The All Surpassing Glory of Knowing Christ

Today's scripture reading comes from Philippians 3, verses 1 through 11.

Philippians 3:1–11

Hear the word of the Lord.

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 count it 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.

Join me as we pray over the word, Father God.

We are so humbly thankful, Lord, for your word.

We're grateful for this time, Lord.

We are very much deserving of your wrath and your isolation, Lord, that you would come and save us and know us and teach us, Lord, and prepare us for this time on earth, Lord, for your kingdom.

Lord, we just pray that this moment in time, Lord, that you would use Robert, your humble servant, Lord, to deliver your message, Lord, from Philippians.

God, that what Paul wrote and what he was expressing, Lord, and what we need today is still even more relevant, Lord, and we just pray that uh these words would resonate on our hearts, God, and that you would just allow us to uh find our way through this time on earth in your kingdom, God, and help us to expand your kingdom and for all your glory, Lord.

We're just so thankful for your presence.

We pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Thank you, brothers.

Well, good morning.

Let me add my welcome to whoever has greeted you.

I have been gone so much, it feels a little strange to be uh in the pulpit this morning.

Uh this last week, I was with our team.

We had a team in La Paz, Bolivia, with one of our partners.

If you don't, if you don't get our weekly emails, I would encourage you to go on our website and subscribe to those.

I wrote a follow-up email that spoke to just the value of partnerships and a little bit about our our trip.

But I do want to say briefly at the top of the sermon, uh, if you've never had a chance to participate with us as we go and and we send a team to work with a partner, I would encourage you strongly to do so.

In particular, this trip, as I sat back and watched, one of the great blessings for me, people are like, hey, what's the highlight of your trip?

Getting to see my two boys serve.

Um great, incredible blessing from the Lord to be able to see that.

But one of the things that I really reflected on this time as I was there and even after I've I've gotten back is just the value of gospel partnerships and how the Lord has gifted us with the capacity and ability and the availability to have partnerships with people who are all over the world preaching the same gospel that we stand before you this morning and preach.

So it is an absolute privilege to be able to partner with Nick specifically, but but even more drilled down with the La Paz School, Highlands International School in La Paz.

Uh and with that, I'll I'm gonna put a plug.

I didn't plan to do this, but it uh it just fits really well.

This year at our sending conference, we're really going to try to emphasize and equip you and help you understand why we partner and why we partner with the people that we partner with.

A lot of those folks will be here for that.

So if you haven't signed up for our sending conference, I would encourage you to do so.

You can do that on our events page.

Uh, and it is a privilege.

I pray every day nearly for myself and for us as a church that we would never lose sight of the importance of proclaiming the gospel in DeSota County and beyond.

It is an app, it's not something somebody made a statement this morning.

I can't remember if it was in our prayer as elders or if it was from the platform.

It's not that we have to do it, it's that we get to do it.

We have a worthy message that we carry.

So I would encourage you to sign up for that and learn more about how you can specifically be a part of it.

Uh last week, obviously, I wasn't here and I I got our dear brother's permission to speak about this.

We had a dear brother, Dan, who had a medical emergency during the service.

A lot of you asked me how he was doing.

I was planning to speak to that this morning, but you can see him in the flesh.

He is here and he is doing well.

So praise God.

Praise God for that.

As I have conversed with many of you and I received texts while I was uh in Bolivia, one of the highlights for you guys and for me as I get to sit back and hear about it was the body caring for the body.

So we're we praise God that Dan's okay, and I praise God that the body took care of the body last week and we celebrate that.

So we're thankful for our dear brother and thankful that he's he's back with us.

And then the last thing before we get to the text, you guys might remember a few weeks ago we said today was going to be today.

We made the second push for mountain movers.

We've actually pushed that back a week uh with fall break and other things.

We've pushed that back one week.

So next week, be prepared to come.

We'll have a time during our guided prayer time to pray over that and then for you guys to bring your commitment cards uh as an act of worship to the Lord.

So if if you aren't sure what mountain movers is, I'm not going to get into all of it.

There's some pamphlets in the four year you can grab and you can look at it.

