That's a very important theme, especially for some of you who are younger. We are to follow Christ. I regret that I have not followed Him as well as I would have liked to. I hope to follow Him with a greater dedication in the future. But I'm not saved by my ability to follow Christ. Throughout my life, I've spent a great part of it on the mission field, in the middle of wars, dangers, terrorists, jungles, and mountains. Done many things in the name of Christ, risked many things in the name of Christ, and if I died right now, I would go to heaven, but not for any of those reasons. If I died right now, I would go to heaven because 2,000 years ago, the Son of God died for this sinner who deserves hell. It's a very important thing to understand. Jesus is not simply All that we need. He's all that we have. Apart from Him, we have no part with God. Before I talk about the main subject tonight, I want to make that very clear, especially to your young heart. Those who are saved are saved because of what Christ has done. It's not 99% Christ and 1% us. It's all of Christ. You see, Adam, in one sense, is the father of all of us. And Adam was under a covenant. Adam was to obey God. Adam failed. And Adam fell. And with Adam, we also fell. Now, our great problem is this. We were under some severe conditions. First of all, the law required that you and I live perfect lives. Perfect lives. You haven't done that. Neither have I. But that wasn't our only problem. We were also under a penalty of the law, a penalty of a broken covenant, which demanded our death, eternal separation. In order for us to be saved, someone had to come as our substitute, another head of humanity, of a new humanity, a last Adam, a second man. And that was Jesus Christ, who's the Son of God. All God. God in the truest and most complete sense of the term. And yet, He emptied Himself of His privileges and He became a man. And He walked on this earth as a real man. And He did two things for His people. First of all, He obeyed all the stipulations of the covenant that they did not obey. He obeyed everything that the law demanded. But then he also went to the cross and on the cross he bore the sins of his people and suffered under the penalties of the covenant that we had all violated. He died in our place. Now, young person, if you don't remember anything tonight, remember this. Do you know what the greatest problem in the Bible is? the greatest problem in all of Scripture. And if you're a philosopher, it's the greatest problem in philosophy, in theology, in everything. You know what that is? If God is good, he cannot forgive you. Now I want you to think about that. If God is good, he cannot forgive you. And let me put it more theological. Since God is good, how can he forgive you? You say, well, he forgives me because he's loving. Yes, he is loving, but there's another problem. He's just. So imagine that someone, it's a horrible illustration, but it's the best one I have. Imagine that someone came to your house and killed your entire family. And you walked in the door, and that murderer was standing over your family with blood on his hands, and you restrained your vengeance, and you ran across the room, and you knocked him to the ground, and you tied him up, and you called the police. And then the police took him to the jail, and then one day he stands before the judge, and since you live in a small town, everybody's there. And they want to know. They want to see justice. And the judge walks in, and he looks at the criminal that killed your entire family, and he says this, I'm a loving judge, slow to anger, abounding in loving kindness. Therefore, you're free to go. What would you say? Would you say, oh, that was wonderful. What a beautiful demonstration of mercy. No, you would stand up screaming. You would write the Congress. You would write senators. You would write the newspaper. You would say that there's a judge on the bench that's far more corrupt than the criminals he sets free because a judge is supposed to do justice. Well, see, there's our problem. Justice demands our death. And when I say justice, I'm not talking about some law that's over the head of God that he has to obey. No, God's justice. God is a just God. You say, well, he's a loving God. Yes, he is a loving God, but he will not love in a way that violates his justice. There's perfect harmony in God. He's not just going to do one thing that's in agreement with part of Him and in disagreement with another part of Him. God exists in perfection and perfect harmony. So when He shows love, that love must be just. And so how does He do it? That's the greatest question in the entire Bible. And He does it this way, by sending His Son. By sending His Son. Was He just? Yes. He punished our sin in the person of His Son. Was He loving? Yes. He punished our sin in the person of His Son. God absorbed the justice we deserved. When Jesus was on that cross, you know what, young people? A lot of people think They think, well, the Romans beat up Jesus really bad, and then they nailed him to a tree, and he died. And