Draft transcript prepared from the recording and edited for readability. Audio proofreading is still pending; please refer to the recording for the spoken wording.
You're listening to Sunday Sermons at Asbury Chapel. The scripture this morning is Philippians chapter 3. Just for good context, I'm going to start with the first verse. And so we will go on through the 11th. I'm reading from the New Living Translation. Philippians, written by Paul, the church at Philippi. Chapter 3, starting with verse 1. Hear the word of the Lord. Whatever happens, my dear brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord. I never get tired of telling you these things. And I do it to safeguard your faith.
Watch out for those dogs, those people who do evil, those mutilators who say you must be circumcised to be saved. For we who worship by the Spirit of God are the ones who are truly circumcised. We rely on what Christ Jesus has done for us. We put no confidence in human effort. Though I could have confidence in my own effort if anyone could. Indeed, if others have reason for confidence in their own efforts, I have even more. I was circumcised when I was eight days old.
I am a pure-blooded citizen of Israel and a member of the tribe of Benjamin. A real Hebrew, if there ever was one. I was a member of the Pharisees who demand the strictest obedience to the Jewish law. I was so zealous that I harshly persecuted the church. And as for righteousness, I obeyed the law without fault. I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord.
For His sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage so that I could gain Christ and become one with Him. I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law. Rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ. For God's way of making us right with Himself depends on faith. I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised Him from the dead. I want to suffer with Him, sharing in His death, so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead.
The Word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God. You may be seated. Y'all, that preaches! And listen, it's very advantageous. We had the most wonderful announcement this morning because here we get to see that the building committee is delivering and working and just grinding on this. And the church leadership is showing us where the doors are for us to walk through. And people are stepping forward because they're putting Christ first. And at the end of the day, these are the things that happen for those who know Christ because it's of infinite knowledge.
It's of infinite worth. Nothing compares with it. To boil it all down this morning, the focus is all on what Jesus has done for us. There's no better picture, no greater display outside of the cross itself than to look at the communion table that we're about to celebrate. Here in this juice represents what God has poured out to cover our sins. When we look at the bread that is here as it is plucked off and placed into your hands, just as God placed Jesus in our presence, that very bread represents His body.
There's no greater knowledge. There's no greater knowledge. And for those who know that in their minds and those who have experienced that in their hearts, they're fine with treating everything else as worthless, as incomparable, as garbage. Paul's words are very lofty for those who do not know what he knows. And the very hope of Paul, but also of every Christian, is that the people who do not know what we know, who don't have in their hearts what we have, that they would come to know it and come to have it.
That's the whole point. That they would know this incomparable riches that we have, that we know. Paul had, as he says in his scripture here for us today, he had every reason to boast. He'd done all the things. He checked off everything on the list. And we feel good about our lists. We feel good when we enter into our tasks. And we go through it. And when we check something off, oh, thank goodness. I checked that off. I feel much better.
We get into a meeting and we have an agenda. And we're crossing those things off. We go, look at us. We're making progress. We're doing it. And that's the problem. We're doing it. And it's not about us. Amidst all the check boxes that are in your life. All those check boxes. There's only one task from what Paul is telling us. There's only one check box that matters. There's only one task. There's one list with one thing on it. And that's it.
Right there. Because if that had not happened, the story that this meal this morning is going to tell us. If this had not happened, we could have obeyed the law to the letter. But it never would have mattered. What matters is what God did through that cross to cover our sin. Because sin is what was in the way. And what has God done with that sin? He's moved it out of the way. That's what Jesus took upon himself. He took our sin upon himself so that it would be moved out of the way.
That means that every obstacle that you face in your life is something that has in some way ended up on the cross. Whether it's been the cancer that you've been struggling from. The finances you don't understand. The relationships that have been broken. The way that your mind is continuing to bother you. All of that has ended up on that cross. Because the cross represents God taking everything that is broken and covering it and giving us his perfection. That's the beauty of the cross.
That when we look at a symbol of brokenness, it's actually a message of healing. He's healed us. It's by his stripes, it says, Paul says elsewhere, that we are healed. Paul even says something that for the non-Christian or the agnostic or whatever all the words are, for the person who doesn't know Christ and his saving grace, they're not going to understand this. And we want them to and we hope that our witness will help them. But for those of you who know Christ, we can relate with Paul.
Paul says that he is even okay with becoming one with Christ in his own suffering. Verse 10, I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him sharing in his death. Who in the world wants to suffer with Christ and with his death? That makes no sense until you know the Jesus that we know. The Jesus we know defeated death. He resurrected. Death cannot hold him down. This is who we serve.
