Has Your Joy Sprung a Leak? - Part B

When anyone ever says, I get right with God by doing good works, what they are in effect saying, the work of Jesus Christ on the cross was not good enough. I need to add to that some of my own goodness and righteousness to make that a completed finished work. So I don't want you to think that I'm disparaging good works and saying, hey, you're a Christian, don't worry about being good.

Of course, I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is that good works are a byproduct of a relationship with God. Once you come to Jesus Christ, if you've really come to Him, if it's really authentic, and there's repentance and faith, He'll change you. There will be good works, but the good works are a byproduct of the relationship. Once they become the basis of a relationship, they are evil works because you are saying I need those works in order to be right with God.

With all the struggles and disappointments of these last few years, a lot of people have lost their joy. Today on Connect with Skip Heitzig, Skip explains how knowing your identity in Christ can give you a lasting joy that circumstances can't destroy. But before we begin, here's a great resource that will nourish your soul with God's amazing truths. Reading the Bible can lead to asking some serious questions like, is the rapture real?

Or how can I overcome anxiety? These two questions are among those answered in Pastor Skip's Picks, a new DVD of four impactful messages by Skip Heitzig. Imagine knowing somebody who knows everything about you.

Now imagine somebody who knows everything about you and loves you anyway. That's what we're dealing with when we deal with the knowledge of God. This collection of some of Pastor Skip's most memorable teachings also includes what most people don't know about heaven. And it's our thanks for your gift of $25 or more to connect more people to God's life-changing word.

Visit connectwithskip.com slash offer to give online securely or call 800-922-1888, 800-922-1888 and request your copy of Pastor Skip's Picks. Okay, we're in Philippians chapter three today as we get into the teaching with Skip Heitzig. So Paul says, beware, beware, beware.

Why? Because he knows that being joyful means being careful. And we learn a lot about the characteristics of these legalists just from looking at this verse.

Notice, first of all, the legalists can be scavengers. That's why Paul says, beware of dogs. That's a term of contempt, by the way. You may want to try that. Go up to somebody and go, you dog.

No, don't do that on secondhand. It was like a cuss word. The origin of the term dog in Hebrew parlance goes back to Deuteronomy chapter 23. It referred to a male cult prostitute. In Deuteronomy 23, it says, you shall not bring the wages of a harlot nor the price of a dog to the house of the Lord.

Very stark language to describe a male cult prostitute. Well, as time went on, did you know that Orthodox Jews started using the term dog to refer to non-Jews? Gentiles. So Jews, Orthodox Jews, would often refer to Gentiles as dogs.

Interesting that Paul decides, I'm going to throw that term back at them. These Judaizers who say that we have to keep the laws of Moses to be saved. Beware of dogs. He's saying that's who they are.

Now, you probably have figured out that the dogs he is referring to are not your groomed little pets that jump up on your lap, that you put those goofy sweaters on and all that stuff. These were vicious, ferocious scavengers who roamed the streets. They were dangerous. They ate filth.

They bred disease. And just as a dog tears and devours, so do legalists tear and devour the grace of God. So Paul says, watch out for them. Legalists can be scavengers. Beware of dogs. Second warning, beware of evil workers. That's part of their characteristic. Legalists can be evil while thinking that they're good. They think they're good, but Paul calls them evil workers.

Okay, so what we have here is a plan word or a plan concept, you might say. Legalists believe that you get right with God by doing good works. I'm going to go to a ceremony and a ritual and do good. I'm going to try hard. I'm going to earn my way. And Paul says, those are evil workers.

Why would he dare do that? Because when anyone ever says I get right with God by doing good works, what they are in effect saying, the work of Jesus Christ on the cross was not good enough. I need to add to that some of my own goodness and righteousness to make that a completed finished work. So I don't want you to think that I'm disparaging good works and saying, hey, you're a Christian. Don't worry about being good.

Of course I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is that good works are a byproduct of a relationship with God. Once you come to Jesus Christ, if you've really come to him, if it's really authentic and there's repentance and faith, he'll change you. There will be good works, but the good works are a byproduct of the relationship.

