Read The Fine Print

The Words of Jesus and the Call to Worship

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.".

These are the words of our Lord Jesus Christ from Matthew chapter 11, and with these words let us begin our worship. If you would turn in your hymnals or look on this website for the lyrics, which link you have for number 80, How Firm a Foundation, as our brother John Burchett leads us in our first song.

How Firm a Foundation.

As we prepare ourselves to pray, I would acknowledge that tomorrow, Lord willing, is a day that.

We in this country celebrate as Memorial Day, where we stop and remember and think of the military members who gave their lives for the freedoms that we are here, even in this place, even this morning, enjoying.

As I considered this and pondered it, thinking of men who gave their lives, it put me in mind, actually, of the history of King David, as we have towards the end of his reign. In 2 Samuel chapter 23, which I won't read, it has the long list of the heroes of Israel, the mighty men of David, and how they were ranked, and the great deeds that they had done.

It's interesting to me that the very next chapter has David counting the fighting men, and again, the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he incited David against them, and said, go and number Israel and Judah.

Just after this long list of the brave, valiant, brave men who gave their lives for their king, the king goes and counts how many brave men he has, not trusting God's supply, it would seem. It's interesting how the two chapters fit together.

We live in a nation, we have great freedoms in God's providence that give us this freedom to worship in this place, to come together and worship the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the ultimate one who gave his life for freedom, not freedom simply from tyranny of men, as it was in World War II, and all those brave people who gave their lives, and we'll remember them, especially in this country tomorrow, but the Lord Jesus Christ, the only innocent man who gave his life so that we could have freedom from slavery to sin, the Lord Jesus Christ, who we this day worship, whose name we extol, who we remember as we sing the hymns, and in whose name we go this moment to him in prayer, so let's bow and pray together.

All right, Heavenly Father, giving you all the thanks and praise and glory for bringing us together, for allowing us to be here in this place, we come together as your people in grateful adoration of Jesus Christ and what he has done for us, Father.

By the cross he has won our salvation, by his resurrection he has assured ours, and his grace and his providence and sovereignty has brought us together as a church to again worship and adore him in song and prayer and proclamation of the word.

We do pray, Father, your attendance with us once again. We are meeting in a parking lot of all places, and we give you thanks for that. We are meeting in odd circumstances, but we are meeting, so Father, we are grateful to you to be together, we give you all the thanks and the praise and the glory for it, and we pray, Father, that you would, as we gather around Christ Jesus and what he has done for us, as we gather with our scriptures open and our spirits ready to hear you and your word, we pray your blessing upon us, we pray your blessing upon this place.

We pray, Father, that all things will be done in a decent and orderly manner that is right with your word, and that, Father, as we encounter you this day, that you would change us and make us more and more like your Son, Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray, amen.

Please turn next to a familiar hymn, as John once again leads us, number 81, is A Mighty Fortress, a great hymn of the faith, a mighty fortress is our God.

We give congratulations to the Hardin daughter, Laura Hardin, who yesterday graduated from.

Ohlone College with not just one, but two Associates of Art degrees, so we congratulate her and her parents for God's blessing her in that success, and wish her success as she goes on to put to use what she has gained in that education, so God bless her and her endeavors.

The Warning Against Adding to Christ

If you turn this morning to the book of Philippians, chapter 3, this morning we will put our attention on the first 11 verses of that chapter, Philippians 3, 1 -11. 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, for we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh, though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also.

If anyone thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more. Circumcised on the eighth day of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews, as to the law of Pharisee, as to zeal of persecutor of the church, as to righteousness under the law, blameless.

For whatever gain I had, I count it as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing value or worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in order 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 comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and may share in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

God bless the reading and the hearing now of this word. You know, most of us have seen those scenes on the news where a COVID survivor is released from the hospital. Have you seen that? As he's wheeled down the aisle of the hospital in a wheelchair, whether you can walk or not, when you leave a hospital it's required that you do it in a wheelchair, and he's leaving the hospital, he's being pushed down this aisle.

He might have been there in the hospital for days, maybe even weeks, and he's been lying in bed, he's been intubated, which is the insertion of a breathing tube, and we've seen these scenes where they intubate, they put the breathing tube down their throat, and they're unconscious the whole time, of course you can't be conscious with that thing stuffed down your throat, and their air comes from a ventilator which is fed to them through that tube, and their nutrition comes intravenously, being fed again through tubes.

