Welcome to a firm foundation presented by Princeton Ministries with Dr. Ken Smith. This is Carol Smith, Ken’s wife. Please enjoy.

I was 14 years old and camping with my family up in Lake George, New York. We had packed all of our camp gear back into our boat. We just finished a week of camping out one of the islands in the center of the lake. It was a five mile boat trip coming back to the shore. And as we left, all of our precious cargo, our food, our shelter, all of our possessions, were placed in duffel bags. And then we began. It was a beautiful afternoon, as is often the case in the Adirondacks. As were 2 miles out and still had another 3 miles, the Weather began to change. It got a little gray, and then it became dark. Then a slight Mist began to fall, which turned into a rain, and then finally a downpour. And the Waves began to blow every which way.

And were in a small, open boat with a 10 hp engine. And as the Waves began to crash against the side of the boat, I can still see the look on my father’s face. He said, start bailing. And we bailed as fast as we could. But the water was really the winner. And to lighten the boat, my father started to take these, which only minutes before were precious cargo, our possessions. And he began to throw them overboard. And I can still see in my mind’s eye those canvas bags floating on the lake as a Wave would come and lap against one, and one would sink. And some were half submerged. And as were out in the center of the lake, seemingly from nowhere, came a large power launch, and they threw us at tow and brought us safely to land.

I think in this story is represented what Paul is trying to communicate in the third chapter of Philippians, verses one through eleven. Paul wants us to see that many of the things that you and I think are so important, the items that you polish, the items that you dust, the items that you have a safety deposit box for, all of these things which the world tells us is of such value. And the world says, these are true riches. The apostle Paul is telling us, these things are garbage. They are rubbish in comparison to knowing Jesus Christ and the riches that can be ours because of Jesus Christ. Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. Is Paul’s admonition to us to rejoice in the Lord? Do you know? The idea of joy is repeated continually in the scripture.

We are told in John 15verse 11, these things I have spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you and that your joy might be full. John 17. That great priestly prayer of the Lord Jesus. He says that they might have my joy fulfilled in them. What actually is joy? How do you know it when you’re experiencing it? James Boyce gives this definition of joy. He says, joy is supernatural delight in God and in God’s goodness. Joy is supernatural delight in God and in God’s goodness. I spent a short term as a missionary in Ecuador. During that time, on Sunday afternoons, we would visit a hospital for lepers, and I met a man by the name of Mr. Pinta. Mr. Pinter was a leper. He had no fingers. He had nose; he had no ears. One of his eyes was blind.

It was an affliction that he had been with for years. But the thing about Mr. Pinta was that he was a Christian. And I can still see him as the last time I was visiting on a Sunday afternoon. And he said, don’t worry about me. The Lord is with me, and the joy of the Lord is mine. Joy is supernatural delight in God and in God’s goodness. I think as christians, we all know that we are supposed to be joyful. But the problem is many of us are often not joyful. Now, why is it one of the promises of Jesus is that we would have joy? Paul tells us, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. Well, I think there are several reasons. Two of them are not found in this text. One of them is that some of us are not Christians.

Some of us have never truly surrendered our life to Jesus Christ. And so we look like Christians, we sound like Christians, we sing like Christians, we give like christians, we may even serve like christians. But down underneath all of those layers, there is still a heart that is as hard as a stone that has never been surrendered to Jesus Christ. And sometimes it’s that type of person who, in the fellowship of the church, has no joy. It’s because they have never truly come face to face with Jesus Christ. They have taken on all of the accoutrements, but never met the person of Christ. But for those of you who have already given your life to Christ, I think there is a second reason why we often do not have joy, and that is that we have forgotten an important instruction of scripture.

In Romans 14 verse 17, we’re told, for the kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. There are Christians who have surrendered their life to Jesus Christ, who have made a profession of faith, but who have not and will not pursue holiness, for whom their private life is theirs. And no one is to tamper with my private life, not even Jesus Christ. And I would ask you as a Christian, and you have put your faith in Jesus Christ and your heart has been surrendered to him. Have you continued in your walk with Christ so that holiness and personal piety with Jesus Christ has become part and parcel of your daily living? Because it is still possible to have given your life to Christ.

