All right. I think everything's going right. Turn in your Bibles to Philippians chapter three. Philippians chapter three. The title of the message. And I thought last week that there was a strong possibility that we would continue today on the Chosen in Christ series and do start on the love of God in that series. But this was heavy on my mind this week. It's actually related to last week's message that the believer is not any longer totally depraved. There was some talk on social media about, as a result of my first message, about this idea of a personal righteousness that some say they have. And so I thought, well, that needs maybe some clarifications of what maybe others say that means. I mean, we don't hold to it. But the title of the message is No Assurance Besides Christ's Righteousness. Philippians chapter three, One of my favorite chapters, we're not gonna read the whole chapter. I'm gonna start in verse seven. Now, before this, Paul, I think I even referred to this last week, too, in a message to Paul. In the context there, I think it's verse three, he talked about three things that show what a believer, evidence is what a believer is, that we worship Christ, Jesus, and the Spirit, and that the But anyway, on down after verse three, Paul starts talking about his credentials in false religion, telling the people there, he said, you know, if you guys had something to brag about, it doesn't matter because I blew you guys away in self-righteous false religion. You did not come anywhere near what I did. And he starts naming the things that he was involved with, the fact that he was a Pharisee, It's the tribe of Benjamin, and he named all of his pedigree and his resume in false religion. And it's a good thing it's not an emergency. We'd be dead by now if nobody can give me an answer. What is it, Rob? Rob's got it, I think. Rejoice in Christ Jesus. Worship God in the spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and we have no confidence in the flesh. Thank you, Rob. I'm going to start doing sword drills, practice those. So then he comes to the conclusion toward the text where we're getting at here, this verse here, and let's pick it up in verse 7. Philippians three and verse seven, but whatever these things were gained to me, the things that he had listed in verse four to verse six, the things that he thought recommended himself to God back then when he was lost, when he was at a carnal mind, when he was not walking in the spirit, when he was not walking by faith, when he was dead in his trespasses and sins, when he was totally depraved, Those things used to be gained to him. But we know God knocked him off his horse, gave him spiritual life so that he can see the kingdom of God. And he was given eyes of faith so that he could see Christ in him crucified. And he said here in the middle of that sentence, those I counted loss for Christ. Those things I counted on it and now, And when I was converted, I counted them loss. I moved them from the gain category to the loss category in my mind. God changed my mind. Verse eight, but no, rather, I count all things to be loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them but dung, D-U-N-G, crap. He's saying I've counted it, as crap and what I've done, God, by grace, has caused me to flush that because I don't want any part of that. So that, for this reason, that I might win Christ and be found in him, and this is why I brought us here, not having my own righteousness, which is of the law, but through the faith of Christ, the righteousness by faith, the righteousness of God by faith, it says. So we're gonna talk a lot about this today, and I hope that I can remember everything I've studied. I rarely do, but sometimes God gives me something different that I didn't even think about, which is sometimes, most of the time, the best stuff that I do, something that God I'm talking about direct revelation, not charismatic, but you know what I'm saying. Truth that is in his scripture that he moves upon his people to give, to express, and let's hope some of that comes out. Now, last week's message, it was called Believers Are Not Any Longer Totally Depraved. In that message, I made a statement. and it is this. And I remember it because somebody quoted me this week, trying to say it wasn't true, wasn't a good statement to make. I said, I don't have a personal righteousness. I don't want one because I have Christ's righteousness and that's all I need. So I was, you know, they looked at that saying, that that was a bad statement and pretty much implying you better have a personal righteousness. You know, because most people that believe what we're countering out there say, without which you shall not see the Lord. A righteousness and a holiness of your own that's personal, which would be of course separate from the righteousness of Christ imputed. So some benefited from that statement, but others opposed it, and I thought it would be helpful to go into more detail. I mean, you could make that statement that I made, that I just quoted myself from last week, and just let it go, and let people apply their own thoughts and definitions to it, which they're gonna do anyway, but it's good to clarify what you mean when you say something. We've been talking about that a lot. When you come across a topic. They asked, do you believe in such and such? And I said, well, what do you mean by that? So I can be able to answer correctly. And then usually what we do is we give a good biblical sound, theological, doctrinal answer, and we expound on that. We explain it, we define it, we clarify it, we qualify it. We have to do this, otherwise we're spinning our wheels. We have to make a distinct sound. As it says in Corinthians, if a trumpet blows a trumpet sound for going to lunch, If some people think, well, that's the sound of the trumpet to go to battle, or vice versa, could have some problems. So we have to speak clear. We have to define everything we talk about. And if we don't, we just join the mystics in talking vague, cloudy terms, and we can't do that. I wouldn't be able to sleep at night if I did that. So we want to look at that statement, both positive and negative, what I meant by it and what I'm pretty sure we all here know what I meant by it and agree. But let's look a little bit at the opposition of that statement and why someone would oppose that and maybe what they are thinking when they say that personal righteousness. Now, again, let me say this before I get started. so as not to be accused with anything. Not everybody's saying the same thing. So as I counter this, I don't, I'm not saying that everybody's saying what I oppose. It's not good to blanket people, you know, let them speak for themselves. It's the old, if the shoe fits, wear it kind of thing, right? And you all know the feeling because you've been accused of things and you don't want to identify