Philippians L.4

Chapter 3

Good evening Imprint… so glad to see you all tonight! Sorry to say that we are all disappointed… The swifties took this one. Man its like we just left the Tom Brady domination era… now we are headed right back into another one with Pat Mahomes. If you are new here, special welcome to you! We want to make sure you get connected with us before you leave, so please chat with myself or one of the other leaders before you leave tonight!

So we are on our fifth week of our series through the book of Philippians. Next week will be our final week in this series because the week after that is…. SNO-CAMP! It is coming up super soon, so get excited for that.

However, we don’t want that to take away from what we have to learn from the word tonight. So if you have your bibles with you, and I hope you do… lets open them up to Philippians chapter 3. But before we get started… you know what time it is — Recap time

Who wrote Philippians?

What was the main point of last weeks lesson? We said Unity is contingent on ____?

And who modeled humility better than anyone else?

What was the biggest thing that Jesus did that modeled humility?

Perfect alright we are going to try to get all the way through chapter 3 today, so if you are right there in your bibles, lets read chapter 3 verse 1.

This first verse of kinda seems like the end of Chapter two rather than the start of chapter three when he says: “Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you is no trouble to me and is safe for you.”

Then He goes on… Lets read verses 2-6

Philippians 3:2–6 “Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh. —stop 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.”

We will stop there real quick… the Dogs and evildoers Paul is talking about are actually his fellow Jewish men… The pharisees. Who knows about the Pharisees?

Okay lets do a quick summary of who the pharisees were. Pharisees were religious leaders of the jewish religion. They studied and memorized the Old testament. And they followed our God, YHWH, and they set up and enforced all of the religious laws.

However, when Jesus came to earth… They did not believe in Him because they thought He was a blasphemer. They did not believe Him when He claimed to be God. The Pharisees were too caught up in their own guidelines and rules to accept that Jesus was the messiah that they had been waiting for, for generations! How crazy right?

Well even after Jesus died and rose again, some of these Pharisees would go to the Christian churches and teach them that in order to be saved, they needed to become Jewish, and obey the Old Testament Laws. Otherwise, they were not saved… And Paul takes offence to this, why? Because this is the very thing that Christ came to abolish. He came to earth to say look, you need not find salvation through any other means, except for myself.

Jesus told the Pharisees very directly that….well, you wanna know what Jesus said to the Pharisees here it is Matthew 23:13-15

“13 But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in. 15 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves”

Sheesh. Jesus did not hold back with the Pharisees. And see this is why Paul is so offensive towards the Pharisees because Jesus did not hold back either… And if its a big deal to Jesus… its safe to say it should be a big deal to us.

Did I mention that Paul used to be a Pharisee too? He was actually one of the top dogs in the Pharisee world before he had an encounter with Christ. So he really knows the extent of that world. We see that in the next few verses…V3

“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.”

So Paul is stating… if you want to talk about being “qualified”… I am more qualified than you are… Paul is saying he is a jew of jews. If you want to talk about being confident in our works? I have the most reason to be confident in myself. Because the Pharisees would preach to the masses that you need to be confident in your own flesh and your own decision making, doing everything right…in order to be saved… But, we will see that Paul does not think we should have any confidence in ourselves or our own works. See this next verse is so awesome. V7

But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8 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 9 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— 10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead

When you think of the GOAT of sports who are the first couple people you think of…

Most people would say Michael Jordan, Messi, Tom Brady and Muhammad Ali … those are typically the answers on who are the best of all time… So if you don’t know… Tom Brady is indisputably the GOAT of football. He lead his team to the Super Bowl 10 times in his 20 year career… And won seven of them. He just retired a couple years ago…. Tom Brady had everything… The man won NFL MVP five times… has the most super bowl rings of any player ever, he’s practically a billionaire, and he married the richest model in the world… He had it good. Alright… It comes to the point where theres not a whole lot left for one to accomplish. Right?

Well there was an interview after Brady won his third super bowl. And Tom was asked, man you've made it… what is next? Brady said something along the lines of “Man, why does it feel like theres something more out there for me.” Brady had won in life… But there was something inside him that said —- theres more for you.

I think this is a very real world example of how we can gain everything we can “make it” in life, and not have fulfillment and joy, and definitely not salvation… Brady hit the nail on the head… he just didn’t get the right answers.

Paul says to us in this chapter, look… I had a lot to my name… I was a Jew of Jews, I had everything in check I followed all the laws… But I count everything else as loss — as nothing — for the sake of Christ… because knowing that Christ is my Lord is SO much greater than anything I could own or achieve.

Listen to me, there is nothing that you can physically do to “make it” in life… The only way to fulfillment in life and ultimately, the only way to salvation is through Jesus and faith in Him. You can try to stack on all these other things on top of it…but it is meaningless and worthless.

Or maybe you're on the other side of the spectrum, and you think I can’t be a Christian because I smoke… I can’t be a christian because I haven’t ever gone to church. I can’t be a christian because I don’t do things that Christians do… But that is a straight up, left right, down right, lie. Jesus is all that you need. Jesus can redeem you of these things, you don’t have to clean yourself up before you come to Jesus. You don’t need to have the “perfect” life before coming to Jesus. Jesus wants you to trust that He will help you sort out your issues after you have faith in Him… and that practice is called sanctification. Ridding sin from your life after you are saved.

We gotta keep moving. V12

Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. 13 Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. 15 Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. 16 Only let us hold true to what we have attained

So this part is important. Paul is saying that even he isn't perfect! And he is striving to be better, he is striving to be sanctified, and it is safe to say that if Paul needed to be sanctified, if he needed to grow in his faith, we all have a long long way to go…