Well, let's begin in chapter 3.
We've come to the point where Paul is
saying, brothers, finally I rejoice in the Lord.
And he said, it's no trouble for me
to write the same things to you again.
This is a safeguard to you.
So what Paul is saying here is, I've
written these instructions to you before, and I'm
going to write to you again.
You know, many times we are scared to
death of repetition, and yet we're told and
we know that repetition is the mother of
learning.
And yet many times we're scared to death
of it.
So he said, no, I'm going to write
to you again, and probably again and again
if necessary, because I want you to get
what I'm saying.
Watch out, he says, for those dogs.
Now guys, that is not real politically correct,
calling people dogs and people who are mutilators
of the flesh.
But if that's truth, then why have we
grown to the point where, for the sake
of being so-called politically correct, we fear
to proclaim truth?
That has become almost a mystery to me.
I didn't grow up that way, and most
of you who are at least a little
older certainly can agree with me that you
didn't grow up that way, that you kind
of spoke truth is what truth is, and
no big deal.
But we've become so sensitive today that we
just cannot stand to hear even truth.
But the fact is that in the scriptures,
you're going to see truth proclaimed.
When Jesus said to people, you're a bunch
of white-washed sepulchres, that is not what
you would call politically correct, but it's truth.
And because it's truth, it will set you
free.
And so he says, watch out for those
dogs, those men who do evil, those manipulators
of the flesh.
For it is we who are the circumcision.
In other words, these people who are claiming
that we are the true believers in Christ
Jesus.
That is true even today, where you will
find people who say we are the church.
Well, folks, there is no the church except
the church of Christ Jesus.
And that doesn't mean that you name your
church the church and that becomes the church.
It's the church that Christ brought about, not
the ones we bring about, not the memberships
that we create, but the memberships that he
created.
And the only way that he creates a
church is through spiritual birth.
We create them through baptism, church membership, rolls,
donuts, all kinds of things that we create
church with.
Those are man-made.
Those are what's called fleshly things.
But Jesus' church is a supernatural church.
It's an invisible church.
As a matter of fact, our founder isn't
down here except in us.
But he says that is my church.
It isn't a denomination.
You have people today say, well, our church
is the first.
I don't care if it was the first
or before the first.
It's man-made.
The only church that God is interested in
is his church, not ours.
And so we go out and we build
big memberships and we build big buildings and
we just are so proud of our congregation
and our group.
And why?
Well, because we built it.
We went to church growth seminars and we
did all kinds of things and we built
this thing.
And we visited all the visitors and we
encouraged them or manipulated them back into church
or whatever it might be.
And we have built this thing.
We're so proud of it.
But God says that isn't what I'm looking
for.
He said, the church that I'm interested in
is the church that I produced.
And that's produced by being born again believers,
all color, all creed, all backgrounds, all economic
strata.
It makes no difference, just born again people.
So he said, you watch out for these
people, these people who do evil, manipulators of
the flesh.
For it is we who are the circumcision,
we who worship by the spirit of God,
who glory in Christ Jesus and put no
confidence in the flesh, no confidence in the
flesh.
Now he said, I have reason to put
such confidence in the flesh.
And so what Paul is going to do
here is describe some of the ways in
which we put confidence in the flesh.
And it's, it's very explicit.
He says, first of all, I have, I
was circumcised on the eighth day.
That meant he followed religious observance.
It would be like saying I was baptized
when I was 12 or I was baptized
or I'm a tither or I have a
99.9% church attendance or whatever else
you want to put into there.
It's something that I have done.
And, and, and I, because I've done it,
I have confidence that that's what's going to
get me in.
And so he said, circumcised on the eighth
day.
In other words, religious observance, the people of
Israel ancestry, my mommy and daddy were Baptist.
My great granny would Baptist and my great,
great Grammy or Baptist and brother.
I'm a Baptist.
And so I'm okay.
Now I could use Presbyterian or anything.
I'm not down on Baptist just use it
as an example.
Okay.
So politically correct.
Need to clear that up.
There are people like that.
I am so proud of the fact that
I come out of a generation of Presbyterians
or a generation of Baptist or generation of
Methodist and my relation clear back to the
days that I can't remember.
