The Basis of Our Confidence

For those who are part of our church for a longer time, you know that we generally study through larger sections of the Bible, books of the Bible. And so we've been in the study of Philippians, and we're going to dive right into chapter three, Philippians 3, 1 11. It's a challenging passage. It's not an, not an easy one to study. And I'd encourage you, if you have a Bible, to use one.

If there's, if you don't, there's one right in front of you to open it up and to keep it open throughout our time. Because as always, I try to not share my ideas, my opinions, but to try to say, here's what God's Word says. And as when you look at God's Word, hopefully you can see how those points come from the text. But let me begin by reading this passage we're going to look at this morning, Philippians 3. Starting in verse one, Paul writes, 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 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 that he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more circumcised on the eighth day of the people, 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, and to be found in him not having a righteousness of my own. But 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 in his sufferings and become like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. May God bless the reading of His Word.

Let me pray. Father, thank you for the privilege that we do have to come together this morning. Father, to be able to dive into Your word. Thank you for the way you continue to teach me. And Father, for the way that you challenge me through these verses.

And I pray now that you would speak through me and in spite of me. Father, I pray that you would open up the hearts of each one of us that are here, Father, that we would be receptive to whatever you would say to us from your Word. Father, I pray your blessing in Jesus name. Amen. Now, many of you that drive around, you see that it has become somewhat common in our time and culture to often see people, homeless people begging at street corners, you know, saying they need money.

I'm thankful for a ministry like the Haven of Rest and its commitment to not only provide food and shelter, the basic needs to the homeless, but also in the process, to share the gospel. But because of the Haven of rest, I think it's probably less common for us to see a picture that is in some cities of someone that is maybe that homeless person that's in the alley behind the restaurants going through garbage cans looking for food to eat. I'm sure it happens in Akron, but I think it's probably less common than in some cities. And when I think about that picture, a homeless person going through looking for something to eat, I think that sometimes you might have that person, they find remains of a meal, a steak that's half eaten, a leftovers from a large bowl of pasta, and they might consider themselves really lucky. Man, look at what I found.

But are they, I mean, what would you think if it were you finding that leftover food in a garbage can behind a restaurant? And that causes us to question what would cause someone to consider themselves blessed and lucky to find the remains of someone else's meal, while most of us would consider the same thing, meal in a garbage can, you know, something is repulsive that we wouldn't ever dream of eating. And what in the world does this have to do with anything in Philippians? And we're going to come back to that in a minute. But I want you to just think about even that question.

This morning. We're going to be looking at the verses we just read in Philippians chapter three. And before we get there, I want to remind you something of the context of the book. Philippians is written by the Apostle Paul, and it's written in the context of his personal, personal circumstances, where no one would look at his circumstances and consider him blessed. I mean, he's written about this idea of saying that in the midst of difficulty, we can have joy.

As we talk about even the theme that that Somehow when the situation of life seems like it's half full or less, we still find God's joy. Think about Paul. I mean, here he's writing from prison. He's been in prison for between three to four years. He's awaiting trial that could result in his death.

He's had friends that have turned on him and that are ripping his reputation. And when we look at this, there's nothing about that would seem to say that he's blessed. But yet the book is dominated by the theme of joy, of peace, of even his happiness. And what we need to see is that what he's teaching us in the book of Philippians is, is that that there's a totally new way to find joy, a new way of looking at life. See, Paul isn't just saying, you know, here's a band Aid, you know, just think.

You know, be. Think happy thoughts. You know, just be. You know, don't worry, be happy. No, he's saying that there's a new way to look at ourselves, look at our life, look at God.

See, the key that we're going to see in these verses that he's talking us is it's like, how do we. What do we look to? To find not only happiness, but to find fulfillment, to find meaning, identity, our sense of security. What do we point at in an attempt to try to present ourselves as acceptable to other people? Where do we find our.

