Sunday 4 May 2025

Nollamara Church Of Christ Sermons.Raw transcript of meeting:

Date Of Sermon: May 4 2025

Speaker: Jamie Boland

Sermon Title: When Loss Becomes Gain

Scripture Reading: Philippians 3:7-12

  📍 This morning's reading is from Philippians reading verses seven to 12. It's Philippians chapter three.

But whatever were gains to me, I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 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. And to be found in him not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.

I want to know Christ, yes, to know the power of his resurrection. And participation in his sufferings becoming like him in his death. And so somehow attaining to the resurrection from the dead, not that I have already obtained all this or have arrived at my goal that I press on to take hold of that. For which Christ Jesus took hold of me.

Thank you for that reading, Linda. What I want to do is I actually want to split this, um, reading up into a couple of messages today. I wanna focus on the first part of the text, probably up to verse nine or 10. And in two weeks time, I'll bring the second part. Next week of course is Mother's Day. And so what I want to do is bring a message, uh, from the gospels, a mother who seeks out Jesus on behalf of her child.

So the title of our message today is When Loss Becomes Gain. Let's, let's commit this time to Jesus.

Father in heaven, we thank you that we know Jesus. We thank you for the gift of salvation. Father, I ask and pray through your word today. Minister to our hearts by your Holy Spirit, convict us. Challenge us, equip us, comfort us. Let Christ be revealed in us. Father, we just commit this time to you and ask for your blessing in his precious name.

Amen. So I wanna begin today by sharing a story about a pastor who received a call. You know, it's a, it's a call that all pastors dread. He'd been out for dinner with his wife, they returned home. They check the, uh, the messages on the answering machine. And what they, they heard there'd been a, a call from a nurse at a local hospital.

Now, this nurse, she was calling on behalf of a, a patient who said he knew the pastor, and the message was basically this, pastor, you need to come tonight. I don't think the patient's gonna be with us in the morning. That was late. But the pastor, he said, I got into my car, I went to the hospital. These are the sorts of messages that pastors can't ignore.

And he said, I knew this man. He was a patient, he was an amputee. He was wheelchair bound. He had severe respiratory problems, and he couldn't go anywhere without this oxygen tank and his breathing apparatus. Now, he gets to the hospital and before he saw this man, he goes to the nurse's station. He said I needed to first check with the nurses.

I, I wanted to understand just how serious the situation was. The nurse looks at him. She doesn't pull any punches. She says, this man needs emergency surgery. He's gonna die. If we don't perform an operation in the next few hours, this guy's finished. Now, the problem was because of his respiratory problems, there's a strong chance that once he goes under, once they put him under, he might not come back out the other side.

And so here he is. He's scheduled for surgery at 5:00 AM in the morning. It's now midnight night. The pastor is very somber. He walks into this room, it's dark. He said he sat by the man's, you know, bedside on the chair. He took the man by the hand and they began to talk. Now, here's a man who's standing in the passageway between life and death.

He's literally knocking on heaven's door. He's got as little as five hours left. What do you talk about? What do you say? Would it surprise you to learn that he didn't talk about sport or the weather or politics? They didn't talk about the strength of the dollar or the stock market going up or down. Okay?

At this moment, this is not the time for small talk. It's not the time for trivialities. This is the moment where everything becomes real. This is time to think deeply about whether you're ready to meet God. And so the pastor said to this Man, you know your circumstances, don't you? They've made you aware of the gravity of this situation.

And the man said, yeah, I know. He knew that the hour was late. He knew that there was a real strong chance that this was his last night on Earth. And as you stand in this hallway between life and death, your health is fading. Your life is slipping when all is stripped away. What is your hope and what is it that you truly believe in that moment?

Has a way of confronting you like nothing else? Yeah. Now we can go through life not thinking too deeply about these things, but our pending mortality when we're face to face with it, it has a way of bringing clarity unlike anything else. You are face to face with these realities, and so here you are.

