The Stock Exchange

Chapter 3 Philippians. We find
ourselves this week in chapter 3. I opened last week with a bit of an illustration kind of
adopted from Acts chapter 27, where Paul is on the ship. The
ship is in the midst of a storm, bearing a very heavy cargo and
just about to break up. And as was the practice, the
sailors begin to heave the cargo into the sea. As I suggested
last week, that’s not a bad illustration for the passage even in front
of us. I’m not suggesting that that
was in Paul’s mind, but the image is very appropriate. That what
Paul had was something very valuable, objectively so, in these great
things that he outlines there in verses 3 through 6. But what
happens is Paul sees something far more worthwhile and that
essentially these, even though worth something, he heaves them
into the sea. I told you last week that my
wife didn’t much care for my sermon title, but it is appropriate.
It’s not just that we’re heaving ballast into the ocean. We’re
heaving something valuable into the sea. Now, imagine that you’re
on that ship and you heave even the gold cargo into the sea,
and then you begin to wait out the storm overnight. And having
waited the storm through the night, dawn breaks. The storm abates. The ship is
intact. And you are, in a sense, saved,
but it gets better than that. A gentle breeze drives you into
a harbor of a kingdom of infinite worth. And you are not only welcomed
into this kingdom, but you are welcomed as royalty into this
kingdom. That’s essentially what is before
us. That we have heaved the cargo
of gold into the sea. We have sacrificed all for Christ. And we are saved. and we are
infinitely blessed. Go back, if you would, to the
passage. Back to Ephesians 3. I want to
pick up in verse 2. And we’re going to take a running
start and take it in one big section through verse 11. And
that’s where we’ll spend our time this morning. Beware of
the dogs. Beware of the evil workers. Beware
of the false circumcision. For we are the true circumcision,
who worship in the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus
and put no confidence in the flesh. Although I myself might
have confidence even in the flesh, if anyone else has a mind to
put confidence in the flesh, I far more. Circumcised the eighth
day of the nation 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,
which is in the law, found blameless. But, whatever things were gained
to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things
to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus
my Lord. for whom I have suffered the
loss of all things and count them but rubbish, in order that
I may gain Christ and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness
of my own derived from the law, but having that which is through
faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis
of faith.” that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection
and the fellowship of His sufferings being conformed to His death
in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Paul began, as we saw, this great
section with pointing out that anyone who would add to Christ,
anyone who would add anything to the infinite value that is
Jesus Christ is a dog. That’s how he started. Those
words sound heavy and harsh, unloving, but what they were
doing was striking at the very heart of salvation through Christ
itself by adding to it. Paul said, beware of the dogs,
beware of the evil workers, beware of the false circumcision, because
we, he says, who have placed their faith in Christ, we are
the true circumcision. We are the true children of God.
And then he laid out for us the marks there, the identifying
marks, not physical, mind you, but the identifying marks of
God’s children. The true child of God is one
whose devotional service is divinely actuated. God is the one that
moves in him. We who worship in the Spirit
of God. And he’s not talking about those
who come to church and sing songs and listen to long sermons. It’s
devotional service. Everything in the Christian’s
life becomes an act of worship. There was a second mark. Not
only are the true children of God marked out by devotional
service, but they are marked out by their ground of boasting. It is divinely oriented. The
only thing that we boast in is God himself, not anything that
we’ve done. Nothing that we’ve done, nothing
we’ve contributed, nothing, not even faith becomes a ground of
boasting for the Christian. Finally, we saw that The third
identifying mark there from verse three is that our trust is divinely
refocused. We have placed all of our trust,
not just most of it. I told you that through my life,
I’ve known a number of people that, you know, they get baptized
here and they go get baptized here just to cover their bases.