When I say identity, a sense of righteousness, a sense that we're good, that we're worthwhile, that we're an acceptable person. Now we're going to see as he gets into this. One of the things that's kind of unusual about these verses we're looking at this morning is that several times Paul is going to use some kind of spicy language. And because we believe in the inspiration of the Bible, I don't think it's just because Paul was having a bad day or that kind of something slipped through. It's actually words that were inspired for God, for a purpose.

And we see that right here in the beginning. He starts with what I'm going to call a politically incorrect confrontation, in words that are almost shocking when we look at it. He starts in verse one, saying, finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you is no trouble to me and safe to you. He's saying, basically, I know you've heard these things before.

I know it's basic things, but they're so important that I want to make sure you've got it right. So I want to repeat it. And he's talking about the danger of a certain kind of false teaching of people that were teaching that basically it's not only enough to believe in Jesus, but they're legalists, that you also have to do, do these things. You have to keep these rules, especially Old Testament rules that define Judaism. And then as he begins to define these people, we see the first example of this kind of spicy language.

Look at verse two. He says, look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers. Look out for those who mutilate the flesh. Now, this is strong language, especially when you realize he's talking about people who claim to be Christians, who claim to be part of the church. You see, usually when we think about disagreeing with someone who claims to be a Christian about issues of the Bible, we think, well, the right way to do it is to, you know, be gentle and loving and patient.

And sometimes if someone even says things too strongly, I've heard people say, well, that's not very Christlike. That's not very gracious. But look at what Paul says here. He calls them dogs and evildoers. That's harsh language.

I mean, think about it this way. Could you imagine that if you know this, you came even up to me and you said, well, this person, they wrote this letter. What do you think of that? Well, that person's a dog. They're an evildoer.

I mean, you're like, what in the world? You know, that's not very lovely. But that's what Paul does. And I don't think he's just using this terminology for effect. He's not into shocking people.

Again, it's not that he had a bad day and things just slipped out. This is all under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. And what God is trying to tell us, in a sense, that this is something that might not look serious, but it is. These are people who they claim to believe that Jesus was the Messiah who died on the cross for our sins. They claim to believe that, you know, we need to trust in Jesus for salvation.

But they also said that it wasn't enough that they said to be a true follower of Jesus, you needed to not only believe in Jesus, but you needed to keep the law, you needed to be circumcised, and you need to do the things of religious teaching. And not only that, but they were saying, not only this is what I believe, but this is what you have to do. And so they were going around and saying, well, you're not keeping that law. You must not be a good Christian. God can't use you.

And they're judging other people. And so he first of all says, beware of the dogs. Now, for cultural reasons. When we look at this, I think we have a hard time understanding this, in part because when we think of dogs, we think of pets. I mean, these are our dogs.

This is Teddy and Balto, and they're really cute. When you think of dogs, they're trained, they're nice, they're our friends. And clearly it's not nice to call someone a dog. But when I say, beware of the dogs, and you look at them and say them, are you kidding? Look at those.

Do they scare you? No. That might be like, no. Why do we. Now, here's what you need to realize.

In Paul's day, dogs weren't pets. In Paul's day, dogs were scavengers that would roam around the city as packs, as wild animals. They were violent. They would suddenly, you know, see someone and they would attack. And what Paul is saying is that these religious people are like that.

They bark, they're mean, they attack. Think about what a dog does. You know, a dog sits around, you know, and you're minding your own business, walking by it, and suddenly they sense that something's wrong. And next thing, they come out of nowhere and they attack you. And that's what these religious teachers were doing.

And, you know, people are just living their own life, and suddenly they're like, you don't live by your own standards. And next thing you know, they attack and they criticize. And what's not just enough that you love Jesus Christ. No, you. If you were a real Christian, you would do this.

If you were a real Christian, you wouldn't do this. And so Paul confronts that, not only challenging them with harsh language, but then teaching through his own personal story, in a sense, saying, here's how I used to think that, and here's how it's wrong. And he gives us, in verses three through six, kind of a resume. He lists the things that he used to think made him right with God. Things not only that he thought made him right with God, but that gave him a sense of purpose and security, of identity, of acceptance.

