Living Hope Church

Pastor Phil Steiger: On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand. All other ground is sinking sand.

Pastor Phil Steiger: But this is wonderful stuff. This this is this is really important, and it's it's good for us friends to to sit and to read and listen to the word of God together. We worship together and we hear the word of God together. The spirit of the Lord is here with us today. Every time we gather together, Amen.

Pastor Phil Steiger: And it's good for us to hear. Even this particular passage of scripture at the end of Romans chapter 2. As we've gone through this chapter, we have realized that the Apostle Paul has shifted much of his early attention from speaking to Gentile believers, now to Jewish believers. He has directed his focus to them specifically a handful of times. And it gets even more Jewish, so to speak, even more Old Testament inside of this last paragraph of Romans chapter 2.

Pastor Phil Steiger: So Paul again is speaking to those Jewish converts inside of the early church. And this time he raises an absolutely critical part of their Old Testament covenant with God. And he's going to talk about circumcision, the law, and salvation. Now, the covenant of circumcision is important to this passage. It was mandated by God as he was building his relationship with Abraham.

Pastor Phil Steiger: So, very early on in the story of God and his people, when he begins with just this man and his family, Abraham and his family, this is one of the first things that God does with him in Genesis 17. We're going to read that passage a little bit later on. But even before Moses and the law, we have the covenant of circumcision as a symbol of relationship between this group of people and their God.

Pastor Phil Steiger: When we think about covenant requirements, when we think about the law and the things that the people in the Old Testament were supposed to do in their relationship with God, we immediately think of Moses and Leviticus and Deuteronomy and everything that's there. We need to recognize this morning that circumcision goes even further back than that. It's even deeper, so to speak, than even the law of Moses.

Pastor Phil Steiger: So the physical marker of circumcision became an absolutely critical part of their identity as the people of God. Now, as a matter of fact, it's not uncommon for religions or movements to sort of carry with them some version of a physical symbol. Some sort of outward testimony to this is what I believe, this is what I do, this is who I am.

Pastor Phil Steiger: As Christians, we can very easily think about the crosses we wear around our neck. Some of us still wear what would Jesus do bracelets. These kinds of things that are these external markers or symbols that tell others, I belong to Jesus Christ. These symbols become just physical markers of a person's belief or belonging to the people of God.

Pastor Phil Steiger: So what do you do? This is part of what the Apostle Paul's doing here. What do you do when the symbol itself becomes a substitute for the belief? When the habit of whatever it is that we do in our religious practices becomes a substitute for what should be happening inside of our hearts and minds and lives.

Pastor Phil Steiger: What do we do when the liturgy becomes more important than our belief and faith and lifestyle and devotion? What do you do when the outward physical marker, whatever it is, becomes more important than what's happening on the inside of our souls? You see, we can, we're going to read a lot about circumcision, I'm sorry guys, it's a little bit uncomfortable this morning, but so it is here in the book of Romans.

Pastor Phil Steiger: But we can think of anything like this and what Paul is aiming at is at religiosity. A ceremony, a ritualistic behavior, a symbol is all that I need to sort of mark my belief or my faith. To to make sure that I am right with whatever system that I am involved with. If I just engage myself here and here in this liturgy, if I wear this thing around my neck, then I'm going to be okay.

Pastor Phil Steiger: So Paul goes directly at that form of religiosity in this passage of scripture. And then beyond that, he's pointing all of us, the early Jewish Christians, and he's pointing us as well in the right direction with our relationship with God. So in this passage of scripture, a couple of things they're going to help us make sense of what Paul is saying.

Pastor Phil Steiger: And the first is this, it's works or grace. And this is going to become another one of these critically important themes to the rest of the book of Romans. Are we saved by what we do or are we saved by the grace of God? What's the difference and why is the difference so incredibly important? Friends, absolutely every religion, even any significant ideology or system, relies on you and me doing certain things to a certain degree, doing them well enough and often enough in order to be saved or to be the right kind of person.

Pastor Phil Steiger: If you do this and you do this long enough and you do it well, you're going to sort of climb this spiritual or moral ladder. You're going to find salvation, you're going to find enlightenment. This is a word, this is a term that's becoming again popular inside of our culture. Our culture is increasingly spiritually curious.