But the short of it is it's an intentional effort by us as a church to maximize our facilities, to pay down debt, and to free up uh money for ministry.

We will bring those commitments and those gifts next week.

I believe that's October 25th, if my math is correct.

So we'll bring those next week on October 25th.

So we look forward to being able to worship in that way as a church.

Now, to the sermon text.

That's a lot uh beforehand.

I had to like reorient my mind to God's word.

Uh, this going off script, this whole week I've kind of wrestled with this text, and I was telling the elders this morning uh it's one of those texts where the text is so incredibly rich.

How am I supposed to preach it?

Right?

It is so incredibly rich rich.

How are you supposed to do it justice other than just reading the text?

It's difficult, it's eye-opening, it's humbling, it's it's emotional.

I was tearing up as my wife was reading the text this morning because you think about man, Paul gave up so much for Christ, and he said it was worth it because all I want to do is know Christ and for other people to know Christ.

So as we begin this morning, I want to pose some questions for you.

What is the greatest treasure of your life?

What do you want to know more than anything else in this world?

And I'll give a little caveat to this.

If you were not sitting in the chairs of a church after hearing someone read Philippians 3, 1 through 11, and someone were to ask you to question, ask you the question, what do you love more than anything in this world?

What would your answer be?

Would it be your spouse?

Would it be sports?

Would it be music?

Would it be a particular baseball team or this time of year, a particular football team?

Would it be your country?

Would it be exercise?

Would it be running?

Would it be your stuff?

Would it be traveling?

Would it be your job?

Would it be your kids?

Would it be your intelligence and your capacity to do things a certain way?

Would it be the books that you have read?

Would it be your hunting?

Would it be something else that you treasure on this earth?

What we'll see in today's sermon text is that Paul says there is nothing, nothing that we will ever see, that we will ever experience, that we will ever have on this earth that compares to Christ Jesus.

Nothing.

Knowing Christ was Paul's aim.

Further, he wanted everyone else, and that's what we see in this text, he wanted everyone else to know him too.

So him knowing Christ wasn't enough.

This goes back to what I was talking about and the importance of gospel partnerships and taking the gospel not just to DeSota County and beyond.

Knowing Christ for him wasn't enough.

He wanted everyone else to know him too.

And we see that in verse one.

He uses the language same things, which indicates that he has communicated these same things to the Philippians before.

Remember, he had spent time with them.

This isn't the first chapter, the first part of his letter.

We've been reading it.

This is the third chapter.

We've been on it for several weeks.

He had communicated these things to them before, and he goes on to say, It is no trouble for me, and it is safe for you.

Paul cared so much about the gospel message.

He cared so much about the people within the church in Philippi that he knew that it was no trouble for him to proclaim the same gospel over and over and over again, to repeat the same things over and over and over again, because he knew how important that gospel was.

He knew that the true gospel, not some false gospel, the true gospel is the one that should be lifted high above all other things.

He knew that he had to speak the gospel.

He knew that he had to live the gospel.

He knew that he had to take the gospel, he knew that he had to preach the gospel.

That was his aim.

And ultimately, in all that, it was to know Christ more, for him to know Christ more, and for the people of Philippi to know Christ more.

So this morning, as we look at the sermon text, we're gonna break it up into two distinct points.

The first one is the danger of false gospels.

We're gonna see that all the way through verse seven.

And the second one is the beauty of the true gospel.

We're gonna see that in verses eight through eleven.

So let's begin by looking at verses two through seven: the danger of false gospels.

In verse two, he compared communicators of false gospels, in essence, false teachers.

Look at the language that he uses here dogs, evildoers, those who mutilate the flesh.

And contextually, what we know, what Paul is talking about here, we know that he is talking about specific teachers who were adding to faith alone and Christ alone.

Right?

The gospel message teaches we are saved by grace through faith in Christ alone, right?

Nothing else.

Specifically, Paul here is talking about these Judaizers who are preaching aspects of the Jewish law and tradition in addition to the Messiah.

So, in addition to Christ crucified, they were pushing Jewish law and Jewish tradition.

When Scripture teaches grace alone by faith alone, period.

The Judaizers were teaching Christ plus circumcision, right?

Christ plus circumcision.

