← ArchiveSunday, July 15, 2018DateJuly 15, 2018Speaker—Text—Passages in this sermonPhilippians 34:47TranscriptMachine transcribed. Click any line to jump there.0:00I thank my God every time I remember you, to live as Christ and to die as Gain. He made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord. I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen. Well, we have not had the chance to be introduced yet.0:30My name is Josh, lead pastor of Bethel, if you don't know who I am. I encourage you this morning to turn with me in Philippians, the book of Philippians. It's about halfway through the New Testament. So if you flip your Bible to the right side and keep going, you'll find Philippians. And we're continuing a series in the book of Philippians simply called He is Lord.0:54He is God, yes, but He is Lord. And that name divides who we are. The pretenders from the followers. And today's message is simply this, confidence and conviction in Jesus. I believe that God wants you to have confidence in Christ.1:20And that is the heart of what we will look at today. Sometimes even the greatest and most brilliant business people can make wrong decisions. That could be the reasons for this could be overconfidence. It could be lack of information. It could be information that was not available at the time. It could even be, as we've heard recently, false news.1:48I want to give you some of those examples this morning. William Orton was a brilliant leader and CEO of a company you might have heard of called Western Union. In 1876, he was introduced to a top-notch inventor of his time, a man by the name of Alexander Graham Bell. And Bell, they heard, had, out of his hundreds of inventions, he had one that was particularly interesting to Western Union at the time.2:15It was called, you might have heard of it, the telephone. Anyone have a telephone with them? You might have heard, it's called the smartphone now, right? Orton, when he saw this newfangled contraption, declared, While it is very interesting and a novelty, we have come to the conclusion that it has no commercial possibilities.2:37The higher-ups at Western Union thought the apparatus was little more than a toy. Often, misplaced or overconfidence can have devastating consequences. Overconfidence can have devastating consequences.3:04Not to be outdone, in 1962, on New Year's Day, a man named Dick Rowe had the privilege, as a recording exec, of listening to new musicians in the London area. It was a long day, and one of the bands that came to play was a group from Liverpool. They drove 10 hours in the snow, and they played 15 songs for he and other executives.3:27After a long day spent listening, Dick Rowe eventually rejected the band for this reason. He told them, he said, guitar groups are on the way out. You might have heard of the group, they were called the Beatles. But this is a reminder that misplaced confidence can have devastating consequences in your life.3:53And we're going to read today the struggle that we all have. Every single person has a struggle. The struggle between confidence in the self and confidence in Christ. There is not a single person here that is not waging that war. Parents, you're part of the problem.4:22We, I'm a parent, right? We tell our kids, be confident in yourself. You can be anything that you want to be. And here's the problem with our kids. You know what happens? They believe you. But if we're not careful, they think that spiritually, they should be confident in themselves. And we wage war against ourselves. Look at Philippians chapter 3. Overconfidence. Misplaced confidence can have devastating effects.4:52Paul, writing to a church that he loves dearly, in verse 1 of chapter 3, says, In addition, brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. To write to you again is no trouble for me, and it is safety. It is a safeguard for you. Now, this is not really part of the sermon, but I'm going to say it anyway because I can't help it.5:17Look, if you want to know what worship of God should look like, just look at the words that the scripture uses about worshiping Jesus Christ.5:42Rejoice. Quit looking so frumpty. Right? Rejoice. Why? Because we boast in Jesus Christ. We are proud that our Savior has redeemed us. I just had to say that. Sorry. Okay. Let's move on. Verse 4. Although I have reasons for confidence. So Paul says, don't have confidence in the flesh, but if you were going to have confidence, I have more.6:09Here's what he says. If anyone thinks he has grounds for their confidence, mine circumcised on the eighth day. The nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews, regarding the law, a Pharisee, regarding zeal, persecuting the church, regarding righteousness that is in the law, blameless. This was effectively an ancient mic drop.6:38Paul is saying, you think you're good? Look at me. And then he says this, but everything that was gained to me, I considered to be loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I also consider everything to be a loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord.7:01Because of him, I have suffered the loss of all things and consider them as dung so that I might gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own from the law, but one that is through faith in Christ. The righteousness from God based on faith.7:27My goal is to know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being conformed to his death, assuming that I will somehow reach the resurrection from among the dead. And let's pray, Father, we know right now in our hearts and in our souls, a war is raging. Lord, we are told by the world and by our standards that we should be confident in ourselves.7:57And Lord, we know that sometimes our confidence is misplaced in ourselves and not in Christ. So, Lord, open our hearts and our minds to receive your word that is safety for us, that we would be doers and not hearers only. Lord, for those that have walked in here dead in their sin, we ask that the gospel, the good news, would liberate them from their chains, from their prisons, from their darkness,8:23and that they would leave here confessing that Jesus is Lord and counting everything as loss. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen and amen. So the big idea this morning is simply this. God wants you to be confident in the right things.8:49God wants you to be confident in the right, and I would even put parentheses, in the righteous things. Be confident, but be confident in the right things. And we begin right here in verse 1. Paul wants you and I to be confident what and where. I write to you again, and it's no trouble for me. It is a safeguard.9:17It is safety for you. Confidence is the feeling or belief that one can rely on something. You should have confidence in the word of God. You should have confidence in the word of God. Not only confidence, but it is what? It is safety for you. The scriptures are sure. They are safe. And you ask me, do I believe everything in the Bible?9:46Yes. Categorically, yes. And if I'm a fool, I'm going to be a fool trusting in the promises of God rather than trusting in the schemes of man. I will take that bet any day. This was, we see in scripture, this was really the, as millennials would say, this is the original safe place. Paul says, you want to be safe?10:16Look at the word of God. The word here, the word for safeguard is, as fallen in Greek. And you might say, well, that sounds familiar. It is a word that means to not totter or to not fall down. In English, we know it as to fail or to fall. If you do not want to fall, cement yourself firmly in and on the word of God. Look what Paul says, to write to you is no trouble for me.10:44Why? For you, it is a safeguard. If you live your life outside of the word of God, it is not safe. And so don't look at the Lord and say, God, how could you let this happen? And God says, well, no, I've given you my word. I've given you parameters to live by, parameters that are good for you, not harmful. For your benefits, for your enjoyment, that you might be satisfied knowing that God is everything that you need.11:11Cement and surround yourself with the word of God. And simply listen to what the word of God says about itself. It is living. It's not a dead book. It is living and it is active. That's why I can preach right now. We can open up the word of God and some of you are going to come to me in the lobby and say, man, God was speaking to me about this. And I'm going to say that has nothing to do with what I just said.11:40But because the word of God is living and the word of God is living and active in the Holy Spirit is working in your heart right now, God is using his word to transform us. God's word is a lamp into our feet, a light into our path. You know what happens in the dark? You stub your toe. You know what happens in the light? You know what happens in the light? You know what happens in the light? You know what happens in the light? Your path is easier. We know that man cannot live on bread alone.12:07When Jesus Christ was tempted by the adversary, Satan himself. So for some of us, Satan just sends his demons. He's like, I don't, not the big guns, just the demon this time. For Jesus, Satan himself is tempting Christ after 40 days in the desert. And Jesus looks at him and says, man cannot live on bread alone. And I would say steak, right? Man needs steak after this time of testing.12:37But on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the Father. If God's word is vitally important to the Savior, how much more of a safety is it for us? And I would say this, every believer in every church, if you, anytime that you remove yourself from the word of God, God, you're on shaky ground at best. Have confidence in the word of God. Do I believe it? Yes, I will die believing the word of God.13:07I have confidence in it. Jerry Bridges says it this way about the word of God. He says, obedience to the revealed will of God, the word of God, is often just as much a step of faith as claiming the promises of God. Sometimes we pray, God, you just give me a promise. And I will hold on to it. I need a word from you. And God says, Josh, don't you realize I gave you millions of words?13:35I gave you my word. This is the revealed word and will of God. You want to know God's will for your life? Ready? Open it up. This is safety for us. And it's important that we recognize that we have confidence in the word of God. God wants you to be confident in his unchanging words. Now, I know what you might be thinking. Well, I believe in Jesus.14:05You might be saying to yourself, but I don't know if I can trust the word of God. Let me ask you this. How do you know who Jesus is? The word of God. Without the word of God, you would not know who Christ is. Cement yourself daily. Read God's word. Put it in your mind, into your heart, into your soul, sings with confidence that God is perfect and he is righteous.14:24With that, this is our starting place. Then if we have confidence