Pastor Phil Steiger: Now that actually opens doors of witness for the church of Jesus Christ. But at the same time, what it does is it sends people down some really interesting paths. How do I find enlightenment? What do I do? Where do I go? Who do I talk to? What mountain do I climb? How much time do I spend out in nature? What kinds of especially in the state of Colorado, what kind of mushrooms do I take so I can sit on my couch and find enlightenment, right?

Pastor Phil Steiger: Every other system has a version of this, but it's based on what we do. Paul was a man who was born into and lived in that system to the complete degree. Christ saved him out of it, and now, part of what Paul's doing in this passage is he's tearing that view of religion to the ground. Works or grace, this is critical to us.

Pastor Phil Steiger: And then he finishes with this thought this morning in this passage, a heart that belongs to God. So instead of just external religiosity, instead of play acting in a certain way in order to gain the favor or the approval or to praise of other specific people. He's going to say, there's a way of genuine relationship with God that actually changes our lives.

Pastor Phil Steiger: It's a completely different way of looking at life with God. So let's begin reading our passage of scripture in Romans chapter 2. We're going to pick up here in verse 25. Friends, this is the word of the Lord. For circumcision indeed is of value if you obey the law. But if you break the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision.

Pastor Phil Steiger: So if a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision? Then he who is physically uncircumcised, but keeps the law, will condemn you who have the written code and circumcision, but break the law. For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical.

Pastor Phil Steiger: But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man, but from God. If you are an observant Jew, and you're reading this passage for the first time, you're looking around for someone to punch in the face.

Pastor Phil Steiger: Because he is truly going after the the marker of their religion, this this covenant that they've held on to for generation after generation after generation, that is significant to them. And we're going to talk about how significant this marker is to them, as we make sense of this passage. But first of all, you may remember in the last paragraph here in chapter 2, Paul is still talking to these very early Jewish believers, but he's talking in terms of them having the Old Testament law.

Pastor Phil Steiger: They have the law of God. And he said, you had the opportunity to become teachers of the law and guides to the blind and and light to those around you, if you use the word of God the way he intended it to be used. But instead, you've misused it. And you have treated it as a special gift that you have that makes you uh unique or super spiritual, or whatever the case might be.

Pastor Phil Steiger: You have misused the word of God. And you should have been this, but instead you've become hypocrites. You should have been teachers, but right now, you guys aren't that at all. It had become this external spiritual status symbol, not the God honoring thing that it was intended to be. So he's just talked about that.

Pastor Phil Steiger: And so now, alongside the law of Moses, the Jews also have the covenant of circumcision. In fact, he says most of the way through this passage, you who have both the written code and the covenant of circumcision, right? So he's mentioning both of these things that are absolutely critical to them. So they have these things. We mentioned earlier that the covenant of circumcision goes goes deep into their past and their tribes, their families, relationship with God.

Pastor Phil Steiger: So we go back to Genesis chapter 17. I want to read this passage where God establishes this covenant with Abraham. In Genesis 17, it says, "And God said to Abraham, 'As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. This is my covenant which you shall keep between me and your offspring after you, every male among you shall be circumcised.'" So there it is, very straightforward.

Pastor Phil Steiger: The Old Testament prophets, as a matter of fact, are going to continue to reference this covenant one way or another. So, one of the things this tells us is, very early on in the history of the Old Testament and in Genesis 17, God establishes this covenant. And it's just Abraham and his family. And it endures through time and and through generations and through hundreds and hundreds of years until we get to the Old Testament prophets.

Pastor Phil Steiger: And they're still referencing this this covenant of circumcision. So it's still a part of who they are. There are moments in the Old Testament where when they're reestablishing the covenant with God, with their their national relationship with God, they go back through the process of circumcision. I mean, this is how important this is to them when the prophets refer to it and it keeps moving its way through time.

Pastor Phil Steiger: And it's not just through the Old Testament, but then we watch it show up in the New Testament. So the covenant beginning with Abraham moves its way through the history of God's people, all the way through the Old Testament prophets, and now into the New Testament. So in the New Testament, when the church begins in Acts chapter 2, there in the city of Jerusalem.