That's what they were teaching, that's what they were emphasizing.

Can you imagine how confusing that would have been for the church at Philippi?

We have to consider and understand that the church of Philippi was made up of a significant number of Gentiles, people who weren't from the Jewish tradition.

That would have caused immense confusion for them.

A group of Gentiles, non-Jews, had heard and understood and responded to Christ is enough.

Christ alone, faith alone in Christ alone is enough.

Then all of a sudden these Judaizers come in and they're saying, no, no, no, no, wait, wait.

It's Christ plus circumcision, it's Christ plus this aspect of the Jewish law, it's Christ plus this, it's Christ plus this.

And Paul says, No, that is wrong.

And those people are dogs for communicating that.

They are evildoers, right?

They they mutilate the flesh.

They are doing the communicating the wrong message, and it is dangerous.

Christ plus circumcision, Christ plus tradition, Christ plus whatever does not equal salvation.

It equals legalism.

It equals legalism.

I can't say enough how important it is to notice that Paul doesn't simply lightly address this.

Do you think calling someone a dog is lightly addressing something?

You think calling someone, someone who mutilates the flesh is lightly addressing something?

No, he hammers it because he knew how dangerous any small little false gospel that creeps in could be in the lives of God's people.

He recognized and understood the danger, and he knew ultimately that it leads to death.

Right?

Christ plus anything doesn't lead to salvation, it leads to death.

When you change the gospel message, the gospel ceases to be the gospel.

And Paul recognized how dangerous that dangerous that was.

Then look with me at verse 3.

It says the circumcision there as well.

That can be a little bit confusion, but the circumcision that we see in verse 3 is not referencing some Jewish custom or law.

What he's referencing there, if you look at the text, he's referencing transformation by Christ through the Spirit.

Right?

That's the circumcision he's talking about there.

And he goes on to say, that is true worship.

That is what true worship is.

Why?

Because the confidence and hope is in Christ alone, not things that your flesh can accomplish.

So Paul speaks to the reality of these false gospels.

We see that thus far.

And what I love about this particular passage is that not only does he speak to the reality of false gospels, he all also goes on to personally resonate with them.

He's spent several verses of today's sermon text personally resonating with these false gospels.

Excuse me, my eye is itching so bad.

You see, the Judaizers who are the false teachers that Paul is most directly addressing here, they were adding Jewish tradition to the gospel.

They would have been people who would have praised the heritage of Paul, the the previous accomplishments of Paul, his his resume.

They would have praised Paul's resume.

And Paul says, I have all of these things that these false teachers would praise, that Jesus Judaizers would praise, that they would add to the gospel, and guess what?

They are nothing.

I have it, what they say you have to have, and they are nothing compared to Christ.

Look with me at the text for a second.

I I read one theologian talk about Paul, and he talked about this spat uh passage specifically, and he looked at it from the standpoint of if you were to take Paul's life and you were to make uh two columns, gains and losses, right?

Gain and loss.

His gain and loss column experienced radical transformation when he experienced Christ.

It was completely turned upside down.

And let me explain what I mean by that.

Look at the text for a second.

All right, it talks about prior to his conversion.

We see circumcised on the eighth day in the text.

You see that?

You see people of Israel, you see tribe of Benjamin, you see Hebrew of Hebrews, circumcised on the eighth day, people of Israel, tribe of Benjamin, Hebrew of Hebrews.

Each of these point to heritage, to things that the the Jewish culture in the Jewish culture would have given him praise.

It would have given him lots of status and pats on the back.

This would have been must to the satisfaction of man.

And Paul would have received praise for these things.

And it also goes on to say, as to the law, a Pharisee, what do we know about the law and what do we know about Pharisees?

We know that Pharisees were known for knowing the law and also keeping the law.

Right?

Paul alludes to in other writings that you read about Paul, Paul alludes to, he is far advanced, even beyond his peers, in his knowledge of the law and his capacity to keep the law, even beyond what people older than him can do, is what he refers to at certain points.

As to law, he refers to himself, I was a Pharisee.

Goes on to say, as to zeal, a persecutor of the church.

Paul wasn't some timid brother prior to Christ.

