this man died on a tree, so he can't be the Messiah.

He must be accursed.

And so he felt like it was his responsibility, his duty, to persecute those who are of the way following this one called the Christ.

He can't be the Messiah.

Then he says, concerning righteousness which is in the law, blameless.

I don't think what Paul means there that he's sinless.

I think if you put the word single-minded or sincere, a sincere heart, a whole heart there, I think that's what he's saying here.

He's saying, I find no reason to point an accusing finger concerning the law.

I did all that I knew to do that was righteous.

There was a wholeheartedness.

I had to give myself to the law.

Why would he now follow and say this?

What things were gained to me, these I counted loss for Christ.

If in this first section we've talked about, verses four, five, and six, you can go back to my illustration, and that is holding on to something so tight.

Paul had been grasping, he'd been holding on tight to his heritage.

He thought it was his responsibility to hold on to his heritage.

He was not about to let go, for to let go for to him would have been to have walked away from God, and he wasn't going to walk away from God, but he was holding on so tight to that.

But then when he found Christ, he said, I let go.

And all those things I just mentioned, which to a Jew there was nothing richer, there was nothing more definitive to describe a Jew than what he just did in describing himself.

I let go of all that, and I counted everything loss.

All those things I let go of, and now then I counted them all loss.

Again, we're not talking about something here that that was evil that Paul had, but he's going to have to open his hand and he's going to have to let go of something.

If he's going to have something greater.

And so, when we look at what Paul is going to say here, he says, then, those things regained to me, I counted a loss.

So now we've looked at what his heritage is, but now he says, Let me tell you what it meant for me to say, I let go.

When we hear the word, you need to let go of something.

Maybe the thought comes, well, people say, I just need to give up.

I don't need to try.

I just need to throw in the towel.

There's no use.

I'm just going to quit.

That's not what Paul is saying here.

He's not saying I quit trying.

I just accept fate for what fate is.

That's not what he's telling us here.

What he's saying to us here is, I'm going to release something.

And it's going to draw a distinction between release and resignation for us here.

But notice what he says here.

If I let go of something, then I don't have anything.

No, he says, These things were gained to me that I counted lost.

Yea, indeed, I count all things for lost for the excellence of the knowledge of Jesus Christ my Lord.

Notice, he says, verse 7, I have counted lost.

That's past tense.

I count all things, that's present tense.

And I count them as that's future tense.

Paul said, I look at the past, the present, and the future, and I counted all those things as lost to me.

No sour grapes, not giving up, not quitting here.

But the exchange was this.

All those things that I thought were so valuable to me, I opened my hands and I let them go that I might what?

That I might do what?

Gain Christ.

You see the trade-off?

He said, to get what I wanted, I had to let go of something else.

I couldn't hold on to what I had and gain Christ.

I had to let go of those things to gain Christ.

So the exchange is Paul saying, I let go of something that was of great value to me.

I'm letting go of my heritage, that I may gain something else, that I may open my hands to gain something else, that I may gain Christ.

And my new King James says, for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ, one translation says, for the surpassing, for the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ.

I read the light that lasts.

I like the excellence of Jesus Christ, but I think of the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ.

I wanted to gain Christ, I wanted to know him, and I want to know the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ.

Wow, what a trade-off he's got here.

But he had to release something.

And what he says is release is not resignation.

Release is active, resignation is passive.

Release is trusting.

What Paul is saying is, I'm laying it all on the line here.

I'm giving all this up for one to gain one thing that I may gain Christ.

Resignation says, I give it all up because I've nothing, got no other hope for anything else.

Release says, I trust.

Resignation says, I hold on to nothing, I've got nothing, I trust nothing.

Now, while I've said the things we're going to talk about are letting go of good things, I did say I might mention a few things that are otherwise.

And so I want to stop just a minute and I want to mention three things that I think people in general struggle with letting go.

We're going to talk about a relationship, we're going to talk about a role, we're going to talk about a promise.