Pastor Phil Steiger: It's the Feast of Pentecost. So all of these observant Jews have come to the city of Jerusalem to observe the Pentecost, the Holy Spirit falls, Peter gets up and he preaches a sermon, and thousands of Jewish individuals, followers of the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, now become followers of Jesus Christ. So the first church is Jewish in their background and heritage.

Pastor Phil Steiger: So they bring the Old Testament into their faith with Jesus Christ. Then as the church begins to scatter, even through the book of Acts over time, the church members actually move out of Jerusalem to these other cities that aren't Jewish, and Paul and Peter and all these other early testament apostles, they go to Philippi and Colossae and to Ephesus and to Rome, and now people who aren't Jewish are becoming followers of Jesus Christ.

Pastor Phil Steiger: They don't have the Old Testament, but they have this Roman pagan background. So they're bringing that now into their walk with Jesus Christ. Now this becomes a significant cultural conflict very early on inside of the church. In fact, it is such a conflict that in Acts chapter 15, they convene a council in the city of Jerusalem of the leaders of the church.

Pastor Phil Steiger: And here's what starts the council in Jerusalem. In Acts chapter 15, verses 1 and 2, we read this. But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, that those who have come to follow Jesus Christ. Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved. And after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them.

Pastor Phil Steiger: It's a great way of saying, they they had actually a lot of arguments with them. Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders about this question. So Acts chapter 15 is fascinating. It's the early church coming to terms with, we've brought these two worlds together and we're all now brothers and sisters following Jesus Christ, how do we handle these things?

Pastor Phil Steiger: Well, one of the things they immediately jettison is circumcision. That that's not how you're saved. But recognize the mindset. This goes all the way back to Abraham. This means we are in right relationship with God. We are his people. Why would that change? And so when Paul writes this at the end of chapter 2, suddenly as you read this, you realize he's not talking about physical circumcision, he's talking about a certain attitude of the heart that changes our lives.

Pastor Phil Steiger: So this is critical to the early church, to this passage of scripture, and what Paul is trying to put across. So what Paul does in this passage of scripture to make sense of this issue, is he makes sure that they understand that the covenant of circumcision is directly tied to the expectation of following the law.

Pastor Phil Steiger: If you value circumcision, Paul says, then by by default, you immediately are expected to keep the law of God. This is how it works. If you think the symbol is your relationship with God, Paul says, let me remind you that the symbol means you are obedient to all of the law of Moses.

Pastor Phil Steiger: So when he flips that on its head in verse 26, I think that helps make a little bit more sense of this passage. He puts it this way. If a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law. So if a Gentile actually follows the law of God, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision? Will his exclusion from the people of God, won't it now be recognized as inclusion to the people of God?

Pastor Phil Steiger: And it's because he's been faithful to the law of God. So Paul has immediately tied these things together. He literally tells them, circumcision is a value if you keep the law. If you break the law, your beloved symbol is actually not worth anything. So this becomes important to this passage to several things that Paul is going to deal with in the rest of the book of Romans.

Pastor Phil Steiger: To help us make sense of this notion of works or grace, the gift of God when it comes to our salvation. If you rely on works, the bar is perfection. If you rely on your ability to keep the law, if you rely on your ability to be a good person, a moral person, to do good deeds, the bar is not the person next to you who's worse than you are, as long as you're better than them.

Pastor Phil Steiger: That's not the standard. The bar is perfection. So Paul is essentially telling them, you now need to keep the law perfectly. If this is if this is where you put your relationship with God, now I expect you to live the law perfectly. If you break one part of the law, you've broken all of it, and your symbol is useless.

Pastor Phil Steiger: It's useless. It can't do anything for you. This should remind us a little bit of something that we went through several months ago when we were going through the book of Philippians. In the book of Philippians, in chapter 3, the Apostle Paul is kind of ramping up the value of what happened to him when when Christ got a hold of him and his life changed and he put his faith in Christ and and he when he was saved.

Pastor Phil Steiger: And he ramps up to that point by saying, now listen, if there was anybody that I have ever known who had reason to boast in their own capacity to be a good person, it was me. So we actually go through this long list of things. I was a, and this is an interesting phrase, he says in Philippians 3, I was Hebrew of the Hebrews.