Yes, we see him being bold after coming to Christ.

He was pretty bold before Christ, too.

He wasn't timid in his attack of the church.

He was bold.

He had this certain zeal to him.

He wasn't a coward.

He was going after the church.

He was calling out the church.

Anything plus tradition, this Messiah who is a liar in Paul's mind prior to Christ, he was going after that message.

He took it head on without hesitation, without fear.

He attacked the church.

Goes on to say, as to righteousness under the law, blame us.

He lived out Jewish tradition and Jewish law.

All of those things prior to conversion for Paul were in his gain column.

Every single one of them.

These are gain.

I get praise, people like me.

I am following through with what tradition says I should follow through with.

These are gain.

Guess what was in the loss column for him?

Jesus.

Christ.

The people around Paul would have celebrated.

Those were also the things that Paul put his time, energy, passion, resources, and most devastating his hope in.

And then something happened to him on the Damascus Road.

You can go read about that if you want to.

But something happened to Paul on the Damascus Road, and his life was literally flipped upside down.

And we we we read about that most often.

We think, man, this brother went from death to life.

And yes, he most certainly went from death to life, but his life was flipped upside down post-conversion.

Hear this circumcised on the eighth day.

People of Israel, tribe of Benjamin, Hebrews of Hebrews, as the law of Pharisee, as the zeal persecuted the church, as the righteousness under the law, blameless.

All those things went from the gain column to the loss column.

Those were no longer the priority of his life, and those were no longer the things he cared about getting on the pat on the back for.

And guess what went to the gain column?

One single thing.

Christ.

Christ.

That was it.

He looked at his life, he looked at all the things that he saw as most valuable, what brought him the most earthly gain and joy and what he had put his hope in.

And he said, I count every single one of those things now as loss.

They are nothing.

His life was turned upside down.

The gain and loss categories of his life was totally redefined because of the direct work of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit in his life at conversion.

I want to just make a statement here.

Church, if we can get this right, if we can get this right, can you imagine the fruit of labor that we would experience?

It is no secret that our lives and our world is full of chaos, it is full of tragedy, it is full of devastation.

It can be overwhelming at times.

And we spend so much energy looking for the right answer, the right thing to say, the right situation to put ourselves in, the right Right person to vote for, the right place to be at the right time, when we have the answer right in front of us.

And it can be most overwhelming when chaos and tragedy hits close to home.

Or maybe it chaos and tragedy enters into your home.

Paul no longer put his hope and confidence in his accomplishments.

He no longer put it in his tribe.

He didn't put it in some nation.

He didn't put it in his education.

He didn't put it in his zeal.

He didn't put it in his flesh.

He didn't put it in his health.

He put his hope and confidence in one thing, and that is Christ.

And the question before us with a passage like this is do we?

Do you?

Are you riding on the coattails of your earthly success?

The place that you live, the number that is in your bank account, your safety, your security, your nationality, your health, your circumstances, and all of our comforts and all of our accomplishments.

If we were to wake up tomorrow and every single one of them was ripped from your fingertips, would Christ be enough?

Would knowing Christ be enough if you woke up tomorrow and every single possession that you ever worked for, every single dime that you ever earned, every single person that you ever loved was gone.

I struggled with this application this week because I don't even want to stop and think about something like that.

I like to say I live for Christ.

But when life gets real, do I?

Do I really count Him as gain?

At a level that in the midst of the greatest sorrow I can imagine or experience, in the midst of the greatest weeping that I've ever experienced, that I would really truly say, I trust you, Jesus.

You are enough.

Give me Jesus.

Paul understands that Jesus is gained because in the midst of loss on this earth, he knows what is to come and who is with him.

He knows what is to come and who is with him.

As I stated earlier, Paul, for a significant portion of his life, had put his hope and confidence in the ritualistic nature of the Jewish tradition.

And in the covenant that had been fulfilled by Jesus Christ, in essence, he put his hope in himself.

That's what he did, and his accomplishments, in his status, and his righteousness, and his culture, and his religion.

He ignored, rather, he didn't just ignore, he persecuted the message of Jesus, but that changed.

And so did his perspective.