First of all, when we think about relationships, I think about it from the standpoint of holding on to something so tightly that we can't let go like in the form of a grudge.

Here's someone has hurt me.

Here someone has said something about me.

Here's something that someone has done to me.

And they've not come back and apologized.

They hurt me deeply.

And I just keep holding on to that and holding on to that and chewing on that and chewing on that.

And it just begins to gnaw and eat me up inside.

Have you ever noticed the arithmetic of a grudge?

I'm good at one plus one.

That's my extent.

I don't get more complicated than that.

I can't spell calculus.

I can't spell physics.

All I can do is one plus one.

But what that says is, I'm the one holding the grudge.

I'm the one tossing and turning.

I'm the one fighting the pillow.

And the person I hold the grudge against has no idea I'm holding it, and they're sleeping peacefully on their pillow.

Now the question is, who's losing there?

And so what we do is we hold on something so tightly because they haven't paid for it.

And what we need to do is we need to drop the stones.

We need to drop the rocks.

And understand they may not have paid for it, but Jesus has paid for it.

It's been paid for, and we need to let it go.

But if we're going to hold on tightly to that, and it's just going to grind us, it's just going to destroy us, and it's going to create within us a bitterness and a cynicism that's just going to destroy us.

We're not going to gain Christ.

And so, perhaps one thing that may not be so good that we hold on to that really destroys us is something that's gone wrong in a relationship.

And then I think, second of all, about a role.

I think about a person who has been of great strength and great influence in the lives of a lot of people.

And now then, because of some reason, maybe because of age, maybe because of health, maybe because of some debilitation that's occurred, they can no longer function in the role that they once were able to function in, but they have a hard time letting that go.

And so they hold tightly to what the past was and hold tightly to the fact this is what I was, this is what I used to do, but I can't do that anymore.

And because I can't do that anymore, this just gnaws at me and eats at me, and it's just destroying me because I can't perform the role I used to perform.

God is not interested in what we were, He's interested in what we are.

I have a special appreciation for that.

I mentioned this yesterday in the sessions with the men.

My dad is 99 years old in 10 months.

If he lives to November 18th, he'll be 100 years old.

And dad preached the gospel for 72, 73 years.

If he could, he'd still preach every Sunday.

What's hard for him is he still has the heart to do it.

But he doesn't have the opportunity.

And when we have older saints who have helped build our churches, and they get a little bit older, and they can't do what they used to do, and the younger people come along behind them, and they take over those roles that the older people used to have, and the younger people paid no attention and very little respect to the older people and the path they helped them walk.

The older people look at that role and say, I just can't do that anymore.

Why do I need to even try?

And what we're saying here is, as hard as that is, there's some things we have to let go.

I'm not my dad's age.

That's quite obvious.

But I work with a young man.

And every time he preaches, I'm thinking, I hate him.

Because I'm thinking I can't do what he does.

I appreciate what he does, though, so much.

And he's very deferential toward me.

But there are just some things he can do that I used to do that I can't do as well as I used to do because he's just 39 years old and I'm 71.

And it's hard to see you have to let that go.

The third thing is perhaps a promise.

Maybe there's something I haven't dealt with in my life.

Maybe there's a sin.

Maybe there's a weakness that's there.

Maybe there's a flaw that's there.

But I've held on to that and I'm still holding on to that.

I have not reconciled that.

I have not come to grips with what my failure is.

There's a promise of forgiveness.

There's a promise of strength.

There's a promise of encouragement that's waiting.

But because I keep reliving that, and because I haven't walked away from that yet.

I haven't let go of what that is.

I keep holding on to it.

I try to, I try to let go, and then I get a step away and I grab hold of it again.

I try to let go and I get a step away and I grab hold of it again, and I keep grabbing hold of it.

I can't let go.

I just keep grabbing it and pulling it back.

And we fail to have the promise and the encouragement that comes from what we're going to look at in just a moment that takes place that Paul is helping us see here.

And so perhaps there's relationships.