with a certain group. Somebody's accusing you, whether it be a hypercalvinist or an antinomian or whatever. I mean, I think I told you all within within one week. I was called an antinomian, a legalist and a hypercalvinist. All in one week. So. And everybody that was accusing I had a misunderstanding or a, you know, they misapplied almost everything I was saying. So it's good, it's caring, it's loving to be fair to people. And I'm not applying this to anyone specific, it's in general so that our minds can be exercised in how we deal with these things. Now we know that if after we explain this thing, there is a different understanding of what we teach here concerning what righteousness is and what the biblical requirement of righteousness is, then we know that we can't fellowship with those people, because this is the heart of the gospel. If they have a knowing difference and they disagree, we can't walk together. We have to be separate. And so all the more important to take the time, it doesn't take much time, to explain things, clarify things. Just don't cut people off on any subject. You have to talk to them about it and give them an opportunity, and especially maybe even in private, to kind of get with them and say, what do you mean by let's talk about this? So if someone disagrees after it's been explained, we know where they stand, in other words. Now, this is important to see how that all this about the ground of salvation and the ground of assurance is directly tied to whether or not a person has assurance, peace, and joy versus doubt, fear, and, you know, anxiety, or whatever they're thinking in the state of doubt, fear, condemnation in their minds. So it's a big deal. I mean, it's not just sitting here splitting theological hairs today. I mean, this affects people's lives. And as we go on, I think I'm gonna get deeper into things that I have seen and heard how that it has affected people. And I think it's affected some of you personally. It has affected me personally. on our mindset concerning this issue. If any of you were in false religion, I think all of us were, I know it's affected you. There's no doubt about it. Now, this year, or I'm sorry, last year, there was a video that came out that actually I had talked about in a message that and I didn't name any names who was talking in the video. Just wanted to give the general context of what was being said. It was about assurance. And very, very popular video. It went all over the place. I was starting to see it everywhere. I disagreed with it. I put a post up about look at this and here's why this is wrong. And I was starting to see I've got way too many friends on social media. that I don't know, but I try to be on there to influence people. And I would see some of them putting it up in a positive way. And I thought, something has to be said about this so that things can be clarified. So if you oppose something and you put it up to expose it, then you start seeing a bunch of people putting up to promote it. Something has to be said so that the mouth may be stopped of the one that it's telling the lies, right? If you care about people. So there was this video, this lady, it was in a conference, this lady out in the audience was given a microphone to ask a question, and she was asked a question about her doubts of her own salvation because of the remaining sin in her life. Now, we know how to handle a question like that here, right? We would first find out, Do you believe the gospel? We would talk about what the gospel is. And we would fence in things to where she only has one hope, Christ alone, that's it. And this fellow that was answering the question, he didn't do that. He didn't do that. Didn't say one thing about it. All he did was, instead of going to the only ground of hope of Christ in him crucified, as the only ground of hope, He showed the pattern of those that are in the gospel coalition that all do this. He pointed her to focus inside and to ask, what are your desires? Has your desire changed since you have been a believer? First of all, of course, he assumes she's a believer without talking about the gospel. So the shift of focus from the ground of salvation to Christ and Him crucified, the ground of assurance, shifted over to let's look inside you, and now the new standard has become what is your desire, right? And that's a very popular notion today of internal insurance based on what you feel, right, about certain things. Now that's tied to another problem. This is an older, wrong idea. And the one answering the question went this route too. He said, and we're going to get to another scenario where this came up too. He said, well, the greatest evidence is that you're worried about your salvation. Therefore, you must be saved because somebody that's not saved is not worried about their salvation. Now, okay, first of all, I know when I was lost for years, I was worried about my salvation. So what if I look to my worry about my soul, my salvation, and somebody told me that, I thought, well, it's cool. It's all right now because that is my desire that I be saved. Therefore, if I'm worried about whether I am or not saved, I can now thank you, thank you. This is deceitful. It's trickery. It's a very, very popular notion. Some of you have heard it. Some of you have thought it and maybe even said it. But honesty of the word of God will say about doubt and about fear and about unbelief, because that's what it is. Doubt is unbelief. And if you doubt and you have unbelief, the scripture calls it sin. And we can't excuse that. We can't sweep it under the carpet. We can't call what God calls sin and bring it up to the very ground of your assurance. That's ridiculous. That opposes the gospel. Now, let me clarify. We were talking before church started this morning about believers can doubt. They shouldn't, but they can. We know the reason why they do is because they're not looking to Christ and Him crucified, they're looking inside. In some of these big ministries, the whole key to their success in a false gospel and gathering up people is to point them inside. And as they point them inside, they doubt and fear, and then these ministries say, I've got the remedy, you just gotta do more. Listen to me, I'll tell you how to do more. I'll tell you how to do it better. You see the vicious circle? You see the trap of self-righteousness? So we're gonna kind of get into that, show the subtlety of that and how to guard yourself against that, hopefully once and for all. So again, look, here we've stressed this before. We continue to see and stress the importance of this fact that the object of your faith will be the object of your assurance. The object of your assurance will be the object of your faith. You can switch a few words around, say the ground of salvation will be the ground of your assurance. The ground of, do you see how those things