From the Inside Out

Music. Philippians chapter 3, beginning in verse 1.

! Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord.! To write the same thing 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 in 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.

May God add a blessing to the reading of his word. Would you please be seated? This morning I'm going to, or we are, I should say, going to go through more scripture than is normal for a sermon, and I don't make any apologies for that, because what God's word says is a million times better than anything that I could say.

So I want to pray for this sermon, so will you please bow your heads with me and let's pray. Lord God, we have heard your word read to us, and Lord, we are going to hear more from it.

And you have said in your word in Isaiah 55 11, that my word, you say, shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the things for which I sent it.

And so Lord, we pray that we would receive your word, and that we would respond to it according to your will. And we ask this in Christ's name. Amen.

A couple of weeks ago was the NFL draft. And for those of you Sooner fans, I should say congratulations that your quarterback went number one, but also to warn you that he went number one to the worst franchise in the history of professional sports.

So Baker Mayfield needs our prayers, I suppose. But you guys know how the draft works, right? The worst teams get to draft first.

And it's a big deal. They talk about it for months leading up to the draft. They talk about who the best players are, where they're going to go in order, and they base that upon the player's skill level, right, what he's done on the field, and they base that also upon the player's potential.

What could he become? And so they base all of that, they take all of those things, I should say, and that's how they determine who are those first rounders, who are those coveted prospects that every team wants to have play for them.

In Matthew 19, we come to a person who I think is the prototypical type of man that any church would want to have in its congregation, right?

Say the church could do some kind of a draft like the NFL does for its church members. This guy would be, and that's not a good idea, but this guy would be one of those top guys.

You're right, for various reasons. You know who he is. You've probably heard about him before at some point in time in Sunday school class. He's the rich, young man. And he comes to Jesus, and he has a very important question.

Why would he be so attractive to the church? Well, first of all, as the Bible describes him, he's young. He's a young person, which means he has energy. He has energy to serve a church.

He has energy to volunteer. This is someone who the church could put their future in, right? He's young. We're going to have him for a long time. Think of all the good that we could have accomplished through this young man.

That's attractive. What also is attractive is he's rich. And so, as a church, you'd be thinking, if you're going to draft him, hopefully he's a tither, right? Think of all of the good things that we could do with all of his money.

And then you'd think, too, to have accumulated all of that wealth at such a young age, he must be some kind of a successful businessman. Think of all the wonderful things we could use this guy for.

You know, we could use him as a treasurer. We could use him as a deacon, as an elder. Something, he knows how to run a business. He knows how to be successful. He's rich. And that was attractive.

He's also morally upright, right? When Jesus lays out all the commandments, right, that's required for salvation to obey all these things perfectly, he says, you know, I grew up in the church, basically, is what he's saying.

I know the Bible. I haven't murdered anybody. That's a good thing. I haven't committed adultery. I haven't stolen. I haven't lied. In fact, I love my mom and dad. This is a good family man.

He's a good neighbor. I like to think that he's the type of neighbor you'd love to have in your community, right? His yard is always well manicured. He's never going to embarrass you with the overgrown weeds in his front yard.

In fact, he's probably the type of guy that passes out full-size candy bars on Halloween to the kids. You know what I'm saying? I love those guys. This is that kind of man.

Who wouldn't want a guy like this sitting in the pews at their church and serving in some kind of leadership role? In fact, if we're being honest, some people within the church would want him to even be the pastor or replace the pastor that they currently have.

Nobody said amen. Amen. Amen. The rich young man, or maybe I didn't give you enough time to, right? The rich young man approaches Jesus with a question and he asks him, what must I do to have eternal life?

Now, that's a good question. That really is a good question. That's really an important question. If there was something that a person could do to have eternal life, people would want to know, wouldn't they?

They would want that kind of assurance. And so Jesus engages this rich young man in a conversation and through that conversation reveals that what this man really wants to do is justify himself.

He's self-righteous. If this man really wanted the truth to that question, he would have confessed his inability to keep that law perfectly.

But he acted as if he had. But he should have. If he really wanted to know the answer to that question, he should have understood that he was incapable of doing all that the law required because he was a sinner.

Right? This isn't a, well, you know, generally speaking, for most of the time, I do that stuff. No. When it comes to the law, it's all or it's nothing.