Pastor Phil Steiger: You think you're a Hebrew? I was a Hebrew. I was circumcised on the eighth day. That's what God told Abraham. This is what my family did. Even in my family lineage, we followed the law of God, right? He goes on and on with these kinds of things. He says, as for zeal for the Old Testament law, I went so far as to persecute the church.

Pastor Phil Steiger: I threw them in prison, I got some of them killed. That's how zealous I was for the Old Testament law. He finishes that list by just simply saying, and according to the works of the law, quite frankly, guys, I was blameless. I was blameless. So we might be tempted to think, well, if there's somebody who could sort of cross that bar and he's okay, it might be Paul or somebody like Paul.

Pastor Phil Steiger: But Christ changed all of that for him. He says in Philippians chapter 3, verse 7, "But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ." I worked and worked and worked and climbed and climbed. And I was above others and I was better than others and I knew it. I had all of that status I could possibly have.

Pastor Phil Steiger: My trajectory was only up, but as soon as I met Christ, all of that is rubbish. For the sake of Jesus Christ. Paul was saved by the gift and the power of God. And now his trust is in Jesus and his life is filled with the power of the Holy Spirit. He's going to tell us before we're over this morning that this brand new life that you can have is by the spirit of God, because this is what he experienced.

Pastor Phil Steiger: This is how his life changed. This is what he gave up for something that was better. So let's look at let's add this now to this last thought. If you rely on works, the bar is perfection. If you rely on Christ, the bar is repentance. This is a complete inversion of working for, trying to attain your salvation.

Pastor Phil Steiger: To trying to attain enlightenment, trying to attain the good life, through the things that you can accomplish and the things that you can do, trying to find the deep life by ordering my life and ignoring certain things and focusing on other things and and putting all these things in my life together the right way, then I am going to attain the meaningful, the deep, the purposeful life.

Pastor Phil Steiger: This is a complete inversion of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is a complete inversion of it. So look, in one, the bar is set so high, none of us will ever attain it. None of us will ever attain that. And the other, the bar is so attainable that most people reject it by nature.

Pastor Phil Steiger: Now, think about that for a second. One, we might think, well, if the bar is perfection, why don't people reject that one? Go straight to the one that's attainable and repent. Well, it's because when you repent, what are you admitting? If I'm going to repent and follow Jesus Christ, I'm going to have to recognize that I am a sinner in need of the grace of God.

Pastor Phil Steiger: That is an incredible step to take. And to be quite frank, I would rather believe that I can achieve, that I can succeed, that I can actually gain some special insight and knowledge and become a part of a small group of an inner circle of very smart spiritual people. I would rather believe I could do that, than to simply say, I need to be forgiven of my sins and I am no longer Lord of my own life.

Pastor Phil Steiger: It is Jesus and Jesus alone. If you rely on works, the bar is perfection. If you rely on Christ, the bar is repentance, friends. This is why the gospel is good news for everyone who believes. Paul goes on to say then he who is physically uncircumcised but keeps the law. Paul is now working his way toward what is the the bottom line in this particular passage of scripture.

Pastor Phil Steiger: The covenant is primarily about faithfulness, repentance and faithfulness to God and his will. So a physical symbol just can't do that for you. A habit, a liturgy, whatever it is that we engage in. We wear the cross around our neck. It just can't do that for you. It can't save us. It cannot bring us into relationship with God, take us past this life into the next.

Pastor Phil Steiger: None of these things can do that. If however, friends, and we need to be clear about this. If the symbol is a reminder of my need to be faithful. If the symbol is meaningful to me because of how my life has changed, because I've found salvation and meaning. If it's a symbol, if it comes out of my deeply held beliefs, then that is the role of the symbol of the spiritual habit, of liturgy, of whatever it is that you want to call it.

Pastor Phil Steiger: That's the role of those things is to remind us what God's done within us, how our lives have changed, the devotion and faithfulness that we want to show to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. That's what the symbols are for. So let's recall the theme of the book of Romans. He gave it to us very early on. And then it was brought to us.

Pastor Phil Steiger: Paul quotes actually from this little minor prophet by the name of Habakkuk. We go back to Romans chapter 1, verse 17. And he's talking about what it means to be righteous, to be right before God's eyes. "For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, the righteous shall live by faith." If you want to be right with God, we put our trust in Jesus Christ, and not myself, right?

