Philippians 3:1-9

Man, I can't tell you guys how excited I am to be back at the Summit.

I'm so pumped to be with y'all this morning. Three years ago, we were sent from the Summit, and while we were being sent from the Summit, sending was on our mind. And so this video, being able to start seeing families from our church go out to other church plants within the network is just so exciting for me. Summit, before I get going, I just want to say thank you. Anytime I talk to people from the Summit or get a chance to come back, man, thank you so much for your example. Thank you for holding all things with an open hand as you are not only enjoying what God is doing here through the Summit and in the Summit, but you are leveraging that for the sake of the kingdom, not just the Summit.

So thank you guys so much for that. I want to go ahead and dive in and get moving this morning. If you have a copy of scripture, I want to invite you to take it out and turn with me to the book of Philippians. When Pastor JD asked me to come, it was just kind of like, hey man, I want you to bring a message that's on your heart, something God is doing in you that's fresh. In me and at our church, we have been moving through the book of Philippians and so much of the truth from this book is very much fresh to us. And so I want to bring you guys, I'm a simple guy, I want to bring you a simple message, a pretty simple truth today, though I think it can be profound in our lives.

And I want to go ahead and give you the punchline. I want you to see where we're going from the very beginning, all right? So what I want you all to see today from Philippians 3 is this, when righteousness is received, it is valued above all, all right? Now I'm going to argue this and I'm going to show you that the inverse of this is true as well, that when righteousness is worked for and we believe that it is something that is earned, it is not going to be valued above all. But when it is received, it is valued above all in a way that can really change all in our lives and change us in a radical way. See, what we are learning in the book of Philippians is that there is certainly a link between the way that we believe we attain righteousness and then how we value it and the radical effect that it has on our lives.

I'll set this up for you guys with sort of an analogy. You know, if you submit a resume and you end up getting a job or you get into the college, well, if you believe in your mind that the resume was itself good enough that you deserve that job 100%, then yeah, it's good news that you got the job. But if you know good and well that your resume is nowhere near what it needs to be and you submit it for a job that's like way over your pay grade and then you get the job, what is the reaction in you?

How much value in what you just attained? See, I think that many of us right now could be submitting spiritual resumes with our life. What is a resume? A resume is nothing more than an argument.

You slide across the table an argument that says, I am acceptable. You know, I think about a resume that might come in at the summit or a resume that might come in at Mercy Hill. You know, somebody submitted a resume at our church, they would think that I'd be the pastor looking at it going, oh, does this guy have seminary experience and how much experience does he have in ministry? Really, at Mercy Hill, we'd be looking at a resume going, does this guy have any competitive ping pong experience? What kind of phone does he have? Does he eat at Chipotle?

Does he know who Ricky Bobby is? You know, these are the types of things we would be trying to figure out but in any event, you submit a resume and we're supposed to look at it and say, are you acceptable for this position or not? Listen, Christian and non-Christian because both of us are in the room this morning. Is it possible that we are submitting a resume with our life? What I mean by that is we're walking through life much the way that Paul did for much of his life where we are thinking, I am building with my life a resume that is full of good works, full of things that I have done and one day I am going to submit that before God and I'm just going to hope that it's all good enough in the end. If that is where we are coming from, I'm going to show you today that that is not actually Christianity and for some of us that's a simple truth but the second part of this, maybe even more profound at least in my life is this, that when we are trying to build and earn, we will never value righteousness in the way that God has intended. He is intended for when He gives us right standing before Him, when He gives us the relationship before Him that we are seeking through our works but when He actually gives it to us and His Son Jesus, it's supposed to blow our minds. It's supposed to be something that we stand back and we go, man, I am in awe of this because I had never have achieved this in a million lifetimes. When we receive righteousness, we value it in a way that changes our life radically, alright?

