On Sunday I preached about running the race at House Church
and afterwards one of the guys was like, we should race all the
guys. And so we all lined up and I
gave a little speech. Hey, if you're old, be careful
because I've seen videos of people online racing and they
hadn't run in years or something and they get hurt.
And that exactly happened to me. I started running and about
halfway through the race my quad locked up and wouldn't move and
so I went tumbling towards the ground shoulder 1st and I'm like
61200 and 14 lbs. So I hit the ground really hard
and I'm not wearing my sling right now.
I don't really wear it when I'm sitting down but I basically
separated my clavicle bone from my shoulder bone right?
So the clavicle or the collarbone goes from underneath
your neck all the way out to like the exterior furthest part
of your shoulder where it starts to round off and underneath that
is a shoulder bone and they're connected with a ligament.
And I separated those two things.
It's called an AC joint separation and it's different
grades of it. The grade goes all the way up to
5 or 6. But I did a grade 3 separation.
So pretty bad. I won't need surgery.
Some people in this situation need surgery, but I'm going to
try to do it natural. The point is, I can't pick up
stuff with my arms the way that I used to.
I can't do things that I was normally able to do.
And things I took for granted can't work out, can't raise my
shoulder, my left shoulder higher than, you know, parallel
than with my shoulder. And so I had to, I've had to
rely on my family and my friends to do stuff.
So like, if I need anything from the store, my in laws will have
to grab it for us because Lokemani is nursing, so she
can't always just get up and go grab something from the store.
If I need to pick up something that's too heavy for me to do
with one arm, then I have to rely on my kids to do that.
So I realized there's so much confidence that I have being
able to have two arms at work. And in today's scripture, we're
going to look at a group of people who put a lot of
confidence in what they could do.
And now Paul is rubbing shoulders with them, no pun
intended, and saying, hey, what you guys are influencing the
people of Philippians to do is ungodly and unbiblical.
So to understand what's going on in chapter 3 of Philippians as
we look through this stressless series talking about how we can
live stressless lives only in Christ, as we see that you have
to understand what's going on in the early church, specifically
Acts chapter 1011 and 15. So what's going on there is the
early church was full of Jewish Christians, like people who grew
up Jewish and converted to Christianity.
And so when we get to chapter 10, we realize that God has
opened up salvation for all people, not just the Jews, but
the Gentiles too. But those Jews who grew up
Jewish, they put a lot of stock and value in the law and the
covenant made with Abraham. And the sign of that covenant
being circumcision. Meaning God has shown the people
of Israel that he has cut them off from the rest of the world.
And he's going to use them separately to do something else,
to look different, to be different, to have a different
function. And the same way that
circumcision, there's a cutting off of the flesh.
All of that is very important to them.
And so a lot of them, when they, when they became Christian, they
had a hard time reaching out to Gentiles, those who are not
Jewish. And so it takes a long time for
them to even get to that point. We see that in Acts Chapter 11,
but it's in Acts chapter 15 where these Jewish Christians in
Antioch and in Galatia, which is why the book of Galatians is
written about the law and grace, how we are saved by grace, not
the law. The people in those two cities,
they had a real big issue telling the Gentiles that first,
if they want to become a Christian, they have to convert
to Judaism first. And Paul calls them Judaizers.
Judaizers because they're saying if you want to be a Christian,
that's cool, but you have to become Jewish before you become
a Christian, which means you need to look Jewish, act Jewish,
follow Jewish laws before you start to follow Christ.
And of course, we know we're saved by grace, not the law, not
by works, not anything we can do in the flesh.
And so that's all happening at the beginning of chapter 3.
And Paul is saying, listen, you relying on what you can do is a
lot like a man who's broken his shoulder trying to rely on this
broken shoulder to do things that he thought he could do, but
now he cannot do. But relying on Christ.
It's like a man with a broken arm deciding, I cannot do what I
used to do. I can't do these things in my
own strength, and so I have to rely on the strength of another
to do them for me. That is what the Bible teaches.
And there's a lot of freedom in that.
And we'll talk about why not putting confidence in yourself
is so good for us, but why it's so hard for us to put confidence
in God and not ourselves. And then how to actually do it.
What we're talking about is really how to rely on God, fully
rely on God, and having something that I grew up hearing
in church called God finance, not confidence, but God finance
confidence in God, not ourselves.
So let's look at Philippians chapter 3, one through 3.
Loki 1 is going to read them for us and then we'll talk about it
at the end. Finally, my brothers, rejoice in
the Lord. To write the same things to you
is no trouble to me and is safe for you.
Lookout for the jobs, Lookout for the evil doers, Lookout for
those who mutilate the flesh. For we are the circumcision, who
worshipped by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and
put no confidence in the flesh. Amen.
So the first verse tells us why we need to put our confidence in
God and not ourselves. Why we need God Finance, right?