What would you say to this man if you are with him in that room now? I think some of us have already been there before. Yeah. We've watched as a spouse or a parent prepares to make that journey, but here you are. You're in that moment. And this may be the very last conversation this person will ever have, what would you say to them?

What hope could you offer to them? Usually in this sort of time, the inevitable question that comes up is this, when you meet God and stand before him, what is it you're gonna say? What's gonna be your confidence when you're face to face with the one who made you? Now, some people say, well, you know, if I stand before God, my hope is that my good will outweigh my bad.

Somehow my good, the good that I've done will eclipse the bad that I've done, and somehow that's gonna get me over the line. You know, some, they're gonna find hope in comparing themselves with others. They might think, I can console myself with this fact that, you know, I may not be perfect, but I'm better than most.

Maybe they might say, God, have you seen my neighbor? He's bad. I, I really wouldn't want to be in his shoes. And that's what they put their trust in. They put their hope and their trust in the fact that I'm not as bad as the next guy on that day. When you stand before God, where will your confidence be?

Our reading today began with these words from the Apostle Paul. Whatever was a gain to me, whatever I considered a gain to me. I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What Paul's doing. He's speaking about those things that he used to put confidence in. He used to think, I've got things I can be confident in when I stand before God, and I used to put my confidence in these things, but I now consider them loss in light of Jesus.

Listen to what made Paul confident before God. Let's, let's just backtrack to verse four. He says this, if anyone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more. If you wanna write a list, my, my list is longer, it's bigger, it's more impressive. That's what he does. He goes on to list all those reasons why he can stand before God and say, Hey, God, look at me.

Look at who I am. Look at what I've done. God, you've gotta be impressed with my list. Let's have a look. Verse five. He starts off, he talks about the advantages of his birth. He says, I'm circumcised on the eighth day of the race of Israel. Paul's listing his pedigree saying, I'm not a convert from Paganism.

I can trace my roots all the way back to Abraham. I can boast about being part of God's chosen people and in strict compliance with the Covenant. Covenant. I was circumcised seven days after my birth. Not only is he a pure blooded Israelite, he's also from the tribe of Benjamin. Now, did you know Benjamin's the only patriarch that was born in the the Promised Land?

And it's the smallest of all the tribes. And with that there, you know, it carries a sense of elite status. We may be small, but we're elite and they're the only tribe that remained faithful to Judah and the house of David. They went into exile with Judah, and when they came back out, they helped rebuild Jerusalem with Judah.

And Paul says, you know, I've got this extra honor of being named after Saul, the first king of Israel, the most famous of all the mites. He also boasts about being a Hebrew of Hebrews. Now, unlike many other diaspora Jews who only speak Greek Paul, you know, he can boast. He studied the scriptures in both Hebrew and Aramaic.

His dad's a Pharisee. His dad was pretty shrewd. He says, I'm gonna make sure my son gets the best education in Jerusalem under the famous Rabbi Gamma. You know, Paul, he can say, I'm smart and I know my stuff, and people would look up to him and see him as a model of what it means to be an ideal Hebrew.

Hey son, you wanna see what a good Hebrew looks like? Look at, look at Saul of Tarsus. He's a Hebrew of Hebrews, and we used to see something similar when we lived in Khartoum in Sudan. You know, the pride they had in being born Muslim. It was just tangible. You could see it. You could hear it. They would say, we're Arab, we speak Arabic.

It's the language of Allah and the language of the Koran. And every Friday when I'd walk past a moss, you could hear this sense of pride in their, their, you know, their ethnic identity. We're Arab, we're Muslim. We have this confidence in who we've been born to be. We're special, we're chosen. If you could hear it, it just came through.

And this is how Paul sees himself. He says, I've got all these inherited privileges from birth. They're privileges that make me special. They give me confidence. Before God, I can stand before him and say, God, you, you've gotta be impressed by me. I was born into all the right people. I'm from the right family.

