05: Sola Fide

Good evening, Church.

Hear now the word of the true and living God.

Philippians 3, 1 through 11.

Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord.

To write the same things to you is no trouble to me and is safe for you.

Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh.

For we are the circumcision who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus, and put no confidence in the flesh, though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also.

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

Circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews, as to the law, a Pharisee.

As to zeal, a persecutor of the church.

As to righteousness under the law, blameless.

But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.

Indeed, I count everything as loss, because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

This is the word of the Lord.

Please be seated.

Good afternoon.

My name is James Rastman.

I'm the pastor here at Redemption Church Denver.

Thanks for joining us this afternoon.

I've got a couple of announcements that I want to share before we get started.

If you have signed up for our newsletter, then this past week you will have received our newsletter.

That's the announcement.

I'm just kidding.

Uh the uh this past week we sent a newsletter out from uh the elders.

We hijacked the normal newsletter, and the elders sent out just an update on where we are and what we're working through.

And so I wanted to share that with you all now.

Uh we're really focusing on about four things, and you can find these four things where else but in your app.

So everybody download it and take it out.

And uh the list is uh here's the things that we're really focusing on.

So, first is as we've established this new board for our church, uh, one of the primary things that we're focusing on is getting a clear biblical vision on what this church leadership means.

Um so we've been going through a book together and just sort of kicked off what will be a continual study for us in leadership.

Uh, that way we're clear on what the Bible is calling us to do as a church.

Secondly, we wanted to get started on being engaged with the cong with the congregation quickly.

Oh, by the way, I see phones out if you're looking.

Go to the app, tap more on the far right bottom corner, and then you'll see uh it says RCD Elders or letter from the elders or something like that.

So that'll help.

Uh, and you can track along with us.

So, second is parishes, and what we want to do is get involved as quickly as we can, making sure that we aren't just sort of leading in some detached, you know, Gnostic sort of way, but that we're intentionally praying for the people in our church.

So before you had to make any moves, we wanted to make sure that we were already praying for you by name in our church.

So if you're coming consistently, or if we've gotten to know you through some means, if you're part of a redemption group, or if you volunteer somewhere in the church, you are being prayed for by name weekly by the elders.

Um if you're wondering, like, why are things going so good lately?

Now you know why.

Uh third, uh, we're going to be starting a series that starts in two weeks.

So two weeks from today, we're starting a series called Redemption Applied, which is about how we're taking this sort of doctrine that we're working through now, and how does that flesh out through the life of our church?

And so, over the course of the fall, we're going to be moving through basically what our top ten commitments are as a church.

How we want to be developing in our own hearts for the Lord, how we want to be developing as a community for the Lord, and then how we want to be moving out into Denver as a church.

So that's the outline of the series: our hearts, our community in Denver.

So uh keep your eyes out for that, that's coming up, and that will culminate in church membership, uh, which is super exciting and uh not bureaucratic at all.

It really is exciting.

Um also, we are moving through a process of developing a church affiliation.

So we've been networking with a lot of different church partners, uh, a lot of different church planting networks, things of that nature.

The point being, uh, we want to be a church that isn't isolated, we want to be a church that is part of the movement of the gospel in our city.

And so that's something that we're taking a real intentional focus uh towards now.

And also, if you keep scrolling down, you'll see the budget and finances.

Uh we have a budget and we have finances.

Woo! Yeah.

Uh she's an accountant.

All right, so just wanted to give a quick update there and kind of couch that data in this reminder of where we are.

You know, here you are at 4:30 p.m.

on a Sunday afternoon, and you're like, I I want coffee right now, and it's hot in here.

The temperature in here is like a blanket.

Uh but I know that I can't drink coffee because it's too late.

This guy better be entertaining.

So why are you doing this?

Here's where we are as a church.

We are basically a church plant that has come out of a church with a long history and a long legacy.

But as a church plant, we are moving towards a future that we don't know exactly what it is.

We don't know exactly where we'll be, we don't know exactly how long we'll be meeting at 4:30, but here's what we do know: we are pursuing a long-term impact for the gospel in Denver.

And we think that the key ways to do that are by gathering together to worship together, by establishing community in the church, so that we become shaped by the culture of a church that's informed by the Holy Spirit, so that we shape each other, so that we become like this other culture in our city that goes out and seasons Denver, so that Denver starts to look more and more like the kingdom of heaven.