in Christ and his word, then we are to watch out for those places that we are to not have confidence. Right? So we are to look for false Christ, anti-Christ in our life. And thankfully, God's word makes it clear for us what some of those might look like.14:50Look at verse 2. Have confidence. Be confident. God wants us to be confident. And he says, now that you have cemented yourself in the safety and security of the word of God, verse 2, watch out. Now, some of our youth love this passage because I've used the word dung and dogs in the same sermon. We're going to get to that. But look what Paul says.15:19Watch out for the dogs. Watch out for evil workers. Watch out for those who mutilate the flesh. See, if we are to have extreme confidence in Jesus Christ, that means then that we're not to have confidence in ourselves or others. At our basketball, we try to play basketball on Thursday nights. I don't play in the NBA by any means. I don't even play on the JV. But we were sharing as we were trying to suck wind after our fifth game and sharing on confidence.15:47I remember a quote by a famous NFL coach. And he says, if you have two quarterbacks, then you don't have what? You don't have one. And the reminder is, look, if your legs are planted on yourself for confidence and one leg in Christ, you're not confident on either. We have to have two feet firmly planted on Jesus Christ. And then Paul says, watch out.16:16Look out. Turn your attention. We can't put our heads in the sand like an ostrich. I don't even know if they do that, but that's what I was told. And ignore. You know what happens when you put your head in the sand? The lion's coming to eat me. I'm going to stick my head in the sand. Your body is exposed. We can't look at the world and say, look, the world is crumbling around us. Let's flee. No, rather, we're to look out because we know that our confidence is in Christ.16:43Look out for who? Look out for dogs. Now, immediately, our thoughts go two places. Some of you are thinking about Fluffy. Like, well, I love my dog. He's so nice to me. And he cuddles with me and he makes me feel happy. Dogs in the ancient world were not pets. So some of you are thinking, well, I don't think of Fluffy. I'm thinking of a derogatory, vulgar name. How dare Paul use this word?17:12But for the Jew, a dog would have been someone who was clearly outside the community. A dog was someone that was, they thought they were in the community of faith, but they were not. See, dogs would live outside the community and dogs were known to eat anything that they could eat in that moment to sustain life. Dogs in the ancient world were known to eat scraps, to eat corpses. And as we see in Proverbs, that dogs even return to their own vomit. So what is Paul saying?17:42Watch out for these. And you say, well, how? I want to watch out for dogs. What do they look like? A modern-day dog is anyone who is, for their benefit, seeking religion and not Christ. We can call it cultural Christianity. Cultural Christianity is defined this way. Deists, meaning there's a God somewhere. Pantheists, atheists, I don't believe, or agnostics, who are not Christian, but adhere to Christian values and appreciate Christian culture.18:05Although they think they are part of the faith, they are not. And Paul is saying, watch out for this lifestyle. Look, just because you are attracted to Christian lifestyle and values does not mean you're part of the faith. And I can say that because I was once this dog. I grew up in church and I thought I was part of the faith, but I was really doing that because it was beneficial.18:33Not because I wanted to Christ. I didn't want to go to hell, but I didn't really want Jesus. Hey, if I get the streets of the gold thing and the pearly gates, I'm in. But I didn't want Jesus. And Paul says, watch out for that because some of you are there. Some of you, you know how to play the church game. It's beneficial. It's easier for you to have business transactions.19:02Or maybe you're looking for a mate. And hey, well, why not? I just find someone in church because they would have good churchy values. But Christ is actually not what you want. Reject that lifestyle. Reject that. Put no confidence in cultural Christianity. Secondly, Paul says, watch out for evil workers. Watch out for those who the doers of iniquity, some of your Bibles say. So who are these people?19:31These evil workers in the time of Paul were earthly-minded false brothers who taught the works of the flesh. Be careful to anyone who gives lip service to Jesus Christ, but they're really only about their kingdom. Be careful of those who would rather sit in comfort than serve the Savior. Be careful for those who, anytime we in our life say, Lord, let it be about me.19:56God says, reject that. We have no confidence in earthly-mindedness. Here's a struggle if we're honest. You and I are all earthlings. Right? So we, by nature, we are attracted to the wisdom of the world because we are in the world. But we're not of the world. So reject that in your life. When you begin to think about your kingdom and not citizenship in heaven, reject that.20:25It is false assurance. It is false hope. And thirdly, Paul says this. Not only watch out for the dogs. Watch out for evil workers. But watch out for those who mutilate the flesh. Now, who are these people? We've already talked about the dogs. In the evil workers, some of you are thinking, okay, where are the zombies? Those who eat flesh. That's not what Paul is talking