Simple truth, we're just going to move right through. What I want to do is show you guys a little bit of Philippians 3, I'm going to actually walk through 9 verses here because I know some of you may not have been studying Philippians, I don't want to just jar us and throw us right in. Let's get some context, let's figure out where we're at in the Bible. We're going to look at Philippians 3, 1 through 9 and then we're going to come out with those two big rocks at the end. Righteousness received, righteousness valued, alright? Let's start in Philippians 3 and we're going to go ahead and begin in verse 1 and 2. Here's what it says, Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord.

To write the same things to you is no trouble to me and is safe for you. Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh. Now I think it's necessary to just start kind of explaining this a little bit so we know where we are in the Bible. Paul is saying here to the Philippian church, young believers in Philippi, he is saying hey, there are people on the outside who are trying to come in and distract, pick you off, grab you and lead you away from a truth that you know. These people, if you study the book of Philippians you will realize that they are somewhat of a religious elite, okay? There are people that they're saying yeah to the gospel and Jesus, cross, resurrection, that's great but also along with that in order to be right before God you also have to become a Jew pretty much.

You got to start doing the dietary laws, you definitely got to be circumcised, you got to follow all of these rules and believe in Jesus on the cross in order to be right before God and Paul comes in and what does he do? He says beware of them, the dogs. Now this in American culture does not hit us the way it should hit us in first century, okay? Because for us we live in a world of like, you know when we say dogs, I mean we live in a world of bark parks and doggy day cares, okay?

This is just where we're at. We live in a world where dogs wear clothes, that's just where we are. Now I was our student pastor over at Mercy Hill, he was getting ready to go on a mission trip, young guy, his wife comes, she comes to bring the dog to the office so he can say bye to the dog before they go, he goes on his mission trip. Great, dog comes in, dog's wearing a sweater. I'm the type of guy who cannot not make fun of the dog wearing the sweater and so I'm like hey man, real classy, your dog's wearing a sweater.

He said no, no, it's a vet prescribed stress vest for her anxiety, okay? We live in the world of anxiety medication for dogs and some of you guys are like that's my dog, I'm not making fun of your dog, I'm just saying for us we look at, we look at dogs a little differently. We think dog endearing, we love our, guys in the first century that's not where he's at. When he says dogs it's not a term of endearment. When he says dogs what he is saying, actually this is what he's doing, alright? And I'm gonna go ahead and give it, there's irony here because the religious elite would look at those on the outside, the Gentiles, those who are not in their view worthy and you know what they call them? They would call them dogs because they would say they're unclean, they're outside of the fold.

What Paul is doing here, we think he's like lobbying, throwing name calling and all that, no really what he's doing is employing irony. He's saying hey they call you dogs, no, no, no, they're the ones that are outside because they don't accept grace by faith, they don't accept something that has been given to them, they think they're earning it. He goes further in verse three, he does the same thing, except another metaphor. For we are the circumcision who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh. He says we are the circumcision. Some of you, this is your first time in a church, you're like you're talking about dogs and circumcision, this is getting very weird, very fast, okay? I understand that.

But it's really not that complicated. All he's doing is he's saying hey, these religious people that are kinda coming in and subverting the church at Philippi, they would say hey, people that are outside are dogs and they would say we are the circumcision. That's a metaphor for saying we're in, we follow the laws, we do the right things.

And Paul's reversed both of these. He's saying no, no, no, they're the ones that are outside, we are the circumcision. Not that we are following all these laws and feel like we have to do all this stuff but we understand that righteousness, a right standing before God, what it means to be in right relationship before God, that's what righteousness means.

We are to be right before God, we understand that it's something about faith, something about accepting what God has given us. Here's what he's saying very basically. He's looking at the young church at Philippi and he's saying this, you already are what they act like they're trying to get you to be. You already are the real thing. You don't have to do all this other stuff.

