Philippians chapter 3 review

All right. So we are going to review Chapter 3 this morning, and it's always kind of an interesting challenge to review a large amount of material. I find it takes a lot more preparation to cover a lot of material to try to boil it down into one lesson. So yeah, we'll do our best here. But this is also on the tail end of it. We've studied through all this.

However, since I bounce back and forth between the classes, I don't always have the privilege of getting all the teaching that happens in one class or the other. So I'm hoping I'm not going to be overly redundant with things that have been well covered already. But because we go kind of slowly, verse by verse, some of this stuff is already weeks ago, so it doesn't hurt to to review, but...

So, now, off the start here, I just wondered if anyone wants to take a stab at summarizing Philippians chapter 3 in a few words of their own. Having studied through it now, what are some of the... Or what are some of the standout verses to you? So, kind of a standout thought that would sort of summarize the chapter. Just a short summation. Well, certainly verse 10 has always been one of my favorites. And that I may know Him, the power of His suffering, His resurrection, and the philosophy of it, and so on. That's just an incredible verse.

So that's my vote. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And that whole section there. I mean, I'd written down 3.8 as well. You know, I count all things to be lost in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus is my Lord. So. Yeah. Any other thoughts or things that... Say, Miles, I noticed that in verse 1, Paul says to write the same things again is no trouble for me. So he's actually going to repeat a lot of the stuff he said in chapter 1. And that might be summed up in verse 27.

I will hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind, striving together for the faith of the gospel. One faith, one mind, yeah. That's good. That's good. And that does sum up and kind of tie in with what Paul is teaching in this chapter here. We're going to find it's a real chapter of contrasts, you know, and that one mind that the Lord has in mind for the church is in chapter 3 really contrasted with kind of the alternative. So, cool.

And also, of course, 320 is a significant verse here, for our citizenship is in heaven, for which we also eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. But yeah, jumping off on that verse 1 that Bob just referenced, how does the chapter begin? What is our first verse here? It says, Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. And so, I mean, this is an obvious question, but just to kind of grease the wheels a little bit, are we to rejoice because everything is just sailing along smoothly in our lives?

You know, I gave some examples there, success, blood, air, prosperity, recognition. all those kinds of things. So is that what Paul has in mind in this chapter? I don't think so because 3 verse 7 he says, But whatever things were gained to me, those things I have counted loss for the sake of Christ. So all of these kinds of things here to Paul were counted or reckoned as loss for the sake of Christ.

So our rejoicing is always to be in the Lord, or we could say in fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ and not in anything else. So that's kind of the thrust there, and we'll see that unpackaged throughout this chapter. So another question, why does Paul say that this reminder to rejoice in the Lord always is a safeguard? Any thoughts on why it's a safeguard to tell someone to rejoice in the Lord, to tell a believer to rejoice in the Lord? In my mind, a little bit of a strange thought. If you just take that disconnected from the rest of the chapter, why is it a safeguard to rejoice in the Lord? You mentioned that we could rejoice in the Lord when everything is going great, but as we mature in our Christian life, we can also rejoice when things are going bad, knowing that tribulation and trials actually brings us closer to Christ.

Yeah, that's right. And that's definitely a major major theme here in this chapter. No, that's good. The word safeguard is astralis, so that alpha particle at the beginning there, prefix, is a negation. So you get something like without wavering or without failing. So this reminder to rejoice brings about the negation of wavering, the negation of failing. In other words, it has something of a stabilizing or strengthening effect. And And I kind of put it into these terms.

I said, Paul is, I think, wanting to safeguard the Philippians against their own natural tendency. And so I kind of thought as an example of basically what engineers do with building materials. They're trying to stabilize the building materials to keep them from failing, right? So they're always working against the natural tendency of what they're working with.

It's kind of one way you can maybe look at engineering, I don't know. This is the example I had in mind. If you think of a bridge, you know, what's the natural tendency of steel and concrete suspended above the ground? It wants to come down, right? That's the natural tendency of the materials. And so, the engineer of that bridge is working to safeguard that steel and concrete against its natural tendency. So, That kind of gave me a bit of a picture, perhaps, of what Paul is talking about to safeguard the Philippians against what they would normally do.

