More Lost Than Found
Notes
Transcript
Greeting
Greeting
Let’s give it up to all of the Dads in the room one more time.
We honor you. We celebrate you. And, we are praying for you as you continue to become the Godly Man that your family needs for you to be.
I also just want to say that our Youth are having an amazing time at camp. I was able to head up the mountain Friday night, and there is nothing like seeing your child completely lost in the Presence of God.
God is moving in our Students.
Reading
Reading
Today I am going to preach us through the first 14 verses of Philippians 3, but we will anchor it all in this one verse:
But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.
More Lost Than Found
More Lost Than Found
Introduction
Introduction
As we honor and celebrate our Dads here today, there’s a couple of things that I want to point out about what happens when a Father comes to faith in Jesus.
You might have heard this before but it is worth repeating.
When a child comes to faith in Jesus, there is a 3.5% chance that the rest of his family will follow.
When a mother comes to faith in Jesus, there is a 17% chance that the rest of the family will follow.
When a father comes to faith in Jesus, there is a 93% chance that the rest of the family will follow.
Dad’s in the room, keep chasing Jesus.
Keep setting a spiritual standard in your home.
Here’s another bit of information.
There was a study done in Sweden about father’s and church attendance. Here’s what they found:
The study concluded that the father’s religious practice was the strongest predictor of whether children would remain active in church as adults. When fathers attended regularly, children were significantly more likely to continue attending as adults than when only mothers attended:
When a father’s heart turns toward Christ, he rarely walks alone. God often uses one man’s faithfulness to influence generations.
Transition
Transition
So knowing this, what I want to share with you all some truths that are going to help you become this kind of man. And, before I lose the women and children in the room, all of these also apply to you!
You too can apply Paul’s teachings to your life and you will move from a good person to a Godly person.
Text
Text
Further, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord! It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you. Watch out for those dogs, those evildoers, those mutilators of the flesh. For it is we who are the circumcision, we who serve God by his Spirit, who boast in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh—
Here in the text, Paul is warning the church about the Judaizers.
This was a religious group that taught that faith in Christ alone was not enough! There’s no way it could be enough. We need to also be sure that we go back to following the Law of Moses. The Torah.
This was a group that had been told all of their life that the 600+ Jewish laws were no longer the basis for their salvation.
And Paul says to them, watch out for them! Don’t fall for their tricks. Don’t let them take you off the course that we have preached to you.
Now, it’s easy for us to sit here and say, “Amen Pastor. They’re dogs! They’re dirty dogs! Thank God I don’t have any problem with the Judaizers.”
But you need to know that the Judaizers were simply the symptom, and not the diagnosis.
They were just the effect of a deeper problem that still exists today.
It’s called syncretism.
It is when we live our lives in such a way that we say that what God did for me, is not enough.
His death on the cross was not enough.
His resurrection from the dead is not enough.
The indwelling of the Holy Spirit is not enough.
No, there are things that I MUST DO in order to earn my way to heaven.
That’s the problem that Paul was writing about, and that’s the condition we continue to wrestle with today.
Salvation is not a free gift but something earned by our morality.
[Pause]
Culture says if you are good enough, you can go to heaven.
Just the other night in a movie that I watched I saw this, and it’s a reflection of what our culture believes about heaven.
An uncle explained to his nephew that his father had died. The boy asked his uncle, “Do you think my Dad is in heaven?”
And the uncle responded, “If anyone deserved to go to heaven, it’s your Dad.”
Now, I get it, it’s Hollywood. I wasn’t watching the Bible Project.
But this is the way that large portions of our world thinks.
If we do good, we can deserve heaven.
If we are a good person, we deserve heaven.
If we good deeds, we deserve heaven.
Church - we deserve nothing.
The only thing that we deserve is judgment for our sins.
But praise be unto God that Jesus has already paid the price for our sins.
He has forgiven us of our sins.
He has made the way for us to be saved.
“We are saved by grace through faith, and that not of ourselves.”
That’s the only thing he asks us to do.
He doesn’t ask us to keep count of our good deeds.
He doesn’t ask us to measure ourselves against others.
He actually warns us about becoming self-righteous.
Paul is saying don’t go down that path…
It was a Judaizer problem back then, and today it is a belief rooted in individualism.
But let’s read this contrast that Paul makes here. He actually offers us a solution.
For it is we who are the circumcision, we who serve God by his Spirit, who boast in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh—
What Paul is saying is we got it right. Not those guys who think they got it right.
And then he gives us this sharp contrast to what those people believed.