about. This is not walking dead descriptions.20:54Workers of flesh were those who, especially pastors or ministers, who were drawing people away from faith in Christ and telling them, look, don't worry about Christ, just worry about traditions. Worry about religion. Worry about circumcision and become a Judaizer. You don't need Christ. Or you do need Christ, but then add all these other things. Christ plus something equals nothing.21:23And Paul says, reject this. Reject. When you put your hope in tradition or religious observance, reject that in your life. That is not confidence. But the truth of the matter is, the greatest struggle we have is not from the outside, it's from the inside. The greatest struggle you're going to have of putting your confidence in something other than Jesus Christ, it's not the dogs, it's not the evildoers, it's not the mutilators, although that is a threat.21:51The greatest threat that you will have is in verse 4. Confidence in the flesh. So not only are you to watch out, you are to watch in. Not only are you to watch out for those that are tempting you to fall away from the faith, but you need to watch in to your heart, to your mind, to your life.22:18And look what Paul says. He gives us a self-portrait. And what a glorious self-portrait that is. In verse 5, circumcised on the eighth day. What is he saying? He said, I am from a first-class Jewish family. Because even the Gentiles here, even if people in Philippians wanted to get circumcised, they were still second-class Jewish citizens. So Paul's saying, I'm top-notch, prime rib of the religious world.22:45He also says this, of the nation of Israel. He's saying, I have pure blood. You can trace my religious roots as far as you want. Not only am I pure, but I am of the tribe of Benjamin. This is the tribe where the first king of Israel was born. This is the tribe that in their territorial allotment, a God's holy city was birthed.23:08Jerusalem was inside the territory of the tribe of Benjamin. Not only that, Benjamin was the one that fought and preserved the territory of the Lord. And it's possible that Saul himself was named for the first king. So his parents named him after the hero of faith in this tribe. But he goes on.23:38Not only the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews. Paul is placing himself on the side of those who were not defiled by anything else. He says this, I was a Pharisee regarding the law. Now, some of you have bad vibes about Pharisees. But the truth is, in the day of Paul, the Pharisees were the conservative branch that rightly interpreted the law. The Sadducees were the liberal branch.24:07So Paul said, look, I'm as conservative as they come. I believe the word of God. This would have been a gold star in the religious cap of any person in the day of Paul. He says this, he keeps on going. He says, regarding zeal, persecuting the church. He said, I would kill or I would be killed for my zeal of the Lord. And then he says this, as far as righteousness in the law, blameless.24:36Paul was not saying that he was sinless. That would have been unheard of in Jewish thought. What Paul is saying here is, you can check my record. Check my life with the law. You will find nothing against me. Some of you are thinking, man, what a record. Maybe in modern days it would sound something like this. I've rewritten Paul's self-portrait. Maybe today he said, I have tried religion. I was born into the church.25:06A true southerner who does good, who works hard and respects others. And if you want to, I cheer for your favorite sports team. I've always known about Jesus. My dad was the chairman of the deacons and my grandfather helped build the church. My mom played the piano and they sent me to VBS as a child. I even walked an aisle and was baptized. I know all the hymns of faith and the numbers in the hymnal for those hymns.25:32Look at me. And maybe you relate to that. Maybe you're thinking, man, as far as religion goes, I have everything I need. Look what Paul says. Look what he says here. Paul's saying that your self-portrait determines your self-identity. And Paul says, but there's more.26:02It's not about what you've built as a system. Look what he says here in verse 7. He builds this self-portrait. He's saying, look at me, guys. Look at everything I've done for the sake of God. And in verse 7, everything that was a gain to me, I have considered loss because of Jesus Christ. Wow. What a profound thoughts. Paul says, if you can find self-righteousness and confidence in religion, he said, I would have found it.26:32But you can't. And so what should we put our confidence in? Well, it's found in verse 8. So Paul builds his list of what he's done and he blows the list up. And in verse 8, he says this. More than that, I consider everything to be a loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Jesus Christ, my Lord.26:55If your self-image is determined by your self-portrait, your identity is indetermined now by your Savior image. Have confidence in Jesus Christ. So if you're here with the big head thinking, man, I am it. I am the religious Navy SEAL. And if God needed anyone, it would be me.27:26That is worthless. That is worthless. Have no confidence but, verse 8, have confidence in Jesus Christ. Listen to the Apostle. Self-righteousness never works. Never. Under no conditions. At any time. I don't care where your membership is. I don't care how many times you're baptized. I don't care if you run the aisle. And you do it every Sunday.27:56Our