Paul's confidence is not in what he was done. 
Of any man, he could boast about his keeping the law and family line.

Paul's Confidence
Philippians 3:3-7
By Sean Kelly

And so Paul, I think, is making the argument here that if we could earn our righteousness, if we could do these things to please God, if these things were necessary for us to be righteous before God, I certainly would be preaching them, because I understand, and I was doing that. And so it's adding more weight to his argument that my argument is, don't have confidence in the flesh.

Rejoice in the Lord Jesus Christ. Put your confidence in him. And I know what I'm talking about.

So Paul could have had confidence in the flesh. And then .2 here.

And this is. We're going to spend a lot of time on because there's a lot in here. But it's Paul's immaculate resume.

We have been interviewing people at my work, so resumes have been in the forefront of my mind recently. So I think that's why I chose the word. But his resume.

Philippians three, five and six. He was circumcised the 8th day of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, of a Hebrews, of Hebrews, concerning the law of Pharisees, concerning Zeal persecuting the Church, concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless. Now, as you read through this, we come to understanding that these are all human standards.

These are all what the Jews would say, hey, you need to do these things, and you're going to be right with God. Paul's listed them in that regard. He's not saying that because he did these things, it makes him better before God.

He's saying in human terms, as the Jews were looking at it, Paul was doing everything right, everything. The Jews said, this is what a good Jew is supposed to be. This is how you earn your righteousness before God.

And Paul's just giving his credentials, saying, I've done all this stuff. I've met their standard. They're saying, you need to do this.

I've done that. Let me bring you my conclusion after that. So we're going to look at his resume here because these are all important things.

So first thing he says, you have circumcised the 8th day. Now, why is that important? Okay, so Jewish law, you're commanded to do that. That's important.

But why was this important to a Jew? You didn't do it. You weren't part of God's plan. You weren't part of God's nation.

You were outside the covenant, outside the promise. And so not only was it commanded, but this was the sign that you belonged with God's people. You belonged as part of them.

It's interesting, too. We go back to verse three where Paul says we are the circumcision who worship God in the spirit. Now, he's talking to gentiles here.

Many of them weren't physically circumcised. But he's saying you're the circumcision because you're worshiping God, because you're doing the right things before God. You're trusting in him and his righteousness instead of trusting in yourself.

And he's saying, he's making a point here that makes you circumcised, that makes you part of God's program, that you have placed your trust in Jesus Christ. It's not something you do, it's something God has done for you. So he's making this point here now, though, but being circumcised the 8th day that he was a Jew.

Now, this was a contentious point in the church, if you don't already know that, we're going to look at acts 15, one through two, first of all. So one through two and five. I put them all together.

Matt, go ahead and read those. Unless you had no small descent that Paul and Barnabas about his question. But some of the sections woke up saying it is.

So you can see this is in the early church. Acts 15 is very early along here. Some of the Jews said, look, the gentiles aren't being circumcised.

They're not keeping the law. How can they be right before God? How can they be part of the church if they're not following what the law says? And Paul and Barnabas were arguing with them and they said, let's go to Jerusalem. Let's go talk to the apostles, the elders, let's get this cleared up.

I didn't put the conclusion of that, but I wanted to show you that this was a contention there. The conclusion was that James got up and said, we have no such custom in the church. He's basically saying this is not necessarily to be part of God's program.

This is not necessarily necessary to be a Christian. This is not necessary to be righteous before God. But this is something that was coming up, and I think it's still coming up.

You go back to Galatians six, and that's our next passage. Let me read this. This is a little bit later on.

Lynn, go ahead. As many as desire to make good showings in the flesh, these will. So this was later on.

He's writing the Galatians, and this is still an issue. There's people, there's Jews coming to church that are saying, you still need to be circumcised. And here he actually gives three reasons why.

First of all, that if they're circumcised, when the Jews start persecuting, they can say, oh, wait, no, look, we're circumcised. We're Jews, we're okay. We may be doing things a little bit differently, but we're still part of being under law.

So they're making that excuse. You see that in verse twelve, verse 13, he talks about that they try to keep the law, but they can't do it. But that's their goal, is that they're trying to keep the law.

They're trying to earn their righteousness through doing the things that God prescribed in the law instead of trusting in Christ's righteousness for them. And then thirdly there, that they may boast in your flesh, that they may say, look, we've converted these people to doing the Jewish thing. They're all Jewish believers now.