But if you have not sought after holiness, personal integrity before the Lord, and if sin is still part and parcel of your life, then this is the principle of scripture. Sin will lead to more sin. And so it is possible to be a Christian, but a Christian who has no interest or zeal in the things of God and holiness. And so you have been caught in sin, and you have found in your own life that sin leads to more sin and more sin. So that if anyone were to ever know the sin in your life, it would be a great embarrassment. And then you would come together. You would hear someone say, do you have joy in Jesus Christ? You’d say, you know, I used to. But somehow that joy has just disappeared.

Could it be that you have forgotten the lesson of holiness and that you have not continued to walk and to advance and to grow in Jesus Christ? Paul gives us some insight into joy, for he says in verse one and two of chapter three, for to me, to write the same things to you is not tedious, but for you it is safe. Beware of dogs. Beware of evil workers. Beware of the mutilation. What is he talking about? Well, he’s just finished giving us a description of what it means to be a Christian, a follower of Christ, walking in Jesus Christ. And he says, it’s not tedious for me to tell you these things. Again. As a matter of fact, it’s very important for you, and it’s even safe for you that you hear these things repeated over and over again.

And so part of the work of the ministry is not so much teaching new things as it is reminding us of the things that we know and have forgotten. And so Paul says, it’s not tedious for me to go over these wonderful truths with you about grace and salvation in Jesus Christ and forgiveness of your sins. It’s not tedious. As a matter of fact, for you who are the listeners, it’s a good thing. It’s safe for you that these things are being repeated over and over again. Joy is related to saturating ourself with God’s word and its principles. Psalm 19 eight. The statutes of the Lord are right. Rejoicing the heart.

Jesus said in John 15, if you keep my commandments and abide in the love, these things have I spoken unto you that my joy might remain in you and that your joy would be full. Why is it important to maintain christian joy that we continue to hear God’s word? He tells us, because there are dogs, there are evil workers, there are those in the days of Paul who said, mutilation, you must hurt your body to truly be committed to Christ. Paul refers to these false teachers as dogs, as curse, as those who would seek to take us away from the primary teachings of God’s word and begin to tickle your ear with clever stories, with new theologies.

And so we see the world of the church today being drawn here and there by this popular new speaker, by this new teaching, by this seminar, by that conference. And yet Paul says, I never tire. It never becomes tedious for me to go over the basic principles and to keep reminding you about Jesus Christ. There are evil workers, there are dogs, there are those who, if they could, would snatch you from Jesus Christ himself. Those barking dogs are often barking at the church of Jesus Christ. They’re often snarling at orthodox Christianity. You mean to say that there is but one way to heaven and that is through Jesus Christ? Why, that’s nothing new. The church has been saying that for 2000 years. Why should it seem like a new teaching today? Why, you’re so close minded.

You mean to think that Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven? You believe that his death on the cross is the only way that we can know the living God. Yes, but that comes because of the teaching of God’s word. I hope when we get to heaven there are going to be name tags because when we get to heaven it could be very embarrassing. How would you like to walk up to someone and you give your name, you extend your hand and they say, well, it’s nice to meet you. My name is Ezra. Oh, nice to meet you, Mr. Ezra. Let me introduce you to a friend of mine, Obadiah, and overcomes Obadiah and suddenly you are surrounded by a group of people whose names are vaguely familiar but you can’t recall anything about them. And you say, excuse me, I know.

Your name is so familiar to me. Have we met before? Well, you’re a Christian. How long did you live on the earth? Well, I was around 60, 70 years. You were one of those Bible believing christians? Oh, yeah. I went to a church. We taught the Bible. I’d never go to a church that didn’t teach the Bible. Well, then you probably read my books. That’s where you’re from. I hope they have name tags, because many of us are unfamiliar with God’s word. And Paul says that it is important that we would be saturated with God’s word. It is important that we would hear the same things repeated over and over again. In the days in which this was written, the custom of a pious Jew was to wear on his forehead a little box.

And in that box was inserted a scripture which he memorized. And that pious Jew would walk around the streets of Jerusalem with his front lit showing. It was an outward sign to say that this man was so committed to God’s word that he kept it as close as he could, symbolically. And that you should know that when you meet this man, this woman, that their life is going to be determined by God’s word. Secondly, if we truly want christian joy, Paul tells us that we should have no confidence in our own achievements. Verses three through six, for we are the circumcision, who worship God in the spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh. Though I also might have confidence in the flesh.

If anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I more so circumcised the 8th day of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew. Of the Hebrews. Concerning the law of Pharisee, concerning zeal persecuting the church, concerning the righteousness which is in the law. Blameless. Paul lists six achievements of his life. Two of them he inherited, four of them he was personally involved in earning. The first two that he mentions is that he was circumcised the 8th day he was born a Jew. He was a stock of Israel. He had nothing to do with it. It simply was a fact that he inherited. Secondly, he was of the tribe of Benjamin. Do you remember Benjamin? There were twelve tribes. Ten of them were in the northern kingdom. The southern kingdom was composed of two tribes.

Now the ten tribes eventually were removed. No one knows whatever happened to those tribes. They simply disappeared. But the two tribes that we usually think of as Israel, those two tribes were Judah and Benjamin. Just so happened that Paul was born into that tribe of Benjamin, and he makes mention of it. But he had inherited that achievement. He lists four things that he earned. One of them is that he was a Pharisee, a religious leader. He had gone to school, worked hard, accomplished his degree program, done real well. We would say he was an a student. He studied with Gamaliel, top scholar. He also earned being zealous. And never was there a person more zealous than Saul, who had become Paul. He persecuted the church, and he was blameless in following the law.

The principle that Paul wants to communicate is if we would truly have joy in Jesus Christ, not to take confidence in our achievements. I can hear someone say, I was born in a good christian family. My father was an important churchman. As a matter of fact, several of my relatives became ministers, missionaries, fine evangelicals. I was baptized, attended a christian school, confirmed, taught Sunday school. I attend church regularly. I keep my family’s devotions regularly. I give to the church. I serve the church. Why I’m a Christian. And to that, Paul says, as important as those tasks are, all of them are rubbish. All of them are to be thrown overboard when it comes to understanding eternal truth in Jesus Christ.

For when you and I stand before Jesus Christ on that final day and you begin to rattle off your list and you say, here are my achievements. I was a member of a christian church. I served. I gave. Why, I was a shining example of what it means to be a Christian. Anyone who would make that declaration in the presence of the living God would find themselves silenced. Because on that day, when we stand before God, there is but one plea that we can make, and that is that I’m a sinner and that I justly deserve your displeasure. And if it were not for Jesus Christ and his death on the cross, I could never stand before you.

And so Paul tells us that all of these things, he counts them as rubbish, that he might gain Christ and be found in him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith. It’s interesting, as you read biographies of christians, to find that those who seem to have sacrificed so much for Jesus Christ themselves considered it no sacrifice at all. And those who have not sacrificed for Christ, those who have all they can do to wake up on Sunday morning to come to church. And that would be the crowning achievement of their week in service for Jesus Christ. And when they would hear someone give a call to missions, they would say, oh, I could never be committed to that point. Why?

You are asking far too much from me. It’s interesting that the people who have committed their lives to Jesus Christ, who have literally burned their lives out for Christ. I think of David Livingston, who at the end of his long ministry said this, I never made a sacrifice for Jesus Christ. I think of the words of Hudson Taylor, who went and opened China and they’re the same words as Livingston. I never made a sacrifice for Jesus Christ. Samuel Rutherford would say, the cross of Christ is the sweetest burden I ever bore. It is such a burden as wings are to a bird or as sails to a ship. If you and I would know true christian joy. And it is to know that we put all of our achievements and we cast them overboard.

And we say, in none of those things do I trust. I trust only in Jesus Christ that you and I might know Christ Jesus, the Lord. Let us pray. Our God and our father, we thank you for Jesus Christ. We thank you for the excellence of his life, for the excellence of his sacrifice. And father, we would come before you and declare that our own achievements, those degrees, those salaries, those achievements that we have listed on our wall, those things for which we take such great pride, help us to see them, Lord, as rubbish. Help us to live our life knowing that there is such a thing as joy. Joy that comes when we see all and count all in relation to the Lord Jesus. Help us, we pray that we might know him, Christ Jesus, the Lord. Amen.

Thank you for listening to a firm foundation presented by Princeton ministries. This programming is supported by you, the listener. You may go to our website, princetonministries.org, or send your donation to Princeton Ministries Post Office Box 2171, Princeton, New Jersey 8543. That’s Princeton Ministries Post Office Box 2171, Princeton, New Jersey 8543. The Lord bless you, and Dr. Smith looks forward to hearing from you. We would like to thank Rones web development company for making this webcast possible. You can find their link at the bottom of our website, Princeton ministries.org.