Perhaps there are roles that we had, and perhaps there are promises that we haven't yet reconciled ourselves to.

But that helps us keep continue to go forward here because what he's going to have here is a forward pull.

But before we go there, I want you to look down at what he says in verse 13.

He says, Brethren, I don't count myself to have apprehended, but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, reaching forward, those things are ahead, I press toward the goal.

Here is the Apostle Paul, the ultimate New Testament church builder.

Here's the man that wrote the epistles that we have in the New Testament.

14 of them.

Here's this man whose backbone is as strong as he can possibly be.

And now he says something to us.

He says, forgetting those things.

And then stretching forth, straining for something.

He talks about forgetting those things, the things we've just mentioned in verse 4 and following.

He's not talking about he developed spiritual amnesia here.

What he's saying is, I look back at my past and I see the things that I held on to.

I see who I was, but then I also realize the promise.

And I recognize my past.

I appreciate my past.

I honor my past, but the past is not my present address.

What Paul is saying is, I don't receive my mail at that address anymore.

What Paul is saying is, I recognize my past, but I no longer let my past direct my present and my future.

I no longer let my past weigh me down.

And so Paul says, forgetting those things.

Now when I say he honored his past, several times Paul will say in his writing, I'm a chiefest of sinners.

I'm as one born out of due season.

He recognized what he did.

It grieves him what he did.

But he said, those things are no longer where my life is at.

I've let go of those things.

And now then I'm straining for something else.

I'm reaching forward for something else.

This idea of reaching forward and pressing, those are what I called yesterday to the guy's muscular words.

They have that and effort, great active words, stretching, reaching forth for something, and then pressing for something.

He said, I'm reaching forth and I'm pressing for the upper call of God in Christ Jesus to receive a prize because I'm pressing toward a mark.

And so Paul says, I have forgotten those things.

I don't want to go back.

He said, I'm not trying to rewrite the tape.

I'm not trying to fix what's broke.

I'm not trying to be the person I was before.

I'm giving up those things.

I've forgotten those things.

I'm trying to be someone new.

The hope of the gospel is we don't stay who we were.

Now that's not powerful because I said it.

That's powerful because that's what Paul is saying here.

Paul is saying there is an expected change to take place.

I'm letting go of the past, and there is an expected change that's taking place in my life to be somebody completely new and somebody completely different.

Just momentarily putting a pause in the book of Philippians, I'll just cite this to you.

You don't have to turn there.

I mean, you can if you want to.

In the book of Ephesians, chapter 4, Paul will use the language about putting off the old man and putting on the new man.

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

And I think what he's talking about is what takes place in repentance.

In Romans chapter 6, he'll talk about crucifying the old man, putting to death the old man.

Romans 6 · chapter mention

This idea of putting off the old man and putting on the new man is to intents and purposes.

The intent and purpose is to put to death that old man.

And having put to death that old man, now in Romans 6, you bring that old, that dead man to be buried, and you raise a new man.

But how's that new man going to remain a new man and not return back to the old man?

Well, Paul will say further in Ephesians chapter 4, renewing the spirit of your mind.

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

In one way he says, put off that's point action.

At some point in time, you you did something that was at a point that was there.

It's fixed in time.

There's no small print to it.

The best way I know to illustrate that is with a simple uh photograph, a simple picture.

My wife and I have been married 51 years.

And uh when we've been married 25 years, our kids uh gave us a celebration, uh 25th anniversary celebration.

And so uh my my daughter-in-law and my daughter and my daughter-in-law's family helped set all the table up and everything.

Uh, Jody and I just had to show up.

And they had our wedding photo album that was there.

And had it opened, and of course, she's into a beautiful wedding dress, and I've got my my navy blue suit on, and uh it's sitting there at the table, and this is our wedding anniversary to be celebrated.

We had two old maids in the church.

Now, I'm not being rude, they they called themselves old maids.

One lived to be 99, the other was 95.

Two sisters.