Look at what we've done. And there's a boasting in that. So this is still a problem in Galatians six, which is much later than acts 15.

So it's fair to say that in Philippians, this is still coming up, this is still a problem. People are still coming in and saying, you need to do this. You need to follow the law, starting with circumcision.

And add this on, and add this on, and add this on because you can't be righteous unless you start doing this other things. God's not going to favor you. God's not going to show his grace to you unless you're trying to keep up with his law.

And Paul's saying, that's not what's going on. That's not what God's doing. God's righteousness comes from Christ alone.

So first thing he starts out is with being circumcised. And that was a big deal for the Jews. That's your part of the nation.

Paul says, I got that. Then he says the next thing, he's of the stock of Israel. And this is important because being born of a certain group, in this case, being born of Israel, puts you into the nation, puts you into the promise.

And so the Jews just say, this is a good thing. He's from Israel. He's an Israelite.

They took in proselytizer. They were converse to Judaism. But if you were a true Israeli Jew, that was a thumbs up for you.

That was a gold doesn't. And Paul's, I think, is making the point here, though, even though I have that, you don't need that to be right with God. What you need is put your faith and your trust in Christ.

It's not about being of a certain group. I think there was a time in our nation where Americans kind of got a little bit full of themselves. I don't know if you've noticed that, but you go around the world and if you're an American, you have rights.

You are the top of the top. And in God's eyes, that doesn't work. In God's eyes, we're all sinful, we all disobeyed God, we all are under God's wrath.

And it's only because of what Christ has done for us that we can be saved and that we can have the righteousness of God. So let's look at a couple of verses here. Two Corinthians 1122.

Go ahead, Ryan. Second Corinthians. And here in second Corinthians, he's having the same kind of argument here.

Like if you're not doing the Jewish thing, there's something wrong. And he starts off by saying, they're going around saying, look, we're Hebrews, you're gentiles, we're better than you. And Paul is saying, I'm a Hebrew, and I'm not preaching that I'm Israelite, I'm not preaching that I'm born of Abraham.

I'm preaching something different. So just because I'm a Jew doesn't mean I'm saying you have to be a Jew, you have to be right with God. Under God's plan, under way, God does it.

Nathan, your hand has been up for a while. It's actually false. Teachers get somewhere else and stuff like that.

So he's actually in the process of building up his case. That, look, here's who I am, here's what I've done. These guys are attacking me.

It's not what's happening. And actually, this is a section where he's building up. I'm like, them.

And then in the next part he's going. And then I also have this above them that they don't have during such. So it's not actually the issue of whether that's a good point.

That's a good point. But I think, too, for this discussion, too, Paul can say he has that. It's just not different scenario in Romans nine.

We'll read that one. That's a good one here. Romans nine, three through six.

Go ahead, Jonathan. For I could wish that myself were a brethren, that my countrymen, according to the flesh, who are Israelites, whom pertain to the adoption, the glory, the covenant given of the law, the service of God and the promises, whom are the fathers and from whom according to the Christ came, who was overall the eternally blessed God. Amen.

But it's not the word of God has taken no effect, for they are not all Israel who are of Israel. Now, if you make the argument that being a Hebrew puts you in better standing with God, being of the Jewish line puts you in better standing with God, which Paul says I can make if I'm trusting in my flesh, Romans nine says quite the opposite. Paul says, I wish I myself were cursed from Christ for my brethren.

He's saying, I wish that in order for my brethren to save, if I had to give away my salvation, I would do that so that Israel could be saved, so Israel can know God well, if they're already saved, if they're already in the right place with God, because they're Israel. That doesn't make any sense. And then in verse six, there the word has not of God has taken no effect.

But it's not that the word God has taken no effect. They are not all Israel who are Israel. What does that mean? You're either Israel or you're not Israel.

How can you not be all Israel if you're Israel? Well, it's a spiritual Israel as composed to a genetic Israel. Not all those who are born to the nation of Israel, not all the Jews are doing the things God wants them to do because they're not trusting God. They're not trusting in Christ, who, by the way, he know he came from Israel, so they should be following him.

He's their messiah. He's the God who saved them, and they're not putting their faith in him. And so they're missing the boat.

And so just being an Israelite doesn't mean that you have it made with God. But Paul's saying, I could brag about that. I could say, hey, look, I'm an Israelite.

