I invite you to turn in the Heidelberg Catechism to Lord's Day 23. You can find that on page 224 in the Book of Forms and Prayers or 881 in the Trinity Psalter Hymnal. We're going to be parked on Lord's Day 23 for a few weeks. This is the Lord's Day that deals with justification. that doctrine which John Calvin says is the hinge on which all theology turns, which Luther says is the standing article or the article in the Christian church by which the Christian church stands or falls. It asks the question, how can I be righteous before God, which is really a question not is really a question, how can I come before God in such a way that I will be received and welcomed into heaven rather than rejected and sent to hell? It's a very important question, as you can well imagine. And so that's what Lord's Day 23 deals with. And because it's so crucial and so rich and deep, I wanna spend a few weeks on this. And so I'll read the question and answers. I think if you listen to question and answer 60, you'll see that that rivals for beauty and delight with the first question and answer, what is your only comfort in life and death? Because it's so, so full of Christ, so wonderful as it speaks of how we are righteous before God. So question 59, how does it help you to know, or how does it help you now that you believe all this? And the all is the articles of the Christian faith found in the Apostle's Creed. And here's the answer, that I am righteous in Christ before God and an heir to life everlasting. How are you righteous before God? Only by a true faith in Jesus Christ. Even though my conscience accuses me of having grievously sinned against all God's commandments, of never having kept any of them, and of still being inclined toward all evil, nevertheless, Without any merit of my own, out of sheer grace, God grants and credits to me the perfect satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ. As if I had never sinned, nor been a sinner, and as if I had been as perfectly obedient as Christ was obedient for me. If only I accept this gift with a believing heart. Why do you say that through faith alone you are righteous? Not because I please God by the worthiness of my faith. For only Christ's satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness are my righteousness before God. And I can receive this righteousness and make it mine in no other way than by faith alone. And then if you turn in the word of God to the letter of Paul to the Philippians, chapter three, you'll find that on page 1,249, Philippians three. I'll read the first 11 verses. The plan is to look at it this evening and then again next Lord's Day evening. Philippians 3 beginning of verse 1. Finally my brothers rejoice in the Lord to write the same things to you is no trouble to 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 the 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. That's the reading of God's word. If you've been following the news lately, I'm sure you've heard talk of a no-confidence vote. It's a parliamentary procedure that happens when the majority of the members of parliament lose confidence in the government's ability to govern well. And if that happens, then the MPs vote on the competency of the government and if a majority votes against the government, the government's asked to resign and an election is called or a new government is formed. It's a vote of no confidence in the government. Now it's not likely that many of us, though perhaps some of our young boys and girls will grow up to become members of parliament, but it's not likely that many of us will have the opportunity to cast a vote in that type of parliamentary procedure. But that doesn't mean that we don't cast votes of no confidence. We do it all the time. For instance, you might be planning a road trip, and you look at your car, you see how old it is, and you wonder whether you should actually rent a vehicle rather than take your own. And you decide to do that, and in deciding to rent a vehicle, you are casting a vote of no confidence in your car. You don't trust that your car is able to get you to where you need to go. Or perhaps you're looking at two sports teams and you think that team is probably going to win. And when you choose the one for the winner, you're casting a vote of no confidence in the other. You aren't certain the other team has the ability to pull it off. Or if you're of a more substantial frame and you size up chairs and you think, I wonder if that chair will hold my body. And sometimes you cast a vote of no confidence. I don't think it will. and you go to a more substantial chair. We're casting votes of no confidence all the time, saying we don't trust that, we're not sure about that, we wouldn't stake our life on this or that. We cast no confidence votes. And here in Philippians, the Apostle Paul tells us that in the matter of our destiny, our eternal destiny, when it comes to our standing before God, We must always cast a vote of no confidence in anything except in the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's the message that Paul gives here at the beginning of Philippians 3. It's