And they they they never married.

They lived together, took care of each other.

Ann and Peggy.

They walk in and they look, they look at the pictures, and they said, Who's that?

Well, whose anniversary is this?

Now, 25 years, I didn't think we'd change that much.

But there was a snapshot that was frozen in time there.

That's what he's saying at a point in time you put off and put on in intents and purposes.

But now then, having buried that man, you raise a new man, and now to keep that new man new, you have to continue to renew that mind.

Now you got the movie going.

Now it's not just a snapshot.

Now the film, now the video's playing here.

And so the video plays, and you keep renewing that new mind that you had.

And in doing that, that's the anchor point of the transformation, the change in our life.

And what Paul is saying here is I count all these things for loss.

They were good things, but they were dead in road for me.

I've opened my hands, I've let go of them.

I'm not trying to go back, I'm not trying to be a better version of what I was in the past.

I'm not trying to redo who I was.

I'm now someone completely new.

And now then I'm going to continue to renew my mind, and I'm going to do that by reaching forward.

I'm going to do that by pressing on toward being a particular kind of person.

I'm not just trying to change zip codes that we talked about yesterday with the men.

I'm trying to change to be somebody completely different in nature, in character, in heart, and in teaching.

I love the statement that Matthew gives of the Lord.

Why do you bless, pray for, and do good to those who curse you, do evil to you, and abuse you?

That you may be like your father, who causes the sun to shine and the rain to fall on who?

The righteous, the just and the unjust.

And so what he's saying here is, I'm going to be a different, totally different kind of person.

I'm not trying to be who I was before.

I'm not trying to go back.

I'm straining.

Here's the hope of the gospel.

The hope of the gospel, yes, is a prize, but the hope of the gospel is to be a completely different person.

Now, before I move to the last point to bring this down, what time do we quit?

Okay, want to hear the bell?

All right.

Before I move into the last point, I just want to want to pause and make this observation.

Or we're talking about becoming someone new.

And I realize we're talking about letting go of some things that are good, but I said I wanted to make some other applications of things too.

Do you know how we could put every marriage counselor out of work?

If we as husbands and wives will become more like Christ.

You know how we could solve every church problem?

If brother and sister will become more like Christ.

You know how we can solve every addiction?

If every individual that's addicted became more like Christ.

Do you see how that's not a simple answer?

I'm not just spitting that out to say, oh, that's easy.

But do you see what being this new kind of person that Paul says, I'm reaching for, I'm stretching for to be, is the answer to the human ailments.

I know this is a far stretch.

You know how to have peace between the United States and Iran for everybody to become more like Christ.

That's the hope of the gospel, folks.

And that's the peace that passes understanding that that can help the world.

Now, I want to illustrate this in a different way, and so I'm gonna move to the last element here.

In Genesis chapter 22, you're free to turn there.

Genesis 22 · chapter mention

I'm gonna cite the passage and tell the story, but you're free to turn there and follow if you want to.

In Genesis chapter 22, you know the story that uh that the Lord comes to Abraham and tells Isaac to, I mean, uh uh Abraham to go go sacrifice Isaac.

Genesis 22 · chapter mention

You know what I've noticed in that story is he never says he went and talked to Sarah about that.

Of course, we don't have all the whole story, but uh maybe he did go because he's obeying God.

He turns and he goes.

He takes the servants with him.

And they take the fire with them.

They take the wood.

And here's Isaac, a young boy coming along.

And uh they come to a particular part, and Abraham says to the servants, you guys stay here.

And then one of the most amazing statements in all the story, he says, You you guys stay here, we will return.

I don't know how that strikes you.

That's just mind-blowing to me.

He knows what he's been asked to do, but he says, You stay here, we'll we will return.

So they go up on the mountain, they get the fire started, they have the wood that's there, and then Isaac is laid on the altar.

Let me hit the pause button just a moment.

It is speculated that Isaac is probably around the age of 18 years old this time.