go together? And then the same guy that was answering the question had a whole video about that, that your security and your assurance are two different things. Okay, whatever. Play word games with that all you want. It's ridiculous. So we need to ask the question that the gospel gets to. It's the question that will be the issue on the day of judgment that affects whether or not you have assurance right now And I think I mentioned this not too long ago. If you can see that there's something important at judgment, you should be thinking right now the way you're gonna be thinking at judgment. If you can look at Matthew 7 and see that guy that says, but Lord, Lord, haven't I done this, that, and the other, looking to something on the inside that he may even have thought that God caused in him to do, He was looking and pleading that as his righteousness. If you know that now, if you know that that will be the case of judgment, you can't do that, you should know it now and apply it now and get it out of your brain now. Get de-programmed by the gospel, get debriefed and let's live healthy, peaceful, assured lives in Christ alone. What's the holdup, right? Your quality of spiritual life, how you think, depends on that issue. Are you looking to Christ alone or are you double-minded? Are you riding a fence? We talked about the simplicity before that's in Christ, the warning. Paul said, I'm jealous with a godly jealousy of you that some have, through the subtlety of Satan, just like did Eve, drawn them into an idea away from the simplicity that is in Christ. And that idea is the singleness that is in Christ as compared to double. The double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. You can't have it both ways. It's Christ alone, period. So let's have the same thought now that we know will be our only acceptance on the day of judgment. I don't know why people wanna divorce that timeframe. Scripture says, as Christ is, It's in 1 John. So are you in this world. You are accepted in the beloved now and forever. And if you're not thinking that, you're not believing the gospel that says that. And these same guys will say, well, he's just got his head and his heart mixed up. Right? That's another message for another day. Or go to Sermon Audio, there's probably like 60 messages on that, if you want to get some clarification. So the question at judgment, what is it? You're there in front of Christ the judge. The Father has given preeminence to Christ, even over judgment, to judge the world. And you're looking at Christ there, and what's your plea? What is the issue? The issue is, do you have a righteousness that answers? the holy demands of God's law and strict justice. Do you have that righteousness? In other words, the absolutely perfect God that will not compromise. He's faithful to his own character. He can't compromise. The God that cannot lie. He can't lie about himself. And he says, I am holy and I demand absolute perfection. No if, ands, or but. No exceptions. I'm not a respecter of persons. complete, perfect holiness and righteousness. Do you have that? That's the issue. That's the issue. That's what it boils down to. And if you say yes, then we need to talk about where did you get it and how did you get it? Because some people say, yeah, yeah, I got it. But they could mean 10 different things, right? We know the Wesleyanism, the perfectionist idea that you can reach a level of sinless perfection, right? That's one extreme. We know another view that here in the New Testament times, under this dispensation of grace, God has lowered his standard, and besides, you can always do better, and he'll accept a lower standard than he requires because it's the New Testament. You know, God just kind of lets things slide. Along here, Jesus knocking on the door. You've seen him, that blue-eyed guy. So it all boils down to this. There's at least three choices. You have a personal righteousness. And we want to kind of talk about, well, what's that look like? In other words, how do you define that? Secondly, you have Christ's righteousness alone. What's that look like? It looks like what we talk about every week. That's what it looks like. We're not budging from that. Or the most deceitful view. is you have a combination of Christ's righteousness and your own. And those two together will get you in. That's the most famous view, the most popular view, the most deceiving view also. So look in the text there, look at what it says in verse nine. Paul here says, and there's a lot of juicy stuff here that, we went through Philippians, I don't know, like 10 years ago. I think Becky was the only one here. and Whitney, but there's a lot of good stuff here that we're gonna be skipping over because of lack of time, but in verse nine, it says this. Paul says, and be found in him, speaking of Christ, it clearly says, not having my own righteousness, my own. Okay, so how can we define What he says there, can we use other synonymous terms that we hear on the theological landscape today? Personal righteousness. Now, some that say they have personal righteousness would say, let me qualify it and they'll talk about it for a half hour and try to get out of what Paul's saying here. They're saying, I'm not talking about that. And I understand that. Maybe they should use different language. Maybe say get rid of that idea, that term, personal righteousness. Some would say, some would say I'm accepted on the ground of, I have a new nature. I have a sinless new nature, and that's the ground of my salvation. Know all kind of people. I used to hang out with some people that said that. That's deceitful. You have some in the camp that says, I have a personal righteousness, which would say, yeah, it clearly has to do with what I do with the law. But others would say, no, I have a personal righteousness that's been imparted to me in a new nature, and I don't mess with the law. Still, they've switched the ground of salvation from imputation of righteousness to an impartation of a personal righteousness. We're starting to see here some subtlety and some shifting going on. So another, a synonym for my own righteousness. One could be personal righteousness. We like to say self-righteousness. Own and self, isn't that the same thing? Yeah. I think Paul used it like that. So those are some things to think about. And he does qualify it here. He says, which is of the law, right? Usually those that talk about a personal righteousness, they get back to that. It all goes downhill through that. It's all connected to that. If they focus on you're not obeying and you're disobeying, it's gotta be connected to that. If you're not progressing and becoming more holy, and growing in holiness and sinning less, what do you hear? La, la, la, la, la, la, la, right? Law. But here he says, he goes on and says, but, or counter, a counter idea, not my own righteousness, which