He didn't want to know the truth. He didn't want to know the answer to that question as much as he wanted a pat on the back. And he wanted to be told, yeah, you're doing a good job.

Keep it up. Your works are sufficient. You're on your way. However, Jesus doesn't do that. He instead exposes this man's identity, that this man's identity, that this man's sense of purpose, that this man's faith, that this man's trust weren't wrapped up in God, but they were wrapped up in his wealth, in his earthly treasures.

Those were the things that he used to define himself. This is what he lived for truly. This was his God, his wealth.

That was truly whom he worshipped and served. And Jesus says to him, if you would be perfect, go and sell all that you possess.

Give it to the poor. And then you come and follow me. You'll have treasure in heaven. Follow me. And tragically, when the young man heard this, the Bible says he went away sorrowful because he was a man with great possessions.

And then Jesus said to his disciples right after this, he said, truly I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich man enter the kingdom of heaven.

And I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man, for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished, saying, who then can be saved?

Why were they so astonished at what Jesus had to say about this rich young man? Well, Jesus was making the point that it is impossible for anyone to be saved on merit, on their own personal merit.

The misconception of this time back then, just like the misconception within the health and wealth movement right now, is that wealth was deemed as proof of God's approval of you.

If somebody was rich, they thought it was because God loved them, because they must be saved, right? These were the first round draft picks.

These are the ones who were the closest to God. These were the ones who God must love the most. But Jesus obliterates that notion. And along with it, the belief that anyone could ever justify themselves, that anyone could ever earn God's salvation based upon their stockpile of good deeds or how good of a person they claim to be.

So the disciples are thinking to themselves, right? They've watched this. They've heard this. And so now they're thinking to themselves, we thought this was the perfect candidate, right? We thought this was the guy that, you know, these are the types of people we would love to have come join our movement.

But this guy's not saved? Then who in the world can be saved? Look at what Jesus answers in reply to their question of who can be saved.

Jesus looked at them and he said, With man, this is impossible. But with God, all things are possible.

Praise the Lord. What does he mean? Jesus is saying that man is incapable of saving himself. He's born under the curse of sin.

His desire is only for the things of the flesh. How will he ever choose God in such a condition? And Jesus says it's impossible for him to do that on his own.

He can't. Salvation is possible though, he says, but only through God's doing by his divine grace.

So then we continue on with this conversation and Peter says in reply to that, See, we've left everything and we've followed you. What will we have?

Peter is saying essentially this, Look, we've done what that rich young man was unwilling to do. We did leave it all behind.

We've embarked on this life of faith with you. We've followed you. We've been obedient. What about us? Well, what's the difference between the rich young man and Peter?

Why was Peter willing to do what the rich young man was unwilling to do? Well, remember just a few chapters prior to chapter 19 and chapter 16, Peter confessed Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God.

Do you remember what Peter's confession was? Do you recall what led Peter to make that confession? What Jesus said? What led him to make that confession?

He said this, Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, for understand this, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you.

So he's not saying, you know, Peter, you're like a spiritual Sherlock Holmes, man. You've got, you picked up all the clues, you put it together, and you found out who I was. No, he's saying, you didn't know this.

Flesh and blood hasn't revealed this to you. Then he continues on, and he says, who has? He says, but my Father, my Father who is in heaven, he's the one who has revealed it to you.

God the Father was the one who opened Peter's heart to this true, saving knowledge of who Jesus was, the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.

He confessed with his mouth what God had given him to believe in his heart. Matthew 19, 28 through 29. Jesus, again, continuing with this conversation he has with his disciples after his meeting with the rich young man, is this, truly I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel, and everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands for my name's sake will receive it a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life.

So we see, notice that Jesus doesn't rebuke Peter for expecting reward. He doesn't do that. He says, you'll have that, and you'll have it in abundance in the new world.

Why? Why? What did Peter do? What did any of the disciples do to earn this? Nothing. Nothing.

What could they give? What could they offer in return? Yeah, they followed, but only because they had been given the faith to believe. And that faith resulted in their life-changing, a life-changing transformation.

They left it all behind so that they could have more of Jesus Christ. So what does any of this have to do with Philippians 3, verses 1 through 11 that we read?

