Just the truth and nothing but the truth.

Steve Brown:
Just the truth, and nothing but the truth. Let’s talk about it, on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
That was Steve Brown. He doesn’t want to be your guru, and he’s not trying to be your mother. He just opens the Bible and gives you the simple truth that will make you free. Steve’s a lifelong broadcaster, author, seminary professor, and our teacher on Key Life.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew. If you were paying attention yesterday, and you’re a regular listening to Key Life, you know that on Mondays, I generally pray about the rest of the week, and I forgot yesterday. So I’m, listen, I wanted to finish up that teaching on friendship, and my mind was on it, and I jumped right into it and forgot about Jesus. So, if you will forgive me, I’ll pray today. Jesus has already forgiven me before I forgot to talk to him, but we’re going to open with prayer today and then get back to the teaching on truth. Father, forgive us sometimes when we get so busy that we forget about you. Forgive us of that and all our sins. And we are thankful that you do exactly that. And now, we pray about this week of broadcast that you would oversee it, and that we would see Jesus and Him only. And forgive the one who teaches his sins, as you do, because we want to see Jesus only. And we pray in his name. Amen. So there, we were, Hey, I want to point out one other thing. I took the time to read the first 12 verses of the 3rd chapter of Philippians to you yesterday. I’m not going to take the time to do that today, but I’ll be referring to it and we’ll be looking kind of carefully, after I’ve already made some comments on the first verses, we’re going to be centering in on verses 7 through 11, as we talk about the litany of lies and the importance of truth. We live in a culture that lies to us, by the way, I probably ought to say something. When Paul talks about those that are causing all the damage in the church at Philippi, he’s referring and refers to circumcision. There were Jews who said that if you become a Christian, you’ve got to be a Jew first. And Paul had been teaching that you can skip over that part and become a Christian without circumcision. And all of the ritual and the laws, you can run to Christ and he will accept you. And by the way, and we spent some time talking about that when we were studying Acts. By the way, the church in Jerusalem, the powers that be agreed with Paul and commissioned him to be an apostle to Gentiles. And he was that, and that’s the reference that he’s making in the first few verses of the third chapter of Philippians. And then he begins to center in on truth, one of the areas where the people of God must fight a constant battle to be different is in the area of truth. There is so much untruth that passes for truth. And it’s everywhere you turn. After a while, it’s hard to tell the difference. In 1932 to show that our problems are not new, will Rogers commented on Congress trying to get $2 billion that the government didn’t have. Rogers gave a fictitious diary of a senator. Monday, Soak the Rich. Tuesday, began hearing from the rich. Tuesday afternoon, decided to give the rich a chance to get richer. Wednesday, tax Wall Street stock sales. Thursday, get word from Wall Street, lay off us or you will get no campaign contributions. Friday, soak the little fellow. Saturday morning, find out there is no little fellow. He has been soaked until he died. Sunday, meditate. Does that sound familiar? A merchant once told Lincoln, who was famous for a lot of things, and one of the things, he was famous for a lot of things that he said, He said you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. And the merchant laughed and said to Lincoln, You can fool some of the people some of the time, and generally speaking, that’s enough to make a profit. Well, at any rate, there are a lot of lies, and they’re everywhere. And one of the gifts that we give to the world is the fact that we have been given a gift of truth. There’s the Canon of Scripture, and canon means measurement. There’s the Canon of Scripture, but that Canon of Scripture can be applied to the world and the things that the world say that are simply not true. And so, we’re going to look at some of those lies from this text. Without further chit chat, let’s dig in. Lie number one, you find joy in what you acquire, Philippians 3:7 through 8.

But whatever was to my prophet, I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus, My Lord.

Paul begins this chapter with joy, and you find it throughout the entire Book of Philippians. And he didn’t get it, and he gives his testimony about all the things he had done, all the praise he had won, all of the accolades that he had gotten.

He considered them as refuse.

Because you don’t find your joy in all of that. I have a friend who has two Aunts. They found a dead cat in their yard, they lived together, and didn’t know what to do with a dead cat. They called the vet and he said that if they would bring the cat over, he would dispose of it. They didn’t have a container to carry it in, so they put the cat in a Neiman Marcus shopping bag. On the way to the vet’s, they decided to stop at a restaurant for lunch, and they left the Neiman Marcus bag in the back seat, while they went into the restaurant and had lunch. They noticed that a rather elderly lady passed their car and saw the bag. Finally, she couldn’t resist the temptation and she stole the bag. And entered the restaurant with the new acquisition. Sometime during lunch, this lady looked into the bag and upon discovering she had stolen a dead cat, she promptly suffered a coronary and they said that when she was being carried off to the hospital on a stretcher, the considerate emergency crew placed the bag with the dead cat on top of her. The last thing they saw was this woman, being carried off with a Neiman Marcus bag sitting on top of her stomach with a dead cat in it. I find that so funny, every time I think about it I start laughing, but that’s kind of like the world. You know, they wrap things in nice wrapping. They say things in a way that makes it sound like it’s true, and that this is what you need. All of your life, you’ve been looking for joy, you’ve been looking for peace, you’ve been looking for meaning, and this car will do it, or this hairspray will do it, or this lotion will do it. Listen to me, friends. They are lying. That isn’t where you get it. And we’re living in a culture, and it’s one of the reasons I’m hopeful about our culture, when everything has been tried, and people know that you’re not going to find anything of worth in all that you have tried. My late mentor, Fred Smith, used to say that the saddest people in the world were the rich people. And I said to him, Fred, that means riches make you sad? He said, oh no, riches are good. He said, but rich people have lost all hope. They got everything they wanted and they found out when they got it that it didn’t help. That was wise. Let me tell you something, if you want joy and meaning, it’s not in getting something new. It’s not going to the store and purchasing what you’ve always wanted. It’s running to Jesus. And that is why Paul opens this chapter by saying.

Finally, rejoice in the Lord.

You think about that. Amen.

Matthew Porter:
Thanks Steve. We turned the page to Philippians chapter 3 yesterday, but dove into it fully today, focusing on verses 7 through 11 and the lies we come across. We hit on one today, and we’ll continue in this direction tomorrow, so do hope you will join us then. Well, how would you like to have breakfast with John Calvin, Charles Spurgeon, or Athanasius? What about hanging out after dinner with Augustine, or Martin Luther, or Jonathan Edwards? Well, we can’t make that happen exactly, but we can get you the next best thing with a devotional by Justin Holcomb called God With Us. Each day features a passage of Scripture paired with an excerpt from a classic theologian, an author, or pastor. It’s all focused on the person and work of Christ. And for a donation of $15 or more to Key Life, that book is our gift to you. Just call us at 1-800-KEY-LIFE that’s 1-800-539-5433. You can also e-mail [email protected] to order that book. Or to mail your request, go to keylife.org/contact to find our mailing addresses. And finally, if you’re blessed by the work of Key Life, would you help share that blessing with others through your financial support? Just charge a gift on your credit card or include a gift in your envelope. Or just pick up your phone and text Key Life to 28950 that’s Key Life, one word or two. It doesn’t matter. Just text that to 28950. Key Life is a member of ECFA in the States and CCCC in Canada. And we are a listener supported production of Key Life Network.