Two things. It grieves God and it's not
safe. So he says finally, this is
saying not I'm going to end the letter right here, but he's
saying finally, I'm getting to the point of the letter that I
want to get to you. Like the most helpful part of
this letter, although it's been so helpful up until this point,
the most pressing need is these Judaizers preaching another
gospel, these Judaizers coming in and saying you need to do AB
and C in order for God to accept you.
So he says finally, my brothers, I'm close to you guys, you're
family to me, I love you, I miss you, you're my brothers.
What I want most for you is I want you to rejoice in the Lord
the most. The the whole reason for this
letter is that they may have joy.
The whole reason why Paul says anything that's hard or gives
any practical advice or pastors them in any way is for joy.
Listen, if you have a God that can't disagree with you, then
you have an idol, not a God. The God of the Bible is a God
who loves us so much that he disagrees with us.
In our culture today, Badi Baakum says the 11th commandment
is thou shalt be nice. And what that means is we've
made it a sin to disagree with people.
We've made it a sin to say things that are hard, but the
Bible says if you really, truly love somebody and you want their
joy more than they want their joy in that moment, you will
disagree with them. You will say something that's
hard for them to hear. You will advise them in a
different direction. And that is what the God of the
Bible does. That is what Paul the apostle
does in the book of Philippians. He says, I want you to rejoice
in the Lord. Find joy in the Lord.
This, this word rejoice. It's a word that means to be
calm and cheerful. To be calm and cheerful in what
God has done for you, not in what the world can do for you or
in what you can do for yourself. Because finding joy in what you
can do for yourself and what the world can do for you is a
fleeting joy. It is not going to keep you calm
and cheerful for eternity. But Christians have the option
to be not the option. They have the delight to be able
to be calm and cheerful for eternity in what God has done
for them, not anyone else. So he says to write these things
to you, these same things to you, is no trouble to me, and
it's safe for you. He's saying it does not grieve
me. That's where trouble means to
grieve. It does not grieve me to write
what I'm about to write to you. But the distinction I'm going to
make between those who are truly in Christ and those who are
Judaic Judaizers, it doesn't grieve me.
Paul the Apostle is reflecting the heart of Christ right here.
You know that it doesn't grieve Christ to remind you of the
things that he's always told you.
It doesn't grieve him. We have, you know, earthly
fathers, earthly parents who get grieved and get angry when they
have to repeat themselves. I know from experience, having
seven kids, I get frustrated when I have to say the same
thing over and over again. Much of what parenting is, is
repeating yourself over and over and over and over again.
And I get frustrated. God is not like me.
God is not like that as as a perfect father, He does not get
grieved when he has to repeat what he's already told you it
it. He delights in being able to
share what He's already said with you again to bring you back
to a place of acknowledgement and acceptance of stuff you
already know it. He loves to bring you back to
that place. What does grieve Him, as it says
in Ephesians chapter 4 verse 30, is when you don't listen to Him.
It's one thing that that He has to remind you.
It's another thing that as He is reminding you, you don't listen.
That's the problem in Ephesians chapter 4 verse 30.
It grieves the Holy Spirit that the people of God are hurting
each other, sinning against each other.
It grieves God when we don't listen to him, but he loves to
say, hey, remember what I said about this?
This is where your safety is. This is where you're, this is
how I'm going to safeguard you by reminding you what I've
already reminded you. So don't think that you have
this like period of time where God is upset with you or mad
with you because you didn't listen to him and now you have
to go back and hear what he told you before.
Don't think that it makes him mad or angry with you that he
has to repeat himself. He wants to tell you what he's
already told you, but it grieves him when you don't listen.
So Paul says it's no trouble for me.
He's reflecting the heart of a father.
I heard from Scott Ardevanis, his pastor in California, and
also the father and pastor of Scott Ardevanis.
I'm sorry, Johnny Ardevanis of Stone Bridge Bible Church.
He said one of the marks of a good pastor is that he's patient
and the pastor's patience with his people goes out the door.
The pastor's going to soon follow.
It's one of the ways, you know that your pastor is, is ready to
quit on you or not pastor anymore is if he loses his
patience with his people. We see that with Moses, right?
Moses strikes the rock because he's frustrated with the people.
And God says you're not going to be the one to bring the people
of God into the promised land. Joshua's going to do it.
Patience is so important for a pastor and for a leader.
And so we see Paul patient with his people, reminding him to say
it's no trouble at all for me to say the same things to you that
I've already told you before. Why?
Because having confidence in God is so important.
Because when we don't have confidence in God, it grieves
God. When we look for confidence
outside of God, when we look for confidence in the flesh, like
these Judaizers are doing that Paul's about to speak about,
that grieves God. Because that's not listening to
God. That's listening to the world,
listening to our flesh. But when we have confidence and
confidence in God, that grieves. That gives that pleases God.
The Bible tells us that we actually have the ability to
please God. Not anything that we can do in
our flesh, but everything that we can do in Christ pleases God.