I've got the right pedigree. But he doesn't stop there. He then goes on to list his achievements as an adult. He says, in regard to the law, I was a Pharisee. Do you know what the word Pharisee means? It means to be a separated one. You're different, you're better. You are one of the most righteous people in the community.

People could look at you and say, you are one of the best of the best. Do you know the law says that Jewish people should fast twice a year. The Pharisees would fast twice a week, every Monday, every Thursday. They were meticulous when it comes to the law. Now, lemme give an example. If you're a Pharisee, you own a meat shop, what you're gonna do is you're gonna put that meat on the scale and whatever the cost was, you're gonna charge just a little bit less.

That way no one can accuse you and point the finger and say, Hey, hey, you've, you've, you've been dishonest. You've got dishonest scales. You've overcharged me. They take a, a little bit less just so no one can point the finger. They're meticulous when it comes to the law, and Paul says, I was a good Pharisee.

I was zealous. Now, do you know what that means? It means that when this new thing called The Way started, people who stood up and declared this guy Jesus of Nazareth, he's the Messiah. Paul's one of the first to step up and say, no, sorry, this is not on. We're not gonna stand for this. This is desecration and blasphemy.

These people deserve to die. This was Paul. And Paul would've considered this a badge of honor. I'm meticulous when it comes to the law. This is something I can boast about. God. I didn't just stand by when all of this happened. I did something and when it came to the law, Paul was zealous. He writes, as for legalistic righteousness, I was faultless.

No one can look at my life, point a finger at me and say that I've compromised the law in any way. I know that I'm one of the best of the best. And that's a pretty impressive list. Yeah. When you break it down, it's impressive. He's got the right pedigree, he's got the right C credentials. This is his confidence to stand before God and say, this is who I am.

Lord, accept me. Welcome me into your eternal presence. You gotta surely, Lord. 'cause if I don't make it, who will? That's what Paul's thinking. Do you know there's an interesting scene in the film, Kramer versus Kramer. Do you remember this? A long time ago as a small boy when I saw this Dustin Hoffman's character, uh, Ted Kramer.

He's separated from his wife who's played by Meryl Streep. Now, basically, she walks out on him, leaves him to look after their son, Billy, later on in the movie, she comes back. She wants custody. So Ted goes to a lawyer and the lawyer says this. What I want you to do is put your emotions to one side. You know, take a, a piece of paper, a ledger, write down a logical list of all the reasons why, you know, having custody would be good for, for you.

Okay? Don't think about Billy. Think about you. All the reasons why you being the sole custodian would be good for you. And so what he does is he gets out this ledger and what he says, he, I'm gonna write down a list of all the pros and cons of, of being a single father. And so, of course, he starts by listing all the reasons why this isn't a good idea.

And he's writing it down, he's thinking, you know, this is affecting my work. I've gotta be home by a certain time. It's affecting my career. I can't advance in the way that I used to. And I think about my social life. This is really cramping my social life. You know, it's hard trying to meet other women when you've got a kid.

And then he thinks about the financial costs, the money, and he says, you know, I've got this extra mouth to feed and it seems that there's always something coming up. Medical, dental, school excursion, and, and when I break all this down, I don't even have any time for myself. I've got no me time. They're the cons.

It's got all these things on the list, all these reasons why, you know, he should give this kid over and just walk away. The other side of the ledger is blank, except for a single word. And it's a name Billy. I gain all these things, but I lose Billy. And for him that one name trumped every other thing on that list, and that's what Paul's doing here.

He writes down this list of all the things that are impressive about me, and he says, there's something that trumps all of this, and it's a name Jesus. Compared to everything I am, everything I've done, knowing Jesus is of far greater worth, and he says, whatever was of gain to me, I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.

Let me ask you, what's your list? What do you put your confidence in? Is it all the things you do for God? Do you think, God, hey, you know, you have to accept me. Look at everything I've done for you. God, think of all those years of faithful service, all those years of attending church, putting money in the collection plate.