You see, these were not only the source of his relationship with God, but even in the source of confidence in his relationship with other people. And. And. And he's going to tell us how empty these were. Look at verse three.

He says, for we were others, 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. And he's basically saying, if being right with God is having a strong resume, if it's based on performance, you know, he says, man, I've got the other. I've got the ultimate resume. I, I'll.

I'll hold it up against anyone else. And he continues, and he gives us that resume. Verse 5. Circumcised on the eighth day of the people, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, Hebrew of Hebrews, as to the law of Pharisee, as to zeal, a persecutor of the church, as to righteousness under the law, blameless. And so it's not just about, okay, here's what we did to impress God, here's how we are saved, but it's also things about how we impress other people.

A spiritual resume is what makes you feel good about yourself. Now here's one of the things that we can stumble over. We can say, I don't really relate to this. And here's what we've got to look at. There's a lot of specifics that were kind of cultural to his time of day.

And so, for example, he starts by circumcised on the eighth day. We don't generally ask that question a whole lot here. You know, just, we have new members class in a couple weeks. I promise you, if you come to the new members class, men were not going to ask you. So when were you circumcised?

Are you circumcised? Can you prove it? No, we're not going to ask that. Okay? That's not an issue for us.

That's not our culture. And that was an issue for them coming out of Judaism. Now, we don't look at the same things, but we have the same categories with circumcision. Do you have the outward sign? And we might say, well, have you been baptized?

Did you walk forward? Have you done this? And you know, he says, the people of Israel. Well, were you born into the Christian church? How long have you been a Christian?

And what is your heritage? When he says, you know, tribe of Benjamin, we might ask, what denomination are you? You know, did you go to the right Bible college or do you have training? Have you read the right authors? Or he says, as to the law of Pharisee, you know, and these.

We think Pharisees very negatively in their day. They were the scholars, they were the elite. How many Bible verses have you memorized? You know, how many of this, how many Bible studies have you been to? As to the zeal, persecutor, the church, as to righteousness of the law, blameless?

You know, here and again in our time, in this day, they would look at the Jewish law. We might look at it and say, well, have you done this? Do you tithe enough? Do you drink? Do you do this?

And different churches have different rules, and we tend to judge people by them. And so what we've got to realize is that Paul isn't just dealing with the specifics. He's dealing with a mindset. And it's not just a religious mindset of how we're saved, but how we view ourselves after we're saved as well. The issue is, what do we look to in our attempt to find our sense of identity, our sense of security?

Where do we get our sense of righteousness? Or in other words, a sense that we're good and worthwhile, that we're acceptable, that God could use us? See, that's what he's really talking about. What is the basis for identity, for our worth and acceptance he's giving us, in a sense, I said a resume. What is a resume?

It's your list of merits. It's a list of what you think is good about you, your accomplishments and your skills. But what's the purpose of a resume? What's to get you into a place that you're currently shut out of. It's to seeking to prove your value and earn acceptance.

It's an argument. It's a case that you deserve. See, it's a list of our accomplishments and the things that we're hoping that we've done that make us look good enough to be valuable or acceptable, not only to God, but to other people, even to ourselves. You see, because we're not only trying to impress other people. It's like, I want to believe that I'm a good person.

And what is the basis by which I think that about myself? See, we see this in verse four, where Paul says, though I have reason for confidence in the flesh, saying, these were my reasons for confidence, this is why I believe something good about myself. In verse nine, he says, and to be found in him not having a righteousness, my own, that comes from the law, but that comes through faith in Jesus Christ, a righteousness that depends on faith. Now, here's what I want you to realize. When he uses the word righteousness in verse nine, it's the same thing he's talking about confidence in verse four.

It's the same idea. The righteousness we're talking about is why do we believe that we're good, that we're valuable, that we have not only God's approval, but that we have other people's approval? And you know what? We all have our own resumes. This isn't even just a spiritual thing.