Pastor Phil Steiger: Not in the symbol, not in being a part of a group of people who all wear a cross around their neck. Whatever the case may be. The righteous will live by faith. He takes that little quote from the book of Habakkuk, this tiny little Old Testament prophet. Fascinating little book. But in Habakkuk chapter 2, verse 4, I'm going to read this from a translation called the Christian Standard Bible.

Pastor Phil Steiger: The entire verse says this, "Look, his ego is inflated. He is without integrity, but the righteous one will live by his faith." So you've got people whose egos are inflated. They are full of themselves and what they can possibly do. And then God tells the prophet, but on the other hand, those who are actually right before me are going to live in their faith toward me.

Pastor Phil Steiger: Their belief in me, their trust in me and not themselves. The issue of relationship with God and circumcision comes up in a couple of epistles. When Paul writes to the Galatians, he puts it like this in Galatians 5, verse 6, and this is pretty straightforward. "For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love." This is what we're after, he says.

Pastor Phil Steiger: You've brought all of this in your walk with Christ, and there's value in the Old Testament, but understand that what Christ is looking for is, he's looking for a life of trust in him, in faith in him. Then he says these radical things, "For no one is a Jew who is one merely outwardly." There in verse 28, it's fascinating. "For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical." So he's completely reusing these terms to make sense of our walk with Jesus Christ.

Pastor Phil Steiger: When he says Jew in this passage of scripture, he's using it broadly as someone who belongs to the family of God, a true follower of Jesus Christ. That's how he's using this term by this point, here at the end of Romans chapter 2. So again, it isn't an outward act that makes us a Christian. It's a matter of a changed heart and mind by the power of the spirit of God.

Pastor Phil Steiger: So for the Jewish Christian, a lot of what this means is, don't rely on your heritage, your genealogical lineage, your connection to the Old Testament, even the value of circumcision. Now it's Jesus and it's Jesus only. For the Gentile Christian, and for all that they bring into it, their pagan religions were very different from what Christ is calling for in those who would follow him.

Pastor Phil Steiger: In their pagan religions, it's very different than the way that you and I would understand following Jesus Christ. The religion of Christianity is completely different. The way that they would follow or pay homage to these gods and goddesses inside of their mythology, it's very occasional. When they would need something, they would pay tribute to the local temple. They would devote or dedicate their household, their child, or their oldest and best ox to this particular god.

Pastor Phil Steiger: They would do something for that god in order to get something back from that god. So it's just occasional. I need something, I need the crops to go well, I need the rain to fall, uh we need more kids. So we're going to do this so we can get this back from this god. It is very transactional in those pagan religions. As a matter of fact, those ancient Greek and Roman traditions make very few moral requirements upon their people.

Pastor Phil Steiger: It's very transactional. So you know, we can imagine, we can think of Greek and Roman theology is full of stories of deals that people make with these deities. So a deal is struck and then everybody's trying to get out of the deal and that's how everything goes bad. This is just how Greek and Roman mythology goes. But the Christian religion, what Christ asks for is not a transaction.

Pastor Phil Steiger: As soon as you need something from me, here's what I'm going to get from you. You're going to rub the genie lamp and you might actually get it. But there might be a loophole, so who knows what's actually going to happen. Christ calls for something completely different, friends. Christ shows up and he makes a different demand. He says, I want your heart.

Pastor Phil Steiger: I want your mind. I want your soul. I want everything about you, because what I'm going to do is I'm going to transform that from a life of sin into a life of righteousness. I'm asking for everything that motivates you. I'm asking for everything that constructs your character, your priorities. Everything about that because I am the one now who gives you the power for this life to completely change.

Pastor Phil Steiger: I'm not looking for that outward transaction. I'm going to go to mass because I finally need God to do something for me. It's not what he's looking for. He's looking for something so much more. Absolutely everything about us. The uncircumcision or the circumcision of the heart, Paul calls it. And then it is Christ who will change heart and mind, change life and all about it, making us more like him.

Pastor Phil Steiger: And it is because of what Christ asks for, it's because of what's possible in relationship with Jesus Christ, that now we can live lives that are like a spring flowing from a purified fountain now. Instead of constantly covering it up with transactional interactions with God, with physical things that we do, thinking that makes us right with God.

