[Generated Transcript]

Would you turn with me to Philippians 3? And let me lead us in prayer. Lord, as we come to you, we come to hear you speak, and we pray that you be blessing the reading and the preaching of your word. Would you be blessing us through it, that we would have ears to hear and hearts to obey and pursue? Would you enliven Christ to us by your word and your spirit? Amen.

As we come to Philippians 3, you’ll see right at the beginning, it says, finally my brothers. In some way he’s coming to an end. Then you also see that there are two chapters left. So some people will be thrown off by that, but what we’re getting here is we’re getting the last main point that he’s been trying to write about.

We talked about humility leading to unity. And then we talked about how there is confidence and courage in the face of suffering as we trust in the Lord. And now we’re gonna get to his final point, which he titles, Rejoice in the Lord. Now, what’s interesting is that rejoicing has been the theme of the entire book. So how did he speak about humility? When he gave the example of Christ, he pointed to Christ rejoicing in the Father and looking to his glory as Christ’s humility and gave that as a picture for us. Well, how are we humble?

Because we’re rejoicing in the Lord, we think of ourselves as less and others as more important. living in the middle of a crooked and twisted generation, but living as godly people, what does that look like? And he says, well, even if I’m poured as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. Likewise, you should be glad and rejoice with me. Our confidence in the Lord in the face of persecution leads to us rejoicing even in hard circumstances. So it’s been rejoicing through this whole letter. How do we rejoice in the Lord? But this is the finale. This is sort of the core of rejoicing. He just keeps diving deeper and deeper, and finally he’s hitting his final point. And that’s why this, of all points he titles, Rejoice in the Lord.

With that introduction, I’m gonna read, the point will, this section’s gonna extend all the way through chapter four, verse one. So we’re gonna take it in two halves. We’ll go up to verse 11, and then next week, starting in verse 12, you get sort of implications from it. So I’ll read verses one to 11 today. Let’s listen to God’s word, hear him speak to us. Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same thing to you is no trouble for me and is safe for you. Look out for the dogs. Look out for the evildoers. Look out for those who mutilate the flesh.

For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God 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. Circumcised on the eighth day of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, A Hebrew of Hebrews, as to the law, a Pharisee. As to zeal, a persecutor of the church. As to righteousness under the law, blameless.

But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith. that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible, I may attain the resurrection from the dead. This ends the reading of God’s word.

I wanna, as we come to this section and we think about what does it mean to rejoice in the Lord, turn our joy to the Lord, I wanna just look actually at verse 12. Go one verse more and see how he starts off the next section. Not that I have already obtained this or I’m already perfect, but I press on to make it my own. I wanna preface this sermon with that because When we’re going to see rejoicing in the Lord, I don’t want us to just feel conviction. I don’t do that well enough. Because Paul immediately follows up and says, yeah, I don’t do this well enough either. OK?

I’m gonna press into your hearts a little bit, but what I think that Paul wants us to see in this section, what God wants to tell us, is I want you to see what rejoicing really is. You need to experience it. You need to touch it and feel it, and understand what it is that you’re pursuing, and fall in love with that, that you know what you’re aiming for. And then when you think, man, I don’t do that enough, know that even the apostle Paul is in the same boat as you.

Okay? So the sermon is more focused on seeing what rejoicing really is. What does it really mean to rejoice in the Lord? And fall in love with that Christ, the picture that we see of Christ there. As we come to this section, he starts off saying, acknowledging, look, I’ve already talked about rejoicing. The whole letter’s been about rejoicing. To write the same thing to you is no trouble for me and is safe for you. But then he’s gonna target something really specific. He’s gonna say, let’s look at what false rejoicing is. Because he doesn’t begin with explaining what rejoicing is, he says, look out.

Here’s what you need to watch out for. And this is an interesting section because he comes out fighting. Let me read this section again. Look out for the dogs. Look out for the evildoers. Look out for those who mutilate the flesh. Now if he’s writing this and a Jew would hear this, they would agree with everything there.

The dogs were the beast that you insult. They were the unclean animals. You wouldn’t want to eat them. You don’t want to interact with them too closely. Jesus tells the woman that he interacts with, who’s a Gentile, well, we shouldn’t be giving the food from the children’s table to the dogs.