says the law, but through the faith of Christ, the righteousness of God by faith. I think those two lines are saying the same thing. I know some people want to make something different out of the faith of Christ. You know, I count on the faith of Christ. Duh, I count on that. It's faithfulness. If I'm not counting on the faithfulness of Christ, I'm not believing the gospel. This is talking about faith in Christ. Faith in Christ counts on the faithfulness of Christ. That's easy, isn't it? It's weird that if you say, now this is talking about a righteousness of God by faith and say that it's faith in Christ. They say, well, you're not counting on the faithfulness of Christ. What? Where'd you get that from? That's what my faith is in. He accomplished redemption. I don't have faith in my faith. I mean, that's Arminianism. That's conditionalism. That's works for salvation. We don't place faith in faith. We don't place faith inside of ourselves. That's what I'm getting at this message. We don't look inside. We don't have a faith that comes from inside anyway. We know where faith comes from. It's not an offer and then we pull it from the inside and make it a condition because we accepted the offer. It's heresy. So he's clear here on, he makes a distinction between the righteousness of Christ and his own righteousness, his personal righteousness, his self-righteousness. Anything in him, in other words, right? You can turn if you want, this is a famous verse, Isaiah 64.6. Goes in the same direction as Philippians 3.9. The prophet Isaiah chapter 64 in verse six says, but we are all as an unclean thing and all of our, same as Paul talking about own righteousness. Isaiah says, our righteousness are as filthy rags And we know in the original languages, it's talking about menstrual rags, which is something not to embrace. It's something that gets discarded, just like Paul talked about dung that gets discarded. It says, and we all do fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. So here clearly, Isaiah says all, of our righteousness is what we think is some form of righteousness, which means something that comes from us or something that can be worked in us that substitutes the ground of salvation for us accomplished by Christ, if indeed we are his. This is anything in that category. What we would look to and plead at judgment or now, or look to, to invest our assurance in. We would say we are assured because we do this. We are, in other words, we are assured because of our righteousnesses are in action to do this. Now remember, we've talked about our plea is Christ and him crucified at every turn. Whether we think we're doing good or doing bad, probably be more effective when we think we're doing good to look at that, right? So we think we're doing good in reference to assurance, we better reconsider. because it's not good enough and consider only Christ for our shirts, the object of our faith, in other words. Go to Galatians chapter two. Galatians two and verse 21. Paul writing in the church of Galatia, you know the problem there, we had some Judaizers slipping in by stealth, trying to add to The personal work of Christ, in other words, something of their own righteousness or something, it's just like what Paul and Isaiah both said, which would be detrimental to faith, right? Some form of the law or a lower law. The law is not of faith. He says in Galatians, look here in verse 21, he says, I do not, chapter two, verse 21, I do not frustrate the grace of God because if righteousness comes by the law, then Christ is dead in vain. I would go out on a limb and venture to say, because I think scripture does sum this up, that this would be any form of law. Because people want to say, well, what law? And then they want to jump on some category and say, well, that's not talking about me. I do this form of the law. I would say any form of the law. The law is in Christ's hands, not yours. The law is for a purpose to show you can't keep it. And the law drives people to Christ. The schoolmaster, if he's taught you anything, That's the purpose of the law. If you haven't been taught that, schoolmaster has not visited you, he has not been sent to you, and you're back in it, you're back in bondage, you're drowning in your own curse, and you don't know it. And you won't know it until God gives you eyes to see that. So like I said, there could be a lower law or principle in play that people would count on Think of that verse we just read now. It says, then Christ is dead in vain. Well, first of all, as people that believe in effectual atonement, limited, particular, effectual, accomplished, sufficient atonement, I know one thing more than anything in my whole life. The number one thing I know that drives my life is I know Christ didn't die in vain. I know that. That helps me know salvation's not of the law. Some people might turn that around and say, salvation's not the law, therefore I know Christ died. No, I know Christ didn't die in vain. So I know salvation's not of the law because I know what he did with the law for me and for his people. So it could be a lower law or a lower principle Right. We've talked about this before, which would which would be more subtle. Some would jump over to the the new covenant, try to say God's not as strict anymore. Right. And just like the guy in the video said, I know you're a sinner. Welcome to the club. I know we all struggle, but your desire, a lower principle than what God demands. Right. And then people relax and they're wooed by just some Protestant Judaizer to shift focus off of the only ground to a lower principle because they've lowered God's standard and they've raised sinful man's ability. So it might be something that is done in them by the spirit and their part is to cooperate with the Spirit, like Rome's doctrine of infused righteousness. And then you wait toward the end and you find out whether or not you are converted, you're a saint or not. Hopefully, you're slowly, progressively attaining sainthood. We don't even know yet, right? So we'll wait and see. That's not a sound mind. So, it could be, they might say that's a lower principle like, or a lower law like desire. That's just sincerity, pretty much. Sincerity. So, sincerity replaces the truth, I guess, right? Zeal. We'll look at a text here in a minute that talks about zeal. How can he not be saved? Look at him, right? Doing the best you can. And all those things are related. I mean, what, you can't, God, he just, all he cares about is just do the best you can. And think about those things, desire, sincerity, zeal, doing the best you can. Now, do you want to enter into judgment based on those things? Is your desire enough? Is it enough all the time? Is your sincerity enough? If you've just got a little bit of insincerity, you're done. Is your zeal good enough? And do you do the best you can all the time? You