through that, our sins are paid for. Well, that was part of it, but only a tiny part of it. Our sins weren't paid for simply because a bunch of Romans beat up Jesus. Our sins were paid for because when He was on the cross, He bore our sin, and all the wrath of God, all the holy hatred of God against evil fell down upon the head of His Son and crushed Him. The prophet Isaiah said, it pleased the Lord to crush Him. It doesn't mean that God the Father took pleasure in crushing His Son. It means this, that the only way to save you was for someone to die under your judgment, under the judgment of God. Sometimes people will ask me a question. Or they'll come up to me, especially young believers, and they'll go, I'm saved. I'm saved. And I'll say, you're saved from what? Well, I'm saved from sin. I said, sin wasn't after you. Sin was your friend. And they'll say, well, then what am I saved from? You're saved from God, from the justice of God. In one way, we could say it this way, you're saved from God, you're saved by God, and you're saved for God. And you're saved by trusting in Christ. Not by works, not by becoming a missionary, not by risking your life on the foreign field. No. Not even by starting a bunch of orphanages. No, you are saved because you recognize you have no hope whatsoever except the person of Jesus Christ. Now having said that, let's go to Philippians for a moment. Chapter 3. And we're going to be looking at verse 1. Let's read verse 1. Philippians 3, verse 1, "'Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things is no trouble to me and is a safeguard for you. Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of the false circumcision. For we are the true circumcision who worship in the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh.'" Let's just start at the beginning. First of all, he says, "'Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord.'" Once you think about this, that sounds really spiritual. But Paul is writing this letter from prison, and the Philippians are suffering persecution. How can they rejoice? How can any of us rejoice? There's only one true way to have constant joy. Three words. He says, rejoice in the Lord. In the Lord. If you're a thinking person, now I say that because there's not many thinking people left in the world today, especially in the United States of America. But if you're a thinking person, you'll think about a lot of things. You'll think about what could be coming around the corner. That's not always wonderful. You'd be thinking about even death. Yes. Everyone in this place will die if the Lord does not come back. None of us is getting off this planet alive. We're all going to die, and some of us are going to die young, and some of us are going to die old. There's a lot of things to think about that would take away our joy. A lot of things. Let me give you an example. When I was a little boy, well, I was 17 years old, and we were working on our horse farm. And my dad and I were building a fence, and we were running some wire. And all of a sudden, my dad screamed. He was a big man. He was strong. He screamed. I turned around. I saw him falling. I caught him. I fell to the ground with him. I rolled him over. My father was dead. Rejoice. No, you can't rejoice. How can you rejoice? You're young and you're strong. One day you'll be old and weak and your body will not be your friend. It will hurt you every morning and every night. Rejoice. How can I rejoice? Rejoice. Yeah, but when I look in the mirror, I see so many moral failures. How can I rejoice? There's only one way in the Lord. There's a famous play I had to read about and view in the university, Waiting for Godot. It's a very important play, Waiting for Godot. And the whole stage, usually, when you see this play, whether it's in New York or Paris or wherever you see it, it's basically kind of two men on a stage, and the ground is gray. And the bench is gray. And the background is gray. And there's an old tree that's dead and withered and gray. And then there's two men, old and withered. And it's like, when you really think about the essence of things, there's little reason to rejoice. The moment we're born, we're dying. By the time you reach 25, 30, you begin to realize that a lot of the dreams that you had as a child, they're just not going to come true. There'll be failures and pain. Yeah, there'll be laughter and joy. But altogether, if you think very, very well, you know it's very difficult. The greatest thinking man, Solomon, He said joy wasn't really that reasonable. You know, sometimes you've probably seen paintings in the Middle Ages of priests that are standing there in their dark robes, or maybe sort of a Beckett-type atmosphere where you see a guy standing there and he's holding a skull in his hands. And he's just looking at it. And you think, wow, they sure had a morbid interest in death. It would probably do us well to have something more of an interest in death. They didn't have a morbid interest in death. What the painting is saying is that they're contemplating that they're