They're not the real thing for trying to do all this stuff. In the end, it's not a mark on the body, it's not circumcision, it's a mark on the heart, a mark that produces worship and confidence in Jesus alone. That's what gets you in. Verse four, though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also, if anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more. Now, this is what Paul's going to do. Well, Paul, again, he's talking to these young believers in Philippi and here's what he's saying. Hey, they're talking about how great they are doing all these laws and he's going to say I'm better than all of them at everything they're saying except I still lacked the one thing that I needed.

See, look what he says. Circumcised on the eighth day, that means I'm not a convert, I was in this thing from the beginning. Of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, I was in the best tribe that you could be in. A Hebrew of Hebrews, as to the law, a Pharisee.

I wasn't just born in this thing, I was educated in this thing. As to zeal, a persecutor of the church. As to righteousness under the law, blameless. What Paul is trying to get them to see is I had everything that they're acting like you need but I still lacked the one thing that I needed, which was right standing before God.

For God to look at me and say, you're okay. I still lacked righteousness. Now I want you to see verse seven and this ought to punch us harder than it probably will if you've been in the church very long. All right, look at verse seven. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ my Lord. My fear is that when I read Philippians three seven, the familiarity of this verse has sanitized it for us.

And it should not. You read Philippians three seven, there are times when the popularity of a verse can steal its power, okay? I think about this.

I was six years old. I've been a Christian for 25 years. That's great. I pray for that for my kids. I know you probably pray for that for your kids.

There's a problem with that though. I've heard this verse a thousand times in my life and the only problem with that is that sometimes it can begin to lose its edge. And we can begin to think about Philippians three seven. It's a verse that we know, a verse that we've memorized and we think about it and we say, oh, it's poetic. It's not poetic. It's raw. It's real. It's bloody when you start talking about thinking about everything that you have lost in your life in order to gain something else.

It doesn't hit us with the power that it should if there are layers upon layers of familiarity and I've heard it a thousand times and it's on a coffee mug for crying out loud. If that's stacked on top, maybe it is robbed of the power and I want to strip those things away. I'll tell you a story real quick. Okay, so last year me and my dad spent all day, I mean all day building a horse fence and about this old farmer is going to let me rent this pasture from him for my horse, but we had to put a fence up and so we were building the fence all day and it's an electric fence is what we were building.

Okay. I mean horse is 1200 pounds. It can go through any fence that you could ever build if it wanted to, but it respects the wire, you know, it respects the electricity and so we build this fence out. The problem though is that in the back of this pasture there's no electricity and so for the first time, I've never done this before, I was going to have to use a solar panel charger in order to electrify the fence.

I've never done it before. I was a little concerned man is this thing going to be strong enough that a horse will respect it. We get done with the fence. It's like six o'clock at night. We've been working on this thing all day and we end up putting the solar panel on the fence and we turn it on and it's flicking the lights coming on and I'm like alright so we got to figure out if it's on so and you know you can go buy those little meters or whatever.

Who's got one of those right? So I just the redneck way you know you grab a blade of grass if you've ever done it and you touch the grass on the thing and a real good fence I mean even when you put the grass on there it won't hurt you but it'll start popping. You'll be able to hear it and you'll know that the fence is on. I put that grass on the fence. Nothing.