Well, isn't this the exact same thing that Paul is saying? He's saying, if anyone could be saved by their own doing, it was me. I was that guy.

He spent a lot of time, he spent a lot of effort trying to ensure his own salvation, but when Jesus came to him on the road to Damascus, right, as he was on his way to persecuting Christians, when Jesus came to him, called to him, and saved him, he left it all behind.

Why? He says so. So that I could have more of Christ. So that I could have more of Christ. The rich man, the rich young man, appeared to be close to God.

But Jesus exposed the truth that he wasn't. If you remember last week, we talked about the Judaizers and who they were, this group that was causing this church in Philippi problems.

They appeared also to be close to God, but they weren't. They were identified, right? Paul says you can identify them by their inability to practice what they preach.

They're hypocrites. By their bad fruit. They say that they're good, but they do things that are not producing fruit for the kingdom of God. By their trust in works to be made righteous.

That's how you'll identify these people. So if somebody comes to you and says, here's a checklist. You want to be saved? Check all these boxes. You got to do it every day. Right? 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year, and you'll be saved.

You say, no. That's not how it works. It can't work that way, but this is who these guys were. So that's how we identified them. Now Paul shows us how we can identify a true believer.

And so here's the main idea from this morning's message that I want us all to get. A true believer is easily distinguished from a false teacher or a false believer, right?

Based upon what God has done in them and what that produces out of them. based upon what God has done in them and what that produces out of them.

That's the main idea. Internally, God has circumcised their hearts. The Holy Spirit has taken up residence within them. They are a new creation, the Word says.

They have been given a new nature along with that new desires that they didn't have previously. Externally then, their salvation produces visible results.

The Holy Spirit energizes them to do good works for the Lord. Not so that they will be saved, but because they are saved.

You understand that? They're not doing good so that they will be saved. They're doing good because they are saved. They can't help but do it. They've undergone a complete transformation.

transformation. So how is a true believer identified? Well, first we see in the beginning of verse 3 that true believers have undergone an internal transformation.

And so, Paul says this by saying that we are the circumcision. He says, for we are the circumcision. That is a very confusing statement in our time.

So, could you imagine that somebody comes to our church, they hear the gospel, they believe it, right? They've received it, they've repented of their sins, they've undergone this internal transformation, and then the first thing we say to them, we're excited, right?

We're excited, we want to see people coming to our church and coming to faith, coming to saving faith in Jesus Christ. And we want to have that desire, we want to have that ability to disciple them.

But imagine the very first thing we say to them is after they, you know, after we pray with them or whatnot, we put our arm around them and say, you know, brother or sister, welcome to the true circumcision.

Right? That person's going to look at you like, you're crazy. And they're going to try to get out of that conversation quickly, and forever after, as they see you, they'll be like, that's the weird circumcision person, I'm going to stay away from that guy or gal.

Right? It's because we don't really understand in our context, maybe, what Paul is talking about here, what it means to be of the true circumcision. Well, what is he talking about?

Paul lumps himself in with the believers at Philippi, and he uses this term to distinguish them from the Judaizers, from the false teachers. Paul is not talking about the external physical act of circumcision, performed by men, but he's talking about the internal act of circumcision, whereby God circumcises the heart of the believer.

Remember, the Judaizers were teaching a salvation based upon works, and their chief distinguishing mark was that external mark of circumcision.

They believed this, that if you had that mark, if you bore that mark, you were saved. Now, today, we would scoff at such a thought.

We'd laugh at such a thought, but back then, this is what they truly believed, and this is what they truly taught. They'd go into a church, they'd see these people were saved by faith alone, by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone.

They'd say, no, no, no, no, no. You've got to do this. You're not truly saved. That's not the way salvation works, and it was never intended to be based upon an external mark.

God didn't give circumcision for that reason. In Romans 4, Paul destroys the case that circumcision, or any other work for that matter, is necessary for salvation.

Let's look at it. Romans 4, 1 through 5. He says, then what shall I, then, what then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our father, according to the flesh?

For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.

Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as what is due. And the one who does not work, but believes in him, who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.

So here is Paul's point. Abraham was justified prior to circumcision by faith. Where'd that faith come from?