And they do this and they do that just to make sure they’re
covered. The Christians entire ground
of boasting is none other than Jesus Christ. That’s it. It’s
not Christ plus anything. And Paul takes this argument
and he says, look, you know, I understand where people are
coming from. I understand how some might be
tempted to say, well, Yes, it’s Christ, but you also might need
a little bit of this. In the case before us, they were
trying to advance this rite of circumcision upon believers. And Paul says, look, I’ve got
it all. I’ve got it all and I threw it all in the sea in order that
I may lay hold of Christ. As we saw last week, if we’re
going to have Christ, and if Christ is going to have us, we
must empty our hands. We’ve got to let go of our hope
in ritual, our faith in nationalism, our pride of lineage, our reliance
on our heritage, our confidence in our conservatism, our assurance
in enthusiasm, our trust in virtuousness. All of that, Paul says in verses
5-7, all of it goes in the drink. All of it. There’s no place for the Christian
to come and to say, look, I have Christ and I have my denominationalism. I have Christ and I’m an American. I have Christ and I’ve been baptized
in the River Jordan. It’s Christ and Christ alone
for the Christian. But as I said, we’ve sailed into
harbor and the view is glorious. What we gain, as Paul puts it,
is infinitely above all things that we could ever conceive.
And that’s what Paul wants to detail for us in verses 8-11. Paul gives us three blessings,
three incredible, infinite blessings that are gained in our loss. But first, we need to have Greek
class. We’re going to have a little
Greek class this morning. Some people have been pestering
me to do a Greek class for years, so we’re going to do it right
now in about five minutes. The Greek verb has a wealth of
information in it. When the Greek verb is spoken,
you immediately have just a whole lot of information, not the least
of which is the meaning of the verb itself. In the Greek verb,
are contained things like the voice, the person, the number,
how many people are involved? Is it a plural number? Voice
refers to how the subject is related to the action, how I’m
related to the action. And so you have what’s called
the passive voice. And this is what kids use most
often when something gets broken. Right. The lamp got broken. Right. That’s passive voice.
The active voice is I broke the lamp. Right. Well, that’s all
contained in the Greek verb. Also contained in that Greek
verb is the person in the number. In this, you have the relation
of the speaker to what is being asserted in the verb. Is the
speaker part of it? Is there more than one person
part of this action? This is just gripping, isn’t
it? Can you imagine two years of this? OK, so in the in this
verb is contained not only the voice, but also the person in
the action. And you this is where you have the distinguishing feature.
I did it. I broke the lamp. We did it. We collectively broke the lamp.
They did it. Right. All that’s contained in
the verb. but also contained in the verb
is a thing called tense. And this is where you get the
action of the verb itself presented in the verb, and basically there’s
two kinds of information that are presented in there, the kind
of action and the time of the action. And I know you’re taking
notes, so I’ll try to speak more slowly. There is the indicative. The indicative just talks about
the present time. I am doing it. I am preaching. That’s the indicative move. The
imperfect is continuous action past time. I was doing it. I
was breaking the lamp. Now I’m fixing the lamp. There
is the perfect. I did it. I did it. It is done. But also in the verb is a little… And for those of you who are
linguists, you know this. both of us know this. There is
a thing called mood that is also encompassed in the verb and see
what I’ve done for you. The last time that I did something
like this, somebody said that I was when I bring a prop into
the pulpit, I’m postmodern. So bear with me while I spread
my postmodern wings. What I’ve done for you is present
a chart that lists some of the 256 ways that each verb can be
written. And I’d like you to memorize
that if you could. All this to say, there is a wealth
of information contained in the little verb, not the least of
which is what’s called the mood. And in this passage, we have
three different verbs that are all used in what’s called the
subjunctive mood. Now, I know what you’re thinking.
This is the mood that your wife has when she wakes up and she’s
irritable. That is not the subjunctive mood,
gentlemen. The mood represents the way in
which a matter is conceived, OK? That’s the technical definition
of it. And in the subjunctive mood,
you have a kind of a hint of contingency. It’s not a done
deal yet. It’s coming. It’s not exactly
future, but it’s often translated. These verbs are often translated
with the helping word may or might, that I might know Him,
that I might know Christ, that I might gain Christ, that I might
be found in Him. that I may attain to the resurrection
from the dead.” Three times, as I said in this short passage,
the subjunctive mood is used and captured. Paul, in doing
so, in this rare use of this word, he’s not doubting what
God will do or what he possesses. He is just humbly saying that
he is yet to actually lay hold of these things. But they’re
there. He’s in the harbor. He’s even
off of the ship. He’s arrived in the kingdom.
He is in Christ. And these are the glorious blessings
that we, even yet, will enjoy. I called the morning’s message
the stock exchange because we have already heaved a great amount
into the sea. We have jettisoned the cargo
in order that we might gain something. And now, having sailed into harbor,
this is what Paul outlines for us. We are to receive. What are
the blessings that are gained in our loss? We know what we
lost. What do we gain? First of all,
in the loss of all things, and that’s exactly how Paul put it.