They have medical professionals the whole time monitoring them and taking care of them and watching all their signs, and without this level of care we know that COVID would most likely be a death sentence.

So there they are, being wheeled down the hospital, and they're flanked, have you seen these scenes? Flanked on both sides by the medical professionals who had cared for them all this time, and there's applause and there are cheers, and the man is going down and he's got his hands over his head and he's shaking them in congratulations, and it's just a wonderful, touching, beautiful scene, have we seen that?

Now I want you to put that scene in your mind, and imagine that when he gets to the exit and he's finally able to get up out of his wheelchair, before he takes that step out the exit of the hospital and to his freedom and to, Lord willing, his health, he would turn and he would say to all those professionals who had put their lives on the line to care for him and gave all their medical skills and all their technical abilities to bring him to health, and there he is.

And he turns to them and he says, I want to thank each and every one of you from the bottom of my heart for the assistance you gave me as I recovered from this awful disease. The way you added your skills to my own efforts was amazing.

Thank you all for coming alongside me, and thank you all for helping me to complete what I couldn't quite finish myself. Now one nurse hearing that might say to the other nurse, say, wasn't he unconscious for the last two weeks?

Well, yes, he was. And didn't he breathe only because a ventilator fed him oxygen through a tube in his throat? Yes, that too. And didn't all his nutrition come to him through an IV which we replenished?

Nothing could be truer. Yes, that's true too. And he was unconscious the whole time as we cared for him, right? Right. So what does he mean that we assisted him? He had nothing at all to do with it, right?

And the fellow nurse or medical professional would say, right. Why do I bring this up? Why do I draw this obviously farcical and fictional picture? Because no one would actually do that. I bring this picture to mind because we've seen those scenes, and also because of what the Apostle Paul says here in Philippians 3, verses 1 -11.

The warning that he gives to that church in Philippi. The danger that we faced, that they faced then, that we face today, of taking credit not for a recovery from COVID -19, but for a recovery from the consequences of sin.

For, if I can say it this way, our redemption, for our salvation. Thinking that we added something to it, and even now could add something to what Christ Jesus, and he alone, by the cross, and by the cross alone, has done.

The church in Philippi was being influenced by men we call Judaizers. They wanted the Philippians to accept an ancient right, one that had passed away with the coming of Christ, and that's circumcision, of course.

What the Apostle Paul warns the church in Philippi, what he warns us today, is that to submit to this right, to submit to a mark in the flesh, to make any progress towards God, to add anything at all to what Christ Jesus has done, negates your entrance into all of that.

It is that serious, it is that severe. What they were selling, what the Judaizers were selling, of course, was circumcision. They were persuading this church, they were persuading them that it was necessary to be circumcised, to enter into the law of Moses, and enter into inclusion in the family of God through the right given to Abraham, in order to be saved.

Now we call them Judaizers, that term is not in your Bibles, it's a man-made term, but it fits. They taught that the law in its entirety stood as a way to God. That the Jewish law, with all its derivative obligations, was necessary for salvation.

That you needed to add some works on your part, in order to gain what Jesus Christ and He alone procured. I brought that image of the COVID -19 patient, congratulating himself the way he did for what he did to recover himself, and they having added something to it, but just adding to it, because that's the picture that we have here of what it means to enter into any physical act, any work of the flesh, as the Apostle Paul calls it, in order to have, in order to gain, in order to procure, in order to keep and maintain and progress in what God and God alone has done through Christ and He alone.

This is a warning to us, as we look at these verses, it's a warning to us. Circumcision is more than just a cutting away a physical thing, it's an adding to. It adds your works, by which we mean your efforts to bring about what only comes by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

What the Judaizers, these dogs, these evil doers, these mutilators, what they didn't say, but what I can tell you from Scripture is this. Circumcision represents anything you might try to do to substitute for what Jesus Christ has done.

Anything you might add, whether it be what you have by birth, by intellect, by social status, financially, anything like that. Anything that you think is your own self-worth that you are going to bring to the party and put on the plate and add to what Jesus Christ has done.