Now, you guys who have had grown sons that get to about the age of 18, if you ever wrestled with your son, when did you stop wrestling?

Before he can beat Jordan.

That's right.

You stop wrestling one time before you lose.

That's it.

One time, Cody Glenn and I locked up, and somebody was slammed against the wall, and Jody said, That's it, you can't do it anymore.

I was bound to determine he wasn't gonna win.

But then he came home from college one day and decided he wanted to do it, and I was stupid enough to engage it, and I'm never so glad Jody said lunch was ready in all my life.

The point I'm saying here is Isaac could have fought his dad.

I'm not getting on that thing, Dad.

No.

But Abraham laid Isaac.

Isaac had to be complicit in that to be able to do that.

And Abraham raised his hand to slay Isaac.

And the Lord stopped his hand and said, Now I know.

In other words, now you have demonstrated how much you now believe in me.

And that was the pinnacle of everything that's been happening to life of Abraham since he left early Chaldees.

It comes to this point, and now God says, Now I know, now you have demonstrated.

But what was Abraham doing?

He was opening his hands and letting go.

But who was he letting go of?

The promised seed.

The one that had been promised 25 years, well, at this point, earlier longer than that.

Promised 25 years before he was born.

And now that you slay him, we'll come back.

God halts his hand.

He's letting go of Isaac.

My question is, how many Isaacs do we have we need to let go of?

Are we really, are we really, really ready to let go?

The Hebrew writer talks about in chapter 12 a great cloud of witnesses, of which we are surrounded.

Those witnesses are not just in the stands like Friday night when Tech was playing Houston over here and the Houston's driving, and at the last moment the knee touches the ground before the ball crosses the line, and all of our cheers, ah, yeah.

Tech one, tech one.

They're not there cheering because the touchdown is made or not made.

These are the cloud of witnesses who are saying, We have done it, you can do it too.

You look at every one of those cloud of witnesses, and they had to let go of something.

You look at Noah over 120 years.

Over 120 years, he preached the gospel, was called a preacher of righteousness.

Look at all those great noteworthies there, and those cloud of witnesses are there to tell us it's worth it to let go to gain Christ.

It's worth it to let go to let him remake us, to make us anew.

When man sinned, he lost what God intended, and God said, I'm not done with him yet.

I'm not giving up on him yet.

I'm not letting him go.

I'm gonna hold on to man to produce in him what I had in the very beginning, when I made him in my image, and now I'm gonna provide an answer for that, and the answer is gonna come in my crucified son.

And when they see him, they'll see me and they'll see who I am to be like me.

And I'll restore them to the image I created in them.

And the cloud of witnesses are saying, it's worth it.

But you gotta let go of some things.

As I was thinking about this lesson and developing, I thought, you know, it's easy to talk about this, but there's a lot of things in this world we like to hold on to.

But the real question comes in is when we have to really let go, what are we gonna say that's worthless?

To gain Christ.

Last thought.

I'm sure you've seen the track events of the relay races that are taking place.

In a relay like relay race, everybody has a leg to run, and not all legs are equal in a relay race.

Some have shorter legs, some distances, and some have longer distances to run.

But just imagine the relay runner has now the longest leg of the race to run.

And the runner has run that last leg of the race well.

And is far ahead of everybody else, and can hear the state people in the stands cheering and yelling and motivating that runner to continue on.

But the time comes in which you have to hand the baton.

And you get there, and the next person's hand is stuck out to receive the baton.

But you're saying, I've done so well in this, and listen to the crowd cheering for me, and I'm so far ahead, I think I'll just run another leg of the race.

And then lose the race because you ran out of energy.

Sometimes we have to hand the baton and let go to help win the race.

Paul said, I forgot some things, and I'm reaching for some things, and I'm pressing for some things.

But there's some things I had let go of.

I just ask you this morning to think about.

Is there something you let go of?

Well, thanks for enduing me this morning.

I appreciate it very much.

You've been great to listen.

Thank you.