mortal. If you're young, you become old. If you're strong, you become weak. If you're beautiful, not so much in the end. Do you see that? Even you young guys, do you see that? And that's why people would stand there and say, why am I here? I remember when my dad died in my arms, it was like, hold it. Everything stopped. If I'm strong like him, and that's what I always wanted to be, I'll be dead like him. If I'm successful like him, I will lose all the success. If I fall in love, it'll die. Where do I find joy? I remember just going to the university every day, every day, studying, doing well in school, and staying drunk most of the time. Why? Why? Why? How can someone rejoice? You look at the world today. You look at the news. I don't recommend it. We kind of have to. How do you rejoice? The answer is always the same. In the Lord. In the sovereign God who has purchased His people. But is He trustworthy? By His own blood He did it. That proves Him trustworthy. Rejoice. Rejoice. in the Lord. And that's what Paul said. And, brethren, finally, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things again is no trouble to me, and it is a safeguard for you. Now, what is he going to write? Something, apparently, that he's been talking to them about quite a bit. As a matter of fact, if you look in most of Paul's epistles, you see the same thing. He's constantly reminding them of something. And what is it? Well, it's what I started with. Christ is everything. And outside of Christ, there's nothing. That's not just some theological statement. I'm not just saying that because I'm a preacher and I'm behind a pulpit or we're in church. No. The only salvation that exists is in the person and work of Jesus Christ, and that's it. And Paul had to constantly remind even believers of this truth. Why? Because we ourselves begin to stray from that idea and begin to think, you know, that I've got to add something to my salvation. That it's Jesus, but if I want to stay in good graces, I need to do this and that and this and that. And we begin to heap upon our Christian faith other requirements. And we have to always remember, even though there are commands to obey, there's an ethic to follow. We always have to remember our standing before God, our good, great, safe standing before God is in the person and work of Jesus Christ and nothing else. Nothing else. Now, Paul has to remind them, not only because we have a tendency to go astray, but he has to remind them Because throughout the last 2,000 years, this is where the false prophets and the false teachers attack. Christ is not enough. You need man. The works of Christ are not enough. You need the works of man. And today, the great battle, the Word of Christ is not enough. We've got to go out there and we've got to find words. The wisdom of men. Even the wisdom of men who started their wisdom in defiance of God and declaring that they hate Christianity. We've got to go get their wisdom and bring it into the church in order to function. And Paul's saying no, no, no. None of it. It's Christ alone. Now, I want you to look at something. Paul in verse 2, he uses some really strong language here. There's just language not stronger than this. Paul, let me put it this way, he's not taking prisoners. He's decapitating everyone. Paul fiercely guarded the doctrine of Christ alone. That everything is Jesus Christ. Those who would teach In a different way, He calls them dogs. Even today, if you're in Palestine, you do not want to call anybody a dog. If you want to get in a fight, you want to get your head cut off, call somebody a dog. There is nothing worse. There's no harder language that you could use against another person. in the time of Paul than to call them a dog. As a matter of fact, these false teachers that were coming in were probably religious Jewish people who had said that they believed in Jesus as the Messiah, but more what they were doing was just assimilating Jesus into their own religion. They were adding Jesus to what they already had. And Paul said, they're dogs. Now, do you know what Jews in the first century called Gentiles? Dogs. He's saying even though they're of the seed of Abraham in the sense of being the flesh and blood of Abraham, they're no more than pagans if they tell you you need something other than Jesus Christ and His finished work on Calvary. They're dogs. And he goes on, they're evil workers. Workers of iniquity. Workers of evil. Do you know the most evil thing a person can do? The most evil thing a person can do in the mind of God. Well, let's just stop for a minute. I want you to keep thinking. Do you want to really get on my bad side? If you punch me, not a problem. Won't be my first rodeo. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. You throw me around, not going to bother me a bit. You touch my child, I'll chase you into hell. Don't touch my child. What's the worst, most evil thing that you can do in the mind of God? Is depreciate His Son. Think small thoughts about His Son. Put His Son somewhere down in second, or third, or fourth, or fifth. You don't even have to do that. Say Jesus is number one alongside this. You will still gain for yourself the wrath of God. In the mind of God, the Son is everything. You want to be honored by God? Then honor God's Son. You want to be loved by God? Love God's son. In many cultures around the world where I've lived and been, especially in South America, also in Africa, if you love a man's son, that son can invite you to his house. And when you walk in the door, you're family. Why are you family? Because you love the esteemed son. You want to get on the bad side of a South American or an African father, you do something to that son. The son is everything. That's why John says in 1 John, he who has the son has life. He who does not have the son of God does not have life. It's all about the son. And here's what I want you to see. Young people, does Christianity have commands? Yes. Does Christianity have rules? Yes. Should we obey them? Absolutely. But here's what you need to understand. Christianity is far more than rules. It's far more than an ethic. It's far more than law. It is loyalty to the Son. It is appreciation and love for the Son. It is faith in the Son. It is seeing the Son as the Father sees the Son. He's everything. He is everything. Why are you going to heaven? The Son. Why do you do what you do? The Son. Why are you willing to suffer? The Son. Would you give your life? Yes, for the Son. It's all about the Son. Everything is about the Son. Everything. So there, He calls them evil workers. And then He calls them false circumcision. Now, in order to understand this, I want you just to hold your place in Philippians and run over to Ezekiel for a minute. In Ezekiel 36, we see that there's been a judgment upon the nation of Israel because of their idolatry. They have been exiled. But now, in Ezekiel 36, God is going to give promises of bringing back a redeemed people. Bringing back a people. And this applies also to the New Covenant. And I want you to see, what He's going to do here is He's going to describe something. Have you ever heard the term born again? There's probably no term in the whole Bible that's been more misused by the American quote-unquote Christian than that term. You know, bless God, I've been born again. Which for most people means one time they prayed a prayer and asked Jesus into their heart. That's not what born again means. Born again is describing the doctrine of regeneration. to make something that is dead alive. And so the Bible says that we are dead in our trespasses and sins. Have you read that in Ephesians chapter 2? Dead in our trespasses and sins? Do you want to know what that really means? In which you formerly walked. Because you can say you understand that, but you really don't understand it. It's pretty grotesque. So imagine you're a cadaver. It's a dead body. A rotten, putrid, dead body. laying at the bottom of a lake that was formed from the vile, putrid material coming out of you, a sewer created from your own body. and you're utterly and totally dead to God, no love in your heart whatsoever for Him, but you are animated by the devil, and through that animation, you walk around in your own putrefaction, you walk around in your own rot and stink as a dead, rotting corpse. That's what that means. You see how preachers can preach things and it just doesn't hit home? because they're not willing to go low. So that's what a person is in Adam. That's what a person is before they come to know Christ. OK, so that's what Israel was. It was full of idolatry. It was dead to God. It was worshiping idols. It was committing immorality. And because of that, Israel is exiled. But then look what God says that he's going to do. Let's go to Ezekiel. And in chapter 36, look at verse 23. 36, 23. I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which you have profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in their midst. Then the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord God, when I prove myself holy among you in their sight. Look at 22. Therefore say to the house of Israel, thus says the Lord God. It's not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I'm about to act. but for My holy name." So God is going to do something. He's going to save Israel because of Israel? No, in spite of Israel. Is He going to save them so that everyone will glory in Israel? No. He's going to save them so that everyone will glory in Him when they see His power of salvation. Okay? Now, look what He says. Now here's what I'm going to do. I'm in verse 24, and there's a personal pronoun, first person pronoun, I, that always doesn't come out in the Greek text. But I'm going to put it in the Hebrew text or the English text. But I'm going to put it in there so that you'll see the emphasis in verse 24. God speaking, for I will take you from the nations. I will gather you from all the lands and I will bring you into your own land. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. Moreover, I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you, and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh, and I will put My Spirit within you, and I will cause you to walk in My statutes." Who's doing the work there? God. Who's displaying His power? God. You are passively being acted upon. That's regeneration. That's being born again. In God's sovereign election, if you're a Christian, He looked at you when you were dead in your trespasses and sins. When you were walking around in your own putrid filth animated by the devil, He said, now I will get glory for my name. You see, God doesn't save the best of the best, He saves the worst of the worst. Because He gets more glory. And He acts. And what does He do? He takes that heart of stone that is dead to Him. And He makes it alive. He takes it out. Replaces it. with a heart of flesh. You say, well, flesh in the Bible is usually used negatively. Yes, it is, but not in this case. Here's the difference. Imagine that I had a statue of stone, of a man of stone. I could punch him. I could kick him. I could pinch him. I could do anything I wanted to him. What's he going to do? Nothing. He cannot respond to stimuli. Why can he not respond to stimuli? He's stone. But if we turn that stone into living flesh, then He can respond to stimuli. We were dead in our trespasses and sins, and the only thing we responded to was sin. Because we loved it. Because we were animated by the devil. But when God takes His children, when He converts someone, when He makes someone a Christian, He gives them a new heart. And that heart now is stimulated by God. It can respond to God. He cuts away that calloused flesh, and there's a living heart. Now, let's go back to Philippians. And in verse 2, he talks about the false circumcision. These are people whose hearts are like stone. But they have a lot of religion. And don't fool yourself. There's a lot of people like that. Don't fool yourself. It's very easy to fool yourself on this. There are a lot of religious people, even in Reformed Baptist churches. But their hearts have never been animated. And that's what we're going to talk about tonight. They can know the catechism, and that's wonderful. All the children should know the catechism. They can know the confession and agree to it, but their heart is still dead. You see. They can glory in their religion. They can glory in the fact they're Reformed. They can glory in the fact they're not like all these other churches out there that are running wild. But they're still not alive. So the question is, what are you? Are you alive? Or are you dead? Has God done a work in your heart? Or are you just proud about the fact you've got good theology? It's a very important question. So now, he says in verse three, he gives us here one of the most beautiful descriptions of a Christian in the entire Bible. It's beautiful. And he says, first of all, that we, the Christians, are the true circumcision. That means we have more than just a bunch of rules. We have more than just a catechism. We have more than just a confession. We're more than homeschoolers. We're more than young boys who work on farms and girls who dress like Pride and Prejudice. We're more than that. Something's happened to us. Our hearts have been changed. We truly belong to Him. Now, here's the thing. How do you know your heart's been changed? How do you know that you're the true circumcision? How do you know not only that you belong to Him, but He belongs to you? And that's something very important, young people. Listen to me. I hear all the time people saying, I know Jesus. I know Jesus. And I go, yeah, but does Jesus know you? I remember the first time I used this illustration is when President Barack Obama was in office. And I told someone, I said, so let's say that I drive about five hours and go up to the White House and, you know, whatever, the wall there, the fence around it, and try to make my way through. What's going to happen? Someone's going to stop you. And I said, but what if I tell them, no, no, no, no, it's OK. I know Barack Obama. I know him. We're good friends. Am I going to get in? Are they going to let me in? No, they're not going to let me in. But if Barack Obama walked out of the White House and went, hey, hold it. Hey, yeah, let him in. I know him. That's Paul. I know him. Am I going to get in? No army in the world is going to stop me. And that's the same way. That's what I want you to see. It's so important. You say, you know, Jesus, does Jesus know you? Because he will say to many on that day, depart from me. I never knew you. That's serious. But my dad knew you. My mom, she knew you, she went in. And Jesus will respond, but I never knew you. And see, the word, know, in Greek is kinosko, which in Greek, the meaning is, the important thing is the Greek idea, they're drawing it just from the Hebrew idea, yada, which means more than information. It's talking about relationship and intimacy. So one day when you walk, you stand there in the judgment and you say, I knew you. Jesus may look at you and say, but I didn't know you. Lord, you had to. You're omniscient. You know everything. No, no, you don't understand