Faith Beyond Ritual: The Sufficiency of Christ

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Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you. Watch out for those dogs, those men who do evil, those mutilators 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 who put no confidence in the flesh. [00:45:48]

But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. [01:42:04]

Imagine for a moment that in the course of a month you have made a number of deposits to your bank account. You didn’t simply drop them through the metal box in the hall in the wall, but you actually went into your bank, you took one of those deposit slips, you marked it with your account number, and you attached to it the check that you were presenting for a deposit. [06:00:00]

What if the things we regard as putting us in profit with God are actually a loss? What if the things that we do, the events that we attend, the professions that we make, to which we attach such great significance and in the back of our minds keeping our own little tally, believe to be entered as credits to our account—what if those circumstances, instead of being credits, are in actual fact debits? [08:28:22]

The basis of the Believers rejoicing is not in our fluctuating feelings, which are driven by our changing circumstances, but the basis of the Christians rejoicing is in the Lord. And Paul has addressed this already in the letter in verse 18, verse 25, verse 26 of chapter one. Again, he is mentioned it in verse 18 of chapter 2, and he is going to come to it again in chapter 4. [10:00:36]

Legalism in all of its forms is an enemy of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. When Jesus tells the story, remember, in Luke chapter 15 of the Father’s Love for his two boys, both of whom were lost, you remember how the one boy who had taken leave of his father and had gone away into a far City and had wasted his substance with riotous living, as the King James version says, how he had come to his senses. [22:31:36]

The good news is not do your best. The good news is your best is never good enough. How could that be good news? I’ll tell you in a minute or two. Dogs, evil men, mutilators of the flesh. You see, these teachers were insisting that salvation was not only a matter of faith, faith that is in Christ’s atoning sacrifice, but along with it, there had to be the external right of circumcision. [27:49:44]

For it is we who are the circumcision. These men are making a big fuss about circumcision, about an outward feature, but we are the true circumcision, he says. This is a way of saying we are the True Believers, we are the true Christians, we are the true Covenant people of God. We don’t have time to trace it through the Old Testament, but you can do it as homework. [31:00:56]

In Christ, he says, the old age of ritual and of ceremony and of special Sanctified places is gone. From time to time, people say to me, well, you know, I don’t think it was good that we did such and such in the sanctuary. I’m always a little naughty. I say, in the where? They said, in the sanctuary. I said, I didn’t know we had a sanctuary. [35:27:54]

Instead of glorying in ritual, instead of glorying in the excellent report card that they had created for themselves, these individuals recognized that they had done nothing to save themselves and that Christ had done absolutely everything for them. That’s what it means to glory in Christ Jesus. If you started adding circumcision or rights or rituals to the work of Christ, you’re effectually destroying it because it denies the sufficiency of his grace to save us. [40:05:48]

Before you fall asleep and you think about your life, you say, I’ve had a lousy day. In fact, this is the fifth lousy day in a row that I’ve had. But I’m going to fall asleep, and if I sleep the sleep of death, I will wake up in the presence of Jesus. Why? Because of what another has done, not because of what I have done. [42:29:00]

The Hallmark of the true Christian is they worship by the spirit of God, they glory in Christ Jesus, and they put no confidence in the flesh. You see, that’s the difference between the young boy and the older boy in the story, isn’t it? The young guy puts no confidence in the flesh. He says, I’m in deep difficulty. There’s not a thing I can do. [46:31:00]

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