It’s actually an insulting way of saying that. And it’s meant to be that way. He’s pressing her. So the Jews would hear that and say, yeah, the dogs are bad. That’s the Gentiles out there. Look out for the evildoers. Look out for those who don’t follow God’s law, the workers of evil. Look out for those who mutilate the flesh.

Do you remember the prophets of Baal who were cutting themselves and whipping themselves on Mount Carmel to try and get Baal to listen to them? Or all of the pagan rituals which had to do with self-inflicting harm, thinking maybe God will listen to me in some way. That’s what the pagans do.

But then Paul turns and says, no, actually, I’ve been describing the Jews with all of those things. For we are the circumcision. We worship by the spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh. And so the first description, he would make a Jew think, oh, yes, I agree with you. But then somewhere through the second point, you’d be reading and thinking, wait, that’s not me. And here’s how it would go. Because the Jew would say, oh yeah, we worship by the Spirit of God. And we glory in Christ, the Messiah. But then that second word, we glory in Christ Jesus. Well, hold on. We’re still waiting for the Messiah. We want the King to come and free us from our sins. But we haven’t seen him yet.

And there Paul brings the distinction. He says, no, we are the real Jews. We are the ones who are truly of the circumcision. And he’s using this in a way to get at them. Do you see that? The Jews would claim, no, we’re the circumcision. You have left that and gone on to baptism. And Paul says, no, we are really the ones of the circumcision. We worship the real Christ. We put no confidence in the flesh. And so verse two was actually a dig at the Jews.

It was describing them. They are now outside of God’s people. They are now the ones who are doing evil deeds. They’re relying on the works of the law that can’t do anything for them. They’re the ones who mutilate the flesh through circumcision, thinking that’s going to accomplish something for them in their worship.

What I want you to see in this section is there’s a reason that Paul is doing this flip. It’s actually a really aggressive, challenging way of doing it. He’s mocking them. Do you see that? He has a fighting tone. Because he’s going after them, describing them like a Gentile.

The people who they hate, who they would see nothing in relation with. And then he uses all those words to describe them. And then says, no, we are the real circumcision. You have nothing to do with God. But he saves all that to the end. until he says the name Jesus and puts no confidence on the flesh, they would think that they’re on the same side.

And it all hits at the same time. And they realize, oh, we went from thinking we were on the same page, and now you’ve declared war against us. Paul’s using a really aggressive fighting tone. It all is hitting, and he’s trying to get a reaction out of them.

I want you to keep that in mind. This is a different tone than he used in the rest of the letter. In fact, he hasn’t even brought up a conflict with the Jews yet, and all of a sudden he comes out swinging. Why? What has targeted Paul? What has incited him to this? I’m not gonna answer that question now, but we’re gonna get to that at the end.

You just need to see through this section that Paul, something has riled him up in his spirit, and he’s going after something. And he’s not acting with much decorum in the way that he’s writing. And he knows he’s gonna upset people with what he’s writing. But he doesn’t end there. He doesn’t just take on a fighting tone. He then actually, he then goes and puts forward a challenge. Because he claims three things in verse three.

Well, we worship by the Spirit of God. Our glory is in the Messiah, Jesus. And we put no confidence in the flesh. It’s not about our works. And then he’s gonna give them a challenge. You think your works are doing something, well, hold them up against mine. Verse four, though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also, if anyone thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more. He’s giving them a challenge. You think that you’re something. You think that you follow God’s law. You think that this gives you some status. Well, hold it up against me. Let me tell you what my status is. Let me tell you what I’ve accomplished according to the law that you’re trying to follow.

And then he lists out his credentials. circumcised on the eighth day of the people of Israel. This is a reference to, even from birth, he did everything right. His parents brought him on the exact day he was supposed to be there, and he was of God’s people. He’s of the tribe of Benjamin, the kingly tribe coming from Saul, the ones that returned from exile with Ezra. So he’s of the prestigious, one of the prestigious lines of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews is how he sums it up. And then he’s going to give three characteristics.