So then the question is, what is our natural tendency when it comes to rejoicing? Does that kind of connect the dot a little bit now? If we say that to tell them to rejoice in the Lord is a safeguard against what we would otherwise naturally rejoice in, then I think that makes sense. So what are some of the things that we naturally rejoice in? Do we naturally rejoice in Christ Jesus? Or what sort of things do we typically rejoice in? Well, I think you mentioned them already.

When things are going well, we rejoice because we're focused on ourselves many times. We focus on things that make our lives easier, better, so on. We actually have to, and that's why scripture is constantly reminding us, we have to constantly remind ourselves of who we are. If we don't do that, then we fall back to, well, it's just myself and I'm making it through this world and I'm looking for the good times or the easiest path.

Self is, I think, is our biggest enemy, really. The world and the flesh and the devil are there, certainly, and the flesh seems to be the one that's so tough. Yeah, I agree 100%. You're right. And then this is pretty basic to us. We all experience this every day, right?

Possessions is probably a very top of mind thing. We like our new toy or whatever it is. But some of the ones that I think are very A little more deeply rooted are things like status or position, recognition, even things like dignity, you know, or freedom. And the last two on there, I think, as I was kind of thinking over this, those are probably the last few years as a Canadian citizen, you know, when we lost a significant number of our freedoms for some time.

And it was, you know, I really felt that. I really didn't like that, you know. And that bugged me quite a bit at the time. And it was enough to even stir up some, you know, kind of a desire to fight back, you know. And so, So that kind of led my thinking. And then, Roger, you mentioned this.

So everything that we naturally rejoice in is rooted in self, really just how much we love ourselves. And, you know, I kind of ask myself the question, why does the loss of some of these things, you know, distress us so much? Why does it cause us so much anxiety? And really, the reason is because we love ourselves so much, you know. We love ourselves first, right? Yeah, yeah.

And, you know, the anxiety that we feel over losing one of these kinds of things, and that list could be expanded greatly, but it is one way that we can identify, you know, where we're still very much fleshly, very much, you know, tied to our selfish desires. So anyway, that's kind of, you know, just kind of expanding the thought a little bit on what would be our natural tendency to rejoice, to rejoice in, and all those earthly, fleshly sorts of things. And Miles, something to add to that, I know I'm new to the class, but I will have to say as I age, help is very important, and when things go wrong with ourselves, we ask the Lord to heal us. But oftentimes, you have to ask the Lord, may it be your will, because these things that go wrong in our life to maybe touch somebody else's life and he wants us to do that and then we might still be a shining star because the Bible says all things work together for his glory and that's what we want to do is glorify the Lord in our lives.

Yeah, you're right, Heidi. That's so true. And that's a tough one. That's a really, really hard one. Actually, Janet, that's... Oh, what was it? Sorry, I couldn't see. Sue Ellen's sister. Oh, Janet? Oh, hi, Janet. Yeah, okay. It sounded a little bit like Heidi from the back of the classroom. That was Janet? Okay, thanks, Janet. Hi, Janet. Okay, yeah, thank you.

Yeah, that is so true. Very, very good. That should be on that list for sure. Very difficult to lose your health. Not that I've really experienced that to any great degree. I've had some painful experiences, nothing like a long-term health crisis or anything. Personally, it makes me grumpy. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, and that's why I say it's kind of the opposite, right? Like when we feel that anxiety or that grumpiness or that, you know, distressed feeling or whatever, it really shows us how much we do really love, you know, love our own pleasure, our own health, you know, our own good.

So, yeah, that's where None of those things. Well, this is kind of the way, I guess I'll go a little off track here, but I thought, you know, all of these things that we've listed are things that we can lose. You know, and so if we're rejoicing in them, well, then we can lose that. You know, the only thing that we can rejoice in that we can never lose is Jesus Christ and who He is. So, you know, if our rejoicing is in Him, then we're safeguarded against, you know, against the Bingram. And so much more. Yeah, that's right.

So let's move into some of the contrasts in the chapter. So I found, and I think there are more, but these ones are kind of, you can find the words in the chapter. So Paul shows a real contrast, and you can see it in four different words that he uses.

So, we have two kinds of circumcision, two kinds of righteousness, two kinds of gain, and two kinds of walk. So, let's look at those one at a time. So, two kinds of circumcision. Now, depending on your translation, you may not have the word circumcision, and that's actually more accurate, but the words are katatame and paratame.