And he's pleased when we walk in obedience through the power of
the Spirit of God that Christ has cleansed us in order for the
Spirit of God to live in us. So the second reason why we must
have confidence in God and the second reason why if we have
confidence in the world, it's bad, it's because it's just not
safe for us. So Paul says, I'm writing these
things because it's safe for you.
This is a word that means to safeguard or to bumper or to
protect. So Paul is going to write about
how to have confidence in God to protect us from having
confidence in the world because there's something very terrible
about having confidence in the world.
And he's going to tell us in the next verse, verse 2, he says
look out for the dogs he calls those who put confidence in the
flesh or the Judaizers, these Jewish Christians who grew up
Jewish and have now converted but are now going back to their
old ways, putting confidence in the law and in what they can do.
He calls them dogs, which is ironic because this word dogs
was the word that they would use in the 1st century for Gentile
Christians or those who are not Jewish.
So he says they're the ones that are actual dogs and dogs in the
in the 1st century, they weren't looked at as pets the way that
you and I look at them. So they were stray dogs.
They would eat just what they're whatever they can find on the
ground. They were really dirty.
They were kept outside. They weren't usually invited in.
And so that's why they use this word to describe the Gentiles.
They saw them as all those things.
But Paul is saying, listen, if you are finding confidence in
the flesh, that's dirty, that's that's eating off the ground,
that is being on the outside instead of the inside.
So he says look out for these evil doers.
He calls them evil. It is.
It is evil to find confidence in the flesh versus confidence in
God. So as a Christian who puts their
confidence in material things, in what they wear and how
they're seen and how much fame they have, remember last week we
talked about de influencing. Do not follow the lives of
influencers who put confidence in what they can do or in what
they can get. That's not good, that's dirty,
that's evil. To just to, to follow Christian
influencers who call themselves Christians.
And yet it's very apparent from the fruit of their lives or lack
of fruit of their lives that they find confidence in what
they wear or how much money they have or how many followers they
have or how good they sound or how good they look.
That's confidence in the flesh. That's not confidence in God and
the Bible describes that as being like a dog.
It's it's like being like dirty. It's not being a child of God,
not acting as a child of God. So he says they are those who
mutilate the flesh. She's saying you finding
confidence in the flesh, confidence in the world and in
what you can do is so unspiritual.
It's so it's so empty that you're just mutilating your
flesh. He's saying the Judaizers who
are talking about circumcision and saying that these Gentile
Christians first need to be circumcised in order for them to
be Christians. He's saying they're not doing
anything but mutilating the flesh like this.
There's no spirituality in circumcision anymore because
what? Because Christ has died on the
cross, His flesh has been broken for us.
We have been cut off from the flesh, cut off from the world,
even though we still exist in this flesh.
Because Jesus was cut off from the Father on the cross, and he
rose from the grave showing us that his new body is a picture
of what we are going to get, new bodies in heaven.
And in the meantime, we're stuck in these bodies, but not for
long. And So what Christ has done on
the cross has completely eliminated and fulfilled what
circumcision was even pointing to and to begin with.
And if that is true, then these these Christians on the other
side of salvation and other side of the resurrection, if they're
still trying to find spirituality and circumcision,
all they're doing is they're just mutilating themselves and
telling others to mutilate themselves.
So it's empty. So here's 5 problems with
finding confidence in the flesh like these Judaizers are doing.
The first one is that it's fleeting.
It's fleeting. So to find confidence in the
flesh one day, you will not be able to find confidence in the
flex, the felt flesh the next day, everything you can do right
now you will not be able to do in your flesh one day.
So for example, I separated my AC joint and my shoulder from
the rest of my shoulder and what I was able to pick up on
Saturday, I cannot pick up on Sunday.
You see what I'm saying? I don't have the ability and the
strength to do it anymore because strength in the flesh is
fleeting. So don't find your confidence in
what your flesh can do because the flesh is weak.
The Spirit is willing. It's fleeting.
Another reason why we can't find confidence in the flesh or we
shouldn't find confidence in the flesh is that it's false.
It's a false assurance. These Judaizers who are saying
that the circumcision is cutting us off, or it's there's a
spiritual aspect to this circumcision and Paul's saying
no, that spirituality is gone now.
It's a false assurance. God is spirit and so those who
worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.
John chapter 4, verse 24, to think that we can connect to God
by anything physical, that we can do anything, any work of the
flesh is a false assurance because God is spirit.
And so any physical thing that we can do to connect to a
spiritual God is it's a false assurance.
You cannot do it. So those in other religions or
even those in Christianity who preach that there's something
physical that you can do to connect to God is giving you a
false assurance. If if they put any confidence
that if you do A then B will happen, that's a false assurance
because the Bible tells us that if you do A and A is a physical
thing, that will not help you in the spiritual realm at all.
Unless what you're doing in the physical realm has something to
do with a spiritual transformation that's happened
within you. Meaning only through
regeneration, only if God gives you a new spirit and a new flesh
and a new heart, then can anything you do in the physical
have any implications in the spiritual.