And so this is an old school tactic.

This is an old, like this has been going on a long time.

This is like a 2,000-year-old tactic that we're taking to change Denver.

But you know what?

We really think it works.

This is what the Bible describes works.

And right now, we are in that point of our story that I like to call the adventure part.

We're at the part where we don't know exactly what comes next, but we're moving in faith that God has something really special and really exciting for our church.

So, with that said, thanks for joining us.

Thanks for moving through at 4:30 in the evening on a Sunday, right when the like in like 20 minutes, the Sunday scaries are just gonna hit all of you.

I'm gonna see it happen.

You're gonna be like, oh my gosh, I've got that meeting this week.

So stay with us.

Uh, this is part of that suffering for the gospel.

It's part of a bigger story.

All right, with that said, uh, let's go ahead and get into our text.

Uh, would you please pray with me?

Father, you are our chief shepherd.

You are the chief guide of our church.

And I pray that you would strengthen our hearts for the season that you have us in, that you would give us a vision not for ourselves, but that you would break our hearts for those that don't know you in our city.

God, would you please inform us, give us the wisdom to decide where we ought to go?

And would you give us hearts that commit to each other to see your gospel take place in our lives?

This incredible good news that we never would have guessed unless you told it to us directly.

Father, would you tell it to us directly today, this afternoon?

And would you give us good reason to celebrate and good reason to trust that you are taking us somewhere we could only go by your guidance.

So, Father, we praise you.

We thank you for your care.

We lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.

All right.

Uh I forgot my two main announcements.

Uh redemption groups, we have those.

Sign up for them.

The way to sign up for them is downstairs.

You'll meet someone with a lanyard in an iPad.

The way you sign up for everything.

Uh also, we're doing baptisms on September 15th.

So if you have not been baptized and would like to be baptized, uh, you can sign up for that in the app or with someone downstairs.

Um let's start preaching.

In the 1500s, a revival took place across Western Europe.

And what happened was a rediscovery of the fundamental tenets of the Christian faith.

And when that rediscovery happened, it just spread like wildfire.

It was this incredible move of the spirit.

And it's become typical over the past several hundred years, 500 years, to summarize this rediscovery in five phrases.

These five phrases are known as the five solas of the Reformation, sola meaning only.

And we're taking this series here at the end of our summer before we go into how we're going to live this out.

We're looking at what are these doctrines that Christianity claims that we're going to be living out.

The five of them are sola scriptura, which means scripture alone, sola fide, which we're going over today, which means faith alone, sola gratia, which means grace alone, solo Christo, which means Christ alone, and solideo gloria, which means glory to God alone.

These all have to do with our justification.

That's a big word that means how we're relating to God.

How is it that finite, broken, sinful people like us could relate to a holy God?

These five doctrines answer that question.

Now, I know you're interested in that.

Because if somebody stood up here and said, I know how you can relate to the living God, you'd be interested.

At least to hear a crazy person talk.

You'd be interested.

That's what we're talking about today.

Now, what we've gone through so far, solo scriptura, solo Christo, so scripture alone, Christ alone.

And then last week we went over grace alone.

And this same question has kept coming up as we've moved through each of these.

And the question basically sounds something like this: it sounds like, okay, so we're we're able to come to God through Christ alone, because Christ did this incredible work on the cross.

Or we're saved completely by grace alone.

So it's nothing in us that made God want to save us, it's just his love flowing out that rescues us.

But here's the question but don't we do something?

Like, doesn't don't we have to respond somehow?

Like I get that God is great and he does all of the saving, but don't we respond somehow?

Don't we play some part in this story?

And the answer is yes, you do.

We're at that part today.

The part we're at today is faith alone.

If you consider the project of our salvation, something like this, where God is moving down towards us to rescue us, this is the one thing that we're talking about, faith alone, which is how we respond to his rescue.

This is us going back to him with our faith alone.

So the answer is yes, we must put our faith in Christ.

Grace alone requires this response of us putting our whole faith in Christ.

So here's the question, because we've used a lot of phrases so far that you're probably just like, yeah, that's right.

Put our faith in Christ.

I've heard that somewhere.

But let's get as practical as we can today.

What is our faith?

What is faith?

What is the experience of that?

How does that actually move out of our lives?