the word no. I never knew you. Did we talk? Did we walk together? Those 25 or 35 or 40 years, 80 years of your life, did we commune? Was I your life? Well, you were part of it. No, I'm not a part of anything. I'm everything. Did we? We never did that. Now, he goes on, he says, for we are the true circumcision. Now he's going to show us how we can know that we're the true circumcision. How can we know that we're Christian? And he goes on and he says, who worship in the spirit of God. Now, stop. And just ask yourself a question. You say, well, I worship. Yeah, we sang hymns. That's wonderful. But that's not what he's talking about. Are you prompted in your walk with Christ to worship Him? Do you delight in Him? When no one's looking, do you think about Him? Do you sometimes maybe even get out of bed at night? You can't sleep. And you just want to worship. even when you sing as bad as I do? Do you find sometimes just sitting in a chair in the morning and just thinking about Him so appreciative of all that He is and all that He's done? Does He fill your thoughts at times? Do you worship Him? Do you? Or is that totally foreign idea to you? It's just like, I don't even know what this guy's talking about. I mean, I go to church. Do you find yourself enraptured at times? Do you find your heart drawn out of thinking thoughts about him? You know, it's really hard to describe the idea of a young man in love. I suppose you could write it from so many different angles, sociologically, in psychology, and in so many different areas. And most of us couldn't write those theses about what does it mean for a young man to be in love. But boy, when a young man's in love, he knows it, and pretty much everyone else knows it. You may not be able to define it, but you can see. He's in love. His friends will say, look, could we talk about something else? Football, hunting, anything. His dad looks at him and says, you know, I just need to go get a two before and hit him over the head with it. He's out of his mind. There's something there. You can tell. This young man at least thinks he has found his love. How would people describe your relationship with Jesus Christ? Do you ever talk about him to anyone else? Almost never? Shouldn't that be like a read at least a warning sign to you? Almost never? You never talk about who He is? How great He is? What He did for you? How He's helped you? There's never a sense of, wow, my heart is so full. And that's not to say that the greatest Christians don't have dry times, because they do. But what I'm saying is, I mean, He's everything. He made the world. He died for his people. And if you've truly trusted in him, the Holy Spirit has regenerated your heart, made your heart alive, and not only that, he doesn't leave you even with the regenerate heart. The Holy Spirit continues to abide with you. And what does he do? He promotes thinking about Jesus. He promotes thoughts about Christ. He promotes worship. He promotes obedience. Do you see? Is that in you? You know how young people always want to be treated like old people? Want to be treated like an adult. Well, I'm treating you like an adult. You say, well, I know Jesus, but I'm only 13. I don't care. If you're 13 and you know Jesus. You're going to have thoughts about Jesus. You're going to worship Jesus. You're going to pray to Jesus. And even when no one's looking, you're going to talk about Jesus and you're going to be just like some of us old dudes. And what you're going to lament the fact that your mind is filled with so many other thoughts other than Jesus. You see. Do you worship him? Do you? Do you feel prompted to do it? Do you lament when your heart is dry? Has something happened to you? You see, I could come here and give you the scholarly definition of regeneration and leave and everyone's not affected, but that's not why I'm here. I'm here to get in your heart. To get in your mind. Is this real? Is it real? He says, we are the true circumcision who worship in the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus. Do you glory in Christ Jesus? The word glory is often associated with boasting. Do you boast about him? Do you talk about him? You know. It's always funny, especially in boxing. I like boxing. Especially in boxing, when a guy becomes a great boxer, what happens? Man, everybody in the whole community is his friend now, right? He travels somewhere. He's got 30 other people with him, right? And then some guy, his boast is what? I know Muhammad Ali. I know Muhammad Ali. Some of you youngsters, he was the greatest boxer who ever lived. I know Muhammad Ali. That's their claim to fame. I mean, they may be polishing shoes over in the corner and live in a box, but one time I polished Muhammad Ali's shoes. That's their boast. I know Muhammad Ali. Or I guess you young people would say today, I know LeBron James or I know this person or that person. I don't know because I don't know anybody famous. That's who you boast in. That's what gives you your street cred. That's what, I mean, that's what makes you something. Do you see that? I