This COVID patient that I drew thanked the nurses and everyone for their assistance. This would be you, the other way, assisting Christ Jesus just ever so little bit, but any at all is unacceptable. This is the warning Paul gives the Philippians.

This is the warning I give you this day. We need to examine ourselves and see what do I think I'm putting on the table to add to what Jesus Christ has done. In what of me do I take pride and think I need in order to gain what Jesus Christ by faith and by grace alone gives us.

As much as you rely on yourself for what God has done in Christ to save sinners like yourself, so much have you overvalued yourself and correspondingly undervalued Jesus. You are in danger of assimilating what circumcision for them would only have begun self rather than Christ's confidence.

The History and Meaning of Circumcision

Let's talk about this process, this circumcision. We're not going to go into a lot of detail on what it is. It's a very long history through the Bible. It's going to be barely a thumbnail sketch, but we need to understand it here to understand Philippians chapter 3.

Who are these Judaizers? We actually first encountered them way back in Acts chapter 14. In Acts chapter 14, these men of the Pharisee sect, men at the church there, probably converted Jews, but they're Pharisees and they claim as members of that church that you must be circumcised according to the law of Moses.

This causes quite a stir. You can read that for your homework later in Acts chapter 14. But in Acts chapter 15, Paul and Barnabas, having been sent by the church in Antioch, go to the elders and the apostles in Jerusalem and try to sort this thing out.

It's Acts chapter 15, Paul and Barnabas going there and bringing the case. Now again, we're not going to go into a lot of detail about it, but we have Paul, the apostle, who has seen how the Holy Spirit worked in Gentiles and he gives that testimony.

And I will read to you only what Peter, the apostle Peter, said in order to support Paul and Barnabas. Peter puts it this way. In agreement with Paul and Barnabas, the circumcision cannot be necessary for salvation.

Peter says this. Now therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? But we believe that we will be saved through the grace, excuse me, saved through the grace of our Lord Jesus, just as they will.

Now that statement by itself seems to have had a great effect on Paul. We know Paul influenced Peter quite a lot in his writings, but this one seems to have worked the other way. Peter on Paul. When Paul ran into the circumcision-bearing Judaizers in Galatia, and you read about them throughout that letter to the Galatians, Paul wished that they could be accursed.

He wished that they would emasculate themselves, which is a wonderful play on words. And now in Philippians chapter 3 verse 2, running into these same men again, these Judaizers, these circumcision-bearing salesmen, in this rush of participles that we had in chapter 3 verse 2, he warns the Philippians to look out for, which is to beware, to be on your guard against, beware of the dogs, dogs thought by Jews of that time to be worse than pigs, really, to beware of the evildoers, driving men away from simple faith and back to the slavery of self-made righteousness.

Beware of those who mutilate the flesh, which is an interesting term for a Jew, for a man raised as a Pharisee, a Hebrew of Hebraism, we'll come to that later, to call that great sign of inclusion in the covenant a mutilation.

But beware of those who mutilate the flesh by this painful operation that's going to bring even greater travail to the soul than it does to the body. Look again, if you would, at verses 1 through 3. Let me read those again.

Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you is no trouble to me, and it is safe for you. Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh, for we are the real circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh.

You see, brothers and sisters, if you are in Christ Jesus, if you are His by faith, then Christ has made you everything that circumcision ever was. We are the circumcision. Does that mean that we are the ones with the physical mark upon us that brings us into that sign of the covenant with Abraham way back in Genesis 17?

No, that is not what it means. It means that we, by faith in Christ Jesus and what He did on the cross, we are everything that circumcision pointed towards. We could even say everything that circumcision was meant to prophesy, inclusion in the family of God, by faith, not by the mark, but by faith.

Paul says here, we are the real circumcision, we are the ones intended for it. We live by faith in Christ Jesus as what the circumcision, by the works of the flesh, could only point towards, could only predict.

It was given to Abraham as that sign assuring him that God would surely make him a great nation. And then 430 years later, it was given to Israel from Sinai, it was given to Israel as a sign that they were the nation that the Lord had promised to Abraham.

So what does circumcision signify? Well, it signified inclusion. What does Paul, the expert in the law, say of it? He says to the Galatians and the Romans in the letters with those names that you are Abraham's true child.