Once they become the basis of a relationship, they are evil works. Because you are saying, I need those works in order to be right with God. One commentator writes this, there are people who do not want us to be free. They don't want us to be free before God, accepted just as we are by his grace. They don't want us to be free to express our faith originally and creatively. They insist that all look alike, talk alike, and act alike. Without being aware, we become anxious about what others will say about us. Obsessively concerned about what others think we should do. We no longer live the good news, but anxiously try to memorize and recite the script that someone else has assigned to us.

We may be secure, but we will not be free. Once in 2 Corinthians, Paul says that there are false apostles who corrupt you, listen to the words, who corrupt you from the simplicity that is in Jesus Christ. It's just so simple, just trust him. Just embrace the work he has done for you. It's so simple. And when you think about it, just embrace the work he has done for you.

It's so simple. And when that gets convoluted, you have legalists who think they're good, but actually it's evil. Here's a third mark in that third beware. When he says beware of the mutilation, I'm going to explain that.

Legalists can be destructive. Now when he's talking about mutilation, the old King James renders it concision. Beware of the concision.

If you've ever read that, you're going, what on earth is a concision? So here it says beware of the mutilation. Other translations say beware of the false circumcision. So did you know that the covenant for Jews in ancient times of their covenant relationship with God was the outward mark of circumcision.

A male child at eight days old was circumcised. That is, the foreskin of the flesh of his organ was cut off, and that was the symbol of the national relationship the Jews had with God. What was it a symbol of?

The symbol was to speak of the reality that my flesh life is cut away, that my focus is on spiritual things, not on fleshly things. It spoke of a beautiful reality, but as time went on, the ritual became a formality. It just became a formality. It's not unlike baptism. For a lot of people, baptism is a formality.

You know how I know this? Ask somebody, are you saved? Do you know you're going to heaven?

Often they'll say, I've been baptized. Nice. That wasn't what I asked you.

Let's go back to the question. Are you saved? I've been baptized. Great.

You got what once? Are you saved? You see what they're doing? They're equating the ritual they went through, the formality, with being saved. So they did with circumcision. Judaizers, as I mentioned, taught that circumcision was vital to salvation. Acts 15 1, unless you are circumcised and keep the law of Moses, you cannot be saved. So Paul says, beware of the mutilation.

It's a very strong term. The term he uses here refers to the pagans cutting themselves, mutilating themselves. Flashback to 1 Kings 18, if some of you know that story, when Elijah is on Mount Carmel with the prophets of Baal, and it says they started cutting themselves for hours, dancing around, calling to their gods.

Remember that? That's the mutilation. So what Paul is saying is that their circumcision is as meaningless as pagan mutilation, if there's no reality behind the ritual. So legalism does that. It mutilates the grace of God.

It mutilates the work of Christ. If you were to boil all belief systems down to their irreducible minimum, I like to do that, you could say that all religions in the world have one of two approaches. There's only two religions in the world.

You've heard me say this before. See, people go, oh, there's so many different religious systems and so many beautiful examples of expression. No, there's really only two religions in the whole world. There is the religion of human achievement, and there is the religion of divine accomplishment. Every single religious system, including sects of Christianity, many of them, fall into the category of the religion of human achievement.

I'm right with God because I've been baptized, and I go to church, and I've been confirmed, and I try hard, and I pray. That's what you've done. That's human achievement. Only biblical Christianity is in that second category, the religion of divine accomplishment. It's what Jesus did for you. It's his finished work on the cross.

That's divine accomplishment. So joy must be guarded. Legalism must be avoided. And the third defense to leaking joy is your identity must be comprehended. Look at verse three. It's our last verse for the day. For we are the circumcision who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh. I'm amazed at how Paul the Apostle can take one verse and put so much in it. In one verse, he describes a true believer, a Christian believer. It's a synonym of what a true believer is.

Verse three is a description, and it's a contrast. As opposed to the false religious legalists, we are the circumcision who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh. So what is our identity? First of all, true followers. I'm not saying we all are or everybody here is, but if you are like Paul and he's identifying with the Philippians, a Christian believer is a true follower. Look at what he says. For we are the circumcision.