Okay. I get the grass all the way where I'm almost touching the fence myself and I feel just the faintest little just kind of a little throb going on. I'm like oh man this ain't good. So I take the grass off and I'm like my dad's working me. I'm like well dad you're just gonna have to touch it okay and he looks at me and he's like no man it's your horse you're gonna touch it and I said okay you know so I'm like I'm getting kind of getting my energy going you know and I reach out and I've been pot before you know but I reach out and I touch it and I can feel I mean just nothing. It's like a little I mean it's so much so that I grab it with both hands just to show my I mean I'm holding on to it both hands just to show my dad like it's not it's a little pulse in my hand I can feel it but it doesn't hurt in any way and so man we're looking so it's six o'clock at night the horse has got to stay in the pasture that night we're like man is this what do we do and we're like and we're like man should we go get a meter and see if maybe this thing's putting out more than we realize I don't know what to do and then my dad has a brilliant idea okay and he looks at me and he says hey you know the issue is not how you feel when you touch it. We got to figure out how does it feel to the horse if he touched it and I thought that's genius that's exactly what we need in this moment right now is thinking like that and so I said well what do you propose and he said well the thing is you're wearing rubber boots the horse doesn't wear boots maybe if you took your boots off and then touch the fence after it has literally been raining all day and I'm standing in water okay you know so I'm like that's perfect I take my boots off and right before I touch it he goes actually you know what's even better than that a horse has four feet on the ground it grounds them more than you you've only got two feet you need to put four points of contact on the ground with no rubber and then touch the fence y'all I got on my knees I touched that fence it hit me like a two by four in my face okay I don't know what happened next this is what he tells me I went running through the pasture taking my shirt off and putting it back on yelling it's coming out my back it's coming out my back you can't make that story up alright this is why I tell you that story the reality is that the fence was no stronger the first time I touched it or the last time I touched it there was no more power running through the fence the difference was I had allowed myself to strip off the layers that were keeping me from seeing it for feeling it Philippians 3 7 much like the other famous verse in Philippians to live as Christ to die as a game Philippians 3 7 is one of those verses that when you read it it ought to twist your stomach a little bit but it doesn't because of the layers it doesn't because of the years because of the coffee mugs because of the poetry and for just one second here this morning I hope that we can see this verse for what it is that when Paul says I have counted all things as loss that's not poetic it's not something that we oh let's admire this and oh my faith journey is gonna be bolstered by this no you imagine in your life what it looks like for you to lose all things for the sake of something else where you say everything else is worth trading for that my relationships everything I've ever worked for in my entire life all of my identity my history my education my comfort getting to the place where I'm willing not only to suffer but to die there is rawness and power and the raw power of Philippians 3 7 is this that when we read it the right way and it punches us the right way we look at Paul and we go Paul what is it that is worth trading in everything for that's the question we ought to ask for his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ this is what I want you to see really the point of the message verse 9 and be found in him listen not having a righteousness that means right standing a right relationship with God of my own that comes from the law but that which comes through faith in Christ the righteousness from God that depends on faith the question is Paul what is worth trading my everything for and the answer is righteousness and what righteousness leads to in your life that is worth trading in everything the key word in this text is righteousness and I want to show you two things about righteousness I already told you what they are alright the first one is this Christians receive righteousness Christians receive righteousness what we're going to get to is that it is in the receiving of it that we value it enough to radically change our life but first we got to just talk about what it means to receive righteousness here for a minute righteousness is received it is not earned it is not worked for in fact what I need you to see this morning is that Paul had to come to the place in his life where he repented of trying to earn his righteousness before God now that's interesting isn't it because when we think about the word repentance what do we think I know what I think when I think repentance I think about sitting in a small group or sitting over coffee with a very close friend and saying man I messed up in this way or that way I committed a sin I need to turn and repent of that okay it's actions we think about it we think man you know you know think about lying or I was prideful or lustful or whatever I need to turn and I need to repent of that is repenting of actions what makes you a Christian not totally see religious people like Paul they would have repented of actions in this way but they weren't Christians see you can repent of sin and still be far far far from God you can repent of the wrong things and be far from God let me tell you guys a story that has helped frame this up in my mind it's a story told by my good friend J.D. Greer's good friend Tim Keller okay here's what it says here's what he said really helped me frame this frame the way I think about it he said he said hey there was a missionary that was somewhere you know crazy way off way back country somewhere and he was dealing with a tribesman and the tribesman looked at him and after months of preaching to this guy the tribesman look back and said okay fine so I'm starting to get it and what I'm beginning to understand is that I can't be a Christian and murder people and the guy's like yes you're getting it that's what it means to be a Christian and he said sir you told me I can't be a Christian I go on raids anymore and steal things and the missionary's like getting excited he said yes that's what it means to be a Christian and the guy says you mean I can't be a Christian I can't like steal anybody's wives anymore make them my wives and the guy's like yes you're getting it what it means to be a Christian the punch line of this comes pretty quick alright okay And so then the guy says, that's great. Then I guess I'm a Christian, here it is.