And I didn't go just to any church. I went to the right church. Well, maybe it's how much you've changed since you've met Jesus. You think, Lord, you must be really impressed with me. Look at who I was when you found me, and look at who I am now. Pretty good. Hey Lord, you must be impressed. Is that how many years you've been sober?

God, I haven't touched a drop for 20 years. Is it how much you've loved your spouse? God, you, you know how hard I worked for for my family, how hard I worked to provide and put food on the table. I was a good father, a good husband, God, you know, I was a good mother. I raised my children well. I taught them to follow after you.

I kept a good home. Perhaps it's all the theological knowledge and information you've accumulated and you're gonna say, God, here's my list. Look at all the, the, the things I learned about you. I've got all my theological ducks in a row. I can preach a good sermon. I can lead a mean Bible study. And I didn't fall for any of that wacky stuff that people said about you.

That's my list, my confidence. Now hear what I'm saying? I don't want to diminish these things. These are good things. But understand the subtle ways in which these things can prop up our hearts. We can never allow these things to become our confidence. Are you with me? Think of the words we sang before the start of this message.

All I once held dear built my life upon all I once thought gain. I have counted, loss spent and worthless. Now compared to this. Knowing you, Jesus. Knowing you, is this something you can sing with sincerity? Is this what your life and hope are truly built on? Let me say this. If we begin to trust the person we've become, if we begin to trust the things we do for God, if we do this, then we're doing the very thing Paul cautions us against.

We're putting confidence in the flesh. And if we do this, if this is where our confidence is, it's gonna stop us from seeing our ongoing need for Jesus. When I think back of all the ministry I've done, all the experiences I've had, if I stop and think and put my hope and confidence in that, it's gonna stop me from seeing my ongoing need for Jesus.

Do you get what I'm saying? It can be so subtle, so easy, and I think it's something the enemy does. Hey, let me show you the good you've done. And it diverts my focus away from Jesus.

If I focus on my service, my performance, and slowly but surely, this is gonna become the things that prop up my heart. And instead of looking to Jesus, I'm gonna look to my badges of honor. And subconsciously what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna come to depend and trust upon who me. Who I am, what I've done, who I've become, my righteousness.

Know Paul, look at him. He's got his runs on the board. He could have said, I'm good with God, I'm safe. I've got the right pedigree. I've done all the right things. But then he meets Jesus and when he meets Jesus, everything he considered gain. He now comes to see as what? It's a loss. Why? Because it all got in the way of me understanding my need for a savior.

There's another song we sing. We sang it on Good Friday. In Closing the Service, my hope is built on nothing less than what, than Jesus'. Blood and righteousness. Christ alone, cornerstone, the weak, made strong. In the Savior's love, maybe you're thinking, I don't like feeling weak. I like feeling good about myself.

I like taking pride and comfort in the things that I've done or the person I've become. I don't like being weak, weak, made strong in the Savior's. Love.

Jesus cannot be your source of peace if he is not your source of satisfaction.

I am gonna say that again in a few seconds. Here's what I, my experience is I think we clinging to these things because they make us feel good about ourselves and deep down, we don't wanna let them go 'cause it's what we need to actually accept ourselves. Do you get what I'm saying? Are you with me? I wanna hold onto these things that are good because they make me feel good about me, and when I feel good, I can accept who I am.

Jesus cannot be your source of peace if something else is your source of satisfaction. Christ alone, cornerstone, the weak, made strong in the Save His love. Paul says, whatever was a gain to me, I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 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 rubbish, that I may gain Christ. And when Paul compares what it means to know Jesus with who he was and what he could bring to the table, he says there's absolutely no comparison at all. And it's very interesting 'cause he describes what he brings to the table using this great Greek word.

It's the word scala. Okay? Now it's been translated in various ways. Rubbish refuse as we heard today, garbage. Now it refers to something worth or something you just, you know, get rid of. It's got no, no value. Now, to be honest, this is actually a softer translation of this word, the word scuba by first century standards.