True child by what? By circumcision? Well, no, if you go back to Acts 17, Abraham's son Ishmael was certainly circumcised, but if you read through, he had nothing at all to do with the promise. By birth into the nation?

No, that couldn't be. The ten tribes who were in the north that we call Israel, while the two tribes we call Judah were in the south, God rejected them totally. By law keeping? No, Romans 4 makes clear, Philippians 3 rests on the same point, that God's reckoning of you as righteous is by faith.

It's by faith. Genesis 15, 6, Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness. 430 years before the law. 430 years before the law, Abraham believed, and that was righteousness to God.

You see, all that circumcision promised, primarily inclusion in God's kingdom, all that it promised, you have now as a current possession in Christ Jesus. We are the real circumcision. The real circumcision is to rest in the certainty that He, that God, accomplished everything in Him, Christ Jesus, His Son.

Circumcision is a setting apart, it is a sign of being set apart to God. He has, by faith, circumcised you from the world in that sense. He has set you apart, which is what circumcision always meant. And more than that, in Deuteronomy 10, 16, when the law was being given in Deuteronomy 30, chapter 30, verse 6, and also the prophet Jeremiah, chapter 4, verse 4, and other places we could cite, the whole point of circumcision then was that you circumcise your heart.

And how do you circumcise your heart? Especially back then when they had no medical technology that would give entrance to the heart physically. Well, it was a picture. It was a way of saying, circumcise your heart, set your heart apart to the Lord your God, for you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength, with all your heart.

Circumcise your heart, set your person aside to God. Set yourself separate from all else and given over to God. That's what circumcision was always meant to give or to bring. And this is what you have in Christ.

This is what you have today in Christ Jesus. And as we find ourselves falling back on our own works and the things we do by ourselves that make ourselves righteous, things that we, even so quietly, and not revealing them to others, but in the recesses of our own mind, take some pride in, they fail to recognize that what you have in Christ is the real circumcision, the real setting apart, true inclusion in the family of God in the kingdom.

You have, by faith in Christ, that new heart that is truly given over to God, that glory is in Christ and no other, in what He has done and nothing else. All this can be sacrificed then on the altar of what?

Confidence in the flesh. Recourse to what I have done. Believing that I can add something, anything at all, no matter how slight it would be, to what Christ Jesus has done. You know, there are consequences to these decisions.

There are consequences to things that we do. Ideas have meaning. Ideas have consequences. And so here, these salesmen of circumcision come into the Philippian church, as they had the church in Galatia, which is probably Paul's earliest letter, as they had in Acts chapter 14, and they're bringing along this thing.

They're saying, you just need to be circumcised. Hey, it's the law of Moses. Now, don't you want to be part of the law of Moses? I mean, Jesus was a Jew. Jesus followed the law of Moses, albeit He did it perfectly, and by that, obedience became our obedience.

But that's another story. They're bringing along this product. This single thing. All you have to do is sign on the dotted line for circumcision. There are consequences. Many years ago, and I believe it was 60 minutes, I'm not positive anymore, but I know I saw a news type of show, a news magazine type of show, and it was about consumer protection for consumer credit issues.

And they had, as the one they were interviewing, this woman who was a law professor in contract law and consumer law at Harvard, and she was going through the fine print on a credit card application, and back then it was a paper application which you had to sign, put in an envelope, put a stamp on, and mail back to get your credit card.

A little different than today, but the same basic idea. And she was going through the fine print, and she finally had to admit, with a bit of a smile on her face, she being a contract consumer law professor at one of the world's most prestigious law schools.

And she says, you know, the only thing I can figure out from all this fine print is that when you sign it, you're committed to what the fine print says. But what it actually says, I can't tell you. I cannot put it into sensible terms.

This fine print, there are consequences to these things we do, these commitments that we make. And so these purveyors of circumcision, and so today, those who would tell you that by the works of your flesh, by the works of yourself, you can gain anything that Christ Jesus has procured in He alone, they don't tell you about the fine print.

They don't give you all the consequences. They suck you into this thing. They make you see this product, this credit card that's going to buy you anything you want, failing to tell you how the interest will pile up on you, and that the balance will go faster than anything you ever purchased.