In the loss of all things, the Christian gains the saving knowledge
of Christ. The saving knowledge of Christ.
Look at verse 8. More than that, I count all things
to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus,
my Lord. for whom I’ve suffered the loss
of all things, and count them but rubbish, in order that I
may gain Christ.” And again, he says that it’s here, and yet
it’s something yet to be fully embraced. I count all things
to be lost. Paul had already broken with
what we termed legal righteousness. That righteousness that he felt
like he had attained through adherence to the law. simply
by doing what God’s Old Testament commands had told him to do and
heeding those things and so much more. He thought he had earned
a way. He thought he had earned a place
in God’s kingdom. Paul was righteous by the law,
or so he thought. And note even the way that he
outlines this to us, it wasn’t a passing idea when it says that
he cast these things into the sea. It wasn’t a passing impulse. A lot of us are impulsive like
that. We’ll say, oh, you know, I never want to do this again.
And then we run back to it. Not Paul. It was a lasting attitude. It was a way of life. I count
all things to be lost. It wasn’t just that I tossed
them in the sea and now I kind of bring them up from time to
time. Well, it’s true that I was really baptized in such and such
a facility. And in such and such a mode.
By such and such a person. It wasn’t anything that Paul
wanted to bring with him. Nothing is excluded. I count
all things to be lost. In order to pardon me, in view
of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord, that word
surpassing value, those two words refer to something of just incomparable
worth. And that’s why I say you can’t
even you can’t even paint a good word picture of it sailing into
a kingdom harbor of the most glorious imagination possible. doesn’t even begin to do justice
to what the Christian has. We hear time to time people paint
pictures of heaven with words, you know, streets of gold and
the glorious crystal thing. But when you begin to think that
it’s God, a holy God with whom we’re going to have intimate
fellowship for eternity, I could care less what the house is like. The knowledge here that Paul
talks about is the recognition of the glory of the Son of the
Father, a knowledge that’s inseparable from love. It’s a deep and intimate
knowledge, the surpassing value of knowing Christ. We use that
word even today, don’t we, of people that love the Savior,
that have become Christians. They know God. They know the
Lord. When we give our testimony, how
did you come to know the Lord? It’s biblical language. Jesus
prayed for that very thing, that they may know you. But knowing isn’t just knowing about
Jesus. It’s not just knowing, having
read the Gospels. Not just knowing some verses
about Christ. Not just knowing doctrine. and
the doctrine of the Savior and the doctrine of God. It’s not
just knowing those things, but knowing them experientially,
personal knowledge, a real knowledge of Christ where He knows you
and you know Him. It goes far beyond intellectual
knowledge, doesn’t it? And it’s that same Christ that
Paul says, It is for whom I have suffered the loss of all things.
It was with Christ in view that when he came on the road to Damascus,
when he came to Christ, it was either all of those things that
he was bringing in tow. Or it was Christ. And such is
the case for all of us and has always been the case when we
come face to face with Christ, it’s either Christ alone or it’s
Christ, not at all. In a very real sense, Paul had
laid down. He had cast into the sea in an
exchange for Christ, and in so doing, he gained him. Paul was
willing to let go of everything, and that was the challenge that
we threw down to us. Are we? What are we trying to
bring with us? What are we trying to bring with
us? Some mode of baptism, some manner of training, some knowledge
that we have that it’s going to add to our salvation. Not
for Paul, he says he counted him that rubbish and the word
is graphic, it’s refuse, it’s table waste and even worse than
that. It was used of that was which was thrown to dogs, but
it’s also used of even the dunghill, if you will. said one, he counted
all things even now as refuse or dung, worthless and rejected,
rejectable, unattractive and undesired, cast away from him
for good. He could not have those things
and also Christ. And so nothing together with
with Christ was preferable to all things without Christ. Paul
could either sit and meditate on all those things that he had
done or accomplished or been born into. And been without Christ
forever. Or you can have Christ, but you
can’t have both. It’s that simple. One Puritan said it this way. To
cast the gold into the sea, that image, and that’s why I wanted
to use gold. That’s why I wanted to stump
the panel with my title last week. To do so is difficult. One Puritan said, it is not easy. In fact, it is very hard for
the soul to come to this point. To part with many worldly possessions
or pleasures would be a comparatively easy thing. He essentially says,
and if we knew that Christ was in view to leave your house and
your car and your bank account would be a comparatively easy
thing. But in renouncing any thought
of merit, in connection with the very surrender of all things
for Christ, lies the great difficulty. If men felt that by giving up
all things they earned salvation, so that they might possess Christ,
and also with Him a great pride of heart in their own surrender,
having deserved Him, the sacrifice would be light. And you know
what? He’s exactly right. We served in the church on one
occasion where there was so much pride in faith. They had pride
in their own faith. They had pride in the fact that
they had believed and others hadn’t. And it was cancerous. There was absolutely no ministry
in the community. He goes on. And he says, but
to cast away all And yet to know that Christ is to us simply and
absolutely the gift of God, that we contribute nothing with our
faith. This is felt by the pride of
the natural heart to be very hard. You mean if we can’t do
something, God, if we can’t pay you back, if we can’t add to
it, what about our faith? What about our believing? Doesn’t
that count for anything, God? Nothing. No wonder he said it’s
very hard. But it’s Christ that’s in view.