You see what I'm saying? God first has to create,
recreate you in Christ, make you new, a new creation that is
alive to the Spirit of God, that has a spirit that connects to
God in order for anything you do in the physical to have any
implications eternally or spiritually.
So if, if, if, if they preach a gospel that says if you do this,
then this will happen. That's a false assurance because
nothing you do without the help of Christ or of the regeneration
of the Holy Spirit can help you get close to God at all.
It's only God sending his Son to connect you to God that gives
you access to God the next thing.
Problem with putting confidence in the flesh is that confidence
in God is free. So you can't have confidence in
the flesh is a problem because the only way for you to have
true confidence in God is if for Christ to get freely give it to
you. He says we are the circumcision
in verse 3. What the Judaizers are saying
they can do is they're saying that if you Gentiles go through
the surgery, the procedure of circumcision, then you can be a
Christian. Paul is saying that's not true.
We are the people of God. The children of God are the
circumcision. And you may be saying that some
commentators say that Paul being a Jewish person, is saying that
Jewish people are the circumcision.
So when he says we are the circumcision, he's talking about
the Jewish people are the circumcision of God.
That's not at all what he's saying.
We know because in Ephesians chapter 211 through 22, he uses
the same language. And then Peter in his letter
first Peter chapter 2, he uses the same language of us being
the circumcision of God, because circumcision is a cutting off of
the flesh. And so he's saying that those
who are Christians have been cut off from the world, cut off from
the flesh. We still exist in this world,
but we are not of this world. We still exist in a in a, a
flesh that is going to die, but we are not of the flesh anymore.
Why? Because the cutting off of the
flesh, the cutting off of the world and the connecting to God
is a free gift in Christ. And so we need not try to find
confidence in the in the flesh. That is going to cost us
disappointment. It's going to cost us a
mutilation of some sort. We're going to have to do
something and then in in return, it's going to be empty because
that that doing physically to try to connect to God is vain
and empty. But the the free gift of God is
salvation in Christ, which means we can have confidence in God
that is given freely to us, not by anything that we've done, but
because of what Christ has done. So it's a free gift.
The next one is finding confidence in the flesh is
problematic because it flies away from us.
Notice it says in verse three that we find confidence in God,
not confidence in the flesh, and we glory in Christ Jesus.
We glory in Christ Jesus. This word Glory is this word
that means wait. He's saying that humans are like
filled with helium and we we just float away and drift off
easily. It's just our nature to drift
off and to fly away. Just like letting go of a
balloon filled with helium. We just drift off in order for
us to be held down. There is nothing heavy heavy
enough to hold us down. Then the glory of Christ, then
the work of Christ. Christ's work on the cross is so
heavy it pins you down. It anchors you down to the
ground so that you do not float away.
If we try to find confidence in the flesh, the flesh is not
strong enough to hold us down. We will just float off into
oblivion. Finding confidence in that it's
not heavy enough to hold you down, but finding glorying in
Christ, confidence in Christ pins you down.
It's it's stronger than gravity. It's stronger than anything that
can. It's the strongest anchor that
we have. And the last thing that makes
confidence in the flesh problematic is that it's
fraudulent. It's fraudulent.
What I mean by fraudulent is there is nothing there is.
It promises something that it cannot do.
When you go to the bank and you or when you go to the store and
you buy something and you realize your cart is empty, most
likely it's because there's been fraudulence of some sort.
Someone has pretended to be you, and finding confidence in the
flesh is pretending to do something that only God can do.
There's nothing that the flesh can do that God has not already
done. The flesh promises over promises
and under delivers. The flesh says you can do this,
or if you do this, you will get this from it.
What God does is he shows us that only in Him is pleasure and
satisfaction. Only in Him is the fulfillment
of our desires. So to put confidence in the
flesh is to fall into fraud. It's to give into fraud.
It's to believe in fraud. But to put confidence in God is
to say that what the flesh offers, only God can give me.
So how do we do it? How do we put confidence in God
and have confidence in God and not in the flesh?
How we fully rely on Him. Three things #1 regeneration.
We already talked about this already.
The glory of Christ is that in Christ we are regenerated, we
are made new, we are transformed from dead to alive.
When that work has happened in you, now you have all the reason
to rejoice. You have the ability to rejoice.
You can rejoice in Christ like he starts off this letter,
because everything that the flesh couldn't do, Christ is
done so rejoicing in. And if you truly believe that
he's worthy of rejoicing in, if you truly have been regenerated,
it's not if it's when you will repent.
It's not if you repent, it's when you repent.
Regeneration is God saying I have now given you the power to
repent. Now you can turn away from
putting confidence in your flesh.
You can turn towards me and have confidence in me because I have
regenerated you. It's the idea of turning away
from your darkness and turning towards the sun.
It's what plants do. If you put a plant by a window,
it turns towards the outside, it turns towards the sun, it turns
away from the darkness of the house towards the sun.
You don't have to teach a plant to do that.
A plant does that naturally, and so does the the regenerative
spirit inside of a person after the saving work of God of Christ
in that person has been activated.