boast in that. I know them. Do you boast in Christ? Is he the thing that makes you somebody? Is He the one you identify with? I know Christ. I know Christ. Christ knows me. I used to love those old preachers who would just all of a sudden, you know, we just have too many brainiacs today, don't we? There's so many scholars. I just love those preachers who would just push back, clear off a spot, and pitch a fit. And just say, let me tell you about my Jesus. And then it was every man for himself. Because it was going to be 40 minutes of a whirlwind with the Hammond organ going and everything else. But you knew when it was all done that that man in that pulpit, his boast was Jesus. You see that? Is He your glory? Is he your glory? Is he your boast? It's a very important question. And he goes on, and put no confidence in the flesh. Zero confidence in the flesh. It's not 99% Jesus and 1% me. It's, I know what I was. Dead in my trespasses and sins. And if even now, I'm 60 years old, 30 what? How many now? Almost 40 years of preaching. If I was judged on the best moment of my best day to determine whether or not I got to heaven or hell, I would go to hell. I have contributed nothing to my salvation except my sin. No confidence in the flesh. I did something very dangerous one time. I stopped somebody in the middle of their praying. A young man came down, it was in one of those churches where people would come down in the front and stuff, and I was praying and he was praying and he just said, Lord, I just want you to give me what I deserve. And I just... He looked at me, I said, Son, don't you ever pray that again. Don't you ever pray that again. Because you deserve one thing, Son. To split hell wide open. That's all you deserve. And the true Christian knows that. I'll never forget, I'm half Croatian, Matijevic. And so most of my family is very Catholic on my Croatian side. I had one uncle who became kind of high Lutheran. Toward the end of his life, as I would talk to him, you could understand he had a real understanding of the gospel. He read Luther, he had a real understanding of his own sin and his need of Christ. And when he died, I went to his funeral. And I'll never forget it. The priest was, Lutheran pastor was standing up there, his robe and everything, and he went on for probably 20 minutes or half an hour about how wonderful my uncle was. And my uncle was wonderful. about how he served widows, and how he worked on the church, and how he cleaned the church, and how he did all these things. And I'm sitting back there becoming more and more angry, thinking, this preacher is going to tell everybody that my uncle is in heaven, because he's a good man. And he went on, and on, and on, and I got madder, and madder, and madder. It's one of those times when your wife looks at you and puts her hand on your leg like, don't. Don't even think about it. It's a funeral. And when he got done, all of a sudden he got real solemn and he goes, yes, he was a good man. And right now he is in heaven. For none of the reasons that I have mentioned in the last 30 minutes, he's in heaven because Jesus Christ died for sinners who deserve hell. I went up and told him, you know, I was about to punch you and now I want to hug you. It was a beautiful change. He lured us in, is what he did. You see, one of the things, people always ask me this question, they go, Brother Paul, why is it that, you know, why don't, why didn't Christ, just the moment we're saved, just make us perfect? Because sin is such a horrible thing to have to live with as a Christian. So many failures. I've thought about it a great deal. Have you ever had, like, one good day in a hundred? You know, one good day when you get up early, you read your Bible for an hour, you pray, you witness to everybody, and by the end of the night, what are you doing? Patting yourself on the back and judging all the other believers, wondering why they can't do the same thing when you've only done it. That's the first time you've ever done that. Our tendency to self-righteousness is unbelievable. But let me tell you something. The fact that we as believers, even sincere believers, believers who want more, must still lament their sin in one way is a beautiful thing in that it throws us back on Christ. It throws us back on Christ, that Christ is all we have. Now, when you hear about sanctification, believers, sanctification is what? Okay? Santos, holy, hacer, hacer, to grow, to make holy, to become holy. And it's the idea that as we grow in our Christian life, we're becoming more and more like Christ, which means we're becoming more and more holy. There's no problem with that doctrine. That's a real doctrine. It's true. But there's a part of it that's left out. And because it's left out, a lot of believers really can't see what's going on. I think I would probably speak for all the older guys here that have been Christians for a long time, and say that probably when we began, we expected to be a lot more holy now than we are. We expected to have made a lot more progress than we really have made. So where