It’s Christ that’s in view. Look at the passage again, verse
8. More than that, I count all things
to be lost in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus,
my Lord, for whom I’ve suffered the loss of all things and count
that but rubbish in order that I may gain Christ. And there
is the subjunctive mood. He has Him and yet He’s still
reaching for Him. He knows Him and He wants to
know Him more. He wants to know Christ fully. And for each of us, for each
of us who have come to Christ, you know that sentiment. Some even know the day and the
hour. They have it written down in
their Bibles. The very moment that they were saved, the very
moment that they came to know Christ, And yet, if you would
ask every Christian, do you know Christ fully? Every one of us
would say humbly, no, but I want to. I desire to. I long to know
Christ more. It isn’t doctrine that was in
Paul’s view, it wasn’t philosophy, it wasn’t just this new course.
called Christianity that Paul wanted to master. It was to have
Christ. It was to have Him, the God-man,
His Savior, His friend, His brother. Even as the Old Testament Psalms
said it, it isn’t what have I in heaven, but whom. It was a person. It was a personal relationship.
And for Paul, it was far from complete. Paul longed to know
Christ, to know Him deeply and intimately. One said it this way, this expresses
the great purpose of the apostle, not merely to gain the favor
of Christ, nor simply to be a Christian. But the term Christ seems to
denote him in every aspect. And to win him is to enjoy him
in every aspect. It is to have him as mine and
to feel in that comparison that such a possession, all else may
be truly regarded as loss. To the Apostle Christ was so
identified with truth that when he gained him, he gained the
highest knowledge. He was so identified with life
that when he gained him, he was endowed with the noblest form
of life. He was so identified with spiritual
influence that when he gained Him, his whole nature was filled
with power and gladness. To win Christ, to gain Christ,
is to lay hold of Christ, to receive Him inwardly into our
hearts, and to begin building a life relationship that will
never end. Paul says that I may gain Christ. That was his one great goal in
sailing into the harbor and seeing the glorious blessing. And that
it was worth it all to have heaved everything he had into the sea
for the special blessing of gaining Christ. Secondly, there’s a second
blessing gained in our loss. Not only the saving knowledge
of Christ, but righteousness through faith in Christ. Look
at verse 9. Jump back to verse 8. We’ll take
it just in full. More than that, I count all things
to be lost in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus,
my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count
them but rubbish in order that I may gain Christ and may be
found in Him. Not having a righteous of my
own derived from the law, but having that which is through
faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis
of faith. This was the second occurrence
of the subjunctive mood in the verb in this passage that I may
be found in him. And really and truly, Paul was
already in Christ. He announced it as such to the
Philippians themselves repeatedly. He was in Christ. They were in
Christ. There’s a very real sense in
which every Christian who names the name of Christ is truly and
really in him. And yet. And yet, Paul’s great goal, his
great desire was to be ultimately found in Christ. At any moment
of scrutiny in the future, Either at the present time or even in
eternity, Paul wanted to be squarely in one place, and that was in
him, in the sphere of Christ the Savior. Here, what is pictured
is the child of God’s literal incorporation into the body of
Christ. That word found, it’s a very
simple word. It just means to be seen or discovered
or proven to be. Paul wanted to be proven to be
in Christ and in Christ alone. He didn’t want people looking
at him. He didn’t want people looking at his list of accomplishments.