It turns you away from your darkness and turns you to God.
Which means there's at least three applications we can take
from this. Number one would be joy comes
from reliance, not restraint. Joy comes from reliance, not to
straight don't give in to the lie that if I restrain myself,
I'll find joy in this. No joy comes from reliance.
It, it comes from relying on someone stronger than you.
If we think that if I cut off things, if I sacrifice things,
if I restraint myself, if, if I do all those things, my joy is
going to come from that. If, if you believe that, then
what we're essentially doing is we're putting confidence in our
flesh and in what we can do and not confidence in God.
Someone who finds confidence in God does practice restraint.
Don't fight. Don't get me wrong here, but
they, they practice restraint knowing that joy comes from
reliance in God first, because I'm relying on God to save me,
'cause I'm relying on God to change me, 'cause I'm relying on
God to, to take these circumstances and to move them
over here and to take this situation and to make it look
like this. Because I'm already relying on
that, because I've already put my trust in Christ, then that
means if I do practice restraint of some sort, I'm not doing it
because I think that this restraint will do this for me.
I'm doing it because I know that God has started this work in me
already. So put it this way, when you go
to the gym, it is the straining, the restraint of the the weight
holding down your muscle that is tearing your muscle in order for
your muscle to build back bigger in the weeks to come.
So it is the restraint that is making those muscles possible.
But who made the body? We go to the gym because we rely
on the truth that if I practice restraint, something miraculous
happens in my body and the and the muscle fibers grow back
stronger than they were before. The reliance is not on.
The joy is coming not from trusting in the restraint, It's
trusting in the reliance. It's trusting in knowing that I
know my body will work this way. It's been proven, it's been
done. It's the work is already set out
there. When you find joy, true joy in
Christ, it's annoying. God has done the work.
God has done something miraculous and and transforming
on the cross so that when I truly believe in that, when I go
to that, if there is some restraint required, my joy is
coming not from the restraint, it's coming from the line.
So let's say that God asked you to give up something and you
practice the restraint of going back to that thing your entire
life. You will not find joy in in why
not going it and saying I can't do this, I can't do this, I
can't do this. You will not find joy in that.
You'll find joy in knowing that God has freed me from need,
needing this thing. You'll find joy in in resting,
leaning on Him, not leaning on how strong you can be.
The next application would be the physical can never reach the
spiritual. The physical can never reach the
spiritual. Think of where God is a bar you
cannot reach and there is no amount of physical exertion that
you can do to reach that bar, right?
Like we have a a nine foot pull up bar in my backyard.
There is no amount of jumping that my kids can do to reach
that bar. Unless I pick them up, they
cannot do it. There is nothing in their
physical being that they can do to get there.
We have to think of God being a spirit the same way he is out of
he's because God is a spirit, he is omnipresent.
He's everywhere. Also, because God is is a
spirit, he doesn't have the physical being that you and I
have. Now we know Christ incarnates,
he comes and puts on physical flesh.
But when Jesus says to the the the Samaritan woman that God is
spirit and he is seeking those who must worship in him spirit
and in truth, he's saying that the only way that a human can
reach God is through the Spirit of God.
Those who worship him must worship him in spirit.
Meaning the Spirit of God has to regenerate you, give you a new
spirit in order for you to connect to the spiritual God.
And then he also says they must worship him in spirit.
The physical can never reach the spiritual on its own.
So again, if you are practicing rules and you're practicing
restraint, thinking that these rules and these restraints will
get me to God, get me closer to God, you're making a mistake.
So again, I can't put too much emphasis on this.
I got a light phone and in the light phone I thought this light
phone is going to connect me to God and I hope I didn't
communicate that in the video because I do think that a light
phone is helpful. But if I think that having this
making this physical decision to have this physical dumb phone is
going to make me closer to God. The physical can never reach the
spiritual. It's nothing I can do physical
that can get me to reach God spiritually.
Now if I am a person that has been regenerated and been made
new and I realize that it's only through the Spirit of God that I
can reach God, then through wisdom, through the Spirit of
God, if he says I think this will be good for you, I think a
light phone would be good for you, then it's not this physical
decision to have a dumb phone that's connecting me to God or
getting me closer to God. It's the Spirit of God that has
given me the wisdom that's already connected me to God that
is going to allow me to walk a little bit more focus through
this wisdom that he's giving me. But before you make any type of
physical decision, before you make any type of cutting off of
the flesh or are you cutting off of the world or any type of
restraint in your life, first ask yourself, am I, am I trying
to trust this physical restraint to connect me to the spiritual?
Because it will not work. It will not work.
So this is how we have Christians who live free.
This is how we have this is how Christians are able to listen to
secular music or watch secular movies.
It's because they've realized that it's not me following any
type of restraint, any type of following rules that can get me
to reach the spiritual. At the same time, they practice
the wisdom of knowing that everything is profitable, but
but not everything is permissible, right?