confidence is not in the flesh. But, listen, but our confidence is in Jesus Christ. Let's walk through where we can be confident. If you need to shout or jump up because the power of Christ is in you, that is quite okay. Verse 8. Paul says, More than that. I consider everything to be a loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.28:17Where does this conviction come from? It comes from the fact that the more confident Paul is in himself, the less confident he is in himself. The more confident Paul is in Christ, the less confident he is in himself. The less confident that Paul is in himself, the more confident he is in Christ.28:44And he says this. I am confident because I, in faith, by faith, know Jesus Christ my Lord. What does it mean to know Jesus Christ? Some of you are thinking, man, I've been to VBS. I know Jesus. Well, this is a revelation that can only be found through Jesus Christ himself. You don't acquire knowledge of Jesus. It is revealed.29:15I wish, I wish I could give you a study guide, cliff notes to Jesus. If you just read that and took the test, you would know him. But it doesn't come through that. It comes through the illumination of the Holy Spirit. It's by revelation of God. And Paul says, I am confident in this, that because of his revelation, I know Jesus. And more importantly, he knows me, being found in him.29:40And we had our Next Steps meeting this morning, one of them. And I look at them and every single person, they share their testimony. And I ask them, are you confident that you know Christ? And they say, yes, we're confident. I say, if the devil himself stands right here and tries to tell you otherwise, that we are confident. Because it is not something I have learned. It is something that God has given me, that I can stand up and say that I know Christ because he is my Lord.30:06That is confidence. That is confidence. Secondly, you can have confidence in this, that you know true gain. Look at verse 8. I consider everything to be a loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Jesus Christ, my Lord. Because of him, I have suffered the loss of all things.30:32Let's pause. For those of you who have been tracking with us for several weeks, Paul is writing this from the Hamptons, right? No. Writing this from the cruise ship. No. He's writing this from prison. Not three meals a day in DirecTV. He's writing this. He's in chains, possibly dying because of his faith. And he writes this. He said, I have suffered the loss of all things and consider them as dung.31:01Why? That I might gain Christ. Confidence is knowing what true gain is. That is confidence. Saying, look, I had all this I thought was profitable, but it is nothing. If you chase the wind, you will be severely tired and disappointed. And even if you catch the wind, you're going to be severely disappointed.31:29And how many of us in our lives were chasing after a dream that God has not put before us? We want bigger cars, faster cars, bigger homes, bigger bank accounts. And Paul says, that's nice, but if you lose it all today, it does not even compare to the surpassing glory of knowing Jesus Christ. That's gain. That's confidence.31:59That's confidence. Saying, God, if you take it all today or if you give it all tomorrow, I'll worship you. That is confidence. Not only do we have confidence in knowing Jesus Christ, not only do we have confidence in knowing true gain, but we have confidence knowing this. Look at verse 8 again. Knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, because I have suffered the loss of all things and consider them dung, that I might gain Christ and be found in him.32:21Be found in him. That's gain to know that Jesus is the rescuer. And the great news about Jesus the rescuer is that Jesus went on a search and a search rescue mission for you before you realize you were lost. Over and over again, Jesus teaches us in his parables that the lost coin was found because the woman swept her house.32:52The lost sheep was found. The one, the one that went away was found. Why? Because the shepherd left the 99 and found the one. The lost son. Actually, the two lost sons were found because the father was waiting. And I see a perfect illustration in the rescue mission with these young men, these 12 young men in Thailand who were lost in the cave.33:14And they were in darkness, two and a half miles in this cave. And you know how they were rescued in the pitch black darkness? They were rescued because a team of Thailand Navy SEALs searched for them. They brought a lifeline down. They stationed oxygen tanks along the way. And even one SEAL gave his life that they might be rescued.33:44But here's the catch. To be rescued from the cave, they had to do exactly as the rescuer said. Can you imagine the boys and the coach saying, you know what? We understand you're trying to rescue us and we understand it's dangerous, but we don't really trust you. We prefer the darkness and the despair. No, they said, we will do whatever you want. We understand our darkness. We understand our desperate situation and we know that you are the rescuers and we trust you fully.34:13That's confidence. That's confidence knowing that what God has found will not be lost. God rescued me when I was lost. God doesn't lose things. So I won't be lost again. If you've wrestled with your faith and you wonder, well, I don't know if I'm secure in my faith. If you are found by Jesus, he will not lose you. God doesn't misplace his keys, right?34:42And so don't let