Right? Remember, God came to Abraham. God called Abraham. God made his covenant with Abraham. Why did God do all this?

Not because of Abraham's works, but as a gift. God chose Abraham, who was just a guy. But God chose him based solely upon his sovereign purposes.

And so we see that physical transformation does not precede spiritual transformation. Physical transformation does not precede spiritual transformation.

Again, circumcision was given to mark the people of God. It was a physical reminder. A reminder of what?

A reminder of the fact that they were cut off from the rest of the world. That is, that they had been set apart to serve the one true and living God. It was also a symbol of their condemnation.

God selected the reproductive organ as the location of the symbol for man's need for cleansing for sin because it was the instrument most indicative of his depravity.

Since by it, the next generation of sinners is reproduced. John MacArthur says this about circumcision.

circumcision was truly was a symbol of the fact that men were condemned, not that they were saved because if you were circumcised, it said you were in the covenant and the covenant was that you must keep the law.

So it was a sign of lostness, not of redemption. It was a constant reminder that you had to keep God's law and you couldn't keep God's law so you were lost.

But to them, just being circumcised was their security. Now I've had a couple of instances where I have met with people and they wanted to be baptized because they said they wanted to be made right with God.

I've done some baptisms and every time somebody comes by, you know, you ask the questions, you know, why do you want to be baptized? And there has been a couple times where somebody has said to me, you know, well, I just want to be made right with God.

No. That's not why we baptize. You're made right with God before you enter the waters of baptism.

Baptism is also a symbol, it's a symbol of the regenerating work that the Holy Spirit has already done in your heart. It's not a work that puts you in God's debt where he must forgive you or where he must bestow salvation upon you.

People treat baptism or they treat their good deeds as a husband would his wife who he's messed up, right?

Husbands, we do that. Mess up, say something stupid, do something stupid, fall out of your wife's good graces, and so what does a husband do in that situation? He buys flowers.

He buys flowers. Trust me, I know. Buys flowers and brings them home. I'm sorry, and you know I'm sorry because look at these beautiful flowers, right?

And so some people treat baptism the same way. Look, God, look what I did. I was baptized. You know, that's what you like, isn't it?

You like when people are baptized? Christ, so you forgive me now? It doesn't work that way. Neither do your good works. That's not the way salvation works.

And so what was happening here was a contradiction between these Judaizers, between these rich young men, right? A circumcised body and a sinful heart are at odds with each other.

They're at odds with each other. This is like if you're driving and you see a sign that says keep right and the arrow points left. You know? What is it? Keep right or go left.

Those things contradict each other when they should say the same thing. They should be in agreement with one another. And this is what God is saying in Jeremiah 4.4 to the people of Israel, right?

You're circumcised in the flesh, but what I'm really after is your heart. I've made you my people. I've given you my word, but you worship idols.

Yeah, you do your religious ceremonies, you perform your sacrifices, but it's empty. Your heart's not in it. You think you're doing these things to appease me. I want all of you. I'm not going to share you with anybody.

Why should he? He's the one true God. Look, there in Jeremiah 4.4 he says, circumcise yourself to the Lord. Remove the foreskin of your hearts. O men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, lest my wrath go forth like fire and burn with none to quench it because of your evil deeds.

True believers do not merely possess a symbol of a clean heart. They have truly had their heart cleansed. of sin by God.

True believers do not merely possess a symbol of a clean heart. They have truly had their heart cleansed of sin by God. How? How so?

How is that accomplished? Well, let's look at Ephesians 2 together. First of all, it's accomplished by this. Grace alone. By grace alone.

Ephesians 2, 1 through 3 explicitly state that. And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked. Following in the course, following the course of this world.

Following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.

So here Paul is talking about the state of every believer prior to their conversion. Spiritually, they are dead. Have you ever seen a dead body?

If you have, you'll notice that dead people can't think. The brain has shut down. It doesn't function anymore. Dead people can't breathe.

Lungs don't work. The internal organs are dead. They don't work. Dead people don't move. Dead people don't talk. Spiritually dead is the condition that we were all in prior to our conversion.

Motivated only by sinful desires. By nature, then we were children of God's wrath wanting nothing to do with him. Not believing in him.

Not wanting to do anything or have anything to do with him. We weren't born in some kind of a neutral state. That's not the way the Bible describes us.