Failing to tell you all that, and more in the fine print. So these purveyors of circumcision failed to give the fine print. Failed to tell them what the ultimate consequence was. Whether they understood it or not, they failed to acknowledge it or check it out for themselves.

Galatians chapter 5, beginning of verse 3, the apostle Paul reveals the consequence. He brings out the fine print. Because with God, you see, there is no fine print. He speaks clearly in His Word. He tells us what we need to know.

He shows us how to see ourselves, how to view our own works, how to analyze our own self-worth, and then the worth of Jesus Christ, which we'll come to as we see how Paul sees those things of relative values and relative worths.

But here, for now, the fine print. And Paul warns them. You sign on this dotted line, and you think all you're getting is a credit card so you can go out and buy these things that are enticing you. There's a consequence to it.

Galatians chapter 5, he says, I testify to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. Whoops! Wait, you didn't tell me that. Well, you already signed. The old song, Once I met the devil, he was mighty slick, tempted me with worldly goods, said you can have your pick.

But when he laid that paper on me, and he showed me where to sign, I said, thank you very kindly, but I'm in too great a need of mine, my own soul. Just get circumcised. Just join the law of Moses. Just come on into this holy and right way of being.

This has lasted for centuries. It's a good product. Just sign, and we'll take care of it for you. Paul says, you're obligated then to keep the whole law, because by that one act you have said, Jesus Christ was not enough.

His work on the cross was insufficient. When he said, it is finished, it wasn't completely finished. He meant it was almost finished. And here I'm going to add, this single act. Read the book of James, and he would tell you also, that if you would keep the law as a means of gaining what Christ alone has procured, you are now obligated to it all.

Paul goes on to say to the Galatians, and I would argue to the Philippians, and to us, you are severed from Christ. And these are very strong words. You are severed from Christ. Having severed that physical part of yourself in the circumcision act, you have severed from Christ.

Is that in the contract? Did you actually put that forward? No, no more than in big print, the credit application would show you what you're really going to have to do in terms of the math, the arithmetic of your finances.

They don't tell you. Here Paul puts it out in plain English. You are severed from Christ. You who would be justified by the law, you have fallen away from grace. Severed by choice. Severed because of our self-reliance.

Brethren, in Christ Jesus, we have no self-reliance. Coming to faith in Christ Jesus is a repudiation of self-reliance. It's a setting aside of self. It's looking to the cross, the cross alone, because I've repented of my sins, that I can do only by faith that God gives.

By grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it, the faith, it is the gift of God. And to be circumcised, to fall away from that grace, is a logical consequence because you're saying no is not totally by grace, it's by grace 99 .9, but that point one is me.

No. You've obligated yourself to the whole law. You've fallen away from grace. Severed by choice. Do you ever feel like you deserve to be saved? However slightly? As if God should open the doors of paradise for you simply for who you are?

You know, some of us here, and many of us might believe what the universalists say, that everybody's going to get to go to heaven, God is love, and God wouldn't send anybody to hell, so everybody's going to be saved, and it's all wonderful.

What does the scripture say? In verses 3 -6 of Philippians 3, the Apostle Paul gives his resume. And his resume was better than anyone's, certainly better than these Judaizers', better than yours or mine.

If anyone might have earned their way into salvation, it had to have been Paul. Look again at those verses with me. Chapter 3, verse 4. Though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also, if anyone thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more.

Circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews, as to the law of Pharisee, as to zeal a persecutor of the church, as to righteousness under the law, blameless.

Now there's a sparkling resume. Look at everything he had confidence in. He was circumcised on the eighth day. Doesn't that appoint to be proud of? Circumcised on the eighth day, wasn't that great of me to allow myself to be circumcised when I was eight days old?

The baby was brought to the temple and the law of Moses confirmed in his flesh. And he could be proud of this. He could put this forward because he had so much to do with it. He's of the people of Israel, the tribe of Benjamin.

He knows his descendancy, where he came from. He's from one of the most prestigious tribes of Israel and he can prove it. And he's proud of that. As if he chose those things. Perhaps there's an inventory in heaven of disembodied souls watching for the right parents saying, okay, when that child begins to be made I'll join myself to that and I'll become of the people of Israel and the tribe of Benjamin because I chose it.