How do we respond to an offer of salvation from the living God?

John Murray, one of my favorite old theologians, which is saying a lot, says this.

He says, faith is a whole-souled movement of self-commitment to Christ for salvation from sin and its consequences.

So consider this.

It is a whole souled movement of self-commitment.

Now, uh I I've never been rock climbing outdoors, but I've seen a lot of movies about it.

And what happens is you're you're you know let go of the wall or whatever, and then you hold on, then you lean back, and then you put your whole faith, you roll your whole soul of self-commitment over onto the rope and the harness, and there you are, and you're just sitting there.

You're completely held by it.

This is the picture of what it means to have faith in Christ.

Is that what is the thing that will hold me up?

I'm gonna roll my whole life, all of it, over onto this one thing, this rope and harness.

I'm gonna say that rope and harness is going to do the saving.

The way you do that is you you let go of the wall, right?

So this tells us something about faith right away, which is that faith always rests on something else.

You know, we we use faith, we just put like, you know, we just put faith on coffee mugs separate from anything.

It's like just have faith, you know, keep the faith.

But faith can't be detached like that.

It's not that type of a word.

You don't just have faith.

You always have faith in something.

If you let go of the wall, it's because you're putting your faith, you're rolling your whole soul of commitment, over onto the rope and the harness to protect you.

Your faith has an object.

What is the object of your faith?

It is that rope and harness in that.

Well, that's why we've moved through this in, that's why we've moved through this series in the particular order that we have.

We've started with scripture alone, and then Christ alone, and then grace alone.

That's because these things are the object of our faith.

It is scripture that tells us about Christ, and it is grace alone that tells us how Christ will operate for us.

And so we don't just have faith.

We need to know what our faith is in.

Our faith has an object.

Our faith has an object.

This is so key.

So then, what is faith?

Faith is at least three things.

The first is knowledge.

So, in order to put your faith in something, you need to know about it.

So you need to know, like, okay, this rope and this harness, yeah, it clips in and it tightens, and okay, yeah, I get that in theory this rope and harness holds me.

I know the story of Christ, that we are sinners before God, and that somehow we need to be atoned for.

And so God became a man so that he could perform that atonement for himself, and that in Christ we can be perfectly justified.

I get that story.

So it's at least knowledge.

There's something that we need to know, be able to articulate that we have our faith in.

Second, faith is not just knowledge, but it's conviction.

So I can describe, right, that like I can describe the the point or the view that the earth is flat, right?

Flat earthers are having a comeback.

And they uh don't call it a comeback.

We never left.

That's what flat earthers say.

And uh I can describe what it's like, right?

Like there's what's really going on is satellites are fake, and the world is a big flat disk, and there's a wall of ice all around us, and there's a government treaty that keeps us from visiting the wall of ice.

So I can describe that.

I have knowledge about that, right?

Some of you are like, oh, this is not a bad.

You're gonna leave me, you made some good points.

Uh so the uh uh I can describe that, I have knowledge about it, but I have no conviction.

I have no conviction that this thing that I have knowledge about is actually true.

To have conviction about something is to say, not only do I know it and can I describe it, but I really think that's true.

I think that's a true thing.

And so it's knowledge and conviction.

And then finally, faith is trust.

So that's I'm mixing up a bunch of metaphors.

So the back, we're back to the cliff.

The cliff is the on the giant ice wall.

Now it's one metaphor.

So in order for me to let go of the wall, I need to know that the rope will hold, in theory.

I need to be convinced, you know, this rope, I've seen it hold people before.

But for me to trust it, it means I'm letting go of the wall.

I've let go.

This rope, this harness, it will do the holding.

And so you roll over your whole soul onto it.

That's what we're seeing described in our scripture today.

Paul is going to describe the movement of his soul, where he rolls it over from all of these other things that he had trusted in.

And he rolls it completely onto Christ.

And he does that because he says, look, I know what Christ says that he did.

I've looked into it and I've become convinced that it's really true.

And now I trust it in such a way that I've rolled my whole life over onto this hope that Christ alone offers my salvation.

So that's what we're going to be looking at today.

Trust is about the confidence to let go of the wall.

So we're going to look at those things that we typically put our confidence in.

And then we're going to look at how Christ, Christ alone, is the only thing that can actually bear the whole confidence, the whole weight of our confidence.