As to the law of Pharisee, I was of the most conservative, the most precise of all of the different groups of law interpreters. We were the most strict. No one could hold anything against us in our interpretation of the law. As to zeal, I was a persecutor of the church. Not just were these ideas I held to a strict standard, but I pursued it with my whole heart. When I saw wrong, I went after them. I assented to their killing. I put them in prison. I persecuted the church, those heretics. As to righteousness under the law, blameless.

Now, you have to see, he’s submitting a challenge. These are my credentials. He’s not saying this facetiously. He’s not lying. But in some way, he’s holding this credential out to people and saying, this is an accurate description of me as a Pharisee.

As to the law, I was blameless. Based on my interpretation, no one could have held anything against me. Isn’t that an amazing description of himself? to even look back at his own life. Or in other places, he’ll talk about himself as a great sinner. But he says, look at it from another angle. No one could have held anything against me and blamed me for anything. As to the law, I was blameless.

In order to understand where he’s then gonna go, we need to understand he is speaking seriously here. He’s saying, these are my actual credentials that I could hold up and say, this is who I am, and this is how I would have thought I was gonna walk before God, based on these standards. And then he’s challenging anyone who’s gonna try and accomplish things by the law, you hold yourself up against what I had accomplished in my life, okay? So similarly, think about your life.

What are the things that you hold as prestige? Some of you are getting older in your life, and you may be thinking of, well, what’s my legacy? What have I left behind in my kids or in my career? Or maybe you think, I don’t think I’ve left behind very much and you’re trying to spend your last years in order to leave something behind. What’s the memory that’s going to stick with me? What’s the thing that I accomplished that maybe it’s starting to fall apart now and you’re striving to hold it together because I don’t want my legacy to crumble? Or maybe you’re in your 30s or 40s, and you’re worried. Well, life’s not going as I was planning it to go. What am I going to do? Am I going to be able to leave behind some legacy?

Paul had spent his life to leave behind a legacy, and this is what he accomplished. And it is quite startling. Imagine you could say, you’re reaching the end of your life, well, according to God’s law, I was blameless. That’d be a pretty big, that’d be a pretty big claim, wouldn’t it?

But what we see is. is then Paul moves. He moves from where his confidence is in. He says, this is where my confidence could have been. Remember the three categories? Worship according to the Spirit of God. His glory is in Christ Jesus and puts no confidence in the flesh. Paul says, well, here’s the thing I could have put all of my confidence in. Look at what I had accomplished with my life. Look how everyone viewed me. But then if you look at it and you think, well, what is his glory in? Well, his glory is in himself, isn’t it? And that’s where he turns.

And after drawing this great tower of where his confidence could be, all of his great deeds, he turns in verse seven, but whatever gain I had, again, he’s saying, look, in earthly eyes, I had great gain. I wasn’t lying. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. I had all of these credentials, all these people praising me, all these people ready to recommend my book that I wrote, to invite me to speak at meetings.

And then you just see him drop it all. I just walked away and thought, this is worthless. That’s what he wants to, that turn there needs to catch you. It needs to be like one of those roller coaster rides that just all of a sudden drops and your stomach goes, oh, what just happened? Because he’s building up to this almost impossible credential and then he says, and then I dropped it. It’s all loss. And then he’s gonna say it two more times and really dig in. Did you hear the repetition when I read it the first time? I’m gonna read it again.

Whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss. He repeats the loss, but he digs in, not just the benefits, the things I listed, everything was loss. Everything I had was loss. because 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.” Three times it’s loss. It was worth nothing. Everything was loss. It was trash. That’s how I treated it. He had all of this thing that you could say, that was of worth, and he says, nothing. I’m going to throw it in the garbage and forget about all of it. Do you feel that drop? Like, how many things in our life are we just clinging to, saying, I would never be able to give up on that? That’s the thing that gives my life worth. That’s the thing that I’ve been clinging to.

And Paul says, not only was I willing to give it up, I’m now looking back on it and saying, that was trash. That was complete garbage. Maybe I could convince you to throw away a good meal for something. But then given the chance, you’d say, well, it was still a good meal. And Paul says, no, I just threw it in the dumpster. It’s just rotting away now. It’s not even appealing to me anymore. It’s just trash.