That's not the way the Bible describes our spiritual condition prior to conversion. Jonathan Edwards was a Puritan minister who lived from 1703 to 1758.

He was the president of Princeton University as well. He wrote a book called The Freedom of the Will. And this is what he wrote about the condition of man prior, the condition, I should say, of man's will prior to salvation.

He defined the will as the mind choosing. According to Edwards, a human being is not only free to choose what he desires, but he must choose what he desires to be able to choose at all.

This was called Edwards' law of choice and it's this. The will always chooses according to its strongest inclination at the moment.

This means that every choice is free and that every choice is determined. You have the freedom to choose, but the choice you make is determined by the greatest desire that you have at the moment.

I've shared with you my efforts, a little bit, about my efforts to get back into shape and going to the gym and running and jogging for like 20 minutes.

I hate it. But I gotta do it, right? Right? And so, if you've jogged on the treadmill, one of those nice ones that tell you how many calories you've burned, you know, and you get done, like me, after jogging for 20 minutes on the treadmill and you see, alright, I've burned 225 calories.

That sounds good. Strange thing happens when you try to lose weight is you start counting calories of food and you go to McDonald's and you see that a Big Mac has 563 calories in it and then in your mind you think, that's like four miles of jogging.

I'm not gonna do that. Why? Because I have a different desire. When I wasn't trying to lose weight, I ate Big Macs like crazy and it hurts to go to McDonald's now and to order our kids their Happy Meal and to not have that Big Mac.

But it feels good, right, when you look on the scale. I have a new set of desires. And so I use that illustration to say this.

Again, in Jeremiah 17, 9, the Bible says that the heart prior to conversion is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick and it only desires the things that are not of God.

Let's continue. So what can be done then for this sinful heart of ours? Ephesians 2, 4-7, but God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.

He made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus so that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace and kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.

So we see very clearly that salvation is by grace alone. It's God who is the heart surgeon. It's God who performs the surgery on our heart that we so desperately need.

It's by grace alone. And then we see it's also by, or it's also through faith alone. And we continue in Ephesians 2, 8 and 9.

For by grace you have been saved through faith. Where did we get this faith? Well, and this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast.

Okay, so if we're all born with a neutral disposition to God then why would one choose Him and not another? If that was the case then the one who chooses Him would have reason to boast over the one who didn't.

But the Bible says we don't have room to boast because salvation is by faith and that faith wasn't something that we conjured up within ourselves but it was supplied to us by God as a gift.

Is that not what those scriptures say? By grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. How are we saved?

How are we, how is this heart transformation brought about? It's in Christ alone. Ephesians 2 10-13 For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh called the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision which is made in the flesh by hands.

Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise having no hope without God in this world.

But now but now in Christ Jesus you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

The atoning work accomplished by Christ's death on the cross washes away the penalty of sin and ultimately even one day its presence from the believer.

This is why we sing. This is why we sing Robert Lowry's song Nothing But the Blood right? What can wash away my sins?

My good deeds? That I'm smarter than other people and I chose God? Nothing but the blood of Jesus can do that. What can make me whole again?

Seeing a therapist? Reading a self-help book? No. Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Nothing of good that I have done?

Nothing but the blood of Jesus. This is all my hope and peace. This is all my righteousness. Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Oh, precious is the flow that makes me white as snow.

No other found I know. Nothing but the blood of Jesus Christ. R.C. Spruill said, Loving a holy God is beyond our moral power.

God is beyond the only kind of God we can love by our sinful nature is an unholy God. An idol made by our own hands. Like the rich young man.

He continues, unless we are born of the Spirit of God, unless God sheds His holy love in our hearts, unless He stoops in His grace to change our hearts, we will not love Him.

to love a holy God requires grace, grace strong enough to pierce our hardened hearts and awaken our moribund souls.

When you've undergone that inward spiritual transformation of regeneration, it changes you. You're different. You're living counter to culture, if you will.

a plug for our Sunday evening services. So now, our second point. True believers have undergone an internal transformation, and that produces external results.

True believers have undergone an internal transformation, and that produces external results. Romans 7, 5-6, let's look at that together. For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit for death.

But now, we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.