And so Paul is kind of working a little bit of wordplay. Now, if you're following along, I kind of want to keep in context here. This is verses two and three here. He's talking about, in the NASB, they use the word false circumcision. So he says, beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of the false circumcision, for we are the true circumcision who worship the spirit of truth. Now the NASB has chosen to use the word circumcision in both, I think, to catch the wordplay that Paul is using, because he's chosen that same hum a word with two different prefixes. But if you have a number of other translations, you'll see the word there, mutilation versus circumcision, in that, sorry, my notes are just out of order here, in that place. There we go. I just had my first two pages twice, so. So. There we go. you'll have mutilation versus circumcision.

And that really catches kind of the sarcasm of what Paul is actually saying. It works out a little bit better in the Greek because you've got a wordplay and a sarcastic comment. So the base of each word is temno, which just means to cut. And then the different prefixes are What's the word for that? Prepositions that tell about sort of the direction or location of an action.

So, in this case, you have cathetome, which means to cut through or cut off. So you can get... Paul's pretty sarcastic here. It's a really cutting remark. No, sorry. Okay. And then you have peritome, which is to cut around or to circumcise. So that's the correct word for circumcision, or this catatome.

You know where Paul says, you know, I wish that they would go the whole way and mutilate themselves? This is kind of Paul's go-to remark for these folks, calling them the catatome, the mutilators. So question, who is Paul referring to then as the mutilation or the false circumcision? What is that a reference to? This is the Judaizers, those who want to put the church under the law of Moses. And so that was, you know, Paul's day.

You know, we don't have maybe quite the same crew in our churches these days, but how do we identify these people today in the North American church? I think we still have the same mindset. We just wouldn't call them necessarily the Judaizers. How do we identify them today?

Legolas, yeah. Yeah, so I would say, you know, those who hold to, like, a reform covenant theology, right? Yeah. And if you've been in the Wednesday Night Study, we've talked a lot about this in the last months, you know, trying to equate the church with Israel, trying to put the church back under Israel's law. So it's actually very similar. It's just, you know, they don't see themselves as, you know, necessarily part of Judaism, but a replacement of Israel. You also find a lot of dispensationalists who want to go back to legalism as well.

You're absolutely right, Bob. Yeah, you're right. And I would say it's not consistent with the dispensational hermeneutic, but it does happen because it is such a natural tendency. Maybe I should say there, where would we find these people, you know, just everyone in their fleshly heart? I mean, we all want to go back to law in our flesh. That's what the flesh always gravitates towards. So again, the natural tendency of the heart is also to gravitate towards law. and how we can produce our own righteousness.

So that's, yeah, so very good. So why is legal teaching so dangerous? Covering fundamental basics here that we cover all the time, but we could say that legal Christianity activates the flesh. That's what law does for us. It activates the flesh and keeps the believer from depending on Christ for his life. So it keeps the flesh busy producing its own righteousness, right?

So how does Paul contrast the circumcision with the mutilators in verse 3? He calls, he refers to the circumcision or the true circumcision as it is in NASB as those who worship in the spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh.

And so by contrasting these, kind of what he's saying is this is what the true circumcision looks like and in inferring or implying that the mutilators do not do this. This is, you know, showing the difference between the two. So what else can we what else we find out about legalists in in verses 18 and 19 as you know down towards the end when he kind of returns to these These folks when he starts to talk and he's talking about, you know, follow follow my example You know the fall according to the pattern you have in us for many walk of whom I have often told you as enemies of the cross whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite, or literally belly, their glory is their shame, and they set their minds on earthly things. So that, again, another contrast between the legalist mentality and the true circumcision, or the mutilators and the true circumcision.

Now, We should deal briefly with, and this is probably a review, but what does Paul mean by calling himself and those who are aligned with him, for lack of a better word, the circumcision? Why does he use that word? Doesn't that get a little confusing and kind of, does that tie us back in with Judaism and what's he saying there? Well, Colossians 2, 11 to 12, he gives a great description of this.

He says, and in him You were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands." So this is Paul's true circumcision. This is a circumcision he has in mind. It's not a fleshly circumcision. "...in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ." Now what is that? Verse 12, "...having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with him through faith in the working of God who raised him from the dead." So this is not physical circumcision.