Pastor Phil Steiger: When Paul says stuff like this in the book of Romans, this is actually not brand new. He's not just making this up now. This is clearly the result of the things that Christ has taught, because things are now new in Jesus Christ, but it turns out that these things are the promises of the Old Testament itself. We go back to the book of Ezekiel.

Pastor Phil Steiger: In Ezekiel chapter 11, verses 19 and 20, God says this to his people. This is the promise that God gives his people. "And I will give them one heart and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them, and they shall be my people and I will be their God." This is a powerful image.

Pastor Phil Steiger: It's used a handful of times in the Old Testament prophets. That God is going to take away this heart of stone that is utterly unresponsive to the work of God. And he says, what I am going to now now listen, the subject of the verb is God. I will give them a heart of flesh. So when God talks about this right relationship that he's desiring amongst his people, he does not say, I'm going to hammer my law into their thick skulls from the outside in.

Pastor Phil Steiger: And then maybe they're going to do some of it. God instead says, I'm going to reach into the very core of their soul. I'm going to soften it to me. And you Christian will become receptive to the very spirit of God. And so it is instead of this lifestyle being forced by God from the outside in. This is what God wants to do inside of the life of the believer.

Pastor Phil Steiger: He said, we're going to change life from the inside out. We're going to purify the spring. And now there's going to be springs of living water that flow from your soul. Isn't that beautiful? Paul says, none of that outside stuff is going to do it. And for a long time, everybody thought the outside stuff is what did it. That's not what Christ is asking for.

Pastor Phil Steiger: He's asking for everything, so that he can change everything about us. In fact, it's not just the image of the changed heart in Ezekiel. It turns out that this is actually the promise of circumcision in the Old Testament. Deuteronomy chapter 10. This is what Moses writes to God's people. "Yet the Lord set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them." Meaning, God chose, in love, he chose Abraham and the family and that's why we're here.

Pastor Phil Steiger: "On you and your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all other peoples as you are today. Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart and be no longer stubborn." What a great pastoral moment. I'm just asking you, don't be stubborn. Drop that external guard, drop your sense of moral superiority. Come to find Jesus Christ, and that's where you're going to find life.

Pastor Phil Steiger: Nothing else is going to do it. So God is looking for those who are willing to have everything within them. Paul uses the language of heart. To have our hearts changed. And the faith that we have now is the work of God within us in order to draw us closer to him. I love it here in verse 29. He pulls these thoughts together, "But a Jew, someone who truly belongs to the people of God is one inwardly."

Pastor Phil Steiger: And circumcision is a matter of the heart. By the spirit. God told us in Ezekiel, I'm going to give you a brand new heart. This is the work of God, the spirit of God. Not by the letter. His praise, meaning those who belong to Christ. His praise is not from man, but from God. This is a great way to finish this particular thought.

Pastor Phil Steiger: Because my faith, my salvation, my walk with Jesus Christ is a work that God has done within me. Then I need to learn that I do not now live my life out as a Christian to try to please other people. I'm not now trying to seek praise from others. There is no human being who gave me my salvation. There is no human being who made me right with God. So I'm not beholden to them to live according to their praise.

Pastor Phil Steiger: It is God who gave me salvation, so now my life is lived in praise to him. To seek his face and voice and to live his will, and to point others to him, and to hear from Christ at one point, "Well done, my good and faithful servant." There is no other human being who will meet you at the gates of Heaven saying, "Good job, you lived up to my standards." It is Jesus who will say, "Well done, my good and faithful servant." We don't seek the pleasure and the praise of other people.

Pastor Phil Steiger: You see, if it's coach who gives me a spot on the team, then I'm going to do my best to prove to coach I belong on the team. None of you put me on the team. But the grace of God did. Through the sacrifice of his son, Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit. So that's for whom we live now.

Pastor Phil Steiger: I ran across this magnificent quote from Augustine. "Christ is the end of all our striving, because however hard we try, we are made perfect only in him and by him. Our perfection is to reach him. But when you reach him, you will look for nothing further, for he is your end." It is because Christ, it is for Christ, it is in Christ, and it is with Christ that we will live forever.

Pastor Phil Steiger: Friends, let's pray.