Alright, so let's jump into our text.

This is Philippians 3, verses 2 through 3.

Philippians 3:2–3

Paul's writing this incredible letter, he's writing it from prison, and he's giving this description, and what he writes before, just before this verse, he says, Look, I'm gonna write to you some things that I've told you before, but it's good for you to hear them again.

So we'll take his word for it.

This is good for us to hear again.

He says this: look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh.

For we are the circumcision who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh.

Alright, that's a lot of strange language.

Let's see if we can make that relevant somehow.

So, first of all, he's giving us a warning.

He says, look out for those people that are going to be among you, that are going to call, that are gonna try and tear you apart, and the way that they're going to do this is they're gonna try and mutilate your flesh.

They're going to be those people that try and mutilate your flesh.

Now, what he's doing here is a pun on circumcision.

Because Paul is hilarious.

So, this this pun that he's making is he's calling this particular group of the Most religious people of his day that would have called themselves the circumcision party.

He's saying this is not circumcision that you're doing.

What you're doing is you're mutilating your flesh for no reason.

So why are we talking about circumcision?

Circumcision in the Old Testament is the symbol of covenant membership.

God made a covenant with his people, and he said, I will be your God and you will be my people.

And here's what will be a sign of your covenant membership.

It's circumcision.

Look, I don't know why.

And so what this group of people is saying is, sure, they've become Christians and they've said, yes, I'll depend on Christ.

But you still need these other signs.

You still need these other symbols of your faith.

You still need these ways to demonstrate your covenant membership.

And so they would say, you still have to be circumcised.

And you still have to worship in the synagogue.

And you still have to wear this type of clothing, and you still have to speak this language, and you still have to, and you still have to, and you still have to.

And Paul is saying, look out for them.

Why?

And he says, because we are the circumcision.

Now that's ironic, because what he's saying is we don't need those external signs.

But that's because we are the real demonstration of this membership in the new covenant of Christ, which is just by faith alone.

And you can see him start to circle this concept of faith alone in just the words that he uses here.

He says, We are the circumcision.

How can you tell that?

How can you tell that we're the ones that are really in?

It's because we worship by the Spirit of God.

Worshiping by the Spirit as opposed to the letter of the law.

He's saying we worship by the Spirit.

We come before the Lord in an authentic way and we honor Him.

And says, and we glory in Christ Jesus.

We don't glory in anything in ourselves.

We just glory in Christ.

And we put no confidence in the flesh.

We put no confidence in the flesh.

This is our connection.

Faith is ultimately showing where are we deriving our confidence from?

What is giving us our confidence that we could stand before God?

Paul says, first, in order to get faith, you have to get repentance.

And what are we repenting from?

All of those confidences that we've placed in our flesh.

Alright, so flesh, what does he mean?

Last week, we, when we went through grace alone, we laid out Paul's description of what the human heart is like now.

And he describes it as corrupted by three things.

It's corrupted by the world, which is that we just move through and absorb the normal patterns of the world.

It's corrupted by the devil, yes, him.

And it's corrupted by the flesh, which is those desires in ourselves which we think will give us real satisfaction when we satisfy them.

So those desires in ourselves, which we think will give us an ultimate satisfaction if satisfied.

And so Paul zeroes in in this verse on one of them.

And that's because flesh is where we place our confidence.

We're always deriving our confidence from something in our flesh.

Now, Paul continues on and he starts to give us this sort of taxonomy of what it is in our flesh that we derive our confidence from.

And it's very different from what I think you'd otherwise expect.

You know, from the description that we just gave of flesh and the category that it flows from of being connected to the world and the devil, you would think that this list of things that we put our confidence in would be just kind of like your typical puritanical, like no sex, drugs, and rock and roll type of list.

Right?

I don't drink, I don't chew, I don't go with girls who do.

All my references for this are from the 50s.

Let's go down to the quarry, it's gonna be a real gas.

It's not temptations of the flesh like that that Paul is describing.

In fact, it's much the opposite.

He describes the most religious people of his day.

And he counts himself in that number.

Says, what are our confidences in the flesh that we need to repent of and get rid of?

They're all the good things, all the good things I've done to show myself as someone honorable before the Lord.

So listen to this list of confidence in the flesh that Paul gives.

And he goes right at these people.

He says, Philippians 3, verses 4 through 6, he says, Though I myself have reasons for confidence in the flesh also.