That verse 12 there defines this circumcision as having been accomplished through our identification with Christ in his death and resurrection. So it's through our co-crucifixion and resurrection that we can reckon ourselves dead to the power of the flesh. So if we were to line this up with what we understand from Romans 6, The circumcision is a term that he uses for our death to the sin nature. We reckon ourselves dead indeed to sin. And that's what Paul is using the word circumcision as a reference for.

Okay, so let's look at the two kinds of righteousness now. Now, this is interesting. When I first recognized this, I don't know, a year or two ago, or a few years ago, I wrote in big letters at the top of my Bible, two kinds of righteousness. Because, you know, we tend to use righteousness only one way, but it actually has two different uses in scripture. And if you look at verse... Yes, Zedekiah and Dekashune? Are those the two? This here, so look at verses 6 and verse 9. Actually, does someone want to read verse 6 and verse 9?

As to Zeal, a persecutor of the church, as to the righteousness which is in the law, found blameless. And then 9? and may be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own, derived from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith.

Okay. Thank you. So those are the two kinds of righteousness, and actually they are both, use the word dikaiosune, which makes it kind of confusing. We have the same word, both referring to this as righteousness, but one is what Paul calls here a righteousness of my own, derived from law, and then the other one is the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith. So it's important, I think, to recognize that there are two different kinds of righteousness. because it can get very confusing otherwise, you know, to look at the, you know, the good deeds, you know, that legalists will do.

And, you know, I've had these kind of conversations with people talking about the law and the fact that we're not under law, and they say, well, what, is there something wrong with You know, thou shalt not steal. You know, is there something wrong with that? No. The law is righteous and holy and good. Right?

But, as Paul calls it here, a righteousness of my own derived from law. So, you see, what is the fundamental difference between these two kinds of righteousness? And I think we can maybe boil it down, perhaps, to source. This one righteousness is sourced in self, the other is sourced in Christ, and means the one comes through works of the law, and the other comes through faith alone. So, maybe to just kind of basically distinguish those two from each other.

Well, Myles, in the first one, the first one we are destined to failure. Yes, yes. Yeah, we are. Even though it's there, we cannot attain to it, and we cannot, you know, succeed. Yeah, yeah, and that's why it's so interesting that Paul uses, and elsewhere actually, I mean, you think of Isaiah 64, 6, all of our righteous deeds, or all of our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. So that's actually kind of the same, you know, again, using the term righteousness for a filthy deed, you know. And so the problem is not what the action is, or the, you know, the outward expression is. The problem is the source of it, really. is sourced in a sinful, in a sinful being, you know, so.

So, what did I ask this question here? No, I don't, but I had another question on my paper here. I said, how does Yeah, how does Paul think about, or what does Paul think about the righteousness which he had produced as a legalist? And that's really what is going on in Paul's thinking here.

He says, I did it all. I was top of the, you know. range top kind of thing and and He says that whatever things were gained to me those things. I have counted his loss. So that's that's Paul's view of His own, you know, this is this righteousness of his own.

It was worthless, right? Yeah Well, he he goes through this whole list to show that that he was the best of the best and he couldn't make it So don't follow my you know, it says don't follow my path. I couldn't make it. I It's impossible to make it that way. Yeah, yeah, that's right. That's right.

Okay, so let's look at the two kinds of gain. Now, in verse 7, Paul says, like we just said, whatever things were gained to me, I have counted as loss. And then in verse 8, Paul uses the expression that I may gain Christ. So how can we describe or understand these two gains?

The first game was sort of the self-aggrandizement and recognition that came through self-effort. It was the praise of other men, you know, the back-patting that happens, and just glorying in my own fleshly ability. And this game, Paul ultimately reckoned to be a loss. The second gain is not praise or recognition, but it's a person.

Paul had gained Christ. So, the first gain there that Paul had was all of the recognition and praise and glorying that he had in his own accomplishments and his own abilities. And he reckoned that to be worthless. But the second gain that he discovered was the person of Jesus Christ. So what does it mean then to gain Christ? How would we describe gaining Christ? How do you gain a person? And I think what we could say is that this is really describing intimacy with Jesus Christ. This is about knowing him, right? And that's what he says in verse 10, that I may know him. And what's interesting is that this game, it's a person.

But it also results in that second kind of righteousness. It results in a righteousness that's not our own. It's a righteousness that flows out through us by faith. So in the first case, we had a righteousness of my own that resulted in a personal gain of self-glorying and so forth. And in the second case here, the second gain is the person of Jesus Christ, so it kind of reverses the order. Now I first have the gain, I have Jesus, and out of that gain I have a righteous life that's not my righteous life, it's his. So it kind of reverses things there.

Then Paul talks about two kinds of walks. So let's read verses 17 and 18. And I know we're just skipping through here and missing lots. But he says, Brethren, join in following my example and observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us. And in verse 18 he says, For many walk, of whom I often told you, and now tell you, even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ.

So the word walk is peripateo, which literally means to walk around. And what is peripateo here, a figure of speech, for? What is he referring to? He's not talking about a literal walk. It's not, you know, follow me while I walk to the next city to evangelize.

So it's a figure of speech, and it refers to the way that we conduct ourselves. So, you know, the way we walk around, the way we go about things. And there are really only two ways to conduct ourselves. And I found this helpful because there's not a hundred and one ways. You know, there are really only two ways that we can walk or conduct ourselves in this life.

And so as Paul has outlined in this chapter, there's the way of the legalist, He puts his confidence in the flesh and works to produce a righteousness of his own through self-effort. And then he pats himself on the back and he looks around for the praise of all the other legalists. And then there's the way in which Paul conducts himself, and Paul has put no confidence in the flesh. He considers everything which could be produced through self-effort to be rubbish, and instead he pressed on to a fuller, deeper knowledge of Jesus Christ. As we see Paul's language there, you know, I press on to lay hold of, well, what's he pressing towards?

To knowing Christ, knowing Him. in a deeper, fuller way, and not looking to produce his own righteousness, but looking to Christ and depending on the Lord to produce the righteous life of Christ through him. So fundamentally, it's either law or grace. By grace, we've been given Christ as our very life, and so we look to him to produce his life and righteousness.

So just kind of in closing here, as we kind of think about that a little bit, does Paul want himself put on a pedestal as a hero to emulate? And no. I mean, we see in 1 Corinthians 3, 5, where he says, what then is Paul? What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believe. So Paul's not interested in being idolized.

The word here in this 317 where it says, walk according to the pattern you have in us. It's the word tupos. It's the something imprinted by the original. It's like the mark left by a stamp or the mark left by a signet ring pressed in wax. Something of that effect.

And Paul's walk, I think, bore the mark of the one who had been crucified as Christ. No longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. So Paul could, in that sense, say, follow what you see in me, because my life bears the imprint of the cross. Not I, but Christ's life. And so he's not saying, you know, follow me, but follow the pattern that you see in my life.

So like Paul, our focus needs to be turned away from everything that we can produce in our strength and towards Bryce and who he is. And it's really only then that we'll see our own selfish effort as the rubbish that it is, the filthy rags that it is. So now, I've kind of said this, but what is it that separates us from the power of the flesh to produce its rubbish works?

And it's the cross of Christ. It's only the cross that separates us from the power of the flesh. And that's why we can rejoice in suffering with Christ, as Paul has spoken about in this chapter. We're coming to know the reality of the cross in our day-to-day experiences, and that is the separation from all that we were in Adam. And I think that that's embedded in what it means to rejoice in the Lord. It means that we rejoice in the suffering of the cross. I think that our greatest cause for rejoicing as believers is the fellowship of our Savior's sufferings. commonly hot thing, perhaps, in the church today.

I picked up a... my mom has a massive assortment of, you know, Christian literature. It's all, you know, it's hit and miss. It's just things she finds. And I picked up this one that had kind of an interesting title, flipping through, and the guy The guy said, oh, what is all this talk about, you know, bearing our cross? And he just, oh, that's so down and gloomy. So I don't think he'd appreciate this comment, you know.

But truly, our greatest cause of rejoicing is that as believers we fellowship in our Savior's sufferings. And you'll find that language repetitively throughout the New Testament especially. in Paul, but I came across a couple of things. The Hungry Heart on Monday, I think, had this great comment on this by J.G. Bellet.

He said, a life of patience intervenes between the day of illumination and the day of glorification. I am not to count on a path of pleasure, a path of ease, a path of prosperity, on being more distinguished tomorrow than today. All the things that, you know, Paul pursued earlier in his life and we all tend to pursue. But I am to count on a path of patience. It is not their glory in that.

Yes, there is companionship with the Lord Jesus Christ. So he really nails it there. We fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ as we learn to patiently endure sufferings. And then actually this morning, this was Miles Stanford's opening comments in this morning's Hungry Heart. He says, in regard to the external cross, the obvious fact is that Christ died for our sins.

As to the internal cross, as he refers to it here, While not so obvious, it is still a fact that we are to be always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh, 2 Corinthians 4.11.

And that's really how it works. That's the mechanics of the Christian life. As we are delivered over to death, the life of Jesus is made manifest in our mortal flesh. And there has to be a by faith walking in that. I mean, when we hit these trials and difficulties and things, when we when we respond in the flesh and we fly into a temper tantrum, we don't have this manifest. But when we submit by faith to the cross of Christ and those suffering things, there's really a miraculous manifestation of the life of Christ, something completely humanly impossible in any other way. One other note I've written down here is that we really get to know what Jesus is all about and what his character is like when we find ourselves enduring suffering. And I think that is really the wonderful goal of it all, is to know him.

Miles, you know, I think it's one of the hardest things for believers, including myself, to handle is that, I shouldn't say we handle it, me to trust that he handles, but my point is that Because trials sometimes are so hard and so difficult, even the best of that, we go back to self and then self is pitting self and you're all wrapped up in them. Actually, I have one thing to share about, you know, I had several, you know, we had a brother that took his life and his sister, I'm not sure if she was a believer, but anyway, our brother Hal Malloy, I saw him, he gave a message at a funeral of a man who took his life. And Hal went through a lot of tremendous verses, but one thing that stuck with me from that service was that taking your life is one of the most selfish things you can ever do. And it is because you're totally focused on self and you have counted that self is so important that you're going to rob the rest of your family of your life. And it brings pain. It brings pain to them. They're in pain. They're in great pain. So it's an awful thing. But I think God's Word has the answer for that.

Yeah, here's a situation where the world I think the you know, the suicide rate is up I mean across the world every place, you know people, you know taking their lives and Yeah, I said go ahead I'm sorry, I know it's okay as you say it's encouraged and endorsed everywhere, you know, um, we have yeah Medically assisted, you know suicide here It's getting more and more common all the time, you know, so um But you're right, and that is the ultimate, in a twisted kind of seemingly almost backwards way, but it really is almost the greatest form of self-worship. I am so important, and I am so precious that because I'm not feeling the way I should be feeling, you know, I'm just going to hold the plug, right? Right.

And what happens is you become so myopic that you cannot see You cannot see the rest of people around you and how that it's going to make a difference if you're not there. And, you know, it's hard. But on the, you know, the other side of the coin is being, you know, if you're in difficult situation, it's very difficult, very, very difficult to get to stand back and look at the situation. And that's why, that's why having brothers and sisters, I think of Russ, you know, we need to be around him as much as we can, just to encourage him.

It's true. And not to be, you know, to say, like the words I just said, it's not to, you know, beat up on someone who finds himself in that hard place because I have found my place in very dark, you know, places at times where that thought does cross your mind. You know, oh boy, it'd just be easier to end it all, you know. Probably many of us have been in a place like that at times.

And it's a very deceptive and dark place where self is our sole focus. But nonetheless, it is a tragic deception and a total focus on self. We need to be able to, as believers, recognize that our suffering is not about me. It's not about my comfort, my pleasure, my success, and so forth.

In fact, let's close with this verse, 2 Corinthians 1 5, for just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ. That's a beautiful verse. The more abundant our sufferings are, the more abundant is the comfort in Christ. Let's close in prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for the wonderful promise of that, that your comfort is sufficient to any and every suffering. And in fact, when we have our eyes on you in the midst of whatever suffering it is, it doesn't matter how great it is, it doesn't matter how difficult or painful or trying it is, your comfort is greater than that and your love is deeper than that. As Corrie ten Boom often said, there's no pit so deep that your love is not deeper still.

We thank you for that. Lord, we believe that to be true, and we thank you for this study in Philippians 3 this morning and what we've been able to glean from it. I pray that you would work these truths into each one of our hearts in a way that brings about the reproduction of your Son's life in us. We thank you that you do that by your grace. In Jesus' name, amen.