Philippians 3:4-9

Philippians 3:4-9 (read 1-11)

Nothing compares to the value of knowing Christ. All worldly gains are nothing when weighed against the privilege and joy of a relationship with him.

I can almost still taste the dust in the air from that day, standing on the pitcher’s mound for our local pony league baseball team. The neighborhood kids were all on the team, and the season was going well. I had some big hits that year.

But for this game, coach let me get my wish. It was my turn to pitch! I mostly played right field, so my arm was strong enough. And the coach saw me throw some heat at practice that week, so he called me up!

That was the first and last time I ever pitched in a baseball game.

The Ump called “play ball,” and the first pitch was fast but a bit off target, “ball 1.” I would like to say that I warmed up and found the strike zone on the next pitch, but that was not my day. All told, before I was relieved, I walked 11 batters. And I was never asked to pitch again.

Now, knowing this history, if you were in a position to hire a baseball trainer or personal coach for yourself, and the options were me, who talks a good game, or a retired professional MLB player with multiple rings from World Series wins…

Of course, you would choose the pro!

That is something of what is at “play” in our text.

Paul’s concern is for the church, for their growth in the faith, steadfastness in the face of difficulty. And avoiding the dangerous teaching of “the dogs,” the evil doers who mutilate the flesh. Those who demand Jesus + circumcision, or works, for salvation.

They have presented themselves as true Jews, to be listened to, but Paul has reminded the church that those in Christ are the true covenant people of God, who put no confidence in the flesh.

His credentials leave the judiazers cooked in comparison. So who will you listen to?

Paul tells us what truly matters.

Nothing compares to the value of knowing Christ.

As we are chopping up Philippians 3, Paul is setting us up to be the people who glory/boast in Christ, with a direct challenge to the things that most often draw our hearts away from the new life we are meant to experience in Christ.

Today we are shaking these verses out to see what we can glean, and hopefully finding treasure beyond measure.

Three movements through the text: the works, the worth, and the way.

The Works

We don’t have a record of their teaching or their credentials. We don’t even know their names, these false teachers that the church is to be on the lookout for. But from Paul’s accounting of his past, we can assume they painted themselves as Jews of distinction, who had amassed a following of desperate people willing to mutilate themselves and perform – foreign to them — ceremony as proof of their faith.

Their resumes can’t hold a candle to Paul’s

He describes himself before meeting Jesus on the Damascus road, a record that subdues anyone else's confidence in “the flesh” by comparison.

He is a true Jew. Circumcised on the eighth day, so not only was Paul devoted, but his parents were as well, following Levitical law. People of Israel.

Even of the tribe of Benjamin. Named after Saul, Israel’s first king, and a Benjamite. This is the tribe that was loyal to David and the tribe of Judah. They were exiled and returned, unmixed with other nations.

A Hebrew of Hebrews, meaning he actually spoke and could read Hebrew, the language of Scripture, whereas most Jews in the first century spoke Greek and some Aramaic.

As to the law, a Pharisee. This didn’t mean hypocritical as we think of it. Instead, a Pharisee was set apart for study and observance of the law, a religious elite. Paul even followed Gamaliel the elder, a famous rabbi.

Zealous for the preservation of the law, he went so far as to persecute the church.

As to righteousness under the law, blameless. Not sinless, but externally perfect in observance of the numerous guidelines.

“The general Pharisaic assumption was clearly that one could indeed keep the Torah’s 613 commandments, that it was a realistic system of law also in the sense that it provided its own regular procedures for the observant to receive absolution and purification. The Law as a way of life was widely thought to be feasible and practical: for most faithful Jews it would have been absurd to think that God had given a revelation that could not in fact be lived out. In this respect, too, Paul does not say he was ‘sinless’, merely that he was upright and blameless by the standards he was following.” Markus Bockmuehl

All of his pitches hit the target! No balls, all strikes.

If anyone would be saved on the basis of their works, man, it should be Paul.