So having undergone this heart surgery, whereby God circumcises the heart, we serve in the new way of the Spirit. How so?

Well, going back to Philippians, we see Paul explains to us how so. Mark Dever, another quote I want to share with you. He said, according to the New Testament, the church is primarily a body of people who profess and give evidence that they have been saved by grace alone, for his glory alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

So how does this work out of us externally? First of all, we see that we rejoice in the Lord. Paul says there in verse 1, finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord.

To write the same things to you is no trouble to me and is safe for you. This is not a conclusion. He doesn't say finally to say that he's drawing to a conclusion, but to a transition. He's been there before.

He knows these people. And what he's saying to them is remember all those things that I shared with you. Rejoice in the Lord. How do we do that?

Well, who is the object of our joy? It's Jesus. Sunday school answer. You all could have got that one right, right? Jesus is the object of our joy.

Why? Because we've been saved by his grace. Through faith alone, in Christ alone, he's our champion.

He's our victor. He's our God. He's our Lord. He's our Savior. We rejoice in him because only he is worthy of our rejoicing, of our praise, of our worship.

He's the object of our joy. What about the breadth of our joy? Well, we have joy in one another. Joy in one another as brothers and sisters in Christ.

That's why our church's vision statement is to engage. We want to go. We want to share the good news of Jesus Christ with our community. We want to engage the unbeliever.

We want them to know about the grace of God. We want them to know that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and that apart from him, an eternal soul will spend its eternity in hell.

We want them to know the truth of Jesus Christ. We want to be enlightened by his word, praying for another, encouraging each other through God's word, enlightening one another through the preaching of God's word, through the teaching of God's word, through the singing of God's word.

We have joy with one another, encouraging one another, equipping one another to live this life as followers of Jesus Christ. We have joy in one another.

What about the depth of our joy? This is joy even though. Joy even when we suffer.

Joy even when we see a brother or sister in Christ suffering through an illness that ultimately takes their death.

And when we attend their funerals, our heart breaks because we love them. But we have joy in knowing that our brother or sister in Christ is with the Lord.

And we have great joy in that. We have joy in our suffering because we know that Jesus Christ suffered in our place.

on the cross he bore our sin and our shame. He paid it all. He suffered for us.

And so we have joy in our suffering knowing, again, because he was raised on the third day, the first fruits of what we will one day be like in glory with those glorified, resurrected bodies that can't sin.

And so we go through this life knowing that, you know what, as bad as things can be, I know as a Christian that the best in my life is always yet to come.

On that day when I die and go and be with the Lord or he comes back and takes me to himself, either way, my best days are always ahead of me.

That's the depth of our joy. So we rejoice in the Lord. That's how it works externally. People see you suffering. As a Christian, why are you so? Why are you not falling apart? Because my hope is in Christ.

Secondly, we worship by the Spirit of God. That's how it works externally. There in verse 3, the beginning of verse 3, he says, for we are the circumcision, we've talked about that, who worship by the Spirit of God.

This is interesting here. Worship in the Greek is litreo. And that word means to be a servant. servant. Or to serve. Or to offer sacrifices. Or to present offerings.

So what's he saying here about worship? He's saying worship isn't just singing. Though singing is great. But he's saying worship is a way of life.

This is the way we live. When we go out and we serve in the name of the Lord, we are worshiping him. If you're on one of the crews that goes and serves down at the lighthouse, when you dump a handful of mashed potatoes on a person's tray and you're doing it for the Lord, that's worship.

When we're going out and engaging our community like the last event that we had, if you mowed somebody's grass, if you played bingo with the retirement people at the retirement home, if you grilled hot dogs down at the soccer field and passed them out, if you walked the streets of our neighborhood and invited people to come to church, if you were doing those things in the name of the Lord, that was an act of worship.

And we should continue to worship the Lord in that way. How else does this work externally? Well, we glory in Christ Jesus. And there what glory is talking about is boasting.

We boast in Christ, not in ourselves. He is the one who we glory in. And then we put no confidence in the flesh.

The rest of verse three. And we put no confidence in the flesh. Philippians 1.6 says, and I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

It's God who did it. It's God who does it. It's God who will complete it. And so I don't need to be confident in me, but confident only in him.

Thank you.