important, first of all, to notice who Paul is addressing. Well, he's addressing Christians, but he's addressing Christians in the context of some opposition to the gospel. Just notice the vehemence with which he writes at the beginning of verse two. He says to the Christians, look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh. And as you listen to the Apostle Paul, you can see that he's quite agitated as he speaks. There's some rising anger in him as he speaks about these dogs, these evildoers, these mutilators of the flesh. Who in the world is Paul speaking about, and why would he speak so harshly about these people? Well, there was, within the early church, a group of people called the Judaizers. You'll know, of course, that the gospel was first preached in Jerusalem, that the first Christians were Jewish Christians, and before the gospel came to the Gentiles, the church was predominantly Jewish. And then within the church, there was a group of people who said, yes, it is important to believe in Jesus Christ, but it is also important that we maintain fidelity to the Old Testament laws, so that if you were a Gentile, for instance, and you came to faith in Jesus Christ, it was necessary for you to become Jewish in your life. That is, it became necessary for you to not only believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, but also to follow the laws of Moses, particularly, this is where they would hang their hat, particularly on the obligation that the Old Testament had for the circumcision of the males. And so they would say that, Salvation is by Christ. Plus, in addition to Christ, we must be obedient to God's law. And Paul understands that to speak this way about the gospel is to undercut the gospel. No, actually he understands that to speak of the gospel in terms of my right standing before God, depending on what Jesus does, plus on my contributions in any way to whatever degree, to speak that way about the gospel is to destroy the gospel completely. That's why Paul says to the Galatian church, where these Judaizers were also working. He says, why are you turning to another gospel, which is really no gospel at all? And with vehemence there in Galatia, he says, let them be accursed, anyone who does not preach the gospel that I preach, the gospel of free and sovereign grace through Christ alone. That's why Paul speaks with such vehemence. And he says these Judaizers, he says they're dogs. He's not being nasty. You have to understand it within the context here. So in the context, if you were a Jew, part of the people of God, you would always look at Gentiles as something less than you. They were the dogs. And Paul is now saying, no, you Jews who insist on Christ plus your works, you have placed yourself outside the community of the people of God. You are actually now Gentiles. You are dogs because you have forsaken the faith. You have rejected the gospel and therefore have been put outside of the people of God. That's why he goes on to say that not only are they dogs, but they're also evildoers. It's not because these Judaizers were notoriously wicked people. It's not like they were breaking the 10 commandments all the time. They were actually people who were careful to keep the commandments. But Paul says because you think that obedience to the commandments of God somehow earns you favor with God and a right standing before him, You're not doing the law properly. You're not obeying out of grace. And so all of your obedience is actually unacceptable to God because you think that by it you're going to earn his favor, and so it's just as much as doing evil. Watch out, he says, for those evildoers. And then he says, look out for those who mutilate the flesh. It's clear in the Bible that. God commanded Abram and Abram's offspring that every male child that the eight days was to be circumcised. It was a God-given ritual. But it was given in the context of grace, the grace of God that freely saves sinners apart from works. And when these Judaizers insist on circumcision, the cutting off of the flesh, Because they don't understand it properly, because they see it as somehow contributing to their standing before God, well, it's just a mutilation of the flesh. It has nothing redeeming about it, no significant spiritual significance. It's just mutilating the flesh. And so Paul is quite agitated here because he understands that what these Judaizers were teaching destroyed the gospel of free grace in Jesus Christ. And so he says to the Christians, you know, you hear these Judaizers and their insistence on obedience, and perhaps you think that they're more holy than you, that they're on the right track, that you're actually a little bit careless and a little bit too free, freer than you should be. And so Paul reassures them in verse three. He says, no, listen. We are the circumcision. We who follow the apostolic gospel as it has come through my preaching. We who follow Paul's gospel of free salvation in Jesus Christ alone. He says actually we're the circumcision. We're the true people of God. Yes, we're not Jews, so we can't trace our line back to Abram biologically, but