Christ Jesus, my Lord. Philippians chapter 3, verse 8. The Bible says, Paul writes the inspired word of God. He says, Yeah, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord. For whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but done that I may win Christ. Lord help us. I am thankful that the Lord is faithful in all things and as we continue to grow and as we've looked at gaining knowledge and growing in knowledge, growing in intimacy and we could cry out Christ Jesus, my Lord. Christ Jesus, my Lord. We have looked at excelling in knowledge, which leads to excelling in intimacy. These two go hand in hand, as we learned last week, though you cannot grow in intimacy without growing in knowledge. But you can grow in knowledge, we can do that, and not even be saved, right? and which is a bad place to be because you become legalistic, you become harsh, you are in constant competition, not a good place to be. We also looked at the results of growing in knowledge, which is, as we mentioned about three times already today, is the result is you are growing in intimacy with the Lord. You're going on to know Him, you're experiencing Jesus Christ. We don't want to end up like the Pharisees do. So as we continue to grow, we continue to bring forth fruit. All safe people will bring forth fruit. Mark chapter 4 verse 20 says, And these are they which are sown on good ground, such as hear the word, and receive it, and bring forth fruit, some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some a hundred. One thing for sure, all Christians will bring forth fruit. Last week we looked at a few of the evidences of growing intimately with the Lord. And there are evidences. We talked about Eve last week, if y'all remember. Adam knew Eve, his wife. This does not mean that he knew about her. He knew her. It was Yadah. It was intimate. It was the greatest word for intimate that there is between a husband and a wife. And from that came forth fruit. She bear who? Cain. And then the next verse says she bear Abel. So from that came fruit. So there are evidences in our lives when we're walking with the Lord, when we're growing with Him, and when we are intimate with Him. There are evidences. Others can see these things in our lives, but we should also recognize them. Let's go to the book of Galatians chapter 5. Galatians chapter 5 is right in front of the book of Ephesians, which is right in front of Philippians. Galatians chapter 5, look at the fruits of the Spirit. Verse 22. Galatians 5, 22, but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, against such there is no law, or to say that, he's saying there is no limit. It's not that you just get to a certain point of love and you stop loving, or you stop growing in love. No, you continue to love. It says, and they that are Christ have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. This is self-denial, what this is. If we live in the spirit, let us also walk in the spirit. Let us not be desirous of vainglory, provoking one another, envying one another. Because, listen, when you're not walking in the spirit, you're not like a church at Corinth, you start trying to provoke one another, you envy one another, you're in competition, you're trying to be more spiritual than That's the person over there or this person over here and it causes turmoil in the church. But we are to live in the spirit. We are to live a life that's full of love, joy, peace, all these fruits of the spirit. Self-denial, self-control. These things are very important in the Christian life. And these are some of the fruits that we bring forth. These are the fruits that we bring forth as we are walking with the Lord. We weigh everything in light of the scriptures, or at least we're supposed to. And those things which are for Christ, that we do for Christ, they are the most valuable. Why do we love? Good question, don't you think? Why do we love others? Why do we love people who are not anything like us? Why do we love people who are in the depths of sin? Why do we do that? Well, because He first loved us, right? We love Him. Since we love Him, we want to keep His commandments, and His love is in us, and Jesus Christ was a friend of who, the Bible tells us? Sinners. He ate with sinners. Fellowship with sinners, not, listen, he never encouraged their sin, he never approved of their sin, not, no, not one time. He always condemned sin, but he viewed them as sheep not having a shepherd. You and I in being like Christ, one of these fruits is that we love, again, Him, we love our Heavenly Father, and we love other people. When is it that we are more like Christ than ever? What action no we don't take. Forgiving. Forgiving. Is that hard to do sometimes? Last week, I think we talked about Brother Jerome, Miss Barbara, been married almost 50 years. Brother Jerome wasn't able to make it this morning, but Miss Barbara, how hard has it been to forgive him on a regular basis? He's not here, but this is being recorded. But you do that because of love. Loving. You're forgiving. We're never more like our Heavenly Father than when we forgive someone. How about someone that don't deserve it? Someone who doesn't deserve it. Now, stop and think for a second. Did we deserve it? Did we deserve His love? Did we deserve His forgiveness? No, we didn't. Yet He loved us. Romans 5 tells us He forgave us. When we were yet in our sins, we didn't clean up and come to Him. And so from that, this love, this forgiveness that we show forth to others, And we turn loose of all those things, as Paul did here, that seem to be religious, and yet we're not trying to seem to be religious. We are who we are by the grace of God. We love, we forgive. We're long-suffering, we're gentle, we're good. We have