Stop there. You could translate this because it's implied we are the true circumcision. We are the true circumcision. What he means by that is spiritually we are circumcised. We are not those who have just a meaningless outward mark. We are those who have a true inward cleansing. We are the true circumcision. In Romans chapter 2, Paul says he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, and the circumcision is that of the flesh.

But he said a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly, and the circumcision is the circumcision of the heart by the Spirit and not by the written code. See, there's an inward reality that the outward ritual needs to speak to. It's like my ring. I have a wedding ring.

I am ashamed to say it's the second one I've owned. I lost my first one in the Pacific Ocean, so I quickly went to a second-hand store and got another ring. But the ring itself is not as important as the relationship that I have. What if I wasn't married and I had this ring on this finger? You would look at me and you'd say, oh, he's married. But I'm not married unless I have a spouse, a wife. So the ring points to the reality of having a spouse.

I do have a spouse, by the way, and so I have a ring to prove it. You may have a cross around your neck and you may have a baptismal certificate on your wall, but do you have a Savior in your heart? That's the crux of this. We are the true circumcision. So we are true followers. We are true worshipers. Look at the next phrase. We are the circumcision who worship God in the Spirit.

Now you know what that means. In the Spirit as opposed to the flesh. It's not only outward, it's not only rituals, it's real.

It's authentic. Now you will notice around here, we always do this, we always emphasize the inward as opposed to just the outward. And the reason we do that, people say, why do you do that so much? Because I'm a biblical expositor and the New Testament does that a lot.

That's why. It's the inward over against the outward because anybody can go through the motions. Anybody can say, I'm a Christian, here's my Bible, I know these songs, I get together with other people who believe, I do this once a week. But the outward needs to speak to the inward.

We worship God in the Spirit. So do you remember when Jesus met a Samaritan woman and he started asking her questions and talking to her and he was getting really personal with her about her marriages and her previous love lives and she's getting really kind of anxious about that and squiggling out of it. So she does what a lot of people do, they deflect.

Let's talk about something else. And her deflection was on outward worship. She said this, our fathers worshiped on this mountain but you Jews say Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship. See what she's talking about?

She's deflecting to the emphasis on something outward. It's like saying, well we go to church here and you go to church there, so what's the right church to go to? I love how Jesus answered it. He said, woman the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem worship the Father for God is Spirit and those who worship him must worship him in Spirit and in truth.

It has to be authentic in and from your Spirit and based upon the truth of Scripture. The question isn't, do you stand when you worship? Do you sit when you worship? Do you raise your hands when you worship? Or do you sway when you worship? The question is, do you worship? Is it real?

Is it authentic? Is it you in your Spirit, in your heart, authentically worshiping God? So our identity as believers must be comprehended. We are true followers, true worshipers. Third description, we are true celebrators. He says, we worship God in the Spirit and we rejoice in Christ Jesus. Now here he loves the word rejoice, but here it would be better translated, we brag on or we boast about.

We're not boasting about how good we are, we are bragging about and boasting in what Jesus Christ has done for us and his accomplishments. Now here's the dead giveaway. You can always spot a legalist this way. A legalistic person always minimizes the work of Jesus Christ and maximizes the work of man. And by the way, that's why they have no joy, because it's always I'm working hard to get to heaven.

And if they're never sure if they've worked enough, so there's never any satisfaction, there's never any joy, there's continual shame and hope, hope I'm doing enough. And I've got to tell you what, I've been around legalistic people have these set of rules and regulations, but then they act so proudly and smug like they've actually kept all of those rules and regulations themselves. Mark Twain said, having spent considerable time with good people, I can understand why Jesus liked to be with tax collectors and sinners. Give me them any day over religious folks. The fourth thing we are, and we'll close, finally brethren, we are true believers. We are true believers.

Notice the last six words, and have no confidence in the flesh. We depend totally on Jesus Christ. Now this is the place where we ought to just go, oh yeah. We had to just sigh a breath of relief, because you see the humanist message is, you got to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, son, because God helps those who help themselves, which by the way is not in the Bible, unless you wrote it there yourself. That's the humanist message.

The legalist message is, well, you got to work your way to heaven and keep the rituals and keep the ceremonies and cross your fingers. But that's not our message. Our message is, Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe, sin has left a crimson stain, he washed me white as snow. That's our message of the gospel. And listen, that'll bring joy back to your life. That'll bring joy back to your life.