I mean, everybody in the world says, okay, well, I want to be good. I want to be accepted. And so we have certain things that we put out there. And so you go to school. Do I dress?

Do I have the right clothes? Do I have social media? Do I have enough friends? Am I on the right team? Do I have the things that make me acceptable?

Or, you know, do I have the right relationship? You know, I'm dating somebody or boy, my identity is that I'm married or many. It's family. It's a good thing. But when we make it our identity, why, I'm a dad, I'm a husband, I'm a mom, I have my kids, and my kids are good.

And because they're good, I'm valuable. Even as I thought about it myself, personally, I realized that probably for me, one of the places that I'm tempted to make kind of too central for me is my work. It's tempting for me to find too much of my identity and my worth in my work as a pastor. And that's. That's.

And that's a big part of what's made even the difficulty of. Of. Of. Of accepting the idea of a sabbatical. You know, it's.

While I'm wearing down, I need to take a break. But if I take a break and if I'm not working, then what's my value? I need to do that. I need to prove myself. I need to.

I need to do that. And. And I think that in a sense, in God's timing, part of where he's saying, pry your fingers away. Okay, Mike, you can't. Okay?

This is a temptation. Don't put too much identity here. And, you know, part of me thinks, well, I've got to do that. And I've got to. I've got to.

I've got to let people see how hard I'm working. And I want to think that the church is prospering because of me, because that makes me feel good. And I want to tell you, even the last four weeks, I've watched the services, and it's been wonderful to be able to watch the service, see how well that's gone. And See how well the staff has done. And I'm sitting there, I think, and that's wonderful.

They're doing great. They don't need me to survive. And part of me is tempted to think what. They don't need me to survive. You know, I want them to need me.

Yeah, I want them to miss me. Because. Because if my value is in what I do, you see, then I'm going to face a crisis. If I'm not essential, my. If my identity is my work, then where is it?

If that is threatened or taken away, and I share that personally, because we all struggle with that. See, we all have things that we're tempted, whether it's spiritual performance or whether it's even identity in the world, that we're tempted to be able to say, this is what makes me righteous. This is what makes me valuable. This is what makes me worthwhile. And Paul is saying that he learned to replace this pursuit of building a resume of accomplishment with a righteousness from God.

And he begins this chapter again by saying, to write these same things to you. There's no trouble to me and safe to you. He's saying, I need to say this because it's something that is deceitful. That actually, you see, throughout his letters, he continues to talk about this problem of religious performance. External religion is focused on external acts.

It's what we do. The Bible teaches that God wants a relationship with us based on. On faith and on God changing us from the inside out. Religion is external. It's our good deeds and spiritual accomplishments.

Again, Christianity is a relationship with God not based on our accomplishments, but our admitting our need in accepting Christ's righteousness in our behalf. And when the people, Paul's day were saying, you know, well, it's good to believe in Christ, but you got to believe in Christ. And have you been circumcised? Have you kept this law? Have you doing the Sabbath are you doing?

Here's what they're really saying. Well, Jesus isn't enough. And again, we don't say those same things. But we still have churches that will say, have you believed in Christ? And have you done this?

Have you done this? And every time we doing that, we're saying, well, Jesus will get you so far. But what really makes you a Christian is what you do. See, that's religion. Christianity is not the spirit of religion.

A lot of people think it is, but it's not all religion. If you look at it, it's about realizing that we are somehow falling short of God. And then religion is saying, here's how you try to work your way back towards God. This is what you need to do. This is how you need to perform in different religions understand God differently.

They have different rules. You know, there's, you know, you need to do this. You go to. We go to Mecca. You need to do, you know, can't drink caffeine, whatever it would be.

But all of them are basically saying, this is how we need to perform. There's an idea that so many people have, you know, that it's almost like God's up there and he's got the scales of justice. And, you know, here's the bad things that we do and here's the good things we do. And religion is saying, you got to do less of these bad things, and here are the good things that will balance the scale. And a lot of people make Christianity and they try to make it religion by saying, well, Jesus helps, and he kind of puts the finger on the scales.