I'm in God's people. I'm blessed by him. Look at me, I'm Paul.

I have some awesome things going for me. He's not saying that my family were Christians for six generations. Yeah, it's not about who your parents were, what family you're born to.

It's, have you placed your faith in Jesus Christ? Are you putting your trust in him for your righteousness, for your salvation? So he goes on to say he's of the stock of Israel, not only that he's of the tribe of Benjamin. Okay, that's great. There are twelve tribes.

You were of one of them, and that's part of Israel. What does that mean? Well, a couple of things. First of all, Benjamin was a prominent tribe in Israel.

There were a lot of benefits about being from Benjamin. It was a prestigious kind of thing to say. It's like me saying, I'm from Wisconsin.

That makes me much better. No, just kidding. But this was something, if you could say you were from Benjamin, that meant something over most of the other tribes.

And so this was like one of the top things to say. But not only that, Paul could trace his line to the tribe of Benjamin because of what happened, because of the captivity and stuff, a lot of Jews, even though they knew they were Jews, lost their direct line. It was a little bit cloudy which tribe you belong to, this one or that one.

Paul said, I'm so much a Hebrew that I know that my ancestors come from Benjamin. There's a line I can trace all the way back there. And so I'm not one of these cloudy Hebrews.

Know you're a Jew, but you're not sure where you're from. I can show you that I'm from Benjamin. That's like, look at know one of the things, I don't follow sports a lot, but I've heard a couple stories here.

Has anybody heard of LeBron James? Okay, maybe I shouldn't ask the question. You've all heard of LeBron James mostly. He has a son who's in college right now, Bronnie.

And there's talk about, know this guy is going to be, he hasn't played as much in college. He hasn't scored a lot of points, but somebody's going to draft him because with Bronnie, they get LeBron because he's probably going to go where his son goes to play with him for the rest of his career. Or maybe the Lakers will draft Bronnie and they'll be together.

Anyway, the idea is, here's NBA royalty. You got LeBron James and he has a son, and we're going to give special privilege to his son because he's the son of LeBron James. And Paul's kind of saying, look, I'm religious royalty here.

I'm from the tribe of Benjamin. Look at, you're. I know you're Jews, and you might be from Gad or you might be from Manasseh or whatever, but I'm from Benjamin and I can prove that from Benjamin.

I'm a Jew of Jews. Here I'm top dog. And that's kind of the idea that he says.

When he says he's from the tribe of Benjamin, he's saying, this is a point the Jew would look at and go, wow, that Paul, he's a good Jew. He's what I want to be. So he says that, then he says, he's a Hebrew of Hebrews.

Well, he just said he's from Israel. He's from the tribe of Benjamin. What do you mean? He's a Hebrew of Hebrews.

I think this means he embodies what a Jew would want to be. That if you look at that, he's not only just a Hebrew, but he's a Hebrew of Hebrews. He's like, I want to be like him.

I want to be a Paul kind of Jew. I want to do what Paul does. I want to act the way Paul does.

I want to understand things the way Paul understands things. He's topping that. Let's look at acts 26 four.

Nathan, go ahead. My manner of life from my youth, which was spent from the beginning among my OWN NAtIon, at Jerusalem, ALl the Jews KnoW. So he's recounting to the.

I think this was before AgriPpa here. And Agrippa was a Jewish king. And he's talking about his prestige here, where he came from.

And he makes this point. He spent his time among his own nation, learning his own customs, doing the things that the Jews wanted to do. In FaCt, it's so good.

All the Jews know my background. They know where I came from. They know my prestige.

They know who I am. There's no doubting that Agrippa, you know who I am, because you're a Jew. And you know where PaUL comes from.

He's that much of a Jew. He's a Hebrew of Hebrews. He's the ultimate example of what a Jewish person aspires to be.

It's just to be like PaUL. So he says, he's a Hebrew of Hebrews. It says, he's a doer of the law concerning the law of PharIsEE.

The PharIsEE here, this was a position of religious prestige. These were the religious leaders in ISRaEL. These were the people who guided the people into what the Jewish laws and customs were.

You listened to the Pharisees and they told you, you wash your hands this way, you walk this way, you do this. You only walk 1.3 miles on the SAbbAth, or you're breaking the law, and they'll explain everything to you.