While we are free to enjoy the things of this world, there's
some things that are harmful, but we are Christians that are
in this world but not of it. How do we live that we balance
the truth that the physical cannot reach the spiritual, but
the spiritual through Christ has come down into the physical in
order to transform us so that we can reach the spiritual through
Him. And if that is true, then that
means we can practice wisdom, but also we can enjoy these
things of the life. The last thing is just asking
yourself simply what gives you confidence?
What gives you confidence? If it's any type of physical
restraint or any type of thing that you can do in your own
physical ability that gives you confidence.
Remember that's fleeting. It's going to fly away from you.
It's fraudulent, it's false. It's, it's, you're trying to pay
for something that's already been freely given to you.
And so is it confidence in the flesh that gives you confidence
or is it confidence in Christ? Christians are called to look at
the cross, look at the resurrection and find our
confidence in what he has done. And so I can sit down, I can
relax, I can enjoy things because I am in right
relationship with God, not because of, of what I can give
to God, what I can do in my own flesh.
I'm in right relationship with God because of what Christ has
done for me. And that gives me the power to
take a deep breath, to exhale and to enjoy this life with
wisdom and and restraint. Not because this restraint gets
me closer to God, but because I'm already close to God.
I am free from the flesh because I'm already close to God.
I can practice restraint out of freedom, not out of not out of
having to rely on this decision to get me closer to God.
So I I cut off the flesh not to get closer to God because I'm
I'm already closer to God. I cut off the flesh.
That's what circumcision was always pointing to.
It's not that I cut off my flesh in order to be a part of this
covenant. It's that I'm already in the
covenant. And so if there's anything that
is not helpful to me, anything that is not wise for me to live
in, I cut it off, not thinking that this will get me closer to
Him, but because I already am. Let's pray, Father, we thank You
for these distinctions that we make and how we truly are free
in You and what we just thank you for.
It is your joy to remind us of these things.
And it's it is your will that we would trust in Christ and not
ourselves. And we pray God that you would
help us to find confidence in you and only you and put that
confidence in you. And your name we pray.
Amen. Amen.
This is the part of the episode called After the Amen where we
ask you a question to help apply this message to your life.
Our question for you today is in what area of your life do you
need to rely on God instead of the flesh?
In what area of your life do you need to rely on God instead of
the flesh? I'll answer first, as always,
and then it'll be your turn to respond.
Well, I think what comes to mind for me is like knowledge.
I think the knowledge that I have even in Christ, like what
he, what I have learned over the years of walking with him.
Sometimes I can rely on that instead of continuing to return
to him and to glean from him more.
And I, I believe that like in my life that it's this like, it's
hard to say. It's like a false assurance
because I'm still relying on the truth of what his word says, but
it's just false assurance that like I'm OK if I'm not seeking
him more, if I'm not going to him in prayer more often if I'm
not, you know, in the little moments of the day, going to
scripture instead of something else.
I think I can rely on stale bread, if you will, like
something that I have already that was of weeks ago.
And I'm trying to eat that instead of consume a fresh new
meal through his word through through prayer.
And I have found that I lack a lot of confidence when I think I
can just rely on what I know about God instead of going to
him directly. And it's very like tricky line
because there's times when we we do rely on what we know about
God because we're in a situation where we just have to apply the
truth and knowledge of Christ to a situation.
But we still should be continually going to him day
after day so we can continue to be nourished and grow.
And it prevents injuries, not like physically, but like
spiritual injuries in our life when we are spiritually strong
and continuing to eat the Michelin star meal of the word
of God. And yeah, I've like found that
when I am in my word more, in prayer more.
I have a confidence where the opinion and the weight, the
opinions of others and the weight of the world is much less
burdensome and I can just walk freely knowing I am fully
reliant on Christ who is supreme and sovereign over all.
And so, yeah, I think that's just been convicting to me.
It's just like needing to spend less time doing other things and
spend more time in his Word. Because I love that you said
like the flesh is fleeting. The things of the flesh are
fleeting and it's easy this day and age where information is so
accessible that oh, I can just like put it off.
I can put it off and I'll get to it later like I can.
There's always time to talk to God.
You know, there's always time to open up my Bible or even put a
sermon on or something like that.
But the truth of the matter is there might not be, you might
reach a situation where you cannot do that in some, some
way, shape or form. Life gets very busy.
But like Alex's example of just like Saturday, he could pick
things up with his left arm, Sunday he couldn't.
And so we and we never would have expected something like
this to happen, you know, And so that is the same with everything
in life. And it just reminds me of just
what we talk about a lot. It's just like really numbering
our days and not just cutting things off for the sake of
cutting things off or to think that we will experience or know
God more, but because, but like numbering our days and not being
distracted by things so that we can see God like so that we can
do faithfully do what he's set before us.
And so that part was just really good.
And yeah, I think it's just, it's so hard.
Our our world works off of this. Like, what can I do to get more
type of thing? And so it's so hard to just know
that in Christ, like it's complete.
It's his work completely that sustains us.