Because I'm about 85 years old. It's been a long time since I murdered anybody. Especially been a long time since I stole anybody's wife and made them my wife. It's definitely been a long time since I went on a raid and stole anything.

See, the story frames up this idea. It is not repenting of murder and stealing that makes you a Christian. It is repenting of actions that way and repenting of self-righteousness that makes you a Christian. It is repenting of the actions and repenting of a heart that says if I don't do these actions and I do do those actions, that I can earn something before God. Paul had to come to the place in his life where he changed his attitude.

Maybe not even towards sin, but towards righteousness. He had to come to the place in his life where he said, man, it is not about me doing X, Y, Z in order to earn something from you. Paul had to come to the place in his life where he repented of saying I will build with my life a resume that you, God, must accept because of how awesome I'm gonna be. He had to come to the place in his life where he realized there are two fundamental ways to earn righteousness before God, to be righteous in God's eyes.

One is to try to earn it and submit my own resume, and the second is to have a resume submitted on my behalf. Look at verse nine. And be found in him, first way, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law.

That's the first way. He had to come to the place where I repent of that. But that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith, coming to the place in my life where through faith I accept the resume that has been submitted on my behalf. The gospel is that Jesus offers you his resume. That your resume is failing, rebellious, sinful, not worthy, separated. That you come to the end of your life and submit your resume and you don't get in, you don't get the job, you don't get hired, you don't get right standing before God in a million lifetimes.

That's why Jesus Christ has come for you. His resume in this life was perfect, where you failed at every turn. He never failed one time, and at the end of his life, rather than receiving reward, he took death on a cross.

He lived a life you didn't live and died a death that you deserved. That in his resurrection, he might offer you a chance at new life where he extends his hand and he says, hey, come to me, allow my resume to count for yours. Listen, church, until we stop furiously building our resume before God and receive the one that is offered for us, we are not Christians. We can look like it, we can do all the right things, but until we come to the place where we realize that righteousness is something that we receive, not of our own merit, then we are not Christians. There are two kind of ways of application that I want you to see this in question form.

The first one is this. In what ways are you furiously building a resume before God rather than trusting the one that he has given you in his son, and that is not only true for the non-believer. I'm talking to the Christian as well. For the non-believer, you're not a Christian, you're just kind of checking things out. Listen, maybe today is the day that you need to finally realize I will never be as good as Paul was. He spent his life trying to do everything right and at the end of his life, he finally realized it's all rubbish because in sin, I will never stand before a holy God. Maybe on the macro level, you are trying to build a resume to submit to God and I want you to see the futility of that, would you turn to Jesus and allow his resume to be submitted for you in faith.

But secondly, Christian, in what ways are you furiously building a resume before God? And maybe you would say today, I don't understand what you mean, Andrew, because I get it. I mentally assent to everything you said.

All of my worth and all of God's love for me, I believe is bound in Jesus and what he did for me. Yeah, I understand and there's many times in my life where I totally get it in my mind, but you know what? This is what happens for me through friends, through community, through my wife. I've learned some things about my life over the years.

I'll give you one. When a mass amount of stress or anxiety comes on me, you know typically for me, it's not about whatever's going on, it's about the fact that I feel like maybe I could have made a better decision and not put ourselves in this church, family, whatever. For me, not leading well creates all types of stress in my life and all that if I feel like I haven't led well.

Do you know why? Because leading well for me is a spiritual resume thing. In my mind, I understand totally all my value is in Christ and all of God's love for me is in Christ, but some kind of way, not leading well has the ability to crush me, has the ability to create anxiety and stress in my life. You know what that tells me?