Well, that'd be silly. He's setting that aside. He's a Hebrew of Hebrews, meaning his family had no mixing with the Gentiles. He was pure. No Gentile blood. It slipped into the line. And you hear by the way I preach that, by the way I said that, he's proud of these things he had nothing at all to do with.

He couldn't have chosen any of those things. He could not have chosen or directed his circumcision that he'd be born of Israel, that his family line would be so pure. But see now what he did choose. What did he choose?

If we are warned to be careful of being proud of things like our social status, the parents who raised us, the inheritance we have, those are things that are not chosen and yet we take pride in them. He wraps all that up in that one ancient rite.

He's saying circumcision is confidence in anything other than Christ, even in matters over which he, over which we, over which you had no choice. Now look what he did choose. Going on in these same verses.

To be a Pharisee, the Harvard Law School of Mosaic Legislation, the most prestigious sect known for their utter and complete fastidious keeping of the law, knowing how to count out little seeds of cumin and give one to God and nine to me.

He was a Pharisee, also known to be rather wealthy in general. Galatians chapter 1 verse 14, Paul tells of how he advanced in Judaism, he means in Phariseeism, beyond many of his own age. He was a star pupil.

He was a summa cum laude. As to zeal, he was a persecutor of the church. To rage against those who were made free from that old slavery. He says as to the law, blameless. Excuse me, as to righteousness under the law, blameless.

Now he didn't mean that he never violated the law. Righteousness in that context has a different flavor. It just means that as well as any human could, and let's put him at the top of the heap of all humans, he obeyed the law.

He was blameless. No one observing him, no person observing him, no other human watching his physical actions could bring fault against him. No one was better. No one tried harder. No one accomplished more.

And here is what it was for Paul, and you can read this in Romans chapter 7 for your homework. I will not cite any of that this morning. Here is what it was. It was try, try, try. It was work, work, work.

It was strive, strive, strive. So you try, you work, you strive. You try, you work, you strive. You're trying to make yourself better. You're trying to make yourself worthwhile. You're looking at this resume saying, this is worth something.

I've worked so hard towards this. Surely God is pleased with me. And surely we in this hard-charging Silicon Valley, full of hard-charging Silicon Valley-ites, are accustomed to thinking this way. I set a goal ahead of me, and I accomplished it, and I accomplished it better than I thought I would.

I accomplished it better than the next guy did or the next guy will. And we take pride. And we infuse that into our Christian life. But what Paul says is, as good as our skills are, as much as our discipline is, as hard as you work, by your own discipline, by your own zeal, by your own energy, you will never be good enough.

It's try, it's work, it's strive. It's try, it's work, it's strive. Do you remember the myth of Sisyphus? Sisyphus, excuse me, Sisyphus, who was condemned to rolling a boulder up a hill, and it would get so close to the top, he almost had success, he had almost done good enough, and it would roll back down to the bottom, and he had to start the whole process again.

And this is the slavery to which the Philippians would have committed themselves had they submitted to this right of circumcision, bringing with it the entire body of law. And this is the slavery that I warn you of from Philippians chapter 3 verses 1 through 11 this morning.

That no, you are not good enough. Your efforts are not zealous enough, not energetic enough, not complete enough, not quality enough, not anything enough. But one is, one is, Christ Jesus our Lord his perfect obedience to God in this life as a man, what we call his act of obedience, where he obeyed the law of God, the holiness of God, with every breath he took.

And that, by faith, is yours, for we are the real circumcision. And we can wrap all those things together and make it into one statement. We're the real circumcision because of our faith. Therefore, Christ's obedience is mine.

It's mine. And I rely fully on that and none on me. Now let me not try to make the numbers sound so much more for Christ and so small for me. It's just all Christ and none me. That's as simple. Go the other way.

We enter into circumcision by any self-reliance. And it's slavery. And it's useless. And you will never be good enough. And the gospel says you don't have to be good enough. You cannot be good enough.

Christ Jesus is good enough. Christ Jesus is superlative good enough. Christ Jesus is better than we can imagine. And his work was full and complete on the cross. And our reliance upon that must be full and complete.