There ought to be joy in your face. It ought to be present in your voice. I'm not saying you've got to hop and dance all the way down. I'm not a good dancer, sorry. But, I mean, I would, but just, I'd be a fool. But, no, I'd be a fool for Christ, wouldn't I? But, but it's the joy of knowing this. And when you know it, death does not become something you fear. Death becomes something that you know is not forever.
Why? Because there's a resurrection. How do we know? Because somebody went before us. And he's invited us into the same thing. So what he's telling those who are listening. You've got those among you who are telling you, you've got to do this and you've got to do that and you've got to do that. And don't forget that. And if you don't do that right, you're in trouble. So get that one right. And they're trusting in that. This is not saying that you don't have to live a life that is righteous.
This is saying that a righteous life doesn't get you into heaven. You've got to get heaven in you and then you're righteous. And so that's why Jesus went before us. That's why Jesus goes to the cross so that once that's covered, now we can go be obedient. Your obedience doesn't get you through the pearly gates. Christ's obedience gets you through the pearly gates. You've got to depend upon his obedience. You've got to depend upon his faithfulness. And once you start trusting him, you start finding that being faithful is possible.
Being faithful is more than simply possible. It's enjoyable. Whoever thought it would have been enjoyable to follow rules. Who would have thought that it would have been enjoyable to not do certain things. But when you know Christ and you know his power, you've experienced the resurrection Jesus in your heart, good things are good. They're good and you love them and you want them. And you start, I don't know, turning away from some of that and you find yourself, I don't know, turning towards some of this.
Some of this good stuff, this God stuff. And your life becomes fulfilling the more that it's filled with Jesus. So be filled with Jesus so that you can be fulfilled in life and in your living. And so there were those who entered into the Philippian church and they said, no, no, no, you've got to do this first or else none of that matters. You don't look at what God did through his son, Jesus Christ, on the cross as something that's not good enough.
It's more than good enough. What he did on the cross is everything. It's everything. You know why we know it's everything? We go to what happened when Jesus was crucified. One thief mocked him and the other thief asked for mercy. A man whose entire life had been lived in such a way that he ended up on a cross, guilty as sin, pardon the pun. And he just looks at Jesus and says, remember me. Alistair Begg, the great preacher said one time, and I'm paraphrasing.
There's a lot of people who don't like the fact that that one thief who was on the cross just got to say, Jesus, remember me? And he entered into heaven. He gets to heaven and all of a sudden they look at him and say, what are you doing here? And the thief on the cross said, the man on the middle cross said I could come. I'm not saying it doesn't matter how you live your life. What matters is that you live your life with Christ.
You start there. And there is a knowledge that will overwhelm you. There is a joy that will fill you. There is a life that will carry you through everything that you may be struggling with. It doesn't matter what it is. He'll carry you. But that's the one thing you got to know. That's the one thing you got to know. That's the one joy you got to have. You got to have that joy. You don't have that. And it doesn't matter how many rules you follow.
It doesn't matter how many discipline type of things that you try to include in your life. Do you all remember some of you in the 90s? It could have been even earlier, but I went through it in the 90s. It was the seven habits of highly effective people and all of that. I mean that just, as a teenager they made that for teens too. And I bought the teen book. And I was going through my covey planner with my little pen.
And some of you all know. Some of you laugh because you know me and go that there's no way you did a Franklin planner. I spent the money on it. I tried to do it. And people just laughed at me. They were like, Whit, you're too hyperactive. There's no way you're going to be able to be this structured. They were right. But I discovered something. Here I was with this call to ministry and I'm this teenager and I'm trying to figure it out.
I want to get it right and I want to do it right. And guess what? I put so much pressure on myself that I was shooting myself in the foot. At the end of the day, it was Christ who had done the work and he wanted to work in me. I needed to let him work. And stop trying to work in order to get it done. He's done it. And so Paul looks at those in the Philippian church trying to protect them.
And what is it that he says? He says to them, this is not about the rules. The rules are important, but the rules don't save you. Jesus saves. And even if you're the thief on the cross who takes one last breath after asking Jesus to remember him and then dies, remember something. It is about what Jesus has done for him. It is about what Jesus has done for you. That's what matters. The question I have for you today is, is do you know that?
Do you know that? Do you know that he's done that for you? And are there others in your life who need to know that? That they're just either completely lost and have no idea what to do and you can invite them into the cross so that they have purpose. Or maybe they're running hard. They're running just a hundred miles an hour and they're trying to do everything and get everything done. And they just don't feel satisfied. That's because they're running around trying to refill their water in all the rules when they need the living water that comes from his well.
When God grants water, the thirst, it goes away. We've been filled. Be a person who's filled and then introduce yourself to other people. They need that fulfillment in their life and they can have it and they can see it in you. A walking, talking person who trusts in Jesus. Let it out, church. Let it out. Let them see what it is that God has done. And may they realize that is of infinite worth what Jesus has done.