So that leads us to the second thing that we see: the beauty of the true gospel.

I read multiple things on these last few verses, and just about every single theologian I read that talked about verses 8 through 11.

They talked about how this is probably the most succinct communication of Pauline theology that we have in all of Scripture, these few verses.

Succinct and clear communication of his theology.

And when we think about that, we see that the central focus of Paul's life, his ministry, his teaching, his conversion, his compassion is Christ and Christ alone.

There is nothing else.

If you follow the course of his life, he never allows anything to come above Christ.

Proclaiming Christ, living out Christ, making Christ known, knowing Christ.

That is his the what defines his life and ministry.

His ambition is to know Christ personally, and his mission is to proclaim Christ to everybody else.

That is the definition of Paul's life.

And what a testimony that is.

And when we think about it, those aren't empty words.

They were proven words.

I want to remind you of a passage from 2 Corinthians 11.

You don't have to turn there, but I want you to listen to this.

Are they Hebrews?

So am I.

Are they Israelites?

So am I.

Are they offspring of Abraham?

So am I.

Are they servants of Christ?

I am a better one.

I am talking like a madman with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death.

Five times I have received at the hand of the Jews the forty lashes less one.

Three times I have been beaten with rods.

Once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, shipwrecked.

A night and a day I was adrift at sea, on frequent journeys and dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from own people, dangers from Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers at sea, dangers from false brothers, and toil and hardship, through many a sleepless nights, and hunger and thirst, often without food, and cold and exposure, and apart from other things, there was the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches.

Who is weak and I am not weak?

Who is made to fall and I am not indignant?

Paul lived out what he said.

This wasn't some empty comment of I count all these things as lost.

No, he lived out the loss.

Can you imagine dealing with one of those things that Paul had to deal with?

One of them.

Can you imagine if you were shipwrecked one time or you were beaten with rods one time?

Paul dealt with all of it, and he's still Christ.

Christ.

This is evidence of that priority shift I was talking about, right?

The priority shift that had taken place in Paul's life, where all the things that he counted as gain were now lost, and Christ was gain, that had prepared him for what he was going to endure as a faithful laborer for the gospel.

It had prepared him.

Look with me at verse 8.

There is a significant statement that we must pay attention to.

And this is what I just alluded to.

Up until verse 8, it was a count as lost.

Look at the difference.

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

So it goes from I count them as lost to I have suffered the loss.

That is a big deal.

I count them as lost to I have suffered this loss.

All of the things that have been praised by man, all of the things that the false teachers, these these dogs would have said were most important.

Look at the language Paul uses in that text in verse 8.

Rubbish.

Rubbish.

I got on a rabbit trail this week in sermon prep when I came across rubbish.

I was like, hmm.

So I did a word study.

I looked at the Greek.

I'm not going to try to pronounce any of the Greek, but I just want to say rubbish is more than rubbish.

Does anybody have a dog?

Does anybody ever have to clean up these little brown piles out of the back of your yard?

I don't have to because I made my kids do that.

You know another word for rubbish?

The first word when I looked that up in my Greek dictionary wasn't rubbish.

It was dung.

All these earthly praiseworthy things, excuse my language, I'm just gonna go with it.

All the earthly praiseworthy things that everybody thought were important, Paul says, no, those are crap.

That's what that is.

That's dung.

Paul left that garbage, that rubbish, that crap, that dung.

He left it behind for Christ.

And the danger that we can run into, I have a hard time not laughing at this one, too.

The danger that we can run into is we can make crap look awfully attractive.

We can dress it up and make it look really, really gorgeous.

But that doesn't mean it ceases to be dung.

Paul knew and recognized that we make junk look very pretty, but that doesn't mean it's not worthless.

So he's emphasizing for the Philippians that earthly gain is no better than a pile of crap in your backyard.

He counted them as dung.

Why?

Because he wanted Christ.

Paul was a radical dude.

He was radical about Christian persecution.

Then he was radical about gospel proclamation.

The entire course of his life changed because a simple perspective changed.

It was more than that, obviously, because the Spirit working in his life, but his perspective was totally changed.