And Paul says, I was in that group. I was in that religious, prestigious group. I was one of the Rulers over the SpiriTuAlIty of Israel.

Going to a couple of passages there. Acts 23 six. Another reader, please.

Go ahead, Abigail. But when Paul perceived that one part were Sadducee and other Pharisees, he cried out in the council, MeN and brethren, I am a PharIsee. The son of a Pharisee.

Concerning the HOPe and ResurRECTIoN of the deAd. I am JeSus. Now he's being judged before the Jewish SAnhedrIN here.

And part of this is he's going to cause a little bit of chaos in the council. By bringing up something that one group believes and the other group doesn't. And so they can argue over whether he's right or wrong.

But before he does that, look at that. He says, I am a Pharisee. And I'm the son of a Pharisee.

So not only am I part of that group, I grew up in that group. My father was a Pharisee. And I know this life.

I know what this is about. I know everything about being a Pharisee. I'm one of you guys.

Again, he's trying to cause a little conflict. He's a little bit of a troublemaker in this council here. But he can say that honestly.

He can say, this is my prestige. This is where I came from. I was not only in that top religious group.

The people that knew everything. That ruled over what your religious life looked like, but I came up from a family that was in that group. My father was even doing this.

That's how much of a Pharisee I was. And he could say that. And he could have confidence in that.

If that was the way that he earned his righteousness before God. He goes on to say he's concerning Zeal, persecuting the church. So he was Zealous.

In fact, so Zealous, he was persecuting the church. Now, why did I miss a verse? Oh, yeah. Okay, thank you.

26 five. Who wants to read that? Jenny, you want to do that? They were willing to testify that according to the strictest theft of our religion. I lived a pharisee.

So here he's back before Agrippa. This is the passage right after 26 four. I was going to put them together.

And then they kind of made two different points. I separated them. But here he says, if they're willing to testify, they'll tell you I lived according to the strictest sect of Pharisees.

I was so religious. I was in the top group that did everything that you were supposed to do. That followed the law to a t.

We were strict. We followed everything God commanded us. So he's a Pharisee.

Okay, going back to being zealous now, and we go to, he was zealous and he was persecuting the church. Now, how does that go together? Jews didn't like the church. The church was something different.

They weren't preaching the law. They were preaching Grace. They weren't preaching that.

You had to do these things that Paul's listing here to be circumcised, be a Hebrew, follow the law, follow the commandments, teach those. They weren't teaching any of that. They were teaching that you could trust in Jesus Christ and you would be right with God.

And Paul as a Jew before his salvation, saw that and said, that's wrong. I'm standing for God. I'm going to do what's right, and we're going to get rid of this sect called the church.

We're going to get rid of these Christians because they're not following what God commanded us in the Old Testament. That's where the zealous comes in. There.

Now, he was wrong in that. We find out later. But that's what he taught and that's what he believed.

Let's look at a couple of passages. Acts 83. Go ahead, Elizabeth.

So this is part of what he was doing. He went into the house of Christians, arrested them, dragged them off, threw him in prison. That's how serious he was for God.

That's how serious he believed God wanted him to do. Galatians 113. Another reader, please.

Josiah, go ahead. For you have heard of my former conduct in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it. So two things.

How much did he persecute the church of God? It was beyond measure. There was nobody else that was even that zealous for God and that his goal was he was trying to destroy the church. And again, it wasn't because he was a mean, hateful person, although he was a mean, hateful person, but not because he thought that he was thinking he was doing God a favor.

He was doing the right thing for God, that he was serving God and destroying the church. He had a zealously for God. And the Jews approved of this when they were stoning Stephen.

They were all there, and Paul was there standing over and giving his approval. And this was a good thing. According to the Jews, we're killing off this Christian.

Great. Maybe this will stop the church. Maybe this will keep this from going on.

Well, 2000 years later, we're still around here, aren't we, it didn't stop anything. But Paul was zealous. And then the last thing he says in this passage here is that concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.

Now, has anybody ever perfectly followed the law? Okay, Jesus, outside of Jesus, thank you for that theology. Outside of Jesus, have any one of us unable to perfectly follow God's commandments to do everything that God has told us we need to do. I had this up the other day as I was praying like, lord, thank you for your worship.

Grace. Many times while you look at that, even like with the sacrifices, a lot of times the Bible talks about, you can come and bring a sacrifice for an unintentional sin. But if it was intentional, there wasn't a lot of forgiveness there.