It tells me that I experientially in my day to day, some kind of way believe that leading well has something to do with my inherent value, that leading well has something to do with maybe God's love for me and standing. I don't know what it is for you, I know what it is for me. What is it in your life? Are there things in your life that cause immense amount of anxiety and stress? Is it possible that those things are spiritual resume things for you today?

If so, I wanna call you to an old truth. In my life, I have to realize that I am as worthy before God whether I made a good decision or not. You gotta come to the place in your life where you know mentally, but some kind of way you are living out, you are preaching this to yourself every day that you don't define your worthiness by your resume. Jesus has already done that for you with his. And you gotta come to the place in your life where you are preaching that every day so that it is working itself out in every facet of your life.

The second question I have very simply is this. Church, isn't it good news today that it is not your resume that counts? Some of us, you look back at your life and you're like, man, my spiritual resume ain't that awesome.

It seemed like Paul's was that awesome, mine's not. Maybe some of you are in the middle of a battle with Satan right now where he is reminding you of things in your past over and over and over and you believe him as if it was your spiritual resume that got you to the party. It's not. See, we don't have to fret that our spiritual resume isn't that awesome if we realize that it was Christ's resume that has been submitted on our behalf. And I hope you will take that truth and combat Satan with that, all right?

The second thing I want you to see is this. Christians value righteousness above all. It is receiving righteousness that leads to the value of righteousness that ends up changing our life, y'all. It creates an ability in our hearts to count everything as lost, to turn our back on the world. It's the valuing of something that we have received that does that in our hearts.

Look at verse seven again. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. He can count everything as loss, why? Because in Christ, he has gained all. A relationship with God, an identity that can never be stripped, and a glorious, God-filled eternity that is coming for him as he knows I've received something, I value something, and it leads to something. It leads to a resurrection.

It leads to a God-filled eternity, and this world is not my home. Paul is not a guy who's into losing stuff for the sake of losing stuff. He's a guy who realizes I value something so much more that I can lose everything else. It's the pearl of great price. It's the treasure that is in the field.

I can trade everything that I have for that one thing because of its immense value. In valuing righteousness in this way, the categories in our life get crazy. They get redefined. In Paul's life, profit and loss get flipped. Christianity radically changes the way that we count profit and loss in our lives. The things that we thought held immense value to us can be pushed aside, and the things that we thought were nothing suddenly are the things that we prize, and we are changed. This is how stingy people become generous people.

This is it. Because at one point in their life, it was, hey, money for me is what gives me status, and happiness, and identity, and all of this. And then they come to the place in their life where they receive righteousness, and in receiving it, they value it, and they begin to realize, actually, it's in a right standing before God through the gospel that I have ultimate status, that I have an ultimate identity, that I have joy eternal, and so now I am able to count these things as loss and leverage them for the sake of the kingdom. It is also how harsh rule following, look down at everybody else, people become grace-filled people. It is receiving something and valuing something that radically changes us. Maybe you're that type of person.

Maybe you're that person right now. You think, man, I do the right things, and I begin to look down on others that do the wrong things, but when you receive something that is of the type of value of righteousness, I couldn't earn this in a million lifetimes, suddenly, you're not looking at everybody else. Suddenly, you're just glad you're at the dance, right? You're just glad somebody has brought you. Now I can look at everybody else with the same grace that God has given me. It is the value of righteousness, received, valued, it changes us. Y'all, this is how mankind goes from naturally vengeful to a forgiving people.

Amen. Man, when you see the absolute evil of the Charleston Nine, and this church in Charleston that is absolutely knocked down, but in no way destroyed, they speak through that television camera to the man that stole many of them, the most prized relationships in their life, and what did they say? You guys saw it on the news, and it wasn't in some weird pie in the sky, I've got a smile on my face Christian, wait, no, it was tearful grief, but I looked through that camera, and I am able to say there's not enough hate in the world, and we will forgive, we do forgive. Y'all, that cannot happen if you have not received something that you value that changes everything about you.

