The Joy of Knowing Christ - Philippians 3:1-11

Introduction

Mike Stanley - Read Philippians 3:1-11

Philippians 3:1–11 (ESV)

Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you is no trouble to me and is safe for you.

Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh. For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh— though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order 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 comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Rejoice in the LORD! This has been and will be a major focus for Paul throughout the rest of this letter.

What does it mean to rejoice?

We can equate rejoicing with happiness. However, rejoicing goes deeper than happiness. Happiness occurs when the situations of life are favorable for us.

Rejoicing, however, means having joy and joy goes deeper than simply being happy in the current circumstances. Later, Paul will write in Philippians 4:4

Philippians 4:4 (ESV)

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.

Paul is a man who has gone through some very difficult circumstances. In fact, he is in the middle of difficult circumstances. He is facing the prospect of his own death as a consequence for living a life faithfully to Christ.

Certainly, he is not happy about these circumstances.

Steven Lawson writes

Philippians for You (Chapter 9: Unspeakable Joy (Philippians Chapter 3 Verses 1–3))

True joy is not dependent upon circumstances. Neither does it come from the things of this world. Authentic joy comes from having a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Real joy comes from knowing the Lord. This source of joy rises above our circumstances and cannot be drained by the surrounding situation. It is available in good times and difficult times, in prosperity and poverty. No matter what transpires in someone’s life, they can know joy.

Paul has just laid out what it means to live lives worthy of the Gospel.

We have looked at living lives that are ready to share the gospel with those around us,

to have the mind and attitude of Christ that leads us to serve and love one another,

and a life that is working out our salvation in order to bring glory to God.

Through it all, Paul has reminded us that we can do all these things because of the power of Christ in our lives.

We can humble ourselves because of the mind that we have in Christ Jesus.

We can work out our salvation because it is God who is working in us to will and to work.

Because we, as believers, have experienced the grace and power of Christ in our lives, we should be able to rejoice in the Lord, regardless of our situation. Even in times of sorrow and pain and heartache, there can still be a sense of joy because we know that Christ is with us in the middle of the darkness and pain.

We might say it another way, we are being commanded to enjoy God. There are ways you can enjoy something even, and especially, in the midst of something difficult.

Perhaps during a time of disappointment, you enjoy a tub of rocky road or bingeing a favorite tv show.

It might be during a time of loss and sorrow, you enjoy the company of friends and family.

We are called, no matter what we are facing, happiness or sorrow, disappointment or satisfaction, to enjoy God.

John Piper writes, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.” To rejoice or have joy in God is to find our satisfaction and fulfillment in God.

But how do we receive and maintain the joy we have in the Lord? This is where Paul turns to next in this letter.

I. Guard Against the Joy Thieves

First, Paul wanted the Philippians to know that there were ways that our Joy could be stolen from us.

A. Those who preach a mutilated Gospel (v. 2)

He first tells us to watch out for the dogs who preach a false or mutilated Gospel.

There were people identified as Judaizers who believed that Gentiles had to become Jewish before they could be saved by Christ.

They believed salvation comes from Jesus + observance to the Mosaic law.

The Judaizers believed that Gentiles had to observe the ritual of circumcision along with other Jewish rituals, which is why Paul calls them mutilators of the flesh.

Circumcision was a practice that God established with Abraham as a sign of the covenant between them. Circumcision was a sign that God had made His people clean by faith. Abraham was already justified as righteous by faith before the ritual was started. The ritual simply provided a physical picture of what God was doing spiritually in the hearts of His people.

Colossians 2:10–14 (ESV)

and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

Paul considers these Judaizers as dogs and evil workers because they are enslaving people with the works of the law. They are equated with the Egyptians who enslaved God’s people. They were stealing the joy of God’s people because they were placing the heavy unbearable burden of the law upon these Gentile believers, a law that not even the Jews were able to keep.

If you hear anyone, myself included, preaching salvation by anything other than the grace of God received by faith in Christ Jesus, turn away from them and do not pay them heed. Pray for them, pray that God will get their attention and save them from their self-righteousness, but do not allow them to steal your joy and do not give any credence to their evil and wicked teaching!

B. Finding an identity in who you are or what you do (vv. 4-6)

Paul goes on to show the worthlessness of finding an identity and placing hope in anything other than Christ.