How many of us intentionally sin that we know what's right and we still do what's wrong? Yeah, I speak for myself. I'm going to speak for you also. I think we'd be in a lot of trouble if we were still under the law.

We are selfish, self centered, depraved, sinful individuals. And even as saved people, sometimes we act that way, sometimes we revert back. We shouldn't, but we do, and it's hard.

Well, anyway, so Paul's saying here, and I'm getting off track, what he's saying, he's saying concerning righteousness and the law, blameless. It doesn't mean he kept the law perfectly, but this means that his outward appearance before the Jews, he did the things that the Jews wanted him to do. And this wasn't necessarily I followed the Bible, but this was, I followed the traditions.

I followed what was being taught, how we had to do it. I was perfect in that I was doing the Jewish thing. Unfortunately, it wasn't what God wanted to do, but that's what he was doing.

He was following the law. So concerning his righteousness, and this was righteousness that people could see, that people could measure, that people would say, look at Paul. He's keeping the customs.

He's washing his plates the right way. He's been circumcised. He's been going to synagogue every Saturday.

And all this stuff, whatever you fill in there, he was doing that perfectly, and he was blameless. None of the Jews would say, Paul messed up today. They'd be like, Paul, that guy is like, he's so faithful to the Jewish way.

He continues to do it. And again, he misses the point of the righteousness can only come from God through faith in him. But as far as being a Jew, he was doing what the Jews saw was right.

Romans seven, seven through eleven. Olivia, go ahead. Certainly not.

On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law, for I would not have said, you shall not have it. But then, taking opportunity by the commandment, evil desire. For apart from the law, sin was dead.

I was alive once without the law. But when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. And the commandment which was brought, which was to bring life, I found to bring death for sin, taking location by the commandments by eight.

Help me. So Paul in Romans has understood what's going on here. It's not that the law is bad.

It's not that following the law is bad. In fact, if you could perfectly follow the law, you would earn your righteousness before God. The problem is that once we know the law, we see that we don't follow the law.

Once we know what the law is, our eyes are open and it says, hey, you messed up, you didn't do it right. In fact, the law, it seems to be the way Paul teaches that when we have the law, it stirs up our sinful desire, that our sinful desire says, I don't want to do that. I'm not going to do that.

I'm going to do my own thing. It actually produces more sin in us because of the human nature that's in us. And so verse eleven, for instance, he says, for sin, taking occasion by the commandment deceived me and it killed me.

The law didn't help him to be more righteous. The law actually made him see that he was more unrighteous than he thought. Now the Jews are missing this whole point of what the law does.

They're thinking, I can keep the law, I can do the customs, I can act like a Jew. And God's going to look on that and he's going to smile and say, well, you did great. And Paul is saying here now in Romans that, no, you can't.

That's not what the law does. The law shows us our sin and shows us that we need a solution to that. But again, as far as being a Jew, Paul looked like he was doing the right things.

He looked like if anybody's righteous before God, it's Paul. He's walking in the ways the Jews walk. He's doing the things that the law requires.

Paul is that guy. And Paul brings that. Know, in all these things, I don't miss a mark.

According to what these Jewish people are telling you, that you need to be circumcised and you need to put yourself back under the laws of church. If anybody does, that's me. Look at this.

I have the prestige. I have the resume. I have everything that says, as a Jew, I'm doing it right before God.

Then you get to Philippians three seven. But what things were gained to me? These I have counted lost for Christ. And so I put this as Paul's true value.

He doesn't value what's in his resume. He values something else. And we're going to continue this next or two weeks from now.

They start to say the things that were gained him, the things that are, the human accomplishments, the things he did in the flesh, the things he just listed in the last two verses, the things that make him look like he has everything right before God. He says these things, I'm going to count loss for Christ. Why is that? Because he didn't accomplish anything.

Because he wasn't doing good things well, because those things can't bring about God's righteousness. And so what is he going to do with them? Cling to them and say, I'm going to still hold on to them and hope that it's still good enough? No, he understands. It's not.

He understands that his righteousness does not come from who he is, what he's accomplished, what he's done. You as a person can work in a food kitchen seven days a week and can help old ladies across the street with their groceries. And you can even be out there preaching the word of God.

But if you haven't trusted in Christ as your savior, you've missed the point. You cannot put confidence in your flesh. So he's counted loss.