someone fool you and say, man, you might, God might forget about you. God does not forget. There's confidence knowing that Jesus has sought you out and he has redeemed you and offered you salvation. And if you accept that through faith, by grace alone, you have confidence. Not in yourself, but in Jesus Christ. And this is confidence also. Look at the faith that we have in verse 9.35:13Being found in him, not having a righteousness of my own from the law, but one that is through faith. Faith is not the absence of confidence. In the Greek, it's actually the same letter, pistis or pistouo. It's the same, it's similar wording to the word confidence. We miss that in the English because it sounds, faith sounds different than confidence, but it really is faith.35:39True faith is confident in the right things. I didn't check my mind at the door when I believed in Jesus Christ. No, I checked my mind even more. I said, God, I believe it's true. I believe in you because everything that you have said in your life has come to pass. And it is by that faith that we have confidence that he is everything that he says he is.36:03So don't let anyone tell you that because you have faith, you shouldn't be confident. I am confident and convicted that my faith is where it needs to be. And I am confident that Jesus gave me the faith to believe. I am confident that self-achievement leads us nowhere, that self-righteousness leads to dead ends,36:28but that righteousness in Jesus Christ leads to eternal glory. John Ortberg was a pastor in California, was surfing one day, and he lives in Palo Alto, suffering for Jesus in one of the most beautiful areas in the world. It says he went surfing on his day off, and when he was walking to the beach, it was odd because there was no one on the beach except this muscle-bound behemoth of a man doing karate moves.36:58And so he waved to this guy, and he got in the water, and sure enough, after several waves, this young boy, he says he's a whispery and wiry little boy, paddles up to John. And they began to talk and dialogue, and the boy said, how long have you been surfing? He said, well, 40 years. And he asked the boy, how long have you been surfing? He said, so seven years. He asked the boy, how old are you?37:27The boy says, I'm eight. And John, he's coming, he said he was so small that he could have been surfing on a Frisbee. And so the guy, the little boy, he surfs away, and then sure enough, he comes back. And John looks at him and says, why do you surf? He says, the little boy says, because it's so peaceful. And he looks at the little boy and says, well, how did you get here? And the boy says, oh, that's easy. And he points to the beach. And this big Goliath of a man with biceps bigger than your head,37:58waves and says, hey, son, everything okay? And Ortberg commented on this. He said, I knew then why Shane was so at home in the ocean. It wasn't his size. It wasn't his skill. It was who was sitting on the beach. His father was watching. That is confidence.38:26I am not confident because of my skill, because of my religion, because of my determination. I am confident that in my time of need and my time of joy, I can look up and I see my father watching. And that gives me the confidence that I need. Do I worry that the world is crumbling and some might say going to hell in a handbasket?38:53It's been that way since Genesis. Nothing has changed. But I know that if we give them Jesus, those that are walking a destructive road to hell don't have to keep walking that road. And maybe you're here right now and you're not confident. And you struggle. You say, well, this sermon has done nothing but promote fear in my life. Maybe that's because you don't know Jesus like you think.39:22And maybe for the first time, you need to open your Bible and you need to pray this prayer. In verse 7. Lord, everything that was a gain to me, I consider to be a loss for the sake of Jesus Christ. The promise of the word of God, which is our security, is that if you believe in your heart and confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, meaning that he is everything that you need, you will be saved.39:53And my hope is that today that you would pray that prayer. That you would get right with God. That when you stand before God one day, that you can look at God and your confidence is not in yourself when everything in your life is laid bare. But you can point to Jesus Christ and you say, God, he died on the cross for me. That his righteousness is my righteousness. That Jesus took my sin.40:22And in turn, he made the great exchange that I gave him my sin and he gave me his righteousness. If that's you, will you right where you sit, put your trust in Jesus and say, God, it's all a loss today that I might gain Christ. Maybe you're here and you feel like you're wimpy. And you feel like you've been surfing and the waves have been blowing you to and fro. And maybe today is your wake-up call of faith.40:49And God says, look to the beach. Look to the heavens. Look to the word of God. Don't you know that your confidence is not in you, but it is in your Father. Your confidence is in the word of God that is your safety in time of need. Your confidence is that if you know Christ, that he knows you. Your confidence is that if Christ has found you, he's not going to lose you. Your confidence is that everything you need is in Jesus Christ.41:18That you put the word of God in your mind and in your heart until your soul sings that he is your Lord. Father.