Why? Because Paul saw a worthy exchange. He saw a glorious exchange. That’s the second thing to look at. Points to the false rejoicing that the Jews would be looking at. Look at all the things that they glory in. And in doing that, they’re looking like Gentiles. Look at all their false worship, their false glory, their false rejoicing.

And he said, I had all of it, but I gave it all up because I saw something that was worth exchanging it for. And it was so worth exchanging it for, I didn’t just trade it in. I tossed everything else in the garbage and ran after it. His worthy exchange, his glorious exchange, And he repeats that three times, too. Whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.

What did he see? He saw Jesus. He saw the glory of Christ. He said, when I saw Jesus, I thought, no, none of this is worth anything. I’ll just drop it and let it crumble. It’s worthless. Because I saw the one who matters. Everything was lost because of surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. Paul had all of this in his hand and he says, I had these in my possession. I could grab them. But to know Jesus was worth more to me than having all of this in my possession. Do you see that?

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of 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. So he sees Christ and he drops everything else. But that last statement, do you see that? In order that I may gain Christ. What he’s saying is, I didn’t just lose interest in these things.

They weren’t as valuable as I thought. But he said, actually, to really have Christ, I had to drop everything else. In order to gain Christ, I couldn’t come lugging, lugging this giant tower of my own works. I would never get there. I would never get Christ. Now, why is that the case?

In order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, Not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ. The righteousness from God that depends on faith. Paul is seeing this pursuit of glory in our life and seeing it through, how do we pursue glory? And he says it’s through righteousness. Everyone’s trying to pursue glory through righteousness. And they’re right. That is how you pursue glory. You need to be right.

And he thought all these things he had built up, that’s my righteousness. And he had it in his possession. Read verse nine. Not having a righteousness of my own. Here’s the righteousness he had of his own. He could make a claim for this. This is something he could possess. But he said it wasn’t good enough. He needed the righteousness of God. What was the exchange for? He could only get the righteousness of God by giving up everything he was trying to cling onto.

It’s one or the other. Is your righteousness, is your pursuit of glory resting on the road that you built? Or are you walking the path of God on the righteousness that he’s laid out in front of you? Do you see that? not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.

He had to discard, lose everything, all of this loss, three times over, in order that he would have true righteousness, something of real worth. But more than just true righteousness, he’s diving deeper than that because he doesn’t start talking about righteousness. He starts talking about the person of Jesus. That’s where he first goes. We reach righteousness at the end of verse nine. But he starts saying, I count it as lost for the sake of Christ.

I think sometimes we think of Christ as a means to an end. I know I’m not good enough, who’s gonna make me more adequate? Who’s gonna fulfill the things that I lack? I know I can’t get rid of my sins, who’s gonna take away my sins? And then righteousness becomes the main goal.

Do you see the way that Paul writes this? That’s not the way that he’s thinking. His main goal is God himself. that I may gain Christ, that I may know Christ Jesus, my Lord. That’s what he wants. See, you don’t just want to reach the end of your life and be able to say, well, I lived a righteous life.

I’ve had my sins forgiven. We need to know God. Think of when creation happened, man and woman were placed in the garden. And woman was created because God said what? It is not good for man to be alone. Man’s not made to be alone. And he creates woman, but we know from Ephesians that what he was really talking about was God. Man, mankind, man and woman was made to be with God. That’s what we’re pursuing. So if you reach the end of your life and somehow, this is a fictitious scenario, but somehow you lived a perfect life, but you didn’t live to be with God, that’s not good enough.

Do you understand that? Say you’re in a, You’re in a marital dispute, and it’s been going on for a long time. And then someone presented you with the opportunity. You know what? Your wife will tell you that you’re right. Everyone’s going to say that you’re right in that argument, and you did everything perfectly. And everyone would say, yes, I want that to happen. I want to be told that, right?