wanna enter into judgment based on whether or not you do the best you can? Really what supersedes that, it doesn't matter because the best you can do is not acceptable God anyway. It's the best that Christ did. That's where it's at. There's the standard, there's the glory of God. So before we take the first step, as my buddy Bill Parker says, and he's written about and preached about, before we take the first step, we must make sure and certain by the assurance of faith, in other words, what faith actually looks to, that the ground of our salvation and our assurance is in the same place. and that is Christ's righteousness, established and imputed alone. There's no other standard. Anything else that you talk about besides that is below that in an acceptance before God, because it doesn't satisfy God's law and justice. As I've said before, when we get a judgment, is Christ gonna say, hey, I'm checking regeneration today? I know there's a long line, but we're gonna, we're checking regeneration. I've got the gavel getting ready to declare whether or not you're justified, righteous or not. Are you regenerated? Serious? I mean, God's people, of course, have been regenerated. And it's all based on what the righteousness of Christ established and imputed enabled the spirit to do in us. Let's not get the cart before the horse. The spirit testifies of Christ and it's about Christ having preeminence. And we are declared righteous based on real facts and real value of the merit of the blood and righteousness of Christ. And that is how we are righteous. And the Spirit is life because of that righteousness. And we're given eyes to see in regeneration of that. As we said, I think it was last week, Romans 5 is not talking about regeneration. It's talking about legally condemned or legally justified. Until that is straight, until you take the first step, you need to get that straight. because if you step out to do something, not having that straight, you know what you're doing? You're a factory producing dead works, idolatry, self-righteousness. Verse seven in our text, if you wanna go back there, Philippians three, he says, but whatsoever things were gained to me in the past, that was in false religion, those I counted lost for Christ, But no, rather I count all things lost for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them to be done so that I may win Christ. So what has happened here? Paul's recounting what was revealed to him by God at his conversion when he was on the road there and got knocked off of his horse. What he's pretty much saying is God's people, he's saying this as a pattern, God's people must be stripped by God of all their own supposed personal righteousness and self-righteousness. They need to be stripped completely clean of it. And this is repentance. from self-righteousness, something that God, gospel or evangelical repentance of repenting from a false gospel, the things you thought God would accept and you thought did accept, and now you see clearly what God demands and how that Christ is the only one who fulfilled those demands in the cross of Christ as he satisfied law and justice, enabling God to be both a just God and a savior in the process. So in other words, God doesn't half strip you naked, doesn't let you keep your self-made spiritual underwear. What would that look like? Well, we have an example. In the Garden of Eden, partook of the fruit that he was told, the day you eat of this fruit, you shall surely die. Well, he partook of it. He did at least three things that showed his self-righteousness. He hid from God, or he tried to. He's pretty much saying, you're not seeing what I'm doing, I'm hiding. In other words, this is It was a form of self-righteousness that action was hiding from his sin, hiding his sin from God. So he hid, then he knew he was busted. What did his conscience do? His conscience produced self-righteousness and it excused himself and accused Eve. That was the second step. And then once he saw Eve accused the serpent. He came up with another carnal dead work. I got an idea. Let's form something of our own to cover ourselves. Let's put on some fig leaf religion. And by then, he was three steps deep in, right? A fig leaf apron of self-righteousness. And he thought, this is good enough, this is good enough that God said no. And he showed the wages of sin is death, and he had to kill, God killed an animal and used the skins to clothe Adam and Eve, which is of course a picture and type of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I think it was the very next chapter, or no, it was the same chapter, was promised of the seed of the woman shall crush the head of the serpent. Away with your fig leaf ideas. It's the seed of the woman that's gonna take, Christ is gonna take care of this, if it's gonna be taken care of. Let's go to Romans 10. We've gone here a bajillion times, but it is very pertinent to what we're talking about. Maybe there's some that are listening that have not seen this text or heard it, but we're going to connect it to what we're talking about. This idea of a personal righteousness that we don't want any part of. Romans 10 and verse 1, Paul speaking. This kind of harmonizes well with Philippians 3, talking about his past. He's talking about these same people here that he used to be a part of. He says, brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God. And he's writing, he says, brothers, he's writing to the church in Rome, believers. He says, my heart's desire to God for Israel that they would be saved. He's talking about those that are still practicing the old covenant. When he says that, that's what he means. Because, or for, I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, these ones practicing the law and the old covenant for acceptance with God. I'm bearing witness, bearing record, that yes, they do have a zeal of God. They're excited, they're on fire, they're fervent, they're sincere, they have a desire. They're going at it, they're working hard. But, not according to knowledge. What kind of knowledge are they missing? There is a knowledge that the scripture talks about. Christ himself said in John 17, three, that this is life eternal, that they may know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you sent. Without that knowledge, there's death. There's no life. We know that God gives an understanding so that we may know him, 1 John 5.20 says that. It's not any of our doing, it's a revelation of God in context of irresistible grace. So the note here I want us to see is they had an ignorant zeal. Their zeal was backed by and fueled by ignorance. and it was certified by Paul. That fact, that point was certified. He said, I bear him record. He puts a certification stamp on it. This is what they're doing. I did this, he said, this is what I used to do, right? I mean, Philippians three, we saw it. Verse