He helps you a lot. But still, at the end of the day, there's stuff you have to put on there, and that's the way that people see religion. But that's not Christianity. And there's a danger to this idea of a religious resume. Number one is that if we really look at this religion, it will keep us from discovering true faith in Jesus Christ.

Because as long as it's, well, I'm trying. I'm trying hard enough, I'm trying to perform, I'm trying to put more things on there. Then you're really not coming to the point where, you see where faith is saying, I cannot do it. And I rely completely on Jesus Christ. See, the Bible is clear in Ephesians, for by grace you have been saved through faith.

And this is not of your own doing. It is a gift of God, not the results of work. So that no one can boast. It calls us to realize that we've been saved by faith in Jesus Christ. Now, the challenge is that sometimes we can get that.

And still then as a believer, I can say, oh, I know I'm saved by Christ, but then I still need the resume after that that I need to perform to somehow make myself useful to God. And there's a double danger in this lie. On the one hand, we can have a great resume or think we have a great resume like Paul, and we say, man, but look at what I've done. And I'm saved by grace, but God can use me because I've done this and I've done this and I've got this degree And I'm just keep these rules. And when we do that, we become proud, we become arrogant, we become self reliant.

We're doing it on our own strength. And that's what he's warning us against here. But probably the most more common lie, it's the same lie, but the different side of the coin is that we then identify ourselves by their accomplishment. And we say, it's my resume that makes me valuable. But I think my resume is one of failure.

You know, that makes me not worthy. It makes me unworthy. Therefore, God could never use me. Therefore. Therefore if the people in the church, if they really knew who I was, they would never accept me.

My friends, whether you have a feel like you have a great resume or a terrible resume, if we define our identity by what we've done, our accomplishments, it's all a dangerous lie. And Paul tells us that no, we need to reject that and we need a radical reassessment of our resume. Look at how Paul talks about him doing that in his own life after listing all the things that he had done, all the things that seemed to make him acceptable by the world's standards. In verse seven and eight, he says, 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 I count them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ.

So first of all, he says in verse eight that he counts everything on his resume as rubbish. Only that's actually not the word that Paul used here. Now I said in the beginning that Paul several times uses some spicy language. Well, here's the other place in the passage where that's true. My goal isn't to criticize.

I seldom get to the point where I say, well, here's the Greek word, or this. This time I'm going to bring it out. And I'll tell you, the translators took a safe approach because the word really isn't rubbish. We could literally translate it as dung, as excrement. Actually, it's more of a slang word for those things.

It's not a polite word in that culture. If you would ever point to a point or time in the Bible where Paul used a cuss word, this probably is it right here. And so he uses kind of this harsh word in, and he says, you know, I've looked at all of the things that I did, all the things that I thought looked so good, and I realized that it's all A pile of poop. I'll go with that play. We could just play it safe.

And if we realize what we've got to realize is that if we have a great resume or if we have a resume that we think is that of failure, either way, our resume of accomplishment shouldn't be the foundation to our righteousness, to our identity. It isn't what makes us not only acceptable to God, it isn't what makes us useful to God or acceptable to other people. See, there are some people that struggle by again, looking at your success, your success at the eyes of the world. And you're trying so hard. You're trying, man, I'm doing this and I'm accomplishing this, and this makes me useful for God.

And you think that again, it's not only that's how you got into heaven, but that's what makes you acceptable to other people. That's what makes you useful to God. That's what makes you a good person. Person. And if that's where you struggle with, it's that success and accomplishment is keeping you from finding your identity in Jesus Christ.

But on the other hand, there are many others for whom your resume is much more one of failure than of success. And it's the same lie from the other side. And you're likewise accomplishing yourselves by your. Your. Or defining yourselves by your failure, your accomplishments, but not as one who is worthy, one who is unworthy.

And therefore you feel deep down, well, God couldn't ever use me. Deep down, you think, well, if the church, you know, ever really knew who I was, they would never accept me. See, almost if we think of the picture, we come and we. Our resume is this pile of accomplishments. And some of us are coming, like Paul, we're saying, and this is what I've done.