It's ac crude expletive. You can go online and people are questioning Why has Paul used a swear word? 'cause that's what it was. Okay? The common English Bible translates it as sewer trash. Okay? The King James version translates it as dung. Okay, now, but consider that other four letter word we use in English for this.

It begins with s. The second letter is H. That's probably a more accurate way of translating Scala. Now let me, let me illustrate this. Okay. You know, we have a park across the road. Anyone walked around the park or walked through the grass on the park. I. Do it all the time. It's a great park. Now, in the old days, you could go down the park.

What you could do is you could take off your shoes, you'd run across the grass, but there was a danger. The danger was you might end up standing in something left behind by man's best friend. Okay? You know what I'm talking about? You with me? Now these days, all of this has changed. What, what the councils now do is they provide.

These things. Can you see what this is? It says dog waste bag. I'm gonna call it, I'm gonna call it doggy bag. Okay? Forget what you bring home from the restaurant. This is what you get at the park. Doggy bag. Okay, so here's what happened. You walking your dog, the dog stops to do its business. You take the doggy bag, you use that to pick it up.

Then you continue walking your dog all the while you're holding onto doggy bag. Now, imagine this. You walk all the way home with this thing still in your hand. Okay? Because you forgot to put it in the bin and you're thinking, actually, I might hold onto this. Okay. It's a great reminder of what we did today in the park.

Actually on second thoughts, I think it's gonna look pretty good on the mantle piece. I can show it to everyone when they come to visit. Are you with me now? It's a bit like that Australian film, the Castle. Anyone seen the castle? Yeah. Know the castle? Okay. Whenever the dad's given something that he delights him, what does he say?

No, that's going straight to the pool room. Okay, so if you've seen the film, the pool room is where he keeps all his collectibles, all his special treasures, okay? You don't want to do this with the doggy bag, okay? You don't take doggy bag to the pool room. It's not meant to be kept. You throw it away, put it in the bin, get rid of it.

Now, understand the doggy bag is a good thing. It keeps the parks clean, but you're not meant to keep it. You're not meant to delight in it. And Paul says all these things that were once so precious and valuable to me, all these things where I could, you know, take pride and say, well done. So well done. I consider them nothing but scuba.

Nothing but doggy bag when compared to knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord. That's the strength of the comparison. And when you think about it, that's what we bring to the table, the some essence of what we bring before God expecting him to accept us. Lord, here I am. I've got my doggy bag. You've gotta take me now.

I'm pretty impressive. And this is effectively what we bring before God. Paul meets Jesus and suddenly all these things become worthless to him, not because they're bad, they're actually quite good things. They're worthless because they kept him from knowing Jesus. And so now Paul looks back. He reflects of all these things, and he goes from reveling them to repulsion.

He goes from delight to disgust. So the question is, is there something you're holding onto something that's preventing you from seeing more of Jesus? Let go of the Doggy Bag Act. Yes, the good things we do serve a purpose, but don't let these things become your source of satisfaction. Christ alone, cornerstone.

The weak, made strong and save his love. That alone should be our source of confidence, peace, and satisfaction. Paul says, I consider these things scuba, doggy bag. That I may gain Christ and be found in him not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness that comes from God and depends on faith.

Can you see how everything's changed for him in light of meeting Jesus? Everything I did, everything. I was who I am. It's all changed now. It's nothing compared to knowing Jesus. I have a righteousness that comes from God. The prophet Isaiah tells us that our righteousness is, what do you remember? Isaiah 64 verse three.

What does he say our righteousness is, but what? Filthy, filthy rags. You know, I still remember the day when my Bible college lecture, he, he explained to us what was meant by this. Now don't think of something, you know, a rag you might use to clean the house. That's what I was thinking. It's a rag, a household rag.

You know, you do the dusting, you do the polishing. Now it's filthy. That's our righteousness. And he said, no, it's not. It's actually referring to a hygiene product that ladies use every month, and this is why the common English Bible translates it. As we have all become unclean, all our righteous deeds are like a menstrual rag.