three, for they, these in this false religion, self-righteous religion, They being ignorant of God's righteousness. That's what we always talk about that's in the first chapter of Romans. The gospel is the power of God and the salvation to everyone that believes. For there in that gospel is the righteousness of God revealed from faith through faith. This is the righteousness of God he's speaking of, which is the righteousness of Christ. When he came, born of a woman, came to establish, he obeyed the law, establish her righteousness by his obedience in his life and unto death. and he died for the penalty of that law, the demands of that law, that curse was put on him. He was made sin who knew no sin that his people might be made the righteousness of God in him. That is the righteousness of God, that message. And when that righteousness is established and fulfilled and accomplished, and God justifies with that righteousness, he's a just God in doing so. and it equals the demands of his law and justice. And it shows the attribute of his character of righteousness. It's faithful, fulfilled in the righteousness of Christ established. That's what they were ignorant of. They being ignorant of that and going about to establish, notice what, their own self or personal righteousness, which is really, they don't know it, but it's dung and filthy rags. And that's what they're going around producing. They didn't even know it. And as a result of going about to do that, because they were ignorant, that means they have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God. How can they? They're not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. You see how those verses go together? Chapter eight, I think it's verse six. The carnal mind is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. Right here is a simple explanation of that. The result is they're going about to establish their own righteousness and they're not submitted to the righteousness of God. One of the reasons I tied those two verses in is look at the next verse. Because Christ is the end of the law. for righteousness, for justification. Not in a carnal mind, they keep going at it, keep trying to establish one. And they say, well, hey, I got you here, Scott. I'm not talking about justification, I'm talking about sanctification. So now what do you say? We've already said it, we say it all the time. It's a more subtle form, it's more lower level. God does not accept your half-baked attempts or your desires or sincerity as part of the standard that equals the man's in your holiness, that he will finally say, you're approved for sainthood, doesn't match the standard of the perfect obedience of Christ. It doesn't do it, never has, never will. Get your mind out of that spiritual gutter, toilet, dumpster. So seriously, do you think the omnipotent God, creator of all, who eternally planned the salvation, in such a low view, has to think that this faith that God works in the believer, It's the same power that it took to raise Christ from the dead. You think he's gonna work that in a believer and then flip him around and operate it and say, go ahead and look in yourself. Is he gonna do that? He's not a liar, he's faithful to himself. That's ridiculous to think that God can't get this thing done here. Wake a sinner up, wake a sheep up and elect and show him the truth about himself. It's blasphemy to say otherwise. He's not gonna flip it around and say, look on the inside and put part of the burden on you, on you or in you, and you know, you do your part and you better get better at it as time goes on and that's the measure. No. So we need to see, Having said all that, we need to see not just this issue of the ground of salvation and assurance for us, for yourself, but how you talk about it to other people, because that's what the ministry is. We talk about the gospel and assurance concerning the gospel to other people. I hope we do all the time. And we need to know how to talk about it. And this issue of assurance is a hot issue. It's all over all the time. I want to go into, in conclusion, and I know I'm like 55 minutes. I don't think it'll take this long. This week, this is really what caused me to change my message to this subject this week because I saw something that really put a burden on me. There was a person that posted something on social media that had some common ideas of some of the things that we've already talked about. And I want to say this about it and kind of explain some of the things that were said as a benefit to every person that's hearing this. I'm not saying this to make fun of the person. This person knows me. He knows I'm not doing that. I'm not going to name his name. But I think that this has providentially played out so that we can use it as a lesson to examine some of the things that are said, some of the statements. You may have heard some before, like it. Or if you haven't, you can watch out for these type things as they come along into conversations about the gospel. So this person said that they were despondent, distressed, grieved, that even though they had knowledge of the gospel, They said they believed in faith alone, grace alone, and Christ alone. The shocking part, and this person always interacts in a lot of different groups I'm in, and he even says some things we say that he has admitted on several occasions publicly that he has not even converted. He said, I know I'm not a believer. I wanna be, I'm trying to be, I'm not a believer. I just want to get that straight before we start. And I've written him privately. I've talked to him publicly in threads and explained a lot of different things. Other people have too. But I've written him privately. I've sent him links. I've tried to help him. And I just want to talk about some lines that were not just what he said, But what other people said, and I want to show you some of the errors we don't wanna fall into when we hear people, when we can see they don't believe the gospel, how we deal with them. If someone comes to you and is transgressing the doctrine of Christ, we don't speak peace to them. In other words, we don't promote them, we don't pat them on their back in their false religion and say, it's okay. Like the one that was asked the question about assurance, he patted her on the back and said, it's okay because of your desire. And we can't do that. And so we need to, let's get into some detail here about some of the things that were said. And think about each one. We can't spend too much time here. So he said flat out, and he said before, I've seen it before, where he said, I'm not a believer. I'm sure and certain that I'm not a believer. He said, The rest of this stuff I've actually copied and pasted, so I wouldn't misquote it. And again, I'm really hoping that people on that thread don't even hear this, because there'll be enough other people to hear it that