Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro

What gain do you have?

It’s an important question because we all have something that makes us exceptional, something that we want to be acknowledged before God and people.

These days I’ve been going to academic conferences for work.

These conferences are on theology and the Bible primarily.

There are quite a few badges of honor held in high regard.

Many of them include, on some level, competence and peer approval.

Some of them are quite odd.

One professor I worked with is a younger guy.

His badge of honor was this horrible green sport coat.

This thing was remarkable.

Unmistakable.

It was his coat of many colors.

I’m not sure I’ve seen a tweed with that many colors in it.

It was bad.

But he loved this thing.

When he lost it briefly when traveling, he wrote a blog post about it, lamenting his loss.

We all have our badges of honor.

Some more mainstream than others.

They can be big things or insignificant things, at least to others.

So what is it for you?

Maybe it’s the college you went to, or the fact that you didn’t need college.

Maybe it’s money, or hard work, or overcoming some adversity.

Maybe it’s children or grandchildren.

Maybe it’s musical gifting.

It could be humility.

We all bring something to the table.

Good things.

Gifts from God. Things to be thankful for.

In the verses leading up to this morning’s passage, Paul mentions a few of his.

You can see this in Philippians 3:4-6

Paul does not seem to be modeling humility for us at this point.

He’s got a strong resume, by earthly standards, at least for a first century adherent of Judaism.

He brings a lot to the table: his religious and cultural background, his status in the religious elite.

His family tree.

If there was a first century, Jewish equivalent to the saying, “If you’re not Dutch, you’re not much,” you can bet that Paul knew it.

He brought character traits, his zeal, as he mentions, and to cap it off, a blameless righteousness under the law.

But he had a realization when he met Christ.

These things in our lives, these good things, things that make us who we are, things we like on Facebook to show that they are a part of our identity, when they go up against Christ, they need to lose.

Jesus said that

And that’s what Paul does.

He says

Paul is describing a moment of conversion, of repentance.

He may be alluding to Isaiah 64:6 which says

Paul’s eyes were opened, literally, and he understood that these merit badges we carry around with us, don’t ultimately hold us up.

They aren’t the things in life that keep us afloat.

They cause us to sink.

They weigh us down in the moment that Jesus calls us out on the water to come to him.

What we need to do is take off the coat they are hanging on.

Paul let his life medals sink to the bottom of the sea.

He counted them as the loss that really were for the sake of his new and greater prize, knowing, experiencing Jesus Christ.

If Christ needed him, he was ready to leave anything and everything to follow and obey.

Not just because of the benefits he could receive from knowing Christ, but instead, knowing Christ, was his benefit.

And he was willing to lose everything else in order to truly know Christ and follow him, not just the things he didn’t care much about anyway.

Not just his As Seen on TV collection, but his identity, his conception of what is honorable, his life’s work, his connections and he found his new identity, sense of honor, life’s work and connections in Christ, but he wasn’t just trading up to Christian things.

He was trading up to Jesus Christ himself.

It’s just that, in his goodness, Christ caused those things to follow.

That’s why it’s important that if you’re going to let your life achievements and very identity fall into the sea, it had better be the real Jesus that’s calling to you on the water.

Paul knows that these things are not rubbish in and of themselves (except maybe the As Seen on TV collection).

No, these things are rubbish in comparison to the actual, real, person of Jesus Christ as he truly is.

When comparing them to a false conception of Christ, to a Jesus we’ve created in our own image, maybe it’s a push.

In fact, if we’re holding to a Jesus we’ve created in our own image, a healthy, wealthy Jesus, a republican or democrat Jesus, an all roads lead to God Jesus, a judgmental, stingy Jesus, or a simple comforts Jesus, if we’re holding to any one of these Jesus pin merit badges, they need to drop to the bottom of the sea along with our accomplishments, ethnic identity, and life’s work, when the real Jesus calls us out on the water.

If knowing Christ is the goal, then it needs to be the real Christ, and it needs to be really knowing him, not just knowing about him, not just knowing Jesus as a set of principles that govern your behavior.

Such things are good things, but they are not worth considering the defining things of your life as rubbish.

Less than actually knowing the actual Jesus Christ is not worth considering the good things in your life as rubbish.

And maybe that’s why we settle for knowing about Christ.

Maybe that’s why we settle for lesser Jesuses.

It’s only the real Christ who is worth considering the good things in your life as rubbish.

And maybe that’s why us Western Christians avoid pursuing Christ like we should.

We have a lot to lose.

We have a lot of good things to consider rubbish.

If we never encounter the real Jesus Christ, maybe we won’t have to leave our merit badges, our medals behind.

If we settle for knowing about Christ, maybe he will never call us out on the water.

But if that’s our secret hope, will we ever gain him, as Paul does?

And will we ever gain the immense blessings that Christ bestows on those who truly know him?

Paul lays out what they look like, starting in verse 9

The first benefit of truly knowing Christ is being found in him.

We will come back to this in a moment.

Paul goes on, demonstrating that he doesn’t settle for his own righteousness that comes from the Law, one of the things that used to define him.

But no longer.

The Law isn’t the most important thing about him any more.

Christ is the most important thing about him.

Christ is how he justifies his existence.

Christ is the goodness in his life.

Why wear your own dingy righteousness around proudly when you can wear the righteousness of Christ?

Why find your identity in your family or your wealth or your smarts or your virtue, when you can find your identity in Christ?

Knowing Christ, truly knowing him, means you get real righteousness, God’s own righteousness.

And that’s not a righteousness that’s focused on keeping up appearances.

It’s not a fragile righteousness to manage and fret over.

It is a right standing with the only person for whom standing matters.

Paul doesn’t even have his own Law righteousness anymore.

He’s traded his rubbish righteousness for God’s incorruptible righteousness in Christ Jesus.

And because Paul is found in Christ, and has traded in his own garbage righteousness for Christ’s incorruptible righteousness, this allows, in verse 10

Paul has access to the person of Christ, and because of this, access to the power of his resurrection, the ability to share in Christ’s sufferings, becoming like Christ in both death and in resurrection.

Paul wants to suffer as Christ did, die Christ’s death with him and live in the power of Christ’s resurrection life.

This identification with the person of Christ is only possible because of Christ’s death and resurrection.

In those events, Christ paves the way for people to enter into his death and resurrection.

This happens powerfully in Christian baptism.

I’m not getting any more mystical than Paul himself in Romans 6:3-6

There is a bond with Christ that happens in the moment of baptism.