We're all the same denomination.
And so am I.
So I'm okay.
How can I not be okay?
When I followed the traditions of man through
all of these years, confidence in the flesh,
he said out of the tribe of Benjamin,
a Hebrew of Hebrews.
In other words, as far as my race
is concerned of being a Hebrew, I'm one
of the best ones out there.
So Paul's kind of identifying himself that I
was a Hebrew of the Hebrews.
I'm a Christian of the Christians.
And if you want to take a look
at a, at a healthy, good Christian, I
guess that's comparison to a bad Christian, but
to a good Christian, man, you just look
at me and I'll show you what a
good Christian is.
So your confidence there, what is your confidence
in how good I'm doing?
You just put you folks just don't realize
how much I pray.
And, uh, you just don't know how much
I read the Bible.
And, and, and I do it in an
orderly fashion.
Uh, when do you do yours, Joe?
Seven in the morning?
I do mine at six.
If he said six, I'd have done it
at five.
And we play Christian one-upmanship don't we?
And there's all of that kind of stuff
going on.
And so we become confident in that.
We become proudful, prideful of the fact that
that's what I'm doing and I'm okay because
that's what I'm doing.
I have confidence in my flesh.
This is, these are all religious things.
You know, we can get into the flesh,
the stuff that we're really familiar with.
Um, but these are all just religious things.
We'd get into the other, but I'm afraid
it'd be too convicting.
So we'll try.
He said, um, as far as persecuting the
church or in regard to the law, a
Pharisee, in other words, you want to talk
about a law keeper, brother, I'm a law
keeper.
I'm under the law and I am a
keeper of that law.
And, uh, and you just look to see
how well I keep the law.
I go to church on the day I'm
supposed to, and I haven't murdered anyone recently.
And, uh, I haven't stolen.
And I, all of these things, I am
a law keeper in regard to the law.
I'm like a Pharisee.
I'm top drawer as for zeal, man, zealous
for the Lord.
I go out and witnessed everybody at walks
and a few that don't.
And, uh, I, I just, I just have
a zeal for God.
Every time I look at somebody, I say,
praise Jesus got a real zeal for God.
Where's the focus on all this stuff, guys?
It's on me, me, what I'm doing for
God.
It'd be like a branch saying, boy, haven't
you seen how much fruit I got hanging
on me?
I mean, I am one producer of fruit
now realizing that that branch could not produce
a thing if it were not for the
branch abiding in the vine, a branch cannot
produce fruit.
A branch can only bear the fruit of
a producer.
And the producer is not the branch.
The producer is the vine.
And so is there anything for us to
be bragging about?
Not really.
Do we?
Absolutely.
We have what confidence in the branch.
You guys may get on thrall if you
want to with that vine, but I want
to tell you, I'm a pretty impressive branch.
And so we need to keep our eyes
on the branch.
And that's the way we think that's confidence
in the flesh, very subtle, but very true.
A Hebrew of Hebrews zealous for God.
And not only that, but I persecute people
that aren't like me.
I mean, if, if, if I'm a, I'm
this law keeper and somebody in keeping the
law, the way I think they should keep
the law, you're going to hear from me
and you're going to hear from me real
good because I'm a, I'm a keeper of
the law and I'm going to make sure
that you're a keeper of the law.
As for legalistic righteousness, as far as being
righteous in the sight of God, Paul said,
I was faultless.
I have people like that.
Have you ever run into somebody that never
thinks they sin?
Do you know there are people around that
say that I never sin?
How many of you have ever known anyone
like that?
I hope none of you have been that
way, but how many, how many have known
somebody just literally say, I've never, I never
said how many in the hands going to
see not too many in here.
How many of you don't know anybody?
Maybe you've never broached the subject.
When I ran into somebody that says, I
never sin, I say, let me talk to
your wife.
And I had a guy on the radio.
One time I was the dummy.
Let me talk to her.
It kind of entered that conversation in a
hurry, confidence in the flesh.
And Paul is saying as far as confidence
in the flesh, I probably got more confidence
that I could put in a place in
any of you, but verse seven, whatever was
to my profit.