There's some stark sober reality for us. A lecturer then turned to us young men and he said, guys, if you can't conceive of how unclean that might be, then think of this and it's gonna shock you when I say this. He said, think of a used prophylactic. Now, if you dunno what that means, I'll tell you privately after the service, I'm not gonna say it here from the platform.

Now, I'm not saying all of this to shock you. I'm just saying this to keep us grounded in reality, there is nothing we bring to the table that could ever make God. Accept us. Do you really believe that? There is nothing we bring to the table that could make God accept us? There's one source of righteousness that alone can give us confidence before God, and that's the righteousness that comes through trusting in Jesus.

Amen. His perfect life live for us. I've not been a Christian as long as many of you here. It's only been 25 years. But I can look back and see the many times I have departed from the faith. In the sense of trusting in who I'm becoming better than who I was and what I'm doing, what I'm knowing, all these things became my hope, and all these things became the way of me accepting who I was before God, but it's never enough.

It's never gonna finish. It's never gonna be complete. But Jesus said, it is finished and I can look to him, and that's my righteousness before God. Can I please exhort you? No matter how long you've been following Jesus, don't turn away. Don't be distracted. Don't, don't, don't, don't follow these appeals of your flesh to trust in who you are and what you do and what you've become.

Don't trust in that. Your only hope is Christ and Christ alone.

As Paul says, I let go of the doggy bag so that I might be found in Christ. Do you know what it means to be found in Christ? It means that when the Father looks at us, he doesn't see all the multitude of things you've done wrong. He doesn't even see the good things you've done that are tainted by by wrong motives.

What the father sees when he looks at us is the righteousness of Jesus. That is our only source of confidence and hope before God. That and that alone when the rubber hits the road. When you are standing one day in that hallway between life and death, you've got to be certain. My only hope is Jesus' blood and righteousness.

Let me close with something that, uh, I came across the other day. American Pastor Paul Washer. He said this, I'll read this for you. It's a little bit small. He said, have you ever wondered why some men who were drug addicts and women who were prostitutes and murderers, and so on and so forth, when they're converted, they seem to be filled with such a special zeal for God.

It is because they didn't come from the country club. They didn't come from some religious denomination or religious life where everyone pretends to be moral, upstanding, and deserving of God, God's love. They came out of the sewer and when they heard about the love of God, their hearts exploded. Now, that was my story.

I came from the gut atmos to the uttermost. But maybe you're thinking, well, that wasn't my story. Can I tell you, no matter how upright you consider your life to have been, the reality is we have all crawled out of the sewer, each and every one of us, okay? I'm not trying to bring us down. I'm not trying to make us feel bad about ourselves.

I'm trying to help us see who we are truly in light of God, and that when we accept this, our hearts, like he says, will explode when we understand the love of God. The true source of joy is found in seeing ourselves in this way and being found in Christ. That's our only hope and confidence before God.

Let's pray.

Father, we recognize the subtle ways in which we can begin to put confidence in our flesh. We're not who we were. We don't do the things we used to do. We've overcome. You've helped us by your spirit and Father, we can see the ways in which we serve you, and those things are good and commendable. And you, we will one day stand before you and, and, and be held to account for what we did with the gifts you've given us.

But Father, may these things never eclipse our focus to see Christ, to know him. May we like Paul, see these things that we once consider gain now as loss so that we might know Christ Father, protect our hearts from the evil one. He really does love to kind of lead us astray by helping us or wanting us to put confidence in those things that we do.

Father, let our souls take delight and joy in Christ and Christ alone. Holy Spirit, remind us of our ever increasing need for Jesus. No matter how long we've been walking with him. Remind us of our surpassing need for Jesus. We need him more today than yesterday, more today than ever before. Help us trust in Him and Him alone, and may we be found in Christ.

That alone is our hope and confidence. Father, we thank you for the precious gift of Jesus. May we love this gift more today than ever before. And look forward to meeting him face to face one day. In His name we pray. Amen.