But here’s the catch. If that happens, you will never spend any time with your wife again. Who would take that? Oh, I’m willing to be right and lose my wife in the process. Hopefully nobody. Hopefully nobody’s in that scenario, right? That’s what the Jews were doing. That’s what Paul’s arguing against. You’re trying to pursue righteousness on your own and you’re not pursuing life with God. And he said, I had all these things I had built up for my own, and the glory was my own. And then I realized, I actually don’t want that afterlife. I don’t want that. I want to be with Christ. And so I counted all loss for the sake of Christ. So we see here that he saw something of too much worth to be able to hold on to anything more in his life.

There’s a story of, it’s King Edward in the early 1900s, King of England. And then he saw a woman. This isn’t a perfect analogy because she was not a godly woman and neither was he a particularly godly man. But he saw a woman and he fell in love with her. And none of his advisors would turn him from that.

And he said, this is worth giving up my throne. And he gave up being king in order to marry her. He had all of this worth in his hand. He was going to rule a whole country, a kingdom, an empire. And then he saw a woman and said, I’ll give it up for her. I’d rather have her than all of this that I built up for myself, all of my own glory.

Now, if we stylize him as a perfect person, that’s what’s being described here. Oh, I saw someone of great beauty. When I saw Christ for who he was, it all became garbage and I realized this wasn’t worth anything to me. And I could just toss it out and I have no regrets about it at all because now I have Christ. That was his glorious exchange. He got the righteousness of Christ, but because he saw the beauty and glory of Christ, and he turned, and that’s the only thing he wanted.

But we aren’t quite at his rejoicing yet. We’ve seen the logic of it. Look at what God has given us, that we as sinful people who can’t hold the merits that Paul is holding out to us. We won’t be able to stand before God and hold any of these things and say, look how close I was to getting there. We’re just regular sinners. And God has come to us and said, I’m going to give you that exact same exchange. Your life, which doesn’t really have much meaning, is not gonna leave a legacy. You have not done great works your whole life.

Well, I’ll take that all away from you, and I’m gonna give you Christ anyway, the same glorious Christ that Paul was willing to give up everything for. He says, it’s yours. Paul’s just explained the love of God and the logic of the gospel. Look at what he’s given us for so little, The righteousness from God, it depends on faith.

You didn’t strive for any of this. You didn’t do anything for it. And God just says, you believe in me, and I’ll give it to you. It’s yours. It’s free. And when you think about that, it doesn’t make any sense. But again, I said, we’re not actually at his rejoicing yet. Look at the end of verse nine. It ends not with a period or a comma, it ends with a dash. What does that dash mean? Well, it means that when we were translating it into English, we, I wasn’t actually on the committee, so no one asked me.

When they translated it in the ESV into English, they have no idea how that grammar fits together. Now, Greek has some very fluid grammar. There’s a lot of stuff that you can make work. But they get to this, and they’re like, there’s not actually a good connection here. We don’t know what the connection is.

What seems to be is that there’s just like a break of thought. He’s just talking the righteousness from God that depends on faith, and then he just interjects this statement. He just interjects his thoughts. Now, what are his thoughts? It’s his rejoicing.

What you see is as he’s describing the gospel that God’s given him in all of his wretchedness, in all of his self-glorifying pursuit of his own righteousness, and then he said, well then, Christ was just shown to me. In a flash of light on the road to Damascus, I saw the beauty of Christ. And then he said, you can join me. And then when he’s overcome by that in verse 10, and then he rejoices in the Lord. Verse 10 is where we finally get to Paul’s rejoicing. This is what he says, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

As he’s describing the logic of the gospel, he just breaks off and rejoices in what he sees in Christ. He says, this is too beautiful of a person to see, and he just pours out his heart. I think I already gave this analogy because I preached the next text to you a number of months ago. But I’ll use the same analogy because I couldn’t think of a better one.

So say you young men, you’re living in medieval times with dragons and witches and things like that. But then, and you happen to be a powerful knight. And you hear of a beautiful woman who’s been trapped by a tyrant and being guarded by a dragon in a castle. And she is the most beautiful woman in the world. But you’ve never seen her before, you just heard of her. And so what do you do? You jump on your white horse and you go riding off and you storm that castle to go get your wife, right?