we have the faith of Abram, and so we are the children of Abram. We are the circumcision, he says, and we are the worshipers of God. He's not boasting here. He's just stating a fact to these Christians that they were once pagans, but in coming to faith in Jesus Christ, They had become the people of God, whom God had gathered to Himself as He did the old covenant people around Mount Sinai. He now gathers them to Himself so that they would worship Him in spirit and in truth. The Christians who hold to Paul's gospel, which is the gospel of God, are the ones who are the true people of God. the circumcision, and the true worshipers of God. And then Paul gives, at the end of verse three, two distinguishing characteristics, two marks that all true Christians have. He says, we are the circumcision who worship by the Spirit of God, and this is what is true of us. We glory in Christ Jesus, and we put no confidence in the flesh. Now I want to look at those two hallmarks of the Christian. Those two characteristics that distinguish someone who is a true member of the church of God and a true worshiper of God. I want to do it in reverse order. So what does Paul mean when he says that we put no confidence in the flesh? The true Christians are those who put no confidence in the flesh. Well the flesh there refers to human contribution. Something that I can do. unaided, or even I can do aided by grace, but it's something that I contribute to the whole scheme of my right standing before God. And of course, because circumcision played such a significant role in the Judaizers' understanding of salvation, confidence in the flesh is a play on that as well. to put confidence in the flesh is to be self-made men and women, boys and girls. It's not that you reject the necessity of Jesus Christ, but you supplement Christ by something that you bring to the table. And then Paul goes on to mock, boast in human contribution. He says, Christians are those who put no confidence in the flesh, but if somehow our salvation depended on something that we would do, well, I would certainly have more than ample reason to put confidence in the flesh and to think that I had something to contribute to my salvation. And he says seven things, seven things about himself. four having to do with the privileges he had simply by virtue of his birth, and then three having to do with the performance that he made based on the choices that he had chosen. And so notice what he says about himself. He says, if anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more. Well, what about you, Paul? Makes you such a candidate for supplementing the work of Christ in order to be righteous before God. Well, he says, I have a sacramental benefit. He says, I was circumcised on the eighth day. I wasn't one of those careless Jews who didn't think it was a problem to wait till the ninth or 10th or 11th day. No, no, I was circumcised on the eighth day, just like God said we should be. So he had a sacramental. Bonus. And then he talks about his hereditary bonus. I am of the people of Israel. I'm not an Amorite or Hittite or Perizzite or Canaanite. I'm not Babylonian. I'm not Assyrian. No, no, not me. No, I am an Israelite. I belong to God's chosen people. Abraham is our father. We are the special people of God. And I, I was a member of that. Certainly that must count for something, he's saying. And then he says, not only was I of the people of Israel, I was of the tribe of Benjamin. I wasn't one of those northern tribes of Issachar or Zebulon. We don't even know where they are. They were the ones who forsook the worship of God. They worshiped the golden calves in Dan and Bethel. I didn't belong to those tribes, oh no. I was of the tribe of Benjamin. In our territory, that's where the temple was. We were the ones who remained faithful with King David, God's chosen anointed, with his line, with Rehoboam. that kind of tribal superiority. I'm of the tribe of Benjamin. And then he says, a Hebrew of the Hebrews. That is, he maintained his Jewish ethnicity. A lot of Jews because they had been scattered among the nations. They kind of absorbed the cultures of the peoples amongst whom they dwelt. But not Paul. He remained faithful to his heritage. He's a Hebrew of the Hebrews. And even when he got his education, he didn't just go to some of the Greek schools, the Hellenistic academies, oh no, he studied under Gamaliel, a Jew, a true teacher of law. Paul says, those are the privileges I had. And if anyone thought that he had something to contribute, I did, just by virtue of my birth." But then he goes on, he still has three more things to say. He says he has an ecclesiastical bonus. He is a Pharisee. He's not a liberal that didn't believe in the Word of God like the Sadducees. He was a Pharisee, the strictest of the sects amongst the Jewish people. That's the choice that he made. He became the top, the Pharisee, the conservative, theologically. And then he talks about his meritorious contribution. He says, as to zeal, a persecutor of the church. No nominal Phariseeism for me. I wasn't just a card-carrying Pharisee that ticked all the boxes, oh no, I was