That is what happened in that moment. Something I've received, I value, and in valuing this righteousness, I know that there is a resurrection, and I know that this world is not it, and I know that I will see my people again. Christians live and die differently because they've received something that they value above all. Think about Paul and his life. You can't get to Paul, right? You beat him, he sings. You throw him in jail, he converts a jailer.

Why? Because he receives something that he valued above all, and it pushed him to the next life. It fixed his eyes on what was coming. This righteousness would produce a resurrection. I'll give you the best example of this that I can think of in the book of Philippians.

What is the punchline of the book of Philippians if you just said, what's the line in Philippians? To live is Christ and to die is gain. That only happens if you have received something that you value in order that the profit and loss categories of your life have been radically changed. Listen, when you gain in death what was the object of your affection in life, then dying is gain, but only then. When dying is gain for us, I would say the categories of profit and loss have been flipped, that what we can say is I have received something that I value above all, and it has changed me on the deepest level that then changes me on every level. One question, do you value righteousness in that way? And if not, is it the real thing? You know, Paul lived for a ton of his life under an imitation righteousness, a ton of his life.

I'm gonna do these things, I'm gonna be this type of person, and I'm gonna make sure I, and then one day God will give me what I am after, which is my right standing before him. And then he tasted the real thing, and it suddenly kind of gave him the ability to spot the imitation, right? I'm not a food snob, maybe some of you guys are self-professed food snobs, okay, I'm not. I don't think that category was available to me given the fact that my father had me eating a pretty healthy, steady diet of gas station hot dogs by about age five years old, to my mother's horror. I'm not a food snob, me and my wife have gone round and round about this though, because while I'm not a food snob, I will argue to my dying day that crispy rice is not the same thing as Rice Krispies, okay? Is that just a fact or not?

It is, it is. When you've had a healthy diet of the real thing, it makes it real easy to spot the not real thing. That was true for Paul. Spent my whole life building a righteousness of my own, and then he realizes it is something that is received and valued above all, and it will change me like crazy, and then he spends the rest of his writing trying to say, man, come out of the imitation, come over to the real thing, get the real thing. Some of you right now are living your life in religion, you are living it in an imitation righteousness, and I'm calling you to taste of the real thing.

It is not something you earn, it is something that you receive. Would you submit your will to Jesus today? This very morning, as I sat right there, and the associate campus pastor of this campus was praying for you, the people in this room right now, and he prayed that today at the Briar Creek campus, 30 souls would go from death to life.

This can be that moment for you. I've been working furiously, I've been trying to do all these things, I've been trying to be good enough for God, and you can come to the moment right now where you realize righteousness is not earned, it is received. Would you submit your will, Jesus, I trust what you have done for me, I trust that your resume counts, would you receive it today? But you know what, others of you, and I don't know what it is in your life, others of you who are Christians and you mentally understand, you've ascended to something in your mind, there are things in your life that are still on your spiritual resume before God.

I don't know what it is for you, only you know. Maybe it's hanging on to a marriage, maybe it's making sure your kids walk in the faith, maybe it's leading your family well in a financially uncertain time, I don't know what it is. But would you realize today that all of your worth, all of your acceptance, it is not in your resume, it is in a resume that has been submitted on your behalf and it is perfection, it is righteousness. Would you just pray to God, I trust that today, and move these things off of your spiritual resume and trust the one that has been given to you. Let's pray. Father, our prayer today is just simple. God, I pray that for the unbelievers in the room, Lord, that they would come to that place where they don't trust their righteousness anymore.

It's not good enough, it'll fail, it won't stand in the end. God, would they submit to the righteousness that you have offered them. God, would they submit to Jesus in my place today. God, chase people in this room, break their hearts. Father, we pray for those of us who are Christians. God, if there's things that you have identified, Lord, let us move those things off of our spiritual resume. Let us trust the one that has been given, in Christ's name, amen.