Serve God
Boast in Christ Jesus
Put no confidence in ourselves
You don’t need to raise your hands here right now, but can you put a check mark here and positively say that you are going these things?
Not out of obligation or out of self righteousness, but out of “joy” for all that God has done for you.
We serve God not because we have to, but because we get to!
We don’t boast in our ability, but we boast in God’s ability.
We don’t walk around putting confidence in ourselves, but if God wills for something to happen in our life, than that’s what we’re putting all of our confidence in.
[Pause]
How many of you like to listen to or read books that are in the self-help genre?
Some of my favorite - Extreme Ownership, Start With Why, The Obstacle Is The Way, Unreasonable Hospitality
Reading those books will make you a good man.
But if you want to be a Godly Man. If you want to be a Godly Woman.
Serve God. Boast in Christ Jesus. Put no Confidence in Yourself.
This is the antidote for the person who is starting to become religious.
This is how we make sure we don’t become a legalist; keeping tabs on what every other person is doing.
[Transition]
Now, we’re three, verses deep into Philippians, but this is just an Executive Summary.
How many of you know what an Executive Summary is?
When you are about to read a White Paper, there’s a summary telling you what they’re about to tell you. It’s written in a way to get you to lean in. That’s what Paul just did. I know that felt like it was the message, but there’s more detail on how we do that. Let’s keep reading.
though I myself have reasons for such confidence.
If someone else thinks they have reasons to put 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; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.
What is Paul doing here?
He’s flexing on himself.
He’s showing you his resume.
He’s telling all the people that put confidence in themselves, take a look at my resume.
But do you want to know how he really feels about this.
But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.
It means nothing.
My resume, as impressive as it is, it’s nothing.
Why is that?
How did Paul get here?
But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, 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 is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.
Here’s a little Bible reading trick. Whenever the author repeats a word, that is the point that he is emphasizing.
He uses the word consider three times.
The reason he thinks all of those things are meaningless is because he has a new value system.
He doesn’t consider the things that the world calls a success, a success.
If the world’s measure of success is out of alignment with what God’s word calls a success, the world is wrong.
And so Paul’s old values; his old success metrics, were gone.
He has a new value system that drives his life.
Your values are evidenced by the decisions you repeatedly make.
Your values are not evidenced by your IG bio or by your tattoos or by what you believe to be true about yourself.
Your values are evidence by the decisions that you repeatedly make.
As you sit with that… for the good or the not so good, you’re probably wondering how you can then change your value system
I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,
Here it is, Paul shows us.
Know Christ
Participate in his sufferings
Become like him in his death
What a progression… I want to know Christ.
To know Christ is to find Him in His word.
This is the hearing, the reading and the study of God’s word.
If you can fall in love with God’s word, you’ll fall in love with Jesus.
And as you fall in love with Jesus, you’ll start to participate in his sufferings.
Following Jesus will cost you something.
Paul knew that. The early followers of Jesus knew this.
But do we know it?
In many ways, our freedom can become a liability to knowing God in the participation of his sufferings.
The King James calls this the “fellowship of His sufferings.”
There is not such thing as comfortable Christianity. You will have to give some things up in your desire to know Jesus.
We have to die to ourselves to become like Him in his death.
Jesus showed us, hours before the cross, what it was like to pray the dangerous prayer, “Not my will, but Your will be done…”
That’s a dangerous prayer. And it produces a dangerous Christian.
Make no mistake - God didn’t fill you with the power of his Holy Spirit to play it safe.
In Acts they said of the Jesus followers - these are the men who have turned the world upside down.
Conclusion
Conclusion
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.
Look at how Paul ends his thought.
I’m not there yet.
That is not what we say about Paul.
We have a lot of superlatives that we use to describe Paul - Apostle, Church Planter, Bishop, Catalyst, Passionate…
He said of himself, “I’m not there yet…”
And he ends this thought the way began his thought.
“I want to take hold that which took hold of me.”
Paul didn’t earn his salvation, God took a hold of him.
In the same way, grace has taken a hold of me.
Mercy found me.
Grace didn’t give up on me.
Mercy wouldn’t let me go.
Grace kept me going.
Mercy said I’ve been called.
Grace filled me with the power of the Holy Spirit.
All these things that I have happened, have happened to me.
God found me.
God rescued me.
God saved me.
God gave me a new name.
God gave my life purpose.
I wasn’t deserving of any of this, but God so loved the world…
Call
Call
Are you done striving?
Are you ready to surrender?
I’m going to pray for all of our Dad’s in a moment, but I want to especially pray for anyone needing to make the decision to surrender their lives to Jesus.
Can we make that prayer right now?