zealous for our faith. And if that meant that I needed to travel throughout the Roman Empire and gather up Christians and then vote for their destruction, I was game. I was a persecutor of the church, he says. And then he talks about his ethical contribution. He says, as to righteousness under the law, Blameless. Now Paul's not suggesting that he was without sin. But he is saying that you can check my record. I wasn't an adulterer, I never murdered anyone. No, I wasn't a thief. I was scrupulous in obedience to the law of God. He says I had everything going for me. If anyone could say to God, God, we need to sit down here and think this through, how I'm going to be justified, how I'm going to be righteous before you. Yes, I understand that you sent your son Jesus Christ. So absolutely, he must play a role in this. I would never think that he shouldn't. But look at me, God. Don't you think I'm impressive? Because of all my accomplishments, and of all my virtues because of my pedigree and because of my performance. No, that's not what Paul would have said. You know what Paul says? I put no confidence in the flesh. In the matter of my standing before God, these matter nothing at all. In fact, you can even see that Paul says they are positively unhelpful because I considered them gain. I thought they were really helpful to me to contribute to my right standing before God. He says, but now I understand something. He says at verse seven, I count them all as loss. I cast a vote of no confidence in my contributions, in all of my virtues, in all of my accomplishments and my performance. It's loss. They contribute nothing. I wonder if you could say that. Because this tendency to boast in our accomplishments. That's so natural to us. There's something in us that resists a salvation to which we contribute nothing, where we're absolutely thoroughly on the mercy of God in Christ. We always want to sneak in some contributions. Perhaps we block it at the front door. We say, no, no, Christ alone. But some of our good deeds come in through the side door, through the back door. And we somehow think that God must be impressed with us. We have our pedigrees too. grew up in the church, baptized as an infant, probably not on the eighth day, maybe sooner, possibly, probably later. And I'm a member of the church, not some liberal church that's careless. No, we're members of a reformed church, a church that takes theology seriously. that is concerned for the glory of God. That's the kind of church that we go to. Isn't that impressive? And I read my Bible every day. I go to church, not just morning, but I'm not a once-er, no, I go morning and evening. And if there's special services, you'll find me there as well. And, I haven't done anything really bad. You can check the court records. I've never been sentenced or accused even of murder or theft or anything like that. I'm a pretty good person. And certainly that must count for something before God. He's not just going to disregard all of that, is He? Especially not since I acknowledge that the good I do, I do because he helps me to do it. Certainly it must count for something. But even if you don't have that kind of pedigree, you can grow up in the world. Grow up a pagan, grow up outside the church of Jesus Christ. But you can say, I no longer swear like I used to. I go to church now, at least. I'm a far different person than I ever was before. And you can think, well, certainly God isn't going to discount that, is he? As if that doesn't matter at all. Will he? Yes, actually, Paul says. And you ought to think of it that way, too. You ought to cast a vote of no confidence in the flesh. No human contribution is of any value when it comes to our standing before God. What would you say? Is that the vote that you would cast? Well, how do I know, you ask. Well, Paul says that true Christians are those who put no confidence in the flesh, but instead they do something else. They, he says, they glory in Christ Jesus. Their boast is not in human contribution, but their boast is in Jesus Christ. Jesus paid it all. All to him I owe. My hope is built on nothing less. than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name." That's what it means to glory in Jesus Christ, to see all of my contributions as nothing, as completely insignificant. and taking the Lord Jesus Christ in his life and death as my only hope, my only confidence to stand before a holy God as someone who is a sinful person so that he might receive me and welcome me into his eternal glory. That's what Paul's saying. This is what Christians do. They glory in Christ Jesus. They don't talk about how good they are. In fact, they're most likely to talk about all the ways in which they fail to be what they ought to be. All the ways that their best deeds are even polluted by sin. All the ways in which they fall short of the glory of God. And instead, they want to talk about Jesus Christ. the perfection of His life, His unswerving fidelity to His Father, His devotion to His God so that He would go to the cross, His obedience to death, even the death of the cross, and that He went to the cross bearing my