meekness and temperance again, which is self-control, this temperance. And there's no limit here, we just keep doing these things. All because of Christ. And these things are, those things are valuable. If you're not growing in the knowledge of who Jesus is, if you're not growing in intimacy with who Jesus is, You won't be fulfilling. You won't be showing forth the fruit of the Spirit. And you'll turn and you'll become like these Pharisees. They were hard. They were harsh. You will hold on to the things, these works as Paul did. But Paul, when the Lord saved his soul, turned loose of all these things. We turn loose of some things while grabbing on to others. Why do we do this? This is done willingly because we know who we're doing it for. We know who Christ is according to the Scriptures and we have and we are experiencing Christ according to the Scriptures. We're also going on to know Christ. How do we know that our labor is not in vain? How do we know that our loving is not in vain, our forgiving, our living for Him, our crucifying His flesh? How do we know it's not in vain? The Bible tells us that God is not unrighteous. Amen? Or that God, yeah, that He, to the point where He, He won't forget the good deeds that we do, or the works that we do. That's for His honor and glory. Christ does remember, doesn't he? How can he do that? How can he remember everything about everybody? Have you ever stopped to think about that? No. That has ever lived? That has ever gone to live? What confidence do we have in Christ? But we can live with confidence knowing that Jesus Christ is Lord. Here in Philippians 3.8, Paul describes Christ Jesus as, he says, My Lord. I am His and He is mine. Again, we love Him because He first loved us. 1 Peter 2.7 says, Unto you therefore which believe, He is precious. He is precious. For all whom Christ has saved, He is precious to us. And like Paul, we say, my Lord, my God, my Lord, my Savior. It's personal, amen? It's not just someone that we know about, we know Him, and He knows us. And our intimacy with Him continues to grow, and it grows more when we understand what Lord means. Here in Philippians 3, this word Lord, it means Master, Owner. Christ is Lord, Christ is Master, Christ is Owner. There is no one equal to or above our God. Christ is Sovereign Lord. Sovereign Lord. Knowing this biblical truth gives us much peace in this life and the life to come. So I want to look at some scripture this morning in the Old and New Testaments that proclaims the sovereignty of God. So let's go to the Old Testament. Let's start in the book of Deuteronomy. chapter 4 verse 9 and no we're not going to cover all of them there's no way we have that amount of time Deuteronomy chapter 4 verse 9 I wrote the wrong scripture down, but I have it here. It says, Know therefore this day, and consider it in your heart, that the Lord, He is God in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath. There is none else. Let me give you that scripture. Is that it? Okay. Thank y'all. I'm sorry. You know what's funny is that I go back over the message two or three times before I preach it and I miss that. 439. Thank you. Now therefore this day and consider it in thine heart that the Lord he is God in heaven above and upon the earth beneath. There is none else. There's no one else like him. He is Lord. He is sovereign God. He is God in heaven above and upon earth. There's no one above Him. Now folks, we really need to stop and dwell on these things. We hear so much today about health, wealth, prosperity, about your marriage, your sickness, your finances, your new vehicle, the zits on your face. Amen. The crazy stuff you hear that leaves you with no peace, no comfort, because you constantly have all these problems with these things. But it's one thing, folks, that we don't have a problem with, and that is knowing that our God is sovereign. He is Lord. There is no one above Him. He cannot be defeated. He will not be defeated. Any of y'all going through trials? Tribulations? Persecutions? What's this give us? Hope. Peace. Comfort. Not some crutch just to lean on. These are biblical truths. Let's go to 1 Chronicles chapter 29. First Chronicles chapter 29 verses 11 and 12. First Chronicles 29, 11, Thine, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty for all that is in the heaven and the earth is Thine of all. Both riches and honor come of Thee and thou reignest over all, and in thine hand is power and might, and in thine hand it is to make great and to give strength unto all. Now therefore, our God, we thank thee and praise thy glorious name. Our Lord is great. Again, nothing compares to who he is. He is exalted as head above all. Listen again, there is no one who is above God. Psalms 47 2, for the Lord Most High is terrible, he is a great king over all the earth. God is the supreme ruler. That's one thing about living here in America is that we don't understand what it means to have a king and a queen over you. Let's just say a king, okay? The king has rule over all in his kingdom. All must submit to the king, and those who don't submit suffer the wrath of the king. How much greater is our God than any king on earth? He is the supreme ruler. Psalms 83 8 or 8 a 318 That men may know that thou whose name alone is Jehovah art the most high over all the earth again God is in control Psalm 135 6 whatsoever the Lord pleased that did he in heaven and in earth in the seas and in all deep places in other words Everywhere, all the time, God does whatever He, what? Pleases. Whatever He pleases. Daniel 4, 35. And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing. And He doeth according to His will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. And none can stay His hand or