If anyone could say they’ve tried to find salvation in self-righteousness, it is Paul.

He observed the right rituals.

We can think that observing some kind of practice can give us joy or assurance of salvation.

It might be marking off the check box of attending religious meetings every week or being baptized when we were young

Salvation is about becoming a new creation in Christ, not about the rituals, which should point us to Christ, not serve in place of Christ.

He had the perfect ethnicity

Paul was of the people of Israel, and knew exactly which tribe he came from. The tribe of Benjamin was a small tribe, but it was a tribe from which the first king of Israel came from, King Saul.

He was the poster boy for being a Jew. He was a Hebrew of Hebrews.

Today, we can still place ethnicity high on our spiritual advantage list.

American Christians, we seem to esteem our culture and our nationality as superior to others because our nation was founded on Judeo-Christian ethics. While those are good things, that does not in essence mean that we are automatically born as a Christ.

Some might think that because their parents and grandparents were Christians, then they are too.

Being born in a certain culture or family cannot and will not produce salvation. There are many Jewish people who will not experience eternity with God and there are many good, patriotic Americans who will also face an eternity apart from God because they failed to trust in the finished work of Christ!

He had the right position

Paul could take pride in his position as a Pharisee. The Pharisee was the spiritual elite in Israel. They knew Scripture forwards and backwards.

However, position cannot save. Sometimes we might even think, because I’m a pastor, or a deacon, or a Sunday school teacher, I’m automatically good with God.

Those positions, again, while God has given them for the good of His people do not automatically mean that they are saved because they are in those positions.

He was true to his passions

Paul says he was zealous for what he believed. He persecuted the church.

Even today, we talk about being authentic to who we are and to be sincere and true to what our passions and desires are.

But as Jeremiah 17:9

Jeremiah 17:9 (ESV)

The heart is deceitful above all things,

and desperately sick;

who can understand it?

We can be sincere about our zeal and passions and still be sincerely wrong! We are not called to be authentic about our passions, but to have our passions and desires transformed by Christ.

He had the perfect obedience

Paul was righteous in regards to the law and blameless. He did everything right, as far as outward obedience.

But even here, we know from the Sermon on the Mount, that God is not simply looking at outward obedience, but a change of heart that seeks to love God above all things.

What is the Gospel?

The Gospel tells us that we are all sinners and without hope in our relationship with God. There is nothing we can do to undo the sin and rebellion we have committed against God.

It doesn’t matter how much good you have done. If you are guilty of breaking the law, the judge won’t say, “Since you’ve done more good things than bad things, I’ll let you go on this one.” No, he will declare that you are guilty of breaking the law and deserve punishment.

There is no amount of self-righteousness or works or even authenticity of self or identity that can redeem us from the sin we are guilty of.

Joy cannot come from putting our confidence in anything we are or do.

II. Gaining True Joy (vv. 7-8)

A. Knowing Christ

Paul tells us that whatever he thought he had gained from all his self-righteous acts and his identity, he actually counts as loss, because there is something greater.

He says he counts everything in his past as a loss for the sake of knowing Christ.

This word for loss or rubbish is literally dung. That’s what he considers all of his past works and righteousness. All his own righteousness is as filthy dirty rags compared to the righteousness of Christ.

We are created, not to fulfill a list of things to do, although God certainly has created us for good works. He has created us to know Him and to trust in Him alone!

B. Finding your identity in Who Christ is and What He has done

So instead of finding his joy and identity in who Paul is or what he has done, he now finds his joy and identity in who Christ is and what He has done.

We stand condemned in our sin.

However, Christ is perfectly righteous and blameless. He not only obeyed perfectly in his outward obedience, but he also obeyed perfectly from His heart and mind. He perfectly kept the law to love God with all his heart, mind, soul, and strength, and to love His neighbor as Himself.

But not only was Christ perfectly blameless in His character, He also provided the only work that can save us from our sin!

Through Christ’s perfect obedience to the law, He was able to offer the perfect payment for sin for those who have rebelled against God. The payment of sin is death, so Christ died on the cross as a propitiation for the wrath of God. He took on Himself God’s wrath for my sin and for the sin of all those who would trust in Him alone!

If we have to add anything to the work that Jesus provided, then Jesus died in vain and cannot save us. And if Jesus cannot save us, then we have no way to be able to rejoice in the Lord.