it'll be a benefit to them. I really want you to understand it, too. He said, concerning Christ alone for salvation, he said, and that such faith is something that I clearly do not have. I have a bit of knowledge, but knowledge alone is not faith. I've sought him, I've asked him, but not with the whole heart, for I do not have a whole heart to give him. So you start seeing, You see bits of truth in here that he's accurately saying some things. And then you see some misconceptions of what he thinks should be done and what he maybe could do, but he just can't get it done. So I want you to think as we go through here about some of these things. Some of these things we could really talk a long time about. We don't have time to. You might want me to copy and paste this and send them to you so you can think about each one and develop each one. I mean, I know almost each statement. I'm thinking of all these different articles I could write to hopefully help people about assurance. Some of these we have talked about. So a responder on a thread supporting him said, oh, I'm sure you're no worse than any of us, brother. We're all sinners saved by the grace of God. The person called him brother, and he's clearly saying, I'm lost. I'm not a believer, right? Then they went on to say the same person, God never asked for perfection for many of us. All right, stop. We talked about that's the demand of God. But the gospel question is, where do you get that? Do you see the distinction there? Perfection is demanded, but not from our own personal righteousness, from our own personal representative, right? So there's the lowering of the standard of God. God never asked perfection from us, but God asks for us to finish the race. You hang in there because many of us feel the same way you do. It's not easy trying to walk the way Jesus walked, but we must just do our best. God bless you, brother. See, now, this is scary. This is truly scary. We pray you can come to a place in your thinking where you have better consideration of yourself. I mean, what's Joel, I'm coming out of the quote here, what's Joel Osteen say and Robert Shuler and people like that? We can't tell people they're bad because it'll affect their self-esteem. We need to kind of boost people up. Isn't that what's implied here? I believe that you can be upright and caring man who loves his family and his neighbor. You can do it, man. You can keep the law better. I know it's in you. Don't think too bad about yourself. He said, I wanna love and serve God and those around me better. It disgusts me after X amount of years of trying. I apparently cannot. You and they and all the people, especially of God, deserve much, much better. Christ, that is what should be pointed to. Not like, you know, I'm doing my best and if I was, the implication is if I was better, you would accept me and maybe even God would. So there was a response from others that said, we all make mistakes. You have to be able to forgive yourself, not just others. Pray brother, all will be fine. He said, my works, You know, I had said something about, you're looking at your works for salvation. Like I told you before, and some of my friends that believe like we do said the same thing. He says, my works don't confirm my salvation. They confirm the lack thereof. All right. You talk about camouflage. Here it is right here. This is seriously, seriously subtle and deceitful. I've heard it said this way, it's not Christ that I don't not trust, it's myself. Red flag, you're looking to yourself. You're not looking to Christ. And if you're not looking to Christ and you've looked to yourself, that implies Christ is not good enough. He needs to be supplemented. We got to pull this out of here now and think about this and talk about this way. Otherwise, we're going to miss it. My works don't confirm my salvation. They confirm the lack thereof. And then there was a response which matched the famous guy answering the question in the other video that said, the reprobate do not desire change. Oh, yeah? They do, I did, you know, well I'm not reprobate, but people in false religion desire change. They have a zeal, you think these ones of Israel that Paul was talking, you think they weren't desiring change? They were changing every day. Wasn't for the better, they thought it was. They were counting it as better. But it was only heaping condemnation. It says, the reprobate do not desire to change. You are on good ground. Boom. And he says, I'm guessing most the reprobate do not read scripture, but I do. And I think it has to, I think it has changed my thinking in some ways, but it has not changed who I am personally. He's desiring a personal righteousness so that he may be accepted because he sees that's not growing or even starting, I guess. Another one comes back, says, nothing wrong with you. And I said, it's clear as day that you're still counting on your own works. You said it was your lack of works. Let me ask you a question, I said. If you did better, would you feel better? If you did better works, would you feel better about your position, right? We've asked the question, we've had to ask it, we need to ask it, how much is enough, right? Well, we already know absolute perfection. So the focus moves away from us, off of us to the only one, who performed and who is an established righteousness that is absolutely perfect. That's the demands, he fulfilled it. Doesn't matter how much we do in reference to feel more saved or more assured. Before we take the first step in a reference to assurance, we gotta get absolute perfection clear that it's in Christ. He said, I'm not looking at my own works. And then here's another subtle one, but his work in my life goes back again to desires, sincerity, zeal, performance. Those, he says, those who seek God with their whole heart will find him. However, I do not have a whole heart to seek him with. The second time he mentioned that. There was a response from somebody that says, geez, give yourself a break. Another person says, do you think talking to a therapist might help? Seriously, I'm not making this up now. This is what we really have, we have to be prepared to give answers to every single thing in here. We should be equipped to do that. And it is important that we do. Another one said this, diet. Trying to get healthier. I think this helps your overall health. Exercise. The other one says, back on diet again. If you cut simple sugars, caffeine, white starches, and eat lots of vegetables instead, you'll be better. When you exercise, practice full body aerobics without pushing to a sweat every day. And this guy, this guy's a street preacher. I defriended him last week, even before I saw this, because of some other things. He thinks he's a prophet too, he talks like that. One guy comes and starts to say something close. One day you will see yourself wrapped in the righteousness