sins in His body. All of my filth, all of my infelicity, all of my disobedience to the commandments of God, Jesus took it as if He had been the guilty one. And then He went to the cross and He took upon Himself the punishment that my sins deserve. That's my boast. That's my glory. It's Christ. and Him crucified. And is that your boast? Is that your glory? When you think about your standing before God as a guilty sinner, where's your confidence? Is it in, oh, I'm not as bad as that. I'm not as bad as I used to be. Or I do this, I don't do that. Or to put it another way, if I should ask you this question, if you should appear before the judgment seat tonight and God says to you, why should I let you into my heaven? What would you say? What would your answer be? How would you start it? I think so often we would start with because I, We might even start it with, because I believe in Jesus Christ. And Paul would say, we put no confidence in the flesh. The answer must begin with, because Christ. Because Christ has lived. Because Christ has died. because Christ is my substitute, because Christ is my propitiation, because Christ is my reconciliation, because Christ is my Redeemer. Is that your confession? Is that your glory? I'm not asking if you know that theoretically, because you do. I mean, it can't be clearer. I am righteous in Christ before God. How are you righteous? Well, only because of Christ Jesus. That's not what I'm asking. I'm asking, do you glory in that? Is this your joy, your delight? Is this what you live for? Is this whom you live for? So that you can say, nothing in my hands I bring. simply to Christ's cross, I claim. Christians are those who glory in Christ. And you might remember a few weeks ago I spoke about the Christian's heart. as not just a matter of the mind, though we must know the truth about Christ. In fact, I think it's true to say that if we glory in Christ, Jesus, we'll want to know more about Christ. There'll be this hunger, teach me more, more about Jesus, I would know. That's a hymn, isn't it? You'd want to know the old, old story of Jesus and his love. So it's a matter of the mind. But it's also a matter of the affections. So that there's this love for Christ that grips you, that moves you, that drives you. And then we also have the third aspect of our heart, which is our will. Our head, our heart, our hand. That if we gloried in Christ, that would show in the way that we live. And it would show, perhaps in subtle ways, but it would show in your marriage relationship. I was speaking with a couple recently that they spoke of how they had come to know the Lord Jesus Christ in recent years. And I asked them, so what change did that make in your life? And they said, our marriage changed. We used to fight all the time. But when we became Christians, when we gloried in Christ Jesus, our lives were different. And the way you work will be different. And the way you play hockey on Friday night or Thursday night will be different. People will know if you glory in Jesus Christ, it will reflect, or that will reflect in the way that you live. Your interactions with your brothers and sisters will be different. You'll be gracious. You won't always be looking for wrongs in other people's, to be critical. but you'll embrace them as they are. Because Christ has embraced you as you are. And he hasn't expected you to measure up to his standards before he would love you. And so you're not gonna expect your brothers and sisters to measure up to your standards before you love them. You will take your brothers and sisters as they are and love them with all of their idiosyncrasies, with all the things above them that annoy you and irritate you because you will love them for Christ's sake, not for your sake. Those who glory in Jesus Christ have absolute joy and delight in Him, and they put no confidence in any human contribution. For Trinity to maintain its charitable status, I can't tell you how to vote politically, but I can tell you how to vote spiritually. And if it's a matter of your contributions plus Christ, or your contributions alone, or Christ alone. I'd say no confidence. Cast a vote of no confidence for Christ plus what you do. Cast a vote of no confidence in depending only on what you do. And cast a vote of confidence in Christ. Certain, sure, willing to stake your life on him. as the one who can actually make sure that you are righteous before a holy God. Let us pray. Our dear Father in heaven, we thank and praise you for the Lord Jesus Christ. and that he has done it all, and that there's nothing that we need to do. In fact, there's nothing that we can do. In fact, anything that we try to do would just subtract from what he has done. And so we come as sinners who deserve judgment, but who hope only in the Lord Jesus Christ, and therefore are confident. that we will be received. We are received by You, the Holy God, and our gracious Father. Help us, we pray, to glory more in Christ, to speak of Him, to learn of Him, to worship Him, to tell others about Him, and to live for Him, because He is our all in all. And it's in his precious name that we pray this, amen.