We can only rejoice as we realize that Christ has provided all we need for salvation and for life and godliness in Him.

III. Growing in Joy (vv. 9-11)

How do we grow in this joy? How do we continue to rejoice even when situations in this world seek to pull us away from rejoicing in Christ?

We constantly remind ourselves of who we are in Christ and what He has done for us!

A. Joy Comes from Justification in Christ (v. 9)

First, we remind ourselves that we can stand before God, not because of our own righteousness, but because of the righteousness of Christ that has come to us by grace through faith!

He who knew no sin was made to be sin so that we might become the righteousness of God.

Our joy is stolen if we think we have to be righteous because there is always a fear of whether or not we will be judged to be righteous enough.

But if we are in Christ, we know that God will accept us because Christ’s righteousness is a perfect righteousness and it will no longer be trying to judge if our bad deeds outweigh our good deeds, but now we know that Christ has taken away all of our bad and evil deeds where they are remembered no more!

And we can truly have joy because of the promise that is ours in Christ Jesus:

Romans 8:1 (ESV)

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

When we realize that there is no condemnation for us because of Christ, we will not be able to help but to rejoice with everything we have!

B. Joy Comes from Becoming Like Christ in Sanctification (v. 10)

Joy also comes from growing into the image of Christ.

Not only have we been declared righteous, but God’s grace is having us become like Christ. And we know that we are becoming like Him as we share in His sufferings and becoming like Him in His death.

This does not mean that we are going to die physically in the way that Christ did, through crucifixion.

But as we have been looking at, living a life worthy of the Gospel means putting to death our own desires and ambitions in order to live a life that seeks to bring glory to Christ. As the Holy Spirit works within us, He is working to help us put to death our own desires in order to follow Christ in obedience.

It is not an obedience that I am trying to manufacture by simply following a list of rules. It is an obedience that is flowing from faith as my will is being changed to willingly take up my cross and crucify my own sinful desires.

It is recognizing that if I have been identified with Christ by faith, then I have died with Christ to my own sin.

Romans 6:1–4 (ESV)

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

It is a true obedience that flows from the salvation that Christ provided, not something that I try to do to earn God’s salvation.

As I experience the Sanctifying work of the Spirit and as my inward character is transformed into the image of Christ, I will grow in my joy of who He is and in what He is making me to be.

C. Joy Comes from Anticipating the Final Redemption in Christ (v. 11)

Finally, as we trust in the salvation that comes from Christ alone, we find joy in what we know is already ours, even if we have not fully received it yet.

Justification refers to the salvation we have as Christ declares us righteous when we place our faith in Him.

Sanctification refers to the salvation we currently experience as Christ continues to make us physically righteous in our obedience to Him.

Glorification refers to the salvation that we will experience when we either die and go home to be with the Lord, or when He comes to take His people to be with Him. That will be a time in which we will be made perfectly righteous and we will not have to continue to wrestle with sin, but our heart, mind, soul, and bodies will be perfectly redeemed and free from sin.

As we continue to live in this world that is full of pain and heartache, we can remind ourselves that one day things won’t be this way anymore and that even as we currently share in the sufferings and death of Christ, we will get to share in the resurrection of Christ as well.

We know one day we will get to see Jesus face to face and that as the Psalmist writes:

Psalm 16:11 (ESV)

You make known to me the path of life;

in your presence there is fullness of joy;

at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

If we are assured of presence with Christ forever, how can we not be a people who rejoice, even in the midst of the darkest valley and in the deepest pain and sorrow?

We continue to press on in joy because of this grand promise from God that we will experience life exactly as He intended for it to be lived!

Conclusion

Rejoice in the Lord! This is what we as believers are called to do. Regardless of your situation, regardless of what you are currently facing, we are called to have joy in God.

That joy comes from knowing that Christ has done all we need for salvation from sin and life with God.

We safeguard this joy by reminding ourselves that we cannot add to this amazing grace.

As we seek to live in fellowship with one another, we need to help each other rejoice in the Lord by reminding each other of what is true, of who we are in Christ, and what He has done for us.

We all need to know the Gospel. We need to preach it to the lost so they can experience this same joy that we have. But we also need to preach it to one another so that we can continue to grow in joy and daily rejoice in the Lord.