Found In Christ

I hope that every person within earshot of my voice today is a believer in our Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing else would please me so much as if that were the case. But I cannot risk thinking it is so if it is not. Too much is at stake. Eternity is at stake. For it only faith in Christ that will secure a soul for heaven. Anything less will disappoint.

And so, I appeal to you for your patience. I have labored many years in the vineyard of the Lord, and yet I cannot tell you whether or not I have gathered much fruit for our Lord’s glory. I suppose no preacher knows fully how effective he is in presenting the gospel. I fear that my harvest has been far too small, given the opportunity the Lord has afforded me.

So, if you are a believer, bear with me today as I speak to those few souls—or perhaps only one, and maybe none—who have yet to believe. I trust that, if you know the Lord, his ‘old, old story’ will not be burdensome to you, that, indeed, as the hymn says, you ‘love to tell the story.’ And I rely on the possibility that, again as the hymn says, each time [you] tell it, ‘it is more wonderful and sweet.’

So, grant me this indulgence, I plead, to offer yet again to unredeemed sinners the glad news of redemption from sin.

We are looking at chapter 3 of Paul’s letter to the Philippians, where he warns his readers against those he calls ‘the dogs,’ that is, those who tell us that Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross is not enough to save us but that we need something else. We need to DO something as well as BELIEVE something. In other words, we rely on the flesh. And by ‘the flesh’ what we mean is certain qualities of our own: our status, our accomplishments, our claims to certain honors and privileges—our resume we might say.

But what Paul shows us here is how empty the promise of the flesh turns out to be. He ought to know, for he tells us that, at one time, he himself depended on the flesh. He relied on his own performance. His confidence, for example, was in outward ritual, ‘circumcised’ as he was ‘on the eighth day.’ His confidence was in racial pride, for he was born ‘of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews.’ It was in his religious identity, for he was ‘a Pharisee,’ and in his religious fervor, for he tells us how zealous he was. And it was in his own moral record, for, he tells us that, ‘as to righteousness under the law,’ he was ‘blameless.’

But all this was merely external, like a layer of paint on a wall that hides the black mold underneath. Now, listen to me: None of the personal assets Paul cites are to be despised. They are all, in fact, good things. A fresh coat of paint, after all, can brighten any room. Paul was religious, and he was serious about his religion. He was a good person, better than most of his contemporaries perhaps.

But he saw what we must see: It is possible that more people go to hell clinging to their goodness than those who cling to their sins. Let us never forget how the Scriptures say that ‘all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment’ (Isa. 64:6). Even when we are at our best, we are not good enough. For often our good deeds are done with self-serving motives rather than for the glory of God. And even if we could multiply our righteous deeds so that they mounted up to heaven, our goodness will but cover up our sins. The stench of sin is not so easily removed. Its odor remains. Not to mention its stain. Like the ink of the tattoo artist, the marks of our transgressions penetrate the surface and seep deep into the soul. Oh, truly, we may exclaim with the hymn writer, ‘What can wash away my sin?’

You see, then, how the promise of the flesh fails us. Whether we depend on our family name, or who our grandparents before us may have been, or our parents even, or what we have done and what we have refrained from doing, or how often we have endured sitting in a hard pew, or the fact that we were baptized by kindly, old Dr. So-and-So, these things, commendable as they are, are not sufficient to support us in that day when we shall stand before God and give account of our lives.

What then can sustain us? Only one thing. And we dare not overlook it. And that one thing is not what we have done for God; it is what God has done for us—and more particularly what God has done for us in Christ. We must let go of every other support and lean all our weight on this one thing: that Christ died for us to bear the weight and guilt of our sin.