This word counted means to be reckoned or considered. He evaluates what he's done. He's looked at it and said, look, here's who I am.

This is what I've accomplished. This is what it looks like. But I'm going to look at it honestly and say, I have not met God's perfect standard.

And no matter how much good I do, no matter how much I follow the law, no matter how much of a Hebrew, of a Hebrews I am, it doesn't meet what God requires for me. So he counted loss. These things were not sufficient to provide salvation or righteous standing before God.

He couldn't do enough to earn God's righteousness. And then he adds this phrase at the end, for Christ, I count these things lost for Christ. The things which he has in Christ far surpassed what he accomplished in himself.

That's where his trust is. That's where his rejoicing is he's commanding the church. Don't put your confidence in the flesh, but rejoice in Christ Jesus.

Rejoice in what God has done for you. Put your focus on that. And as people might say, well, they don't understand.

They're gentiles. Let's teach them the Jewish way, and then they'll get it. Paul says, no, I get it, and I know better.

I know that I can't put any confidence in my own flesh. I need to put my confidence in God. John MacArthur writes an interesting thing.

I put the quote in here. I don't do this every week, but I like a lot of what MacArthur says. This is in his commentary from page 226.

He says, in this passage, Paul speaks of salvation. I think that should be as a transaction or exchange. He uses business and accounting terminology.

In verse seven, eight. From the heart of the passage, this word, kirdas gain, describes what is in the profit column. The loss is what is in the lost column. And hegeome means to count or to reckon. Paul spent his life accumulating what he imagined was personally earned righteousness that would achieve salvation when he was living as a Jew, doing the Jewish things, being a pharisee, being a Hebrew of Hebrews, this is what he was doing.

He's accumulating this credit with God. I'm going to put this in my gain column here. This is what I've done.

God, look at me. I'm Paul. I'm doing what you want me to do.

But when he met Christ, the apostle realized that those things which are actually in the lost column, he had placed them in the wrong column. It wasn't in the gain column. It was a loss column.

He exchanged them for the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. And so Paul thankfully realized that all the things that he thought he was doing good, all the things that he had going for him, all the prestige, all the actions, everything that was there, wasn't enough. And now he counts those things lost for Christ.

And the next part of the passage talks about what he means by counting loss for Christ. So we're going to look at that next week, but before we do, we got one more passage. Matthew 1344 through 46.

Tithe you haven't read yet. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field which a man found and hid. And for the joy over it, he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field again.

The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, who, when he had found one great price went and sold all that he had for a while. And even up to recently, I didn't quite understand what Jesus was talking about on these parables. But you look at this and you look at salvation being that treasure, or salvation being that one pearl that he wants to buy.

Look what he gives for that. He sells everything. He gives up everything for the sake of having that one pearl or that one treasure.

That's what our salvation is like. We trust in ourselves. We get all this stuff, we get all this possessions, the spiritual possessions.

I've done this. I'm a good person. God's a good God.

He's not going to punish me. There's a lot of people worse than me. I'm not Hitler.

And we make up all these excuses why we're okay before God, and then we come to the truth of what God has done for us and where we truly stand before God and our response ought to be, okay. I'm giving up all that stuff that I thought was good about me, all that stuff that I thought I did for God, and I'm going to embrace what God has done for me. And that's what Paul's saying, this passage, I'm counting all this stuff, all these good things.

And Paul, you know, as wrong as he was as a Jew, he thought he was doing these things for God. Even when he persecuted the church, even when Stephen was killed before him, he thought still he was doing what was right before God and earning that praise from God because of the things that he was doing. When he came to know who Christ was and what Christ did for him, he put that all away and said, I'm not trusting that anymore.

I'm trusting what God has done for me. And so I think that parable makes a little more sense to me. Now, a couple of takeaways here.

Are you trusting in your good actions to earn your righteousness before God? A lot of times, pride and trust go hand in hand. We get prideful about things we do. We get prideful about the good things in our life, and we miss on the fact that it's God working in us.

If we're an unsafe person, they think they're okay, but they need to understand that they're not. And they need Christ's sacrifice for them, for the saved person. Sometimes we think, okay, I'm doing good things.

I'm going to church. I'm serving, I'm being kind to people. I'm helping people out.

God's really proud of what I'm doing. No, God wants you to trust and glorify in him, not in yourselves. So there's nothing we can do in order to meet God's standard for us.