Philippians 3:4–6

He says, Don't put your confidence in the flesh.

But he says, look, I got reason to put confidence in the flesh.

And then he doubles down.

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

Alright, pony up.

Let's lay out our resumes.

Here's Paul's resume, why he should be confident before the Lord.

He says, one, I'm circumcised on the eighth day of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews.

What did he just say?

He just said, Look, I come from the right family.

I you can tell because they circumcised me on the eighth day in accordance with the law, which means they brought me up right.

And I can trace my exact lineage back through the people who have received the promises from God.

I'm the right race.

I got the power.

I'm a Hebrew of Hebrews.

You want to talk about someone who should have the promises of God, then you're looking for somebody with my lineage.

Then he continues on.

He says, as to the law, I'm a Pharisee.

So what does that mean?

That means his education, his knowledge of Scripture is unparalleled.

It's the best of his day.

He was educated by a guy named Gameleel.

He is this incredible Jewish scholar, this uh the high priest at the time, just brilliant.

Paul grew up in a, he doesn't, he kind of even holds back on who he really is.

Paul grew up in a town called Tarsus, a really wealthy city.

He attended a uh like secondary education, uh, the type of place that we would think of as like a Harvard or Yale or uh um what's the one that Andy went to?

Cornell.

See, like that always happens to Cornell.

And so he he Paul is the most educated from the best family.

He's given this leg up on the world.

And look, these are religious markers.

Why should I have confidence in the flesh?

Because I've got more than you.

And then what we're thinking is like, okay, so he was born in the right family, and then he just did what he was told and he tracked along.

But this wasn't like an authentic belief, right?

Because that's the distinction we're gonna be tempted to make.

Paul didn't authentically believe this, he just enjoyed the external markers.

Uh-huh.

Paul's got you there too.

This is what he says.

He says, as to zeal, I was a persecutor of the church.

So that means, look, he's going above and beyond.

He sees this Christian underbelly developing, and he says, I'll take it upon myself to stamp that out.

He zealously persecutes the church.

He's tracking down letters and he's traveling across cities to try and discover outposts of the church.

He's watching coats while people are getting murdered.

He's actively trying to stamp out the church.

This is an authentic demonstration of his faith.

And then he continues, as to righteousness under the law, blameless.

That means if you were to look at Paul's life and you were to hold it up to the ceremonial law that's given to us in the Old Testament, we'd say he did it.

He followed the calendar precisely.

He did all the festivals, he made all the right sacrifices, he had all the right symbols, gave all the right signals, and it looked like he was doing it pretty authentically.

Paul's a freak of nature.

He is maximally religious.

There is no one who could touch him in terms of how religiously successful Paul was.

He would be a shocking person to meet.

And what he describes here is all those things that he placed his confidence in.

He describes his family, he describes his education, he describes his authentic belief, he describes all of these things that he places his confidence in.

And they're all things that he has done.

So this is the dynamic that I want us to see in Paul that's kind of nuanced.

What Paul's faith was ultimately in was Paul's faith.

Do you see that?

What Paul ultimately put his confidence in was the way he put his confidence in God.

You see, Paul did not place his confidence in God.

Paul placed his confidence in his confidence.

Paul placed his faith in his faith.

So much of the turmoil, so much of the wavering, so much of the questioning, the despair that takes place in the Christian's heart, in my own, is because we are always making this mistake.

We're treating our faith not as something that has an object.

We're treating our faith not as something that looks towards something else, but we're treating our faith itself as the object.

So we get into this, into, so we're asking questions like, how could I possibly know that I'm saved?

How could I possibly know that I could stand before the Lord?

Or, gosh, could would God possibly answer my prayers?

Could He possibly hear from someone like me?

And instead of strengthening our faith by considering the object of our faith, it's like we're sitting on a rope.

You know, we're on the cliff on the side of the ice wall, and we're in a rope, and we're in the harness, and the rope is holding us up.

And we're saying, man, how do I know this rope is gonna hold me up?

How do I know this rope is gonna hold me up?

I I know, I know.

I'll sit in it more.

And then when I'm really sitting in it, then when I'm really sitting in it, then I'll know and I'll have the confidence enough that the rope is holding me up.

No, that's a weird place to put your faith in how much you're sitting in it.