say unto Him, what doest What are you doing? No one can say that to God. And there are many more scriptures just simply dealing with the sovereignty of God. Just an abundance of these scriptures. An abundance of them. Let's go to Romans chapter 9. And we'll look more at Romans 9, it's a little bit, I want to read a quote from A.W. Pink from his book on the sovereignty of God. Good book. Romans 9, 19, Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault, for who hath resisted his will? He's in control, folks. I keep saying that, and we've also learned that we can't blame God with sin, can we? In the book of James chapter 1, we cannot blame God with sin. I want to read this quote from A.W. Pink. He says, The sovereignty of God is an expression that once was generally understood. It was a phrase commonly used in religious literature. It was a theme frequently expounded in the pulpit. It was a truth which brought comfort to many hearts and gave virility and stability to Christian character. But today, to make mention of God's sovereignty is, in many quarters, to speak in an unknown tongue. were we to announce from the average pulpit that the subject of our discourse would be the sovereignty of God, it would sound very much as though we had borrowed a phrase from one of the dead languages. Alas, that it should be so. Alas, that the doctrine which is the key to history, the interpreter of providence, the warp and wolf of scripture, and the foundation of Christian theology should be so sadly neglected and so little understood. He goes on and writes, the sovereignty of God, what do we mean by this expression? We mean the supremacy of God, the kingship of God, the Godhood of God, to say that God is sovereign is to declare that God is God. To say that God is sovereign is to declare that He is the Most High, going according to His will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth so that none can stay his hand or say to him, what doest thou? Notice he's incorporating scripture into this. That God is sovereign is to declare that he is the Almighty, the possessor of all power in heaven and earth, so that man so that no one can defeat his counsels, thwart his purpose, or resist his will. To say that God is sovereign is to declare that he is the governor among nations, setting up kingdoms, overthrowing empires, and determining the course of dynasties as it pleases him best. To say that God is sovereign is to declare that he is the king of kings, the Lord of lords, all the difference from the Bible. That's a quote by AWP. You know, all of heaven knows that God is sovereign. Do you ever stop and read about how all of heaven worships God? How they honor Him? The sovereign ruler. Revelation 19, 6 says, And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thundering, saying, Alleluia, God reigns. Omnipotent means all power. And God has all power. And I'd have to agree with A.W. Pinkett, when you talk about the sovereignty of God today, you just look down on, it is degraded. God is degraded. People hate that terminology. They hate it. A sovereign God is a big God. A sovereign God is a God who cannot be defeated, who cannot be tricked, who knows all things. I was telling Toya on the way home one night this week. It was late, so I was going through the channels trying to stay awake. I was trying to find some preaching on the radio. I didn't want to use up all my data. And I come across a guy preaching, so I just stopped and listened for a little bit to see what he was saying. I didn't know who it was. But I could tell by the way he was talking that it probably wasn't going to be good. He got to talk about how Abraham was going up on the mount to sacrifice Isaac. And he said that when Abraham got there that God said, hey, Abraham, glad to see you. He said, I didn't think you was going to make it. I didn't know if you'd be here or not. I said, what? I said, who is this idiot? He's saying that God doesn't know something? God is weak? What kind of God is that? That's a small God. Little g, by the way, is not the God of the Bible. I'm saying that our God knows. Our God's all-powerful. Folks, we can trust Him. We can trust Him. How often do we have our hands in things saying, You know what happens when we do that? From my own experience, I can tell you what happens. We become anxious. Hmm? How many of y'all in here are control freaks? Come on, raise your hand. You want it done. Your hands and everything. I'm a hands-on guy at work. Hands-on. Carl, how's it going? Good. Going good. Good. Sometimes, some days I don't call at all. That's about three days a year. Amen? But here's the thing. God is faithful. Our God is sovereign. We can trust Him. Christ tells us, don't be, what? Anxious. Who is anxious? Worry? Stress? He says, be anxious for nothing. And when we can trust, listen, when we trust our Lord and Savior, understand that God is sovereign. Amen. That God is sovereign. You think that was bad? God should have been here for Sunday school. Amen. He got hit hard in Sunday school. Poor boy. Y'all pray for him. When we get the right view of who God is, our stress level goes down. I gotta remind myself of this. There's times that we're waiting on checks to come in, There's times that things get tight, even in the checking account. Toyas will say, are we going to get a check this week? I'll say, I don't know. No idea. We'll wait and see what comes in. And I find myself at times getting anxious and trying to make plans for this, plans for that. And it's good to make plans. It's good to think ahead, right? We're supposed to do those things. But when we make plans based on panic, plans with a mind that's not settled on the Lord. What's usually the outcome of that? It ain't good. Wait upon the