Stand Firm: Cultivating A Christ-Confidence For Living
Stand Firm
Cultivating a Christ-Confidence For Living
Pastor Ryan Trawick
“The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.”
- Steve Covey (Author of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People)
Philippians 3:1-5 (NIV) “Further, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord! It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you. 2 Watch out for those dogs, those evildoers, those mutilators of the flesh. 3 For it is we who are circumcised, we who serve God by his Spirit, who boast in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh— 4 though I myself have reasons for such confidence.”
CHARACTERISTICS OF REGENERATION
1. One who serves God by His Spirit: Not focused on human tradition or external pleasures but solely focused on our lives worshipping and honoring God from an authentic sincerity.
2. One who boasts in Christ Jesus: Satisfaction that comes solely from understanding that this hope is found in Christ and Christ alone. Not by what we obtain or accomplish but merely in the finished work at the cross that brings about the hope and freedom that we have been saved by.
3. One who puts no confidence in the flesh: In other words, putting no hope or confidence in what man is outside of Christ.
Where the flesh may lead us to fall, the Spirit will allow us to Stand.
Philippians 3:4-6 (NIV) “4 though I myself have reasons for such confidence. If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law,faultless.”
Philippians 3:7-14 (NIV) “7 But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.8 What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in[a] Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. 10 I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead. 12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”
When we focus on ourselves, then everything else is out of focus. When we focus on Christ, He puts everything back in focus.
FOCUSED PERSPECTIVE
FOCUSED PURSUIT
FOCUSED PURPOSE
FOCUSED PRIZE
Philippians 3: 17-21 (NIV) “17 Join together in following my example, brothers and sisters, and just as you have us as a model, keep your eyes on those who live as we do. 18 For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. 19 Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things. 20 But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21 who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.