I'm here. I've got my agenda. I've got, man, here's this pile that looks wonderful. And other people, they're looking at it saying, man, if it's a pile of accomplishments, I've got this pile, but it's garbage and it's, man, it stinks and it's kind of repulsive. And, and what does Paul say?

No matter which pile you're coming, it's. It's a pile of poop. You know, it's just before God. That's what it is. It's ultimately the same thing before God.

And whether you think you have an impressive pile in the eyes of the world or a pile of failure, the problem is, as long as you're trusting in your own Pile. You got a problem? Because it says in verse nine, no, we're called to 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 of God, that depends on faith. And once we understand that, we've got to see that. That our, Our.

Our resume isn't just a pile of garbage or dung, but it's also loss. Again, look what he says. Whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. I counted everything as a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ. Now what does it mean?

Why does he say it's a loss? Here's what I think, what he's saying. What I used to consider gain, what I used to think moved me towards God actually was moving me away from God. It was lost because it was keeping me from knowing the truth. Why?

Because the more that I focused on the things that I was doing, the less I was focusing on the things that Christ did. And my friends, this is true. Again, whether we're trying to perform and we feel like we're measuring up or whether we're looking, we feel like we don't measure up. The more that we look at ourselves, the more that we look at our own accomplishments, the less we're looking at Jesus Christ. No, that's all loss.

That's all moving us backwards. And, and what we need is. We need not only the rejection of that. We need a new resume. We need something that's a divine resume, something that's from God.

That, that we need to realize. Not only that, what we looked at, it's not. Not only just is garbage, it's dung. It's. But it's.

It's garbage in comparison to a greater source. Look at verse eight again. Let me put it up here, because I want you to see the emphasis here. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord. Why is it loss?

Because it's lost in comparison to something else. Why is it dung? It. I used to think it was great, but it's dung in comparison to. To what.

What I found in Jesus Christ. To this new identity. So we need to look beyond our own attempts to try to form our own righteousness. And we need to accept the righteousness of Jesus Christ. In verse 8 again.

Indeed, I count everything as lost because of their surpassing worth of knowing Jesus Christ my Lord, for his sake, I suffered the loss of all things, count them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him having a righteousness, not. Not having righteousness, my own. That comes from the law, but that comes through faith in Jesus Christ. See, the problem is, if we see being acceptable to God as a matter of our performance, we all fall short. Romans 3:23.

For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We all sin. None of us really earn God's favor. We might look good compared to other people. None of us look good compared to God.

And deep down, I think all of us kind of know we've fallen short. But at the same time, we. We know that we need a sense of righteousness. You see, we. We long to be valued and accepted by the one who matters most.

So first of all, are we acceptable to God? How do we get there? And then, not only that, how do. How do I have righteousness so that I'm acceptable to other people? I'm acceptable to myself?

And Paul says the natural way to do that is religion. And, you know, but it's saying, okay, that's the wrong way. Religion tells us how to try to pursue it, but it focuses on what we do. It takes us away from the true gospel. The only source of righteousness isn't in what we do and what I do and what you do, it's from another source.

It's ultimately recognizing God. I can't measure up. I admit that. But I realize that you made a way of righteousness from above through Jesus Christ. That's what he says.

To be found in him. Not having a righteousness of my own. That comes from the law. It's not about my performance, but it's a righteousness that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness of God. That depends on faith.

So, first of all, have you ever trusted in Christ? If you're here and you're trying religion and you think I'm trying harder and I'm trying to be good, and God doesn't call you to try harder. He calls you to admit that you cannot do it and to accept the free gift of grace through Jesus Christ. Where you might be hearing religion, but God could never accept me. And I don't.

You're still focused on what you've done. And until you let go what you've done, you will never really understand what Jesus Christ has done for you. But it's not just that, you see, because it's not just how we first come to Christ, but then it's how we live in the righteousness of Christ. Because too many people trust in Christ's righteousness to get into heaven. But then think after that, well, God's.