of Christ so much that only he can be seen. Well, you better see that right now. That's conversion. Now, I don't know all that that guy meant. He might, if you progress, you'll attain that, you'll see that later. Right now, you just don't believe the gospel, so, you know, you'll see it later. No, come on now. Come on. And then, the guy that talked about diet and exercise, no, I'm sorry, this was another guy. He said, are not all the elect hearing him? Talking to everybody in a thread. He gave us our Lord, the apostles, the Puritans, and even now the elect are among us. If we are telling you that you are walking according to his word and in his spirit, you should be labeled. We should be labeled anything less than liars? No, my brother. As we are members of his body, so we recognize one of his own. Here's a guy speaking peace to somebody that says, I don't believe the gospel. He's using his authority as claiming to be a believer. He quotes himself in the Puritan Club. But for whatever reason, associates himself with the apostles of the Lord, say it. It's serious after this. I mean, those people were serious, seriously. But he says, I mean, he's down, you know, he says, I can't kill myself. It voids my family's life insurance policies. Now, I have known, I had mentioned this, Rob, you know him too, Becky. a man that was a psychologist for a big corporation. He told me that as he counseled people, he was paid to do this by a corporation in a secular way, but he claimed to believe what we believe. He said, you know, the people that were the most crazy out of their mind, depressed and suicidal were religious people, especially those that were legalist and thought they could lose their salvation. Here it is. I continue to see it. I continue to see it. I just, before church started, we talked about a man that thought he had to have a perfect assurance. He's dead now. He was in a mental institution. He killed himself. That's how serious this is. And then the guy responded that identified with the Puritans, he said, I don't see one thing that you've mentioned here that condemns you. What about the fact that I don't believe the gospel? He that believeth not is condemned already. All right, are we picking up everything collectively here and hopefully we can learn from it? The two legalists go back and forth and argue about, more about needing exercise and what kind. Getting down to sets and reps and stuff. One person sent a link on the five downsides of high intelligence. They thought he fit into this category, like he's too smart for his own good, and there's a downside where, you know, these things happen. Another person got on and actually wrongly blamed him on poverty. He's talking about working a lot, didn't have much to show for all the years of his work, so she blamed him on poverty. Another one came along and said, sent a link on sleep deprivation. I mean, sleep deprivation. I mean, I would have already killed myself for lack of assurance if lack of sleep caused me to lack assurance. I know some of this stuff, it kind of makes you grin and smile, but I mean, it was serious and it is that serious that this guy has thought about killing himself. This issue of the ground of salvation, the ground of assurance, if you have a wrong idea in your head that is of the devil, the devil is the accuser of the brethren. If you're a brethren, not everybody is, but if you are, You believe the gospel and your ground of assurance must be the same ground as your salvation. When we approach the throne of God to prayer, we do it upon authority outside of ourself. We come to the throne boldly. We meditate, we communicate with God. We deal with him in our relationship. We come boldly. Does that mean if we've done pretty good, we're able to come older? And if we haven't done good, we're gonna like Adam did and hide and put on an apron and stuff? We come to God the same way every time, through the righteousness of Christ. That's boldness. Anything short of that's pride. And it's assuming, it's presuming. It's the life's sake. We have the Lord's Supper every now and then. It talks about don't take it in an unworthy manner. Same deal. Oh, man, I didn't do the best I could this week with my neighbor, my wife. I'm unworthy to take the Lord's Supper. I shouldn't take the Lord's Supper. And the one guy over the next time says, I did pretty good. Give me two of everything. I'm worthy. Think about it. I mean, these are the implications. Life's short and full of trouble. Do you want a mind that is constantly filled with guilt, fear, doubt, and condemnation? You want to sign up for that? Start looking inside. hang around with people, look inside. You can be on the inside club. Some call it the belly button club, navel gazing, all this psychoanalysis stuff. Look, it's garbage. Christ alone or nothing. You know, that's pretty much the long and short of it here. I'm gonna be a member of this church, claim to believe the gospel, Christ or nothing. If it's something else, you're pretty much not a part of this group. And anybody else really that I can trust through the internet or whatever, if they don't hold to that, I'm not gonna trust them as far as I can throw them. I need to separate from them. This is life and death. This is not a game. This is the truth of the gospel. These ideas oppose one another. This whole idea of the ground of salvation, whether it be like what we say or what others say, and the ground of assurance. These ideas, we're crucified to the world. God forbid that I should glory except in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. The world is crucified to me and I to them. That's what that's saying to the world, the religious world. I cannot agree with you on the ground of your assurance. I don't want you in our church affecting our church in a way that brings fear, doubt, condemnation. We are of a sound mind. Now, we have the mind of Christ. We agree with, we confess him, we agree, we have a gospel confession. If you look inside, you should doubt, right? It's the idea. I wrote an article about that. It's on our website. If you're looking inside, I would hope that you do doubt, but don't look to the inside. Don't do it. There's only one righteousness that answers the demands of God's law and justice. One. Christ's alone, established, and imputed. No other righteousness. The only thing left is filthy rags and crap. Any questions or comments? Went too long. Okay. Okay. But my goal is, I promise, to be helpful. And that's why I didn't name anybody, even the famous preacher. I didn't even name him. I've named him before, but I want people to see this is my motive is to help people on this issue. I don't want to make fun of people. Some of those ideas, we held to those ideas before. Who makes us to differ? God, by his grace, has given us repentance from those ideas. And I'm thankful. I'm thankful. All right.