He did it all. That'll bring you joy, because Jesus said, I have come that they may have life, but I have come that they may have life and have it more abundantly. Abundantly. He didn't say, I have come that they might have bummer and bummer more abundantly. I know a lot of people with abundant bummer in their life. Come that they might have joy and have it to the full, one translation says.

The Skip translation, the NSV, to the max. Joy to the max. Abundant joy.

Hey, let me close with this. Suppose that you get a new car and you're going on a driving vacation, you're going to Rocky Mountain National Park, so you fill your car up with gas and you're driving up, you're so happy, your whole family's there. But you get out of town and you start noticing there are people outside of their vehicles pushing on the road. They're pushing their cars, they're pushing.

That's kind of weird. So eventually you stop and get gas and one of these pushers comes up next to you while you're pumping gas going, hi, where are you going? You go, I'm going to Rocky Mountain National Park and I'm driving. Yeah, I noticed that. I used to drive too. Now we're pushing.

You're going, yeah, I noticed that you're pushing. So what's up with that? And they say, well, you know, we used to be like you, driving, but now we're, well, we're a little more mature. Well, we're a little more mature and we've grown a little bit more.

We know just a lot more than we did at first. So we've discovered that it's really good to push because, well, you get good exercise, first of all, and it's good for the environment. So, you know, you ought to just get out of your car, you got to push. And so let's just say you're dumb enough to go, okay, you sold me. Now that I'm smarter, I'm gonna go do that. So you're out there pushing.

And let's say you go on vacation with your family and you push your car all the way up those passes to Rocky Mountain National Park and back home. Now I have a question for you. Are you joyful? Are you kidding? You are miserable.

Why? Because you pushed. This is what Paul meant when he said to the Galatians, why is it having begun in the Spirit you are now trying to be made perfect by the flesh? Or with our illustration in mind, you might put it this way. Once you had a full tank of gas in the Spirit, why are you trying to push your way through life? It's like people get saved, there's a joy in the Lord and they read some stupid book or listen to some lame teacher and it's like, here we go, I'm pushing, I'm working really hard to get God to smile at me.

Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe. And it could be, because I was one, maybe you are a person who could be best described as a religious person. Not a righteous person, because the only righteousness God will ever allow any human to have is by faith in Jesus Christ alone. You might be religious but not righteous. You may be moral and sincere, but I want to ask you this, are you saved? Are you saved? Now if you go, well I've been baptized, you know now it's the wrong answer.

If you go, well I go to Calvary, sorry, God won't check, oh you went to Calvary, well come on in. Are you a saved individual? Do you know Jesus personally? Do you worship him in the Spirit as opposed to the flesh? Is your approach the approach of the Gospel? Do you trust Jesus alone? I hope so. I praise him.

If not, why not? Why not now just say, yeah I'm gonna, I'm gonna stop pushing this car. I'm giving Jesus the keys. I'm gonna hop in the back seat.

I'm gonna let him take over. That wraps up Skip Heiseck's message for you from the series Technicolor Joy. Right now, here's Skip to tell you how your support helps keep these messages coming your way and connects more people to the good news of Jesus. Simply put, God's Word has the power to change lives.

That's why together we're taking these Bible teachings to more people around the world, because we want to see lives transformed. If you've been encouraged by these teachings and have grown closer to Christ through his Word, then I want to ask you to give a gift today to help make these teachings available in more places and through more outlets. Your generous gift will help others experience the power of God's life-changing Word. Here's how you can do that today. Visit connectwithskip.com slash donate to give your gift today. That's connectwithskip.com slash donate or call 800-922-1888.

800-922-1888. Coming up tomorrow, Skip Heiseck shares how the first step to building your testimony is to shred your religious resume so the authentic grace of Christ shines through. If you were raised in a religious home and you have trusted in the fact that you were raised in a religious home by spiritual parents, then you're going to need at some point to tear up your religious resume. And here's why. Because God has no grandchildren. He only has children. As many as received him, John chapter 1 tells us, he gave them the right to become children of God to those who believe in his name. Connect with Skip Heiseck is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.