Yeah, I was thinking about what you're saying and how, like
fleeting it is. And that's like precisely how
like false teachers lock people into their ministries and that's
that they preach a gospel that puts confidence over.
They put confidence in the flesh that they put confidence and
morality. And the problem with fighting
confidence in your morality is you're not always going to be
moral. You're not always going to act
in a way that your character is proud of.
And so when you don't, you go running back to the source that
gave you that false gospel to begin with.
And because it is so fleeting, like to put confidence in your
flesh that I'm going to be a good person.
I'm going to be a good person. Oh, no, I'm not a good person.
I got to run back to the people that tell me that I can be a
good person. To tell someone that you can be
a good person is just another way of saying you are a good
person. And we all want to hear that.
But the Bible tells us that we are not.
There's none that are righteous. No, not one.
You're you're not a good person. It's only there's only one good
person. There's only one that is good
and that is God. And through God you can be made
new into someone good, but it's only through God.
It's not because of what you can do.
And so false prophets, they get such a hold on people because
they, they, it's fleeting, right?
They, the flesh is fleeting. They mess up, they go back, they
mess up, they go back. They're doing good, they're
doing good, they're doing good. And it just reiterates
everything that they false teacher said.
And then they feel bad again and then they go back.
And so it creates this really unhealthy, addictive type of
relationship with these false teachers.
And it's very apparent in our culture right now.
Like the two things that I'm seeing the most is you have
teachers who preach the experience of God over
everything that you should feel and experience God and Christ
more than anything. Here's a problem with that.
What about the persecuted Christians who feel nothing but
persecution physically, but have a deep inside joy and knowing
the truth of the gospel that gets them through the years?
What about the the person that is forever on this earth,
paralyzed and they're waiting a new body in heaven?
What about that person? How can they jump up and down
and, and, and have a fun time or at church that you know, having
a great time at their church experience, one of their
day-to-day experiences that they feel really limited and that
they feel really hurt and ashamed that they cannot do what
other people do. What about the blind person that
is going to be blind their entire life and they can't see
what other Christians see at these church experiences, at
these church gatherings? How do they find joy?
Their joy has to be much deeper than what they can feel and much
deeper than their experience. So you got to look out for
teachers like that. And also the other thing is
teachers who put a big emphasis on morality, that if you need to
obey, you need to be a better person, you need to be a better
version of yourself. And if you do this, and if you
do that, that you can be a better version of yourself, You
can break free. You can really lock in to all
this, to all that. The problem with that is, again,
you're putting confidence in who you can be and confidence in
what you can do instead of confidence in Christ.
What's most important to those teachers is that you become a
better version of you. And that is not the message of
the Bible. The message of the Bible is that
the most important thing is that we can glory in Christ that that
all that we exist for the glory of God.
The most important thing for a tree is not to be a better tree.
The most important thing of a tree is to be fruitful and to
give glory to God. Just be in a tree.
That's what it wants to do. And so if we make morality or
being the better version, the, the most thing, the most
important thing for us, then we just want God's stuff.
We don't want God, and which means we're not free.
Again, we're putting confidence in our flesh and what we can do.
And again, it's fraudulent because there's a roof to that.
Like that's if, if you being a better version of yourself, are
you having a better experience is the most important thing for
you, then that's the roof, that's the top.
That's as far as you're going to go.
But if God is the whole point, then it gets much higher than
that. You know, And I was just
thinking of we should do a shirt that says the flesh is fleeting,
but the father is forever. And I think that finding
confidence in the flesh is is fleeting, but finding confidence
in our Father is forever something that we'll always
have, not just have one moment and not have the next moment.
Yeah. And when you have full reliance
or confidence in the Lord, then all these like struggles that
are talked about in the Bible, like they lose their power.
So jealousy, envy, strife, all of those things, if you are not
relying on who you can be or how great you are in the flesh or
the things that you can do to be more confident and you're fully
relying on God instead, like, but nothing, you know, nothing
can truly thank you, you know. And so it really is the answer
like complete dependency on him because of his finished work and
coming to that realization, there's nothing I can do to earn
this. There's nothing I did to make me
accepted. It was his full work.
Out of love. He did that out of love.
He wooed me to himself and regenerated my heart and made me
new. Like, I think once you realize
that, then it's like, why wouldn't I want to give all to
the Lord and whatever he asks of me?
Yeah. So it's like it's deeply, it's a
deeply spiritual thing because it could look the same
outwardly. Right, but.
It's true. It's not just perspective.
It's like what you believe, you know?
Because perspectives like you can just change that, right?
But belief is like usually a solid thing.
And so, yeah. Yeah, and like the woman at the
well, the reason why she goes back with so much joy to tell
people about Christ is because she got freed from trying to use
the physical to reach the spiritual, right.
She was doing that through husbands, right?
One relationship after another. If I have this physical
relationship, it'll help me reach the Nirvana and help me
reach the spiritual place. And so she goes back with joy,
freed from all that and realizing that the only way for
me to connect to the spiritual is if the spiritual connects me
to the spiritual, right? If if the Spirit of God and
Christ, if they work together for the Father's glory, for the
Father's plan, Father's will to connect me back to the Father.