Lord. He is sovereign. In all things. And here in this context, in Philippians chapter 3 verse 8, He is sovereign also in salvation. Because that's what this is speaking about. Paul gave up all these things so he could gain Christ. In light of who Christ is, Paul was willing to give up all for Christ. Listen, Paul didn't say, oh yeah, that looks like a good religion to follow, a good religion to be. Let's join this one. No, he had an understanding of who Jesus Christ is. And since he saw that as the pearl of great price in the parables, that man sold everything to do what? To get that pearl. He gave it all up. And Paul gave everything up for Christ. Again he writes, Yea, doubtless, and I count all things, but lost for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. Whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but done that I may win Christ." Everything else that Paul had earned and claimed was now done. Paul wasn't suffering the loss of all things for an ideology or a movement or just some mere personal. No, Paul suffered the loss of all these things for his sovereignty. Listen, Paul went from having a religious prestige, being the pinnacle of his religion, he went from that to where now he has spiritual victory through Christ Jesus his Lord. All those religious achievements that was in his mind on his resume are now dung. Paul's mind. Dung is what is thrown to the dogs. It is refuse. Why would Paul do this? Why would anyone do this? Give up all that for Christ? Again, Paul did this in light of who Christ is. And his desire is now to win Christ. Win this verse simply means to gain. He wants to gain Christ. Why? Good question. Why? Paul, you have all this going for you. You're a known man. There's a good possibility that Paul would one day be the chief priest. The chief Pharisee. He'd be above all in his religion. The strictest sect of his religion. He'd be the number one guy. And he gave it all up. See, he saw Christ for who Christ really is. His sovereign Lord, the only one who could say, forgive. Eternal salvation is in Christ Jesus. Again, this is in light of who Christ is. No one will ever gain Christ while they're hanging on to anything else. At this point in his life, Paul was no longer trying to appear to be religious than anyone else. He was not in competition, he was not trying to grow to gain knowledge to beat someone up with it. No, his desire was to know Christ. Mark 8, verse 36, for what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? It's not worth it. It's not worth it. Giving all up for the Lord may look foolish in the eyes of this lost world. But in the light of eternity, it is the only thing to do. The world is going to pick at you. You know, at this point in Paul's life, here, he's really given his testimony from back in Acts 9. Paul no longer cared what the world thought about him. That's the work that only Christ can do. Paul no longer cared what the world would say about him. He was focused on one. Who was that one? Christ Jesus, He said, My Lord. Isn't it kind of scary to think about those things that hold people back in a sense? Again, I understand that God's sovereign. I'm not taking away from that. But how many people say, I don't want to do that because I look foolish in the eyes of my family. I look foolish in the eyes of my co-workers. I look foolish because they laugh and joke about those. I'd rather look foolish on this earth than spend eternity in hell. We have great comfort and we have overwhelming peace knowing Christ Jesus is my Lord. We learn from Romans chapter 8 that nothing and no one can separate us from the love of God. This is Christ Jesus our Lord. We understand that God shows mercy on whom he will show mercy in Romans chapter 9. Isn't that what he says? I will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. I want to look at two scriptures in the book of Psalm. And then we'll close. Psalm 112, 7. Some who trust the Lord, verse 7, he shall not be afraid of evil, what? Tidings. His heart is fixed. Trusting in the Lord. Trusting in the Lord. Our heart is fixed. Have you ever got those evil tidings? Whatever they may be. How do you respond? What would you do? Is your heart fixed upon the Lord? Because if it is, you'll have perfect peace. Let's go to Psalm 119 and 165. Psalm 119, 165, Great peace have they which love thy law, and nothing shall offend them. Nothing shall cause them to stumble. We really need to get back to understanding that God is sovereign. Christ is my Lord. He sovereignly saved my soul. That's all through Scripture, okay? Especially in the New Testament. Romans 9, John 1, John 6, 2 Timothy 1, 1 Peter. We see these things. He saves us, He keeps us saved. John 10, nothing can separate us from Him. He alone saves. From that point forward, we trust Him, we live for Him. But our problem is that we're robed in His flesh. Because we're robed in His flesh, we're in a constant battle. Our flesh trusts those things that we can see. Trusts those things that we can feel. But where does faith come in? Taking God at His word. The Word teaches that God is sovereign. We can trust Him. Speaking about salvation, is there anyone here that thinks they are too bad for God to save? Anyone here that thinks they are beyond that? I love this scripture, John 6, verse 37. All that the Father hath given me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will, and no wise cast out. Thankful that God saves souls. He saves sinners. Paul writes to Timothy, of whom I am chief. Hallelujah. Christ Jesus, my Lord. How anxious are we, folks? Are we trusting Him? The Bible tells us not to trust our own selves, our own wisdom, our own common sense. We surely don't trust our own hearts. He is our sovereign Lord. Let's pray.