Philippians 3:7 “But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.” (ESV)

All that I’ve achieved, or haven’t achieved, is loss. Carries no weight on the scales of eternity.

This raises the question: what “works” do I look to for confidence?

“Most who read these pages, I suspect, will not be greatly tempted to boast about their Jewish ancestry and ancient rights of race and religious heritage. But we may be tempted to brag about still less important things: our wealth, our status, our education, our emotional stability, our families, our political or business successes, our denominational alignments, or even about which version of the Bible we use. Be careful of people like that. They tend to regard everyone who is outside their little group as somehow inferior. Somewhere along the way they inadvertently—or even intentionally and maliciously—imagine that faith in Christ Jesus and delight in him is a little less important than their personal accomplishments.” D.A. Carson

Think of the non-believer convinced they have to “clean up” their life before coming to Christ. “Surely I have to stop sinning!”

Or when we come to the realization that we can’t live up to the perfection required to stand before God, the feelings of inadequacy that follow. Even when I turn “works” into proof of my salvation, the list or lack thereof stokes pride or despair, neither of which is what Jesus desires for us.

Other things too, what of materialism or misplaced priorities?

What are my “must-haves” for happiness or fulfillment? Good things we make into ultimate things.

What “plusses” or add-ons to Jesus might you list in your own life? How easily they become idols.

This is the water we are wading in, the human experience is striving, performance, survival of the fittest. Our politics promote merit. The way we interpret Scripture can even be tainted by our inclination to do more, achieve. To be worthy.

These modern works form into a religious self-righteousness that is danger here.

Paul corrects our perspective, and our record is properly evaluated.

We love this for the lowly, a level playing field at the foot of the cross. But we must realize that the most impressive earthly successes are ultimately insignificant compared to knowing Christ.

These words are an invitation to surrender our items of fleshly confidence to Jesus because our identity in him surpasses any earthly accolade.

“Even sacred rites and ceremonies simply trusted as such must become items in an addition sum to which the answer is “loss” if Christ is to be ours.”

This is what the kingdom of heaven is like. Jesus even described it in parables.

Matthew 13:44 “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. (ESV)

Matthew 13:45–46 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, [46] who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it. (ESV)

These illustrate the supreme value of entering God’s kingdom. The man and merchant’s willingness to surrender all possessions reveals the incomparable worth of what they have found – nothing else compares.

For the man, his joy is not reluctant or conflicted, it propels him to decisive action despite the enormous cost.

Gospel reality, discovery precedes the sacrifice.

Paul is doing the same thing, saying, all of my life, the achievements, accolades, the birthright, brilliance, I turn it all over for a better treasure. Count it all as loss.

Paul’s doctrine of salvation required the denial of any and every form of “do-it-yourself” merit before God.

Christ alone is the ground of confidence before God. Which is amazing news to a humanity exhausted from proving ourselves worthy.

In light of eternity, temporary gains cannot compare to the lasting treasure we have in Jesus.

The Worth

Philippians 3:8 “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” (ESV)

The surrender was followed by suffering, a reorientation toward what is of greatest value.

Paul elevates the equation beyond mere work and accomplishments to “all things.”

He hasn’t been trying to amass a huge following. He hasn’t been avoiding prison. He commits himself to the opposite of what the world would define as success, similar to Jesus’ ministry.

That’s the question for us when it comes to “all things.” What are we truly after, is what we receive what will satisfy?

“Be honest – what do you want from God? Or maybe this is a more provocative way of saying it: what kind of Messiah do you want Jesus to be? Perhaps many of us crave success more than we crave redemption.” Paul David Tripp

When the Spirit gives us clear eyes to see truth and our need, redemption becomes treasure.

Life under the gospel is an utter repudiation of our own moral resume—not only the bad but also the good. Christ is all. He alone has “surpassing worth” (v. 8).

This reshapes how we live, hope, react, celebrate, mourn.

This is a believer unflappable in the face of hardship, knowing Christ. Able to savor the wonderful things in life, simