Found In Him

Found in Him

Philippians 3:9-11

Good morning.

When the Apostle Paul was in Athens and was reasoning with the Greek Philosophers, he told them about the Lord, who was an unknown God to them.

Acts 17:27 so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us;

Acts 17:28 for in Him we live and move and have our being,

When we meet people for the first time, we usually try to make small talk, in order to get acquainted with the person.

The first question people usually ask someone they have just met is, “So what do you do for a living?”

The follow-up question is similar and may sound like, “So what are you into?”

I have had doctors, family members, and many parishioners ask me what I am into.

What these folks are asking is; “What do you do for fun, what do you do to relax?

What are your interests outside of what you do for a living, and what are you passionate about?”

The reason these questions are used so often is because what you are into reveals many things about you, but they are really good at revealing what is important in your life.

Please open your Bibles to Philippians 3, as we continue in our verse-by-verse study of Paul’s Epistle to the Church at Philippi.

Last week we learned that an abiding joy in a believer reveals that we trust in the Lord, as we believe He is in control.

Then Paul told the saints at Philippi that reminding them to rejoice was for their safety. Fear and negativity are enemies of faith because both hinder our trust and reliance on the Lord.

Then Paul said about the Judaizers required circumcision for Gentiles who wanted to become Christians, as they said a person must become a Jew first before they could become a Christian.

We also said when we truly worship the Lord, we are telling Jesus what He is worth to us, and so, we have no confidence in our own flesh.

We ended last week, hearing Paul teach how he counted all of his previous life’s work as rubbish, so that he may gain Christ.

The word “rubbish” in the original language only appears once in the New Testament and is better translated as dung.

Jesus is so much better than anything else in this life so, He is worthy of all of our worship and praise, and He is worthy of being our first love as well.

This morning, Paul continues to abandon the idea of self-righteousness as he explains a Christian’s position in Christ.

I. Righteous before a Holy God.

Read Philippians 3:9

Paul showed the difference between trying to be right with God through the Law compared to a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

He showed the differences between living and trusting in self-righteousness compared to living and trusting in God’s righteousness given to a person by faith in Christ.

In the NKJV, there are 87 references to the words, “In Christ”.

Allow me to share with you some of the things the New Testament teaches that we have in Christ. This is not an exhaustive list, because again there are 87 references.

Many of the references say we have faith in Christ.

We have redemption in Christ, eternal life in Christ, and the Spirit of life in Christ.

We have the love of God in Christ, the truth in Christ, we are one body in Christ, we glory in Christ, and we are sanctified in Christ.

We are wise in Christ, we hope in Christ, and we are free in Christ.

We could probably spend the next few weeks discussing these benefits Christians have by being in Christ, and again, this was not an exhaustive list.

When we received salvation in Christ, we received so much more that there are not enough words in the English language to explain all of the benefits.

Paul wrote the church and told them that the only way he could be found in Christ was by renouncing his self-righteousness.

When I stand before a holy God someday, the only way I can be accepted is by being found in Christ. At the moment of salvation, Jesus comes to live in a believer, through His Spirit.

Jesus is found in me, and I am in Christ. Christ living in me and me being found in Him are two sides of the same coin. We cannot live in Christ if the grace of Christ is not found in us.

A person living in Christ is someone who has His atoning grace imputed into them and has become a child of the Living God.

John 1:11 He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. John 1:12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: NKJV