He didn’t want people looking at his background. But by virtue of his fellowship
and his union with Christ through faith, no longer did he have
or even lay claim to a righteousness of his own. This is the language of the hymns,
isn’t it? When he shall come with trumpet sound, oh, may I
then in him be found dressed in his righteousness alone, faultless
to stand before the throne in him. That was that place of identification
for the Christian. Philippians 121, Galatians 220,
even in the passage before us, as I’ve said. Paul uses that
phrase in him or in Christ 25 times in his epistles. It was
a key thought. So to suggest that Paul isn’t
currently in Christ is silly. Paul was truly and really in
Christ, as were those to whom he wrote. And it really details and outlines
kind of the sphere in which we operate as Christians. That’s
what it means to be in Christ. Listen to how the scriptures
use it. For the Christian, in him, or in fellowship with him,
is rooted all of our trust. Philippians 2.19. Our joy is
in him. Philippians 3.1. Our boldness
is in him. Philemon 8. Our encouragement in Christ is
in him. Philemon 20. We speak in Christ. Ephesians
4.17. We conduct our ministry in Christ. Colossians 4, 17, we care for
one another. Philippians 2, 29, we maintain
our unity with one another in Christ. Philippians 4, 2, we
obey each other. Galatians, or pardon me, Ephesians
6, 1. The phrase in him points to not
just this external form of fellowship. It talks about an intimate, deep,
abiding relationship that grows more and more every day and outside
of which we accomplish nothing, nothing of eternal value. All of life for the Christian
is in him. One said it this way, Christ,
the personified revelation of divine love is the ruling principle
of the human personal life. So that this life moves in Christ
as in its own particular element to be in Christ is to have the
spirit of Christ and to be one with him. That was Paul’s great
goal. He was in him now. He didn’t
do anything outside of him. And all he ever wanted to be
is found in Christ. How so? He lays it out quite
plainly. Not having a righteousness of
my own. I don’t want people looking at
what I’ve accomplished. I no longer want to be judged
by those standards. Not having a righteousness of
my own derived from the law because of this scrupulous observance
of the law that he outlined last week. As to the law of Pharisee
of the strictest sort. as to zeal, a persecutor of the
church. This is how much I loved God. And this is how much I thought
I was earning favor with God. But this righteousness that he
thought he had that would have been called his if it counted
for anything, was a righteousness that proceeded out of the law.
It was the law’s righteousness. That if he only did this, he
would live. And he really believed that he had done it. And thousands
and thousands more believe that even still. That by a certain
adherence to a list of standards and codes and rules and laws, human righteousness is legal
righteousness. The problem was that in us, in
mankind, there is nothing good. We come before God and we stand
before Him empty handed. There’s nothing in our hands,
nothing that we can bring, nothing in our past, nothing in our background
check that shows up in the plus column at all. There is no such thing as a righteousness
of our own. There is no such thing as earned
or acquired righteousness that counts in the eyes of God at
all. That’s what Paul’s saying. Paul says that the righteousness
that he used to have so called was worked out, secured by himself. He points, as I said, he points
out the source, the source is the law. The apostle knew and he declares
it here, how vain that righteousness was, it gained him nothing and
would never have gained him anything. It was only self-effort. It was
only this human morality playing itself out in his life, religious
ritual, this list of works that he had accomplished, everything
produced in and by the flesh. And for Paul and for anyone who
lays claim to that standard of righteousness, it is a crushing,
unbearable burden. It counts for nothing. Paul had done his very best If
there was any who would ever get into heaven based on what
they were and what they had accomplished, it would be Paul. And Paul says
it was absolutely worth nothing. Dung. So he lays claim, because
of Christ, to having that which is through faith in Christ. the
righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith. And
as I told you weeks ago, this is where the whole thrust of
this passage is. It is on justification by faith.
