I Took Off The Old Coat

Philippians 3:4-14 “I took off the old coat”

1. Paul gives us description of himself:

• Philippians tells us Paul was “… circumcised on the eighth day,

• a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews;

• as to the law, a Pharisee;

• as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless”

(Philippians 3:5-6).

2. Since Paul got born again took off the old coat and put on the new

• Paul says, “Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ.

• For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish!” Translated

sewage (Philippians 3:7-8).

• When Paul had on the old Coat

• Paul recalls having been “a persecutor of the church” he literally caused the deaths of

Christians. In the book of Acts, you can read how “a young man named Saul” held the cloaks

of the mob as they stoned the apostle Stephen to death (Acts 7:58).

• And Saul approved of their killing him” (Acts 8:1).

• That passage goes on to say, “Saul was ravaging the church by entering house after house;

dragging off both men and women, he committed them to prison” (Acts 8:3).

3. When The Apostle put on the new coat things change

• After he’d accepted Jesus as his Lord and savior, What has happened after we accepted

• he tells the Philippians how his old coat he once wore is no longer good for anything but

toilet paper.

• Pauls eternity changed As theologian Karl Barth once pointed out in a sermon:”To be saved

does not just mean to be a little encouraged, a little relieved. It means to be pulled out like a

log from a burning fire. You are saved! We are not told you may be saved sometimes, or a

little bit. No, you have been saved totally, and for all times.”2

4. When Paul took the old coat off he began to work

• One thing we find he worked hard for the kingdom of Jesus

• He traveled for the Gospel, he was arrested for the Gospel, he was an apologist of the

Gospel he was a defender of the Gospel.

• He believed in the Gospel

• He worked out his salvation It took Paul three years in the Arabian desert to “work out his

own salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12).

• Only after those long years of sorting things out he was ready for prime time as an apostle.

are we ready for prime time or ready for anytime

5. The Song goes . I took off the old coat and put on new coat it was best thing I ever did do.

• Just like song friends Two coats were before me, the old and the new

• what must I do The first coat was ugly, so tattered and torn

• The other a new coat, had never been worn I took off the old coat and put on the new

• My savior gave me this new coat this coat, it suits me, it keeps me so warm

• It's good in the winter and it's good in the storm

• Jesus tells His disciple that night long ago if you take this Bread this wine you will take off the old coat and put on a new