In other words, whatever I thought was profitable
for me, I was doing these things because
I felt they were profitable to me.
It was, it was doing something for me.
It was making me more acceptable in the
sight of God.
And that's the reason I was doing them
is, uh, the, the law said to do
this and I was obeying the law and
the law said to be circumcised.
And I was circumcised.
It didn't have anything to do with that,
but my parents did.
I was a Jew of the Jews.
I was a Hebrew of the Hebrews.
And so I, I was out.
It was beneficial for me to act like
a good Hebrew beneficial for me to go
out and act like a good Christian.
It always kills me when I hear that
good Christian.
I always do compare that.
I guess that's the comparison to a bad
Christian, but you just wonder why people use
that word good Christian.
As a matter of fact, what did Jesus
say about that word?
Good.
He said, when they called him good, good
teacher, remember they tend to him.
He said, hold on a minute.
Why do you call me good?
Only God is good.
So if you're going to call me good,
call me God.
And if you don't want to call me
God, don't call me good because only God
is good.
Now, if he's saying that only God is
good, what does that say about you and
me?
How many times do we say, oh, he's
such a good person.
But have you ever been around him when
he's mad?
You ever been around her when she's mad?
See, we can be nice people.
Can't we?
And sometimes, but to be good people, we
need to get that out of our vocabulary,
guys, because the Bible says there aren't any
of us good.
We just think we are.
Basically, isn't that what you always hear?
Basically, I'm a good person.
I just killed three people and raped 10,
but basically I am a good person.
And you hear that constantly.
Hear it constantly.
If you have ever gone and worked in
prisons, you will hear that constantly.
Yeah, I did that, but basically I am
a good person.
Well, you see, if I'm a good person,
what do I need a savior for?
If I'm such a good person, what do
I need forgiveness for?
I don't need forgiveness if I'm a good
person.
I need forgiveness because I'm not a good
person.
Don't I?
You see, we don't want to admit that.
We don't want to see truth.
We don't want to be set free with
truth to see ourselves as God sees us
and therefore see our need for salvation in
Christ Jesus.
And so all that other is doing what?
Putting confidence in the flesh.
Paul says, I don't want you to have
any confidence in the flesh.
We who are the true believers put no
confidence in our flesh.
In our flesh, he said, is no good
thing.
And we have to understand the truth of
that.
You say, well, why did God, why did
God do this the way he did it?
I mean, that's something that really we all
ought to think about sooner or later in
a Christian experience.
Why did God do this?
God could have saved us in such a
way that he just eradicated the flesh.
And so I didn't have any flesh in
conflict with my spirit.
I just was born again.
And now I am perfect and there's no
conflict at all.
He could have done that, but he didn't.
And it says God can't look on sin.
Then how in the world does he live
in me?
And how in the world does he live
in you?
If God can't look on sin, can anybody
answer that question?
So all of those kinds of things, every
time God sees sin, he turns his back
and he flips around.
You kind of envision after a while God
on his chair that, you know, you sin
round ago and you just confess it and
I twirl back around again and just twirling
around up there.
Can you believe how many people there are
in the world today and how many sinners
are in the world today and how much
spinning he must be doing?
But we teach that.
God shows for some reason to come and
indwell us in the midst of the fact
that even as I come to indwell you,
I'm going to indwell a person that is
also indwelt by sin that has still something
called flesh living in you.
And that that's going to be a conflict
until the day that you die between the
flesh and the spirit.
They're in conflict with each other.
The flesh doesn't do what the spirit wants
to do and the spirit doesn't do what
the flesh wants to do.
They're in conflict with each other.
How many have found that to be true
in your Christian experience?
That is the conflict that you're in where
you say, why did God do that?
He didn't have to do that.
Is there a benefit to my having flesh?
Paul said, it's a weakness.
You know what he said to do with
your weakness?
Rejoice in it.
Say what Lord?
Yeah, rejoice in it.
How can I rejoice in my weakness?
It's a thing that keeps me off balance.
No, no.
He said it shouldn't keep you off balance.
You should rejoice in your weakness because your
weakness is what's going to keep you dependent
upon Christ.
If I did not have any weaknesses, I
would forget Jesus in a New York minute.
And so would you.
Adam and Eve didn't have any weaknesses prior
to the fall, but they still fell.
And so we have to understand the truth
of that, that as long as I am
in this flesh of mine, as long as
I'm in dwelt by Christ Jesus, which is
forever, there's going to be a conflict between
those two.
So I tell people, if you really want
to get down to the point where you're
sinless, pray for death, because that's when it's
going to occur.
The day that you and I are absent
from this body and present with the Lord
is the first time that we will see
him as he is and become like him.
Until that time, we're going to be in
the conflict of Paul in Romans 7.
The things you want to do, you don't
do.
And the things that you don't want to
do, you do them anyway.
Wretched man that I am, who will free
me from this bondage of sin and death?
And his answer to it is praise be
to God through Jesus Christ, my Lord.
He set me free.
He set you free.
So where should our emphasis be, on the
branch or the vine?
You see, the flesh puts the emphasis on
the branch, and the spirit puts the emphasis
on the vine.
So Paul says, whatever was to my prophet,
I now consider loss for the sake of
Christ.
I put all those things behind me.
They have no meaning to me anymore.
And what is more, I consider everything a
loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing
Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whose sake I
lost all things.
Well, what's he talking about losing?
All the accolades that come from being a
person who was circumcised on the eighth day.
All the accolades that come from being a
Jew from Israel.
All the accolades that come from being a
tribe of Benjamin.
The accolades of being called the Hebrew of
the Hebrews.
The accolades that come from being a law
keeper.
The accolades that coming is what a zeal
for God this guy has.
All the accolades that come from he's bold
as brass, goes out and persecutes the church.
As far as legalistic righteousness, boy, he's without
fault.
Oh, those are things that feel good for
people to say about you.
He said, it's all flesh.
Forget about what people say about you.
As a matter of fact, forget about what
people think about you.
I say, if you're worried about what people
think about you, forget it.
They're not.
They're thinking about themselves.
And yet we spend time constantly preoccupied with,
I wonder what they think about me.
Forget it.
The only issue is important to us is
what does God think about you?
And if you're in Christ, he thinks a
lot about you.
As a matter of fact, he thinks so
much of you that he calls you my
son, my daughter.
That ought to satisfy our hearts.
As I said, everybody wants to be accepted.
Why God made us that way.
God made us in such a way whereby
the three strongest desires that we have in
all this world or will ever have is
the desire to be loved unconditionally, the desire
to be accepted.
And there's a difference between being loved and
being accepted unconditionally and to have meaning and
purpose to life.
Well, if we don't understand that, that that's
there, don't try to take it away from
me.
It's part of me.
It's part of being a human being.
So you're saying to yourself, well, where do
I go to get that need met?
And if we don't go to where God
created you to go, and that is to
him to meet that need, we have no
option except to go someplace else.
And where do we go?
To each other.
And so we try to get that need
for unconditional love met in our mate or
in our children or in our parents.
If I would have just had more loving
parents, I'd really be okay.
No, I can take you to people that
grew up with the most loving parents you'd
ever want to see in your life that
I miss.
So we've got all these excuses.
If, if, if, if I would have just,
if this, they say, no, that there's an
influence that's there, but don't blame the way
you are today on that influence.
You had choices and it's the choices that
you made to determine whether you're walking in
victory or not today.
So he says, I consider everything as a
loss compared to this surpassing greatness of knowing
Christ Jesus, my Lord.
He sees this born again experience where he
got to know Jesus personally.
He sees that as probably the most important
thing that ever took place in his life.
And as a matter of fact, he calls
this surpassing greatness, how great it is to
know that you're what he is.
Now, guys, we forget about that.
Don't we kind of take it for granted.
At least that is my experience.
Sometime it's kind of whole home.
Well, that's pretty nice stuff.
I forget about many times, especially the longer
you're in Christ is how lost you were
when you weren't in Christ.
And that's some benefit to coming to Christ
later on in life is because like I
had 36 years of experience as to what
it is to not have the Lord living
in you.
That's, that's pretty good amount of time.