What your faith that you're not gonna plummet to your death is in, it's it's in the rope.

That's what your faith is in.

But when we put our confidence in the flesh, we create this terrible cycle where our faith never looks to Jesus.

It just circles right back around and we look right back at ourselves.

We wonder why are we constantly wavering?

Why is there no stability to my hope in Christ?

Because your hope hasn't made that move to actually being in Christ.

You've just created some other marker and you're looking at that marker instead of looking to Christ.

So consider what are those other markers that you would put your confidence in.

A good way to know what are those things that you think need to be cleaned up before you could come back in here?

What are those things that you think need to be out of your life before God would start hearing your prayers again?

These are all things of the flesh that you're putting your confidence in.

And what we want to learn to do with Paul is make that shift from putting our confidence in the flesh to putting our confidence completely in Christ.

This is the way we moved in this order.

So here's how Paul does that.

He says, look, if you think you could put your confidence in the flesh, I could do that way better than you, but I don't.

And here's why.

He says in Philippians 3, 7 to 9, he says, But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

For his sake, I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ.

What is it that compelled Paul to move away from this successful religious life and say, none of that counts for anything to me anymore?

Why?

Because he looked at Christ and he said, That's real righteousness.

That actually satisfies the law.

That's actually the love that I needed to feel and experience in my heart.

It happens in Christ.

That really happens in Jesus.

That thing that I so desperately needed to hear, why I pursued my education so completely, or why I uh, you know, was chasing after these things to place my confidence in, that's actually satisfied by the surpassing worth of Christ.

It's in Jesus that I hear God finally say to me, Behold, you're my beloved son.

With you I am well pleased.

And Paul heard that in Christ.

Now, this is this strange thing about Christianity because we are the only religion in the world that tells you to repent not just of your sin and the bad things that you've done, but also calls you to repent of your righteous deeds, those self-righteous things that you have done in order to earn your salvation before the Lord.

Now, why is that?

It's because both of these tendencies of the human heart, the one towards sin and the one towards self-salvation, come from the same root.

Both of them are ways of saying to God, I don't need you to be my God.

I can be my own God.

So we come up with not just ways to rebel against him and keep him away and pretend he doesn't exist by just, you know, sort of outright debauchery or whatever it may be, ignoring him.

We also come up with ways to keep God out of our lives by appeasing him.

You see that?

You know, I'll be so good and I'll follow the rules so perfectly that he'll never even have to talk to me.

I'll serve him so well that God's gonna owe me salvation.

Both are ways of controlling God.

And so Scripture calls us to repent of both.

And that's what Paul is doing here.

When he sees the surpassing worth of Christ, he's compelled to repent.

And this is exactly where Paul goes next.

He denies his own righteousness.

He says in Philippians 3.9, he says, and be found in him, which is be found in Christ, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.

So he's saying, Look, I don't even want to have a righteousness of my own.

I'm not even considering what those old markers were that I would use to determine whether or not I was a righteous person.

I'm not even interested in them anymore.

I count them as rubbish, they're useless to me now.

It's because I want the real righteousness.

I want the righteousness that comes not by looking at anything in me, but just by looking to Christ.

By looking at his perfect satisfaction of the law, by looking at his perfect sacrifice, by trusting in his unending grace towards me.

So that I might stand before God one day and say, why could I be in your presence?

Just by the work of Christ.

This is so important for us to understand.

We must grasp it as a church because look, our hearts are compelled to create new markers of our righteousness.

We're compelled to it.

And Paul begins this passage with a warning against those that are doing that.

Against the ones that are gonna come in and they're gonna say, look, I know that it's Christ alone, and I know that it's Jesus' sacrifice alone, and it's just faith in him, but look, we've got a Bible reading plan.

If you want to be a real Christian and you wanna know that you're really following Jesus, and you want to be able to know that you are righteous before God, don't miss a day on your Bible reading plan.

And if you do, make sure that you catch up.

See, we'll come up with markers.

If you really want to be a Christian and you really wanna make a difference in the city, then here's how you do it: you're gonna have to join a redemption group.

Because you can't do this alone.

You can't be a Christian alone.

We're gonna have markers and we will use those to mutilate each other.

And our redemption groups, which should be these experiences of joy in Christ with one another, they will become our righteousness.

And when they become our righteousness, we use them to mutilate each other.