I think sometimes we look at conversion, coming to Christ as simply, oh, I am was dead and now I'm found.

Yes, that is so true.

But your life should be turned upside down.

It should be radically changed.

We see Paul experience conversion that was radical, and then we see a radical change that takes place in his life because he recognized that Christ and the knowledge of Christ and knowing Christ was enough.

First one, Psalms 118, verse 20.

Psalms 118:20

This is the gate of the Lord.

The righteous shall enter through it.

Now, Romans 3.10.

As it is written, none is righteous, no not one.

The righteous shall enter through it, this is the gate.

And then another passage of scripture, none is righteous, no not one.

If Psalms 118 is true, and it is, if Romans 3 is true, and it is, then how is it even explainable?

More importantly, how is it attainable for us to experience glory?

There is a critically important doctrine that is hit on in these last three verses of today's text.

A doctrine that makes sense of Psalms 118 and Romans 3 when you read them side by side, and that is the doctrine of imputation.

I'm going to read this for you.

The doctrine, this comes from an article on Gospel Coalition.

It teaches that while Adam's sin is imputed to us because he is our natural federal head, God imputes or credits righteousness and suffering of Jesus to those who are in him.

You see, Paul had lived his whole life up until his conversion on his righteousness.

That's what all those things were.

That's what all those lists of things were.

Things that, quote, made him righteous.

And he, like every single person under the sound of my voice, at the end of the day is not righteous.

There is no one righteous.

No, not one.

And what happened with Paul is he received justification through the blood of Christ Jesus.

That's what we see in verse 9.

Faith in Christ and justification through his blood.

It isn't earned, it isn't because of your accomplishments.

It is a free, undeserved gift.

God rescued us, filthy sinners who did not deserve rescue, and we still don't deserve rescue.

He rescued us.

You have no capacity.

I don't care how religious you think you are.

I don't care how much you read your Bible.

I don't care how much you pray.

You have no capacity to earn your justification apart from the blood of Jesus.

There is no way.

Only the blood of Jesus can justify you.

Christ secured your salvation once and for all.

Only faith in him can provide you with the atonement that you need.

That's it.

Nothing else.

Verse 10, it talks about becoming like Christ in sanctification.

Paul's posture should be enlightening for us.

The brother had radical transformation.

I mentioned that earlier.

Further, when you look at his letters, if you've never just taken time to read through all of Paul's letters, I would encourage you to do that.

When you look at his letters, it was clear that he was living for Christ.

He was living for Christ.

It was clear that he was faithful to proclaim the gospel.

It was clear that he loved the churches that he planted.

All these things are crystal clear.

But you know what?

That wasn't enough for him.

He constantly made it his desire.

He constantly made it his pursuit.

Even though he was doing all of these wonderful things in the name of Christ, he constantly made it his pursuit to know Christ more.

Two quotes I read from a J.I.

Packers Knowing God.

Listen to these.

There's a difference between knowing God and knowing about God.

When you truly know God, you have energy to serve Him, boldness to share Him.

And listen to this one.

This is probably the one I struggle with most of all.

And contentment in Him.

When you're suffering, do you find contentment in Christ?

Is He enough?

Another one says this.

What were we made for?

The answer to know God.

What aim should we have in this life?

The answer to know God.

What is the eternal life that Jesus gives?

To know God.

What is the best thing in this life?

To know God.

That's what Paul is screaming here.

Vote everything else out.

Who cares?

If you know God, what a privilege that is for you.

And then verse 11 experience glorification in the realities of heaven.

You know one of the great privileges it is to be able to gather weekly as a body of Christ in my mind is it gives us a glimpse of heaven.

You know one of the great privileges it is for me when I get to go and serve and be overseas and worship with people who look like me, who look different than me and speak different than me, and maybe their worship gathering looks a little different.

Maybe it's not in a building like this, maybe it's outside, maybe wherever it may be.

Great privilege that is, is it gives us a glimpse of heaven.

Not only do we get to taste of heaven on this earth with all of these good graces that the Lord has bestowed upon us, specifically within the context of his church.

We have confidence and joy and the glory that is to come.

Heaven is not some arbitrary place.

Being in the presence of the Creator God at the end of this life will be a reality.