And so you ride up, and you jump over the moat. You fight off a few alligators. You kick down the gate of the castle, or maybe you storm the walls, and you climb up underneath the fire of arrows. And you fight off trolls, and a whole bunch of bad guys, and orcs, and things like that. You destroy, you kill a dragon. And then, finally, you burst into a cell. You kick down the door, and there you are, standing with your sword in hand, just enough blood and guts on you to look ruggedly handsome. And you say, I’m here to save you. I’m here to rescue you. Because I heard of you and I love you.

What would be the look in her eyes as she looks on you? She was going to be stuck smelling smelly orc the rest of her life in a small little dungeon. And now she’s given freedom. Is her first thought going to be, well, I have this list of like top 10 characteristics for a husband. Do you like my cooking? Or what sort of life are we going to live?

No, she’s going to look in your eyes and say, you’ll just know by the look, I love you. Because you match up to her characteristics? No, because she just loves you. And she’s going to jump on your horse and ride off to wherever you’re willing to take her. She’d say, okay, take me wherever and I will live with you the rest of my life because I love you.

There’s not questions, there’s not a list to check off. You just see a love for the person. That’s what Paul is describing. That I may know him and the power of his resurrection and may share his sufferings becoming like him in his death. She’s not going to look at you in the eyes and say, well, you have to give up all this warring and stuff. She’s going to say, you are the love of my life.

How can I join you? Is that the way that we see Christ? Wow, look at what you have done for me. I don’t just want a part of you. I don’t just want a piece or what you’ve done for me. I want all of you. I want all of you. Because you see what Paul goes to. He goes to the things that aren’t appealing. Do you see that? That I may know him in the power of his resurrection. That sounds good. We want to know Christ. We want to be resurrected. And may share his sufferings. It’s like, whoa, hold on a second. I don’t know if I want all of Christ’s sufferings. I want to like dip my toes in the water. But Paul is consumed with love.

And he says, I want to share in Christ’s sufferings. that I may become like him in his death. Even unto death, I want to know Christ as intimately as possible, that by any means possible, I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Now, you might read that and think, what he’s saying is, well, what can I do to obtain the resurrection from the dead? What this is meaning, as Paul is saying, Like that woman you’ve rescued in the dungeon.

It doesn’t matter where you take me, I’m willing to go wherever you lead. I just wanna be on the horse with you and I’ll follow you wherever you go. By any path, by any road, whatever way Christ takes, I want to join with him and let him lead me to the resurrection of the dead. It’s not the engine, it’s the path. Saying, I just want to know Christ and whatever road I go on, it’ll be worth it because I know who he is and I know how much he’s worth.

See, this is a glimpse of what rejoicing in the Lord is. Because I think we read this and we know, oh, if I really understood the facts of the gospel, my heart should be of the same way. that I would know him in the power of resurrection, that I may even share in everything of him, that I may share in his sufferings, that I may share even in his death, if only I would know that I have him. And I know for most of us, our hearts just aren’t there. But what you’re seeing is you know that he will be worth it. You know in your head that this is true.

And so when you feel your heart beginning to waver and you think, I don’t know if I want to share in this suffering of Christ, you don’t look at the suffering. Paul’s not looking at the suffering. He says this because he’s looking at the face of Christ in the gospel and saying, oh, yes. Yes, that face is worth it. I want to know Jesus. He’s not looking at his death and saying, well, do you think I can muster up and suffer through what Christ suffered on the cross? He’s just looking at the face of Christ on the cross and saying, he did that for me.

He is so glorious and so beautiful. He’ll take me through anything, and it’s worth it. Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. This is the last thing that Paul wants to tell them. The big point that it’s all leading up to. And he says, this is where you need to be. You need to see Christ with this heart. This is what his love has been worth. He’s worth an all-consuming affection. He’s worth a devotion at all costs without any questions. Look at what he’s done for you and may your hearts be consumed with this love as well.

Like I said, I don’t want you to leave this sermon thinking, ah man, I’m doing really bad in this. I want you to leave this sermon thinking of the beauty of Christ and look at what he is worth and let that be an encouragement to you that this is something to press on for, okay? And we’ll come back next week and we’ll look at it again and see, what does this life look like? But for one week, let’s think about the beauty of Christ and the worth of Christ. And may our affections be moved like Paul’s were. Let’s pray.