But a lot of people never got that
time said I came to Christ when I
was nine.
I said, did you ever stop to think
that you had to do all your sinning
as a Christian?
That's a real encouraging thought in it.
But guys, don't take it for granted.
Paul said, said, said, he said, I see
this, that I would consider everything that's ever
happened to me as loss compared to that
surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord,
for whose sake he said, I've lost all
things.
I consider them done.
I consider them nothing but a waste that
I might gain Christ and be found in
him, not having a righteousness on my own
that comes from the law.
And there again, mentioning that he does not
have a righteousness that comes from the law.
You see, we try to gain our righteousness
through the law.
The law was given to us by God
to show us our unrighteousness.
And we have misused the law to our
benefit.
We think it's to our benefit by taking
the law and using it as a means
of gaining righteousness.
When the only reason that God gave you
the law was to show you your unrighteousness
and the law was not given for the
righteous.
It was given for the unrighteous to show
you your condition so that you would turn
to Christ Jesus for your salvation.
The law is a mirror.
You look into the mirror to see what
your condition is and the mirror shows you
that your face is dirty.
And when religion tries to wash your face
in the mirror and to get the mirror
to get you looking good, where you look
into the law and see I am dirty.
And then you hear the tapping on the
shoulder and you turn and there's Jesus.
And he said, Bob, what did the mirror
show you?
Which showed me my face is dirty.
Did you ever try to wash your face
in the mirror?
Yeah, I did.
How does that work?
No, it doesn't work.
Are you ready for me to cleanse you?
Yes, I am.
And Christ cleanses us from all unrighteousness.
Now the law did its work and Christ
did his work.
And so this righteousness, he said, I want
to emphasize the fact that I have gained
Christ and I was found in him not
having a righteousness of my own.
I found this truth out in him.
Now, guys, what is he talking about there?
I found this out in him that I
don't have any righteousness.
What does that show you?
Again, that Christ came to amplify the law.
The law showed you that you're unrighteous.
And Christ came to prove that to show
you firsthand that you have no righteousness except
through him that comes through the law.
But that I stand and I have been
found in Christ to have a righteousness that
is through faith.
The righteousness that comes from God, not from
me, and is by faith in the one
who gave me his righteousness.
Now it comes out there.
Then how much sense does it make for
you and me to go out and to
try to prove to the world or to
yourself how righteous you are?
I mean, if any of us have any
righteousness and do we have righteousness?
I mean, do we possess righteousness?
Who gave it to us?
We're clothed in the righteousness of Christ Jesus.
Now, if that's true, I don't have to
go out and prove that to somebody, do
I?
In other words, there isn't anything for me
to brag about, so I may as well
just quit talking about it.
That's something that God has done for me.
That is something that God had to do
for me in order to make me qualified
to go into the presence of a holy,
righteous God.
There's nothing for me to brag about.
There's nothing for me to talk about except
to say, thank you, Lord, for what you
accomplished.
And thank you that I have been found
just like the apostle Paul with no righteousness
of my own, but only as a possessor
of a righteousness that came from God and
a righteousness that came as a result of
putting my faith in God.
No confidence in the flesh.
Paul said, I want you to know Christ,
not just to know about him, but I
want you to know him.
And guys, you can't get to know Christ
when you're preoccupied with you.
You see, I cannot press on when I'm
holding on.
When I'm holding on to my own righteousness,
I cannot press on to the high calling
of Christ Jesus.
It's an impossibility.
When I'm hanging on to the law to
be sure that my obedience to the law
is what is pleasing to God.
And that's why I'm hanging on to it
so that I'll be pleasing to God.
And we hear that all the time.
I'm obedient.
And I like the way we emphasize the
E, the obedient.
I'd like to know just how obedient you
are.
I'd like to follow you around all day
long.
You follow me around, just see how obedient
we are.
And yet we brag on that.
We're people of obedience.
Oh, really?
How are you doing the love department?
Are you always patient?
You're always kind.
Do you ever keep records of your wife's
or your husband's wrongs?
Do you ever bring up something that he
did 15 years ago?
No, just 25.
Guys, we are so deceived into thinking how
wonderful we are.
That is all flesh from the beginning to
the end.
That is all flesh.
That is not saying that I have found
myself, found myself and I wouldn't trade it
for anything in the world.
I have found myself not having a righteousness
on my own that comes through the law,
but I found myself with a righteousness that
came from God, not me.
And so get our eyes off of how
good we are and how well we're doing
and recognizing what God says is the only
thing that counts.
He didn't say one of the main things
that counts.
He said, the only thing that counts is
what faith that expresses itself through what love
period.
You say, how do we live this life
that God gave to us?
You live it the same way you got
it by faith.
As you receive Christ Jesus, the Lord, so
walking in him.
How did you receive him?
By faith.
How do you walk in him?
By faith.
Faith in who?
Me and how I'm doing or faith in
him and how he's doing.
But you see, that is hard for us
because they say, Bob, are you saying that
you're a branch and you're not supposed to
do anything except hang on to that bind?
Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
Well, that just doesn't make sense.
How am I going to give praise to
the branch?
Well, you're not.
Well, what motivation then do I have?
You don't have any, except the fact that
you're in Christ.
Let's say it's so hard for us because
we want to be what headed on the
back.
We want to draw attention to who to
us instead of to him.
And so he's saying to us, don't put
your confidence in that flesh.
I want you to know Christ and I
want you to know the power of his
resurrection.
Now, guys, why does he say the power
of his resurrection?
Because that's where power comes from is recognizing
that I was dead and now I'm alive.
And it says in the scriptures that I
pray that you may have power together with
all the saints to do something.
Do I grasp something?
What's he want you to grasp?
How long and high and wide and deep
is the love of Christ and to know
this love that surpasses knowledge?
How come so that you might be filled
to the measure with all of the fullness
of God?
I want you to know the power of
this resurrection.
I want you to see that there's more
to salvation than just the cross.
Thank God for the cross.
But that is what prepared us for this
salvation.
This is what prepared us for power to
live the Christian life because the power comes
from the powerful one.
I am raised from the dead because the
life of Christ raised me from the dead.
And how did he do that was becoming
and living in me.
That's powerful, isn't it?
And so he says, I don't want you
to know the power of his resurrection.
I want you to know the power of
the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming
like him in his death and somehow to
attain the resurrection from the dead.
He's saying that you and I have been
raised spiritually from the dead and there's going
to come a point in time when you
and I will be raised from the dead
physically.
You say, well, when is this somehow to
attain the resurrection from the dead?
Well, it could be a point in time
in the future when they say the Bible
declares that at least we interpret it that
way, that there's going to be a massive
physical resurrection from the dead.
Some people think that's what happens at the
rapture is that the bodies of all believers
are raised from the dead.
I look at some of those things and
say, I'm not saying one way or the
other, but I'm saying there's certainly is a
very logical explanation that that may not be
true.
That is far as you and I are
concerned.
One thing we know, and we really kind
of know a span of years that it's
going to occur and that's our death.
I don't think there's too many people out
here that think I'm going to live to
be 150.
And I'd say to you, what in the
world would you want to for all your
friends are going to be dead.
Not even 120, maybe a hundred, but very
few people.
So you and I have a pretty good
idea that at the best, the best of
longevity, we only have so many years that
we've got left.
And at that a hundred year list, I
got about 25 years left, but I don't
think I'm going to last that long.
I hope not.
Like I said, all my friends will be
gone, but we do have a timeline, don't
we?
A pretty good indicator of how long it's
going to be.
Well, what's going to happen when I die?
My body, this physical body of mine is
going to go into the grave.
Is it not?
And when it goes into the grave and
it is going to go into the grave,
or if I die in a shipwreck, it's
going to go into the ocean, going to
be eaten by whales or sharks or fish.
If it goes to the ground, it's going
to be worm food.
If I'm in a plane crash and it
burns up, it's gone.
And this body came from the dust and
it says it's going to return to the
dust.
And we're told in the scripture that flesh
and blood will not inherit the kingdom of
God.
Now that tells me something about this body
of mine that is made up of flesh
and blood.
It ain't going to heaven, not the body.
The body is a temporal house.