Righteousness, you know, as we’ve seen it over and over again,
has a very special meaning for Paul. The main idea for this
whole word is a satisfactoriness to the law, to legal judgment. God wants to look at the list
of laws and stack us up accordingly. with the goal in mind of acceptance. One pastor said it this way,
that this righteousness is the only ground of acceptance with
God. That unless we are righteous,
we will not see Him. This righteousness is the only
ground of acceptance with God, as in His grace He has provided
it. It is worked out only by Christ. and his blood. It becomes ours
through faith when works of the law are disowned and faith is
simply trusted in God. Guilt is canceled. Acceptance
is enjoyed. And such a change of state entails
a change of character. God begins the work from the
inside out. My brother Mike did us a favor
in reading extra verses last week in the reading of Second
Corinthians and in so doing, he outlined that the great passage
and included in that that reading from Ephesians 521. He that is
God, the Father made him that is Jesus Christ, who knew no
sin to be sin on our behalf. And then it gives the great cause
of the whole passage. that we might become the righteousness
of God in Him. Righteousness is that divine
moral excellence. That is the standard. That’s
the standard that anyone is ever going to be judged. And to be justified is a declaration
made by God that we are righteous. And it’s only possible in Christ.
There’s nothing that we could ever do to ever earn God’s statement
or justifying judgment. You don’t need me to tell you.
We know ourselves to be a thoroughgoing sinners, each one of us. And
so how can it ever be said that we might become the righteousness
of God? Justification. As the Bible presents
it, it presents it as instantaneous. That the one who believes immediately
passes from spiritual death to eternal life because he passes
out of himself into Christ. He is literally baptized into
Christ because that person is instantly justified. Justification
occurs in an instant. As I have said before, justification
isn’t actual righteousness. It’s not like the moment that
we become saved, that we’re all made really, really good people,
perfect people. Is that what happened? Didn’t
happen to me. It’s an instantaneous thing in
the judgment of God, but it’s not outworking practical righteousness. For that, we need the grace of
sanctification, which becomes a lifelong quest, doesn’t it?
At least for me. Charles Hodge said it this way.
We are righteous with the righteousness of God, not with our own, which
is as a filthy rag, but that which he has provided, which
consists of the infinitely meritorious righteousness of his own dear
son. We put on the robe of righteousness which belongs to Christ. That’s
all God sees. He doesn’t see anything that
we did wrong. He doesn’t see anything that
we did right. We don’t commend anything to
him. in and of ourselves. It’s purely Christ. As one said, righteousness is
imputed. It’s imparted to us. Martin Luther
said it this way. Lord Jesus, You are my righteousness. I am Your sin. You have taken upon Yourself
what is mine and given me what is Yours. You have become what
You were not so that I may become what I am not. Martin Luther
knew himself. He wasn’t righteous in the core
of his being. But it had been credited to him,
it had been reckoned to him as righteousness. Romans 1, Romans 1, 16, I am
not ashamed of the gospel, it is the power of God for salvation
to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the
Greek. For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith
to faith as it is written, but the righteous man shall live
by faith. Romans chapter three, verse twenty
one. Apart from the law, the righteousness
of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the law and the
prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus
Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction.
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God being
justified as a gift by his grace. No wonder Stephen Sharnock He
said, God, apart from Christ, is an angry, offended sovereign
that unless we behold him in and through Christ, the mediator,
the terrors of his majesty would overwhelm us. Outside of Christ,
there is nothing, nothing but damnation. But in Christ, in
Christ, when we have placed our faith in Christ, God doesn’t
look. at our accomplishments. And He
doesn’t look at our sin. He looks at Christ. He sees Christ. He sees the righteousness of
Christ. And He sees us in Him. If you’re trusting in anything,
if you’re proud of the place you are baptized, if you’re proud
of the church in which you were raised, if you’re proud of the
fact that you bring to faith to this table of salvation. If
you’re proud of anything, I’m telling you, heat it in the sea.
Because it’s Christ and Christ alone that saves our souls. Let’s examine our hearts before
Him. Gracious God, we humble ourselves
before You and thank You for opening blinded eyes to the glorious
Savior who is Christ. Lord, we thank you for putting
in perspective those things that we once held dear, for graciously
loosening the grip that we had upon them as a precious thing
and encouraging us to heed them in the sea. Lord God, we thank
you that In a very real way, we already know and possess and
have gained Christ for those of us who know him. In a very real way, we are already
found in him that our great desire is to know him more. And to be
found only in him. Lord God, we pray for those in
our midst who do not know Christ. who still even now trust in something
else to commend them to him. Some little work, some little
thing that keeps them from Christ. Pry their weakening fingers from
that which would take them down. We pray this in Jesus name.