It is a real place, a real thing that we get to look forward to with eager anticipation.

Verse 9 through 11, help us see the importance of knowing Christ.

I pray that as we work through this text, as we read this text, that you will see and understand that, yes, we may try to make this Christian life about good works.

We may try to make it about being religious or praying enough or reading our Bible enough by making ourselves righteous.

What happens when we do that is we we get our gain and loss column mixed up, right?

We put ourselves in the gain column and we put Christ in the loss column.

Because what we're doing in that is we put ourselves as our Savior.

And maybe you're not as screwed up as me.

I don't know.

But I will never live up.

There is no glory in your righteousness.

There is no glory in your pedigree.

There is no glory in where you're from.

There's no glory in your name.

There's no glory in what you can or cannot accomplish.

There is glory in Christ alone.

That is it.

I don't care how good you think you are or how religious you think you are.

Without Christ, you are a Pharisee.

I read a quote from Tim Keller this week.

I want you to listen to this.

Now, the minute you become a Christian is the minute when you say this.

I realize my only resume would be that which God gives me.

That God owes me nothing.

Because as much as I've tried to live a good life, I've never come to it.

And deep in my heart, I know that a Christian is somebody who says, I used to repent of my sins, but now I repent of my righteousness as well.

Your righteousness will not get you into heaven.

It is the imputed righteousness of Christ alone that will get you there.

So I want to end the sermon where we began it.

What is the greatest treasure of your life?

What do you love more than anything else on this earth?

And can you honestly, whether you're a Christian or a non-Christian, because I think Christians can answer this question wrong too, whether you're a Christian or a non-Christian, can you honestly answer that question with this?

Knowing Christ?

Can you answer the question, the greatest treasure of your life, the greatest pursuit of your life, the thing you love more than anything else in your life is knowing Christ.

Because if you are a Christian, that should be your answer.

And if it's not your answer, you better do some self-reflection.

You better get on your knees before a holy God and beg him to help you.

Maybe some of you have professed faith for years, 20, 30, 40 years, but the faith has never been anything other than this righteous set of I have to do this, this, and this, and then I will be saved.

You have put your faith in what you can do.

And your faith has never had anything to do with knowing Christ, and it's had everything to do with your religious uh rituals.

I don't know exactly where you are, but I know this.

If your aim isn't to know Christ, then your aim is at the wrong thing.

It'd be like going deer hunting.

Some of you deer hunt, it'd be like going deer hunting, and there's a huge buck standing right there, and you're aiming at the tree next to it.

You're aiming at the wrong thing, brother, sister.

Your aim should be at knowing Christ, nothing else.

If it's at anything else, it is at the wrong thing.

So my my plea with you this morning as we get ready to close, redirect the aim of your life at knowing Christ.

At knowing Christ.

As we respond with communion and then a response song.

Again, I encourage you, do some self-reflection, do some self-evaluation, let the spirit work, and then chase after Christ with every fiber of your being, every inch of your being.

Chase after Christ.

Let's pray.

Father, we're grateful for who you are.

We're grateful for your word.

God, I'm thankful for a passage like this that uh God, I just feel so inadequate to even preach.

God, it's a passage that when you you dig down into it, it is so incredibly rich with truth, but it is hard truth.

God, I pray uh that that as we pause and we reflect, and in just a moment we reflect on the the blood and and body of Christ, that we be reminded, we be encouraged, and we find hope in the reality that yes, we will never live up.

God, we will always come up short.

God, our righteousness is not enough because there's really no righteousness at all.

But there was there is one who is righteous.

And he offers us a free gift of salvation through the atoning blood that he shed on our behalf.

God, may that humble us.

May that, as for the believers in the room, may that be something that that sparks in us a fire to know Christ above all.

And God, for the person who's not a follower of Jesus in the room, may this message, this text, may the way that we conduct the sermon, the singing, the giving, and all the things that we do as a part of your gathering, may that keep them up at night until your spirit prompts a response to them that they too could experience the imputed righteousness of Christ alone.

And and look forward to what is to come and have confidence in the spirits indwelling in their life.

May it be so.

In your name.

Amen.