That's the only way. And so being able to drop
everything and saying I don't have to do XY and Z in order for
this to happen. So an example, this has been
very troubling in my life because local ani will tell you
I will throw out like everything if I think that this is going to
make me happier. This is going to make me more
spiritual. And so, and a couple weeks ago
or a couple months ago, I took my iPad and I just broke it.
I'm like, I need to stay off this iPad.
I'm, I'm working too much, I'm spending too much time on this
iPad. So I just broke it and I I made
it to where I couldn't just put it in a drawer and go back and
get it or I, I. You mutilated.
I mutilated the iPad exactly. Here's a problem with that.
I I thought that that was going to give me calm.
I thought it was going to make me cheerful.
And there was a brief moment of like, OK, now I don't have to
worry about that. And it's fleeting because now
there's I can't tell you how many times that I've needed that
iPad and it was so or she has. And now it's like, OK, now I
have to like put money aside and save for a future date for that,
for me to have that tool again because I just squandered it,
right? I just put myself the mutilation
for no reason. How do you know you're putting
confidence in the flesh? Anything that you look at and
say, this will make me calm or this will bring me cheer is
confidence in the flesh. Paul says rejoice in the Lord.
This is the day that the Lord has made.
I will rejoice in the day, or I'll rejoice in the one who made
the day. Anything that I look to and I
say, this will finally give me calm, This will give me peace,
This will give me cheerfulness. Whether it's anything material
or anything metaphysical. If you do that, you're finding
confidence in the flesh and not rejoicing in the Lord.
To rejoice in the Lord is to look at Jesus and to say He has
given me peace. He calms the storms in my heart.
He is the one that has given me reason to cheer only him that's
rejoicing in the Lord and not finding confidence in the flesh.
So I hope that helps. Don't make the same mistakes I
make. I mean, again, if there's if
there's stuff in your life, you may be in a different situation
where mutilating something that is helpful to you, but you don't
mutilate it to get closer to God.
You you mutilate it because you're already close to God and
you're free from having to rely on anything other than God.
That's why we do it. So big distinctions to be made,
you know, it's why we only did 3 verses today, but we'll jump
into the examples from Paul's life in the next couple
episodes, which are going to be really good of how Paul lives
this out this stressless life. So we love you.
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That allows us to reach more people and climb the charts.
But we know by this point we're not going to be at the top of
the charts because a lot of the code Judaizers are at the top of
the charts. Preaching gospels that are
saying the material things you have or the things that you can
do in the physical can bring you closer to God.
It's very subtle. But again, if I'll just leave
you with this last thing, if a Christian influencer is posting
their body or posting their fit, doing fit checks, posting the
things that they have, what they're saying is these material
things will help you reach a place of happiness in your life.
And I got these spirit, these material things by being
spiritual in front of you or or acting spiritual in front of
you. And so if you just do what I do,
then you'll be as happy as I look in this video.
So you, you know what they're about.
This is very easy test. How do you know what you're the
spiritual influencers in your life are about?
Whether they put confidence in their flesh or confidence in
God. How do you know?
Look at what they post. If they, if everything that they
post is about their body or what they can do or what they have,
they're putting confidence in their flesh.
If they're posting more about the flesh, the physical things
of this world, you know where their confidence is.
Even if every video and every post that they make is
spiritual. If there is a lot of emphasis on
what they have on and the amount of money it costs them to put on
what they have on or how good they look, you know they're
putting confidence in their flesh and not confidence in
Christ or. Even what they do.
Even what they do like. Recording every.
Workout. Workout every like homeschool
lesson every like you know. Showing every part.
Of it, but it's, yeah. It's subtle.
It's very subtle. Again, if they're if they all
they show is what they do in the flesh, what they're doing in the
flesh, then that means they're putting confidence in the flesh.
Put that up against somebody like Tim Keller or somebody like
Fadi Baucom or John Piper or even how like we try to post.
We try to make sure that the majority of what we post and put
out there is US teaching the Word of God, us talking about
the word of God, us giving biblical advice because we want
to be people that put our Vaadi Vaakam, Tim Keller.
You don't see posts of them just hanging out all the time.
You see them preaching or behind a pulpit in a suit covering
themselves up so that we see Christ and not them.
While at the same time it is important to see how do these
guys live? We see pictures of them with
their families, pictures of their wife, but they the
emphasis is not on what they do in the flesh or what they look
like or how they accomplish this.
It is the emphasis is on putting confidence in God, right?
So just look through the magnifying glass at these
people's lives that we are following and just be wise with
who you put allowed to speak into your life.
But if you have found a lot of fruitfulness and helpfulness
from our ministry, every little bit counts and we can't do this
without you. So if you would like to tie it
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and house church. But we love you guys so much and
we'll see you in the next one. Yes.
Until then, go out and be the church.
Amen.