This is why this is so important for the culture of a church to really get.

And it feels so risky to say completely.

This is why the church doesn't, we don't like to say this and drive it home as completely and as holy as Scripture does, as Paul does here.

Because it's nice when people just keep showing up.

And if we could get you to keep showing up, even for even because you're scared, and even because you're using this as a covenant marker, and even though you're using this to show your righteousness, that's fine.

Still a number we can tally.

But listen, if you are not completely free because of what Christ has done, and if your faith is not strong, because your faith is in Jesus, then whatever community we develop here, it doesn't stand a chance.

But if we get our freedom and we choose to meet together anyway, and if we get our righteousness before God is established, but but we choose to Live in His Word because we see the beauty of it, not under compulsion, but because we're driven by this love of a God who has shown us his love so completely, that's a transformative community.

Paul could have gone about this two ways.

Well, I'll uh first a quote, then this thing.

John Murray.

Again, he says the specific character of faith is that it looks away from itself and find its whole interest and object in Christ.

He is the absorbing preoccupation of faith.

What I want you to be able to repent of today and just let go of the weight of is this judging the strength of your own faith.

That's right, write that down.

It's a tweetable moment.

My pastor doesn't want me to judge the faith of my own faith.

Because what you're doing there is you're circling back around to this self-salvation.

What I want you to do instead is look to Jesus.

Look at the object of your faith.

Roll the whole weight of your life over onto him.

That is where the strength of our faith comes from.

There are two ways that Paul could have gone about this.

Paul chose to say, one of the ways is what Paul did.

Paul chose to say, uh, look, you want to go toe-to-toe religiously, I'm gonna have you beat.

What he could have done is said, look, I never could have measured up anyway.

Why did I go to Christ?

It's because I never could have measured up anyway.

And Paul could have reasonably said that.

Elsewhere, Paul calls himself the chief of all sinners.

So Paul could have said, I'm the worst, so why would I ever even try and measure up by the law?

He doesn't say that though.

It's because Paul's going after a particular heart, a heart that I think is particularly challenging to break.

It's the one that thinks, I probably could have this together.

I'm just a half step away from having a faith that's so strong that Jesus must save me.

That's the heart that we need to repent of.

And the one that we need to relish in is the one that says, Jesus saves.

And so I'm gonna put my faith in him.

I'm gonna put my faith in him.

Alright.

With that, do we have any questions today?

Does everyone have faith and it just depends what the faith is in?

Oh, that one's just right down the middle.

Yes, yes.

That's exactly right.

Everyone has faith.

You're serving someone.

You know, like Bob Dylan says, you're gonna serve somebody.

I only have references that are 40 years old today.

You're gonna serve somebody, and you are serving someone.

So what you need to look at is what is my faith in?

Your faith is either in what you think you're bringing to the table, why God should justify you, or your faith is in Jesus, who perfectly satisfies the requirements of the law on your behalf.

There's such an incredible freedom in this.

You know, just like a final simple thought.

Everybody hates like summer reading.

It's because we hate being told what to read.

Somehow it ruins the book.

I don't even really like being recommended books.

I'm just kidding.

Kind of.

There's something in this freedom of I'm not reading the Bible to gain some righteousness before the Lord.

I am righteous before the Lord in Christ.

And so, what's the wonder in this book for me today?

I hope that your lives will be marked by that type of freedom in Christ.

That the guilt that's already starting to plague you would just fall away.

That you might have real joy in what Jesus has done.

You'll be glorifying Him when you do that.

You'll be obedient when you do that.

You will be rejecting your own righteousness and you'll be holding on to the righteousness that comes by faith.

Pray that our church would experience that.

In fact, I can do that right now.

Father, would you please fill our hearts with just the incredible news of the freedom that you have offered to the Christian?

Would you give us hearts that look to you completely?

And would you give us faith that totally looks away from ourselves and beholds your glory?

Would you make us turn to you quickly?

And would you inspire in our hearts a depth of love and commitment for you that rolls our whole souls onto just Jesus.

Just Jesus.

Lord, self-confidence is such a terribly brutal thing to try and conjure up.

It's so oppressive.

God, we repent of seeking it.

Let us find our confidence completely in you.

You give it to us freely.

Father, lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Let us remember the confidence that we have in Christ as we come to celebrate communion together.

Yeah, let's celebrate.