I expected to kind of go like that, it's been kind of, you know, like going from Roanoke to Floyd, you know, it just goes up and down. But there is something in my life that's a part of sanctification that's very neglected that has grown straight up. It has totally skyrocketed. And I think you're going to see the same for yourself. Through all these struggles and failures, two steps forward, three steps back, there's something that has grown in me like a rocket. the recognition of my need of Jesus Christ. When I first started, oh, I said, you know, Jesus is everything. Jesus is everything. I went along with the preacher. I would have played the Hammond organ if I could have done it. Jesus is everything. He really is. And I meant it, but I didn't understand it like I understand it now. I can see it so much more clearly. And little by little, this idea of self-righteousness, little by little, this idea of self-dependence is just crushed. You know, Jesus said, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn. That seems strange, doesn't it? The Christian life is something like a paradox. It's conflicting in some ways. That we're to be the most joyful people on the face of the earth, and we're to be the most mournful people on the face of the earth. How do you put those two things together? Well, I believe you put them together this way. Jesus said in Mark chapter 1, when he first steps on the scene, repent. For the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Repent and believe the gospel. Now, both those commands, repent and believe, are in present tense. Go on repenting. Go on believing. And that's what the Christian life is. It's not just, oh, I did that 20 years ago. No, I repented 20 years ago, and I'm still repenting today. I believed 20 years ago, and I'm still believing today. And so if you put repentance, faith, joy, and sorrow all together, this is what you get. Let's say, I'll just use myself as an example. Let's say, so I'm a law student at the University of Texas and I hear the gospel. And in that message, I see God in a way that I've never seen Him before. And because I see God in a way I've never seen Him before, I see myself in a way I've never seen me before. And what does it do? It brings sorrow. Sorrow. But in that sorrow, I look away from myself and what do I see? I see Christ and the cross as I've never seen Him before. And what happens? Joy. But then as I walk the Christian life, that continues. Don't think that stopped. As I walk the Christian life, what happens? As I walk throughout my many, many years now, I see more and more of God. Which means I see more and more of me. Which means my sorrow keeps going greater and greater and greater. But this sorrow turns my eyes from me onto Christ, which causes my joy to increase. So as my sorrow increases, my joy increases. So at the end of my life, hopefully, I'm praying about making it to 91. But with the news today, I'm not really sure I want that prayer answered. At the end of my life, I hope to be far more broken and contrite than I am now. And far more joyful than I could have ever imagined. Why? Remember what he said? Rejoice in the Lord. So now, here's something else that happens in this. There's something of a transaction that goes on. The young believer, a lot of times, is only happy because he did something right. Because he thinks he performed. He did something right. He witnessed. He prayed. He was good. He was, well, you know what I mean. The older believer, and because this young believer, his joy comes from his performance, his joy is like this, isn't it? Up and down, up and down. But this old guy, that would be me now, I gave up on that. My joy is not in my performance. It's in the Lord. And the Lord never changes so that joy is constant. So, the question comes down to this. Do you know Him? Does He know you? Has He worked in your heart in such a way that you have a high esteem for Him and no esteem for your own righteousness? That you boast in Him. He is my Savior. I am not my Savior. See, that's the problem with every ism outside of the gospel. It's all about man saving himself. It never works. It is just a broken record. I've lived long enough to see this play out so many times, and it always fails. True Christianity is Christ is my only hope. And Christ is all I need. So if you're troubled, you need to probably talk to your parents, talk to your pastor. Or if you need to talk tonight, I can talk to you in the presence of another elder or deacon or something. But away with just being religious and away with just having sound theology. Christianity is not less than sound theology, but it is more. You see? Do you have that more? Are you rejoicing in the Lord? All right, let's pray. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for your many kindnesses. And I pray, Lord, that your word would penetrate the heart of people. bringing encouragement for those who need encouragement, and bringing, Lord, conviction for those who need conviction, teaching and reproof, correction, rebuke. Lord, you know. In Jesus' name, amen.