It's temporary.
And so it's going into the grave.
The real you is the invisible you.
The real you is who in there when
you look at a corpse.
I'll never forget of going the first time
of seeing my dad in a coffin.
Hadn't been many days before then I was
talking to him.
In the coffin, it wouldn't have made a
difference how much I was talking to him.
He wasn't going to talk back.
If I tickled him, he wasn't going to
laugh.
He was gone.
And the first thing that came into my
mind when I saw my dad in a
captured casket was dad isn't there.
Body's there, but dad isn't there.
He's gone.
Now the issue is where did he go?
And the scripture tells us that if we're
born again, that we go immediately into the
presence of God.
Absent from the body, present immediately with the
Lord.
That's what the scripture tells us.
Absent from the body, present with the Lord.
Now Jesus said, I go to prepare a
place for you.
And we all envision these mansions.
Great big mansion to live in.
You know, gold appliances, all kinds of stuff.
And I don't think that that is the
case at all.
I think where he's gone to prepare a
place for us is our body.
I think it's a glorified body that we're
going to live in.
And I personally believe that we get that
at the very moment that we're absent from
the body and present with the Lord.
I really do.
I don't believe that we have a body,
a house to live in here.
And the minute we die, we're homeless.
So I think we get a glorified body
at that time.
Now that can be debated.
And if you have a different thought than
that, that's okay.
I've thought that way for a lot years
as well.
I'm not dogmatic on it.
I'm just saying, I lean more toward that
than I do the other.
A lot of times people will talk about,
well, what about the rapture?
And of course the big question at the
rapture was that when the Lord comes and
we believers are going to go into the
presence of the Lord, what about those people
who died before the rapture?
Where are they going to go?
How are they going to get there?
And we're told that they are preceding the
people who are left at the rapture.
Well, is the rapture that these bodies that
we just got through talking about are never
going to inherit the kingdom of God, that
these bodies all float up into heaven if
we're never going to inherit the kingdom of
God?
Or does God do some kind of a
magical deal in killing this thing off on
the way up and getting you a new
one on the way up?
Because you said otherwise it'd be here.
Or could it be that at the rapture
that the Christians go into the presence of
God, their bodies are left here, and the
lost people have to bury us by the
millions?
And it could not make sense that the
Antichrist could say, see there, I told you
God's judgment was going to come upon these
troublemakers.
Look at them.
There's all their bodies strewn all over the
place.
God's judgment came upon them.
Now you follow me.
Does that make sense it could happen?
Yeah, could happen.
Do I know that that's going to happen
that way?
No.
But it could.
So I'm not going to get dogmatic either
way on it.
But I am saying there's two things that
are there.
One thing I do know, my flesh and
blood isn't going to inherit the kingdom of
God.
That means to me that it ought to
stay here.
And if that's the case, that eliminates his
body floating into the air at the rapture.
Now it may be bad interpretation and that
could be, but I'm just saying don't close
your mind to something because it could be
that way.
But in either case, does anybody really care?
No, I don't care.
It doesn't make an ounce of difference to
me.
I'm not going to bury you anyway.
I'm not going to be here to bury
anybody when that occurs, whether I go one
way or the other, I'm going to be
in the presence of the Lord.
But at my age, my chance of being
in the presence of the Lord by natural
death is a lot more easy to understand
and waiting on the rapture to occur.
I'm not saying it couldn't occur, but I'm
saying that the older you get to realize
that probably the next event, major event in
my life is going to be being absent
from the body and present with the Lord,
not at the rapture, but at death.
And there's where I want to go meet
the Lord.
So he says to there that I want
you to attain this resurrection of the dead.
Paul said, not that I've already obtained it
or have already been made perfect.
Now, again, the scripture says that we have
been made complete in Christ.
But I think what Paul is saying here
is the fact that yes, you are complete
in Christ.
As a matter of fact, if you go
over to verse 20, in the same chapter
three, he says, our citizenship is, it doesn't
say will be, but it says our citizenship
is in heaven.
And we eagerly await a savior from there.
The Lord Jesus Christ, who by the power
that enables him to bring everything under his
control will transform our lowly bodies so that
there'll be like his glorious body.