Whether God uses me or not, it's based on what I do. You know, we think that we're valuable to God or can be used to God based on what we've done or what we haven't done. Oh, yeah, we get into heaven, you know, but. But we sit there and we say we get into heaven, but. But once we get here, it's like, either I'm going to get in heaven and God's going to use me.

And because I'm a good person and because I have the right resume, where some people say, how am I getting to heaven? But God's going to just kind of let me go on the back door. But I'm really not that valuable. He couldn't really ever use me because you don't know how I failed. You don't.

My resume stinks. My friends, here's what we need to realize. It's not just. This isn't just confronting how we're saved. It's confronting as believers, what do you believe about yourself?

What is the source of your identity and your worth? Why are you valuable to God? Why can God use you? And if you sit there and say, man, I failed and God could never use me, you know, the Bible says there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit has set you free in Christ and the law of sin and death, you believe that that's true.

The fact is, you are given the righteousness of Christ. God calls you holy, he calls you his child, he calls you of incredible worth. But you have to believe what he says, reject the lie. And ultimately the ultimate core of believing, that is living in a relationship with Christ. Because it's not just what we do.

You see, the core of this is relationship. Religion is performance. It's relationship. Look again in verse eight. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Jesus Christ, my Lord.

What is of it worth knowing Christ is, what's it worth? 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. You see, it's describing relationship with Him. What does faith in Jesus look like? Well, if we really trust in Jesus Christ as our Lord, as our forgiver, as our Savior, it means that we surrender our hearts.

And part of that is demonstrated by the fact that we not only ask him to forgive our sins, but we say, God, I want a relationship with you. I want you to be my Father. I want you to be my dad. I want you to be my savior, my Lord. That means that I'm going to try to follow you.

But my friends, it's not trying to earn his approval. We are adopted children that already have his approval, already have his love. But we now align our lives with him not in trying to earn something, but in response to what we already have. It's relationship. It's the surpassing worth of knowing Christ.

It's not saying what drives me is to impress God. No, I'm not trying to impress God and to perform for him. But what drives me is living in relationship with Him. And we sometimes struggle with this. But you know, we know it to be true in our human relationships.

I mean, in fact, take the example of marriage. I mean, has marriage changed me? Yeah, you know, when I got married, you know, my relationship totally transformed my life. Now, part of that meant giving up freedoms. There were a lot of things that I had freedom to do that I didn't have to do after I got married.

And I now it's not. Sandy said, well, you got to do this, this, this, perform. You got to earn my love. That's not at all. But you know what?

There are certain things that I said, well, I did this before, but now I willingly give it up. Because the freedom that I had and the freedom of dating and doing it on my own and things like that, all those that I thought were so good, suddenly I realized they're garbage in comparison to the relationship. Living in relationship with my wife. So I willingly now pursue a greater value, a greater worth. To try to earn her love.

No, in response to her love. And that's what God is calling us to where? In response to his love. In response to the relationship as a child that we live. See, he's calling us ultimately not just to reject and to say, okay, this is dung and this is terrible.

But to pursue something of significant worth, to pursue the thing that is really that valuable. Again, look at verse eight. Indeed, I count everything as lost because of the surpassing worth of knowing Jesus Christ my Lord. Even when he talks about the resume, even when he talks about things being lost and dung. And were they bad?

They once looked wonderful to Paul. They looked wonderful to the world. They were the same source of his identity and value. And you know what? For people in his world, still us.

And there's a lot of things that we can look at that, that people in our world around us say, man, these are valuable. We pursue those. What were they done? Not in and of themselves, but in comparison to surpassing Greatness, surpassing worth of knowing Christ. You know, the very beginning, I talked about the illustration of a homeless man that's going through the garbage and looking for food.

And, and, and we had asked, you know, what if he found half eaten steak and a bowl of spaghetti? And he sit there, he might sit there, man, I'm so lucky. This is wonderful. And, and we're sitting there saying, that's not lucky, that's terrible. I would never dream of that.