Our only hope is in Jesus Christ. Number two, knowing that we have not met God's standard, but our righteousness is from Christ alone. Our thinking ought to be altered.

Instead of focusing on ourselves and looking for our gain in glory, when you're thinking that you're doing good, when you're thinking you're doing the right things, what tends to happen? You tend to focus on, what can I do next to promote myself, to make myself feel better, to make myself feel more good before God. But when we focus on what Christ has done for us and give him the glory, then our focus shifts to glorifying and serving Christ and putting others ahead of ourselves. And that's what chapter two was talking about.

So this all relates together. Funny enough, as Paul is writing, that your mind be on others, to focus on others, to esteem others better than yourselves, to have Christ's mindset, which was a mindset of sacrifice, of putting aside his glory, putting aside his own prestige and focus and doing what God the Father wanted. And Paul's saying, you have that mindset.

This all relates together that what prevents us oftentimes from having that kind of mindset is that we focus too much on ourselves and what we're doing and what we want to be honored and glorified for. Instead of focusing on giving the glory and giving the honor and trusting in God and having him be our confidence. And that's what Paul, I think, is trying to get to here.

So any thoughts or questions or concerns or comments? Lynn? Go ahead, person. Or that's kind of where I didn't take other kids, I didn't other cattle. That's not true.

Yeah, that's right. Even the good that unsaved people do, I'm fairly convinced from what I've studied and what I understand, that the good that unsaved people do is still for themselves, to make themselves feel good, to make themselves look good, to get the praise of others. There seems to always be a selfish motivation, that the only way that you can do things that are truly good without any of that attached is if you're focused on pleasing God and honoring him and giving him the glory.

And we can sit here and start thinking, oh, I'm doing good. But then that gets back to what that selfish motivation was. Again, we're putting confidence in our own flesh that I'm doing this.

Look at how good I am, instead of saying, look at what God has saved me from and how he's grown me and how he's done this through me and use me as his servant. And I think that's what kind of focus we need to have. Ted, I'll just add to that Bobby's work people just go, my family member died just because they died.

But I also think sometimes you can maybe be the guy person. Dumber doesn't know this, but I think it's a good opportunity when it comes to us in our own lives that we shouldn't shy away from, even with a stranger, to share the gospel with a person because they need it just as much as we need it. Thinking about it just in reaction, you can just kind of listen to a conversation, even to another people, and just be like, well, it's not my bid letter, but you're right there.

And so a lot of times I think we can sort of inject ourselves there and interject and give the gospel there. Just be bold and then God will give us the words. And I think this helps focus us more on giving the gospel because when we start thinking about us and our glory, then we don't want to be associated with people that aren't living for God.

But when we focus on giving God the glory, having our confidence in him, then every opportunity becomes an opportunity to bring praise and glory to God and sharing the gospel and seeing someone saved and all that obviously goes to God's glory just by him saying people just believe what they've been taught and nobody does anything different. Some plant and some water and God gives the increase. The other thing that I thought was interesting you said was that I don't remember how you said it, but made me think, if you look at what worldly philosophy and worldly counseling all this stuff is, where do they start out at? They start out at, you have to love yourself, you have to be kind to yourself.

You have to focus on doing what's best for you first. And Christianity is the opposite. Christianity, you love God, you focus on him, and then you love others around you and you're last in that list.

And they're not the same. The world is telling you one thing like it's all about you and Christianity is saying, no, it's all about Jesus Christ and that's the difference. And guess what? One of them works when it's done and people are faithful and consistent.

It works when we focus on Christ and so we need to remember that anyway. Anything else? Trying to get done early, but you keep asking questions, so it's not my fault. No, I'm just kidding.

What we're going to do before we close in prayer here, I want to give you some instructions I think some of the ladies have already left to go set stuff up but until they have everything set up, if you don't have any business setting up food, let's stay out of the fellowship area just hang out in the auditorium and then when everything's ready we'll have everybody come in because that way you kind of stay out of the way it just makes it a little easier and they don't have to bump around buys especially those of you who have kids, which is mainly me keep your kids out of there so let's go ahead and close in prayer Lemuel, will you close us in prayer, Lord bye bye. Have a good time during our fellowship get together talk pray for us to abide by your word observe it day in, day out pray for us to have a good week. Keep in mind that everything.