So we know that's going to occur and
we're going to get a new body.
Our lowly bodies are going to be transformed
in such a way that we're like his
glorious body.
So we know that's going to occur.
So Paul's talking about his completeness, but he
says in essence that I haven't been made
perfect.
All of these things have not happened yet.
So the completeness he's talking about is not
my completeness in Christ, but in my experience,
this has not occurred yet, but I press
on to take hold of that for which
Christ Jesus took hold of me and brothers,
I don't consider myself yet to have taken
hold of it.
But one thing I do very important for
us to remember, forget what's behind and strain
forward to what's ahead.
Press onto the goal to win the prize
for which God has called me heavenward in
Christ Jesus.
Guys, forget the past.
I'm amazed at how prone we are to
dig up the past, especially if there's something
wrong.
If somebody did something wrong in the past,
how easy it is to keep little things,
just bringing it up as if it happened
to you, you wanted to remember it.
When Paul tells me to forget my past,
I'd like to forget it.
I mean, I don't know about you, but
I don't know too many people that have
a past that was so wonderful that they
would just like for everybody to see it.
Everything that I ever thought or said, I
just love to see on that screen that
I hear about it.
Guys, it is not pleasant.
If you have had an unpleasant experience in
the past, or you've done things in the
past that just dumb, stupid things that you've
done, it isn't pleasant to bring them up.
It isn't pleasant to think about them.
We kind of think, well, yeah, the more
you think about them, the more you want
to do them again, very opposite.
That isn't the grace of God teaching you
to say no to unrighteousness.
It's using the law of God.
And so he's saying, we need to learn
to put our past behind us.
We can't change it, can we?
There isn't a thing in the world that
I can do to change my past.
I wish I could sometimes.
There are some things that I would definitely
have changed, but I can't.
It's gone.
It's over.
It's like trying to take back words that
you've said to somebody, go give it a
try.
It's just not going to work.
And so he says, the only thing that
I want you to do is to forget
the past, forgetting what's behind you.
It's over.
It's done.
But you see, because as we talked a
little bit last week, because we're made in
such a way that our emotions are going
to predictably respond to whatever we're thinking.
The only time I can feel something is
right now, but I can motivate this now
feeling by thinking about what I did in
the past.
So when I'm thinking about the mistakes that
I made in the past, my emotions don't
know whether that's past or present or future.
They're just responding predictably to whatever I'm thinking.
So I can make myself totally miserable today
by being preoccupied with my past.
Can't you?
So he says, forget it.
And it says love doesn't keep bringing it
up.
So if God is saying for you to
forget your past, he's telling your mate to
forget your past and vice versa and quit
bringing it up and let people live in
peace.
So Paul is saying, forget what is behind,
straining toward what's ahead.
I press on toward the goal to win
the prize for which God has called me
heavenward in Christ Jesus.
And all of us who are mature should
take a view of these things.
And if on some point, some of you
think differently, that too, God will make clear
to you.
Only let us live up to what we
have already attained.
Let's not live up to imagination, but live
up to what we have now attained in
Christ Jesus.
Well, guys, I hope this has been helpful
to you.
Let's, let's pray together.
Father, we're extremely familiar with the attitudes of
the flesh.
We've exercised them, massaged them, given into them,
justified them.
And Paul is saying to forget them, put
them behind.
Don't put any confidence in them.
But put your confidence in the one who
came to save you from the turmoil of
life, the Lord Jesus.
I pray that as we continue to contemplate
these things, that we'll come to realize that
apart from you, that we can do nothing,
that we are nothing.
And there's not one thing that we can
accomplish on your behalf that you did not
accomplish for us, came to die for us,
to take away from the eyes of God
forever, not to sit and contemplate them in
maudlin introspection, to take our sins away from
the eyes of God forever.
And as Christ has forgiven you, so forgive
one another.
You came to be raised from the dead
so that that life that raised you from
the dead can raise us from our state
of spiritual death.
Praise be to God through Jesus Christ our
Lord.
He has set us free and it's in
his wonderful name that we pray and thank
you from the bottom of our hearts.
Amen.