That's garbage. And here's what you need to realize. What if it's children and they're raised in the, in the street and all they know, they, they don't have parents, they don't. All they know is looking for, in the garbage for food and they think they found something great. But what if that child is then adopted and adopted into a family that not only says, I want to provide, I want to meet all your needs.

Parents who not only provide, they cook incredible meals every meal. And suddenly they give this children. And this child who once thought, once looking in the garbage, I found this half eaten steak, man, this is treasure. Now looks at someone else doing that and said, that's garbage. That's unthinkable.

Why? Because they found something of surpassing worth. And my friends, that's what we need to realize. That's the challenge. Yes, to the world, to those who don't know this, there are people that are living in the garbage, trying to find identity and value in, in things that before God are of garbage.

And to them it looks valuable. And we might start spending time with some of our homeless, unbelieving friends and start to say, man, this is really great. I want to find my identity. There's a temptation there. But God calls us and say, no, you've been adopted.

You've been given a new identity. You've been made righteous. That stuff is garbage. Don't go dark, you know, dumpster diving again when you've got a feast in the king. Friends, that's what God calls us to a radically different perspective on life.

Now there may be some here that you've never trusted in Christ as your Lord and Savior. And if you're here, maybe you've thought it's all about religion, it's about performance. And you think, man, I'm trying hard. I'm trying to be good enough. I want you to tell you that the gospel is not about trying hard.

It's about admitting you cannot be good enough and saying, God, I ask you to forgive my sins and to give me a righteousness. I do not deserve. There may be others who are here. And you say, I'm not sure I'm here because I know I don't belong. I failed and God would never accept me.

God's saying, no, the same thing is your same error. You're focusing on yourself. And it's ultimately saying, God, I agree with you. I can't do that. But I ask you to give me righteousness.

Your righteousness is greater than my failure. My friends, if you're here, you've never done that. God invites you to trust him today in that way, and I hope and pray that you will do. But this is a challenge not just to how we believe, but it's a challenge to the church. You see, Paul is speaking here to believers who knew that they had faith in Jesus Christ.

But it was almost this idea, well, I get in heaven based on this. But then here's my resume. Here's what makes me worthy and valuable and acceptable. And so whether it's man, here's all the good things I bring, or here's what keeps makes me unworthy, here's what I want you to realize that God is calling us to look at that and saying, now don't go back to the homeless perspective. Don't go dumpster diving.

And those things that the world thinks that the source of your identity, that's a lie.

No, your identity is that you are in Christ. You have a righteousness from above. You are loved by him. If you are loved and valued by the Almighty God, you understand that. That if he says that you're valuable, then what anybody else says doesn't matter.

And then you look at here's all the failures and here's no, God's going to use you not because of what you've accomplished and who you are. He's going to use you because of him. You know, who, who most is most glorified. When people look at that and say, I can't believe God is using that person. Well, yeah, because that's where God shines.

And God does that even with people like the apostle Paul who was once out trying to kill a bunch of Christians. Do you believe that? Are you willing to believe that? And so whether you're bringing the resume of accomplishments or whether it's a resume of failure, are you willing to come and say, God help me to see that it's a bunch of garbage. Not garbage in itself, but garbage in comparison to something that is so much better, so beautiful, so incredible.

It should transform me and not only transform what I think, transform the way that I live the way that I relate to God, God the way that I relate to other people, the way that I feel about myself because I believe who I am in Jesus Christ. My friends, there may be some here that that's the message you need to hear that you need to come back and say God, I'm struggling with this. Help me to really believe. I, I want to trust in you. I want to throw away the, the, you know, the resume.

Help me to see it as garbage and help me to see the identity as an adopted child of God and to live into that identity. If you have a question about the message Community Church or Jesus Christ, send us a text to 330-400-3242. You can learn more about our events and community groups at CCPL Life Connect. There you can also send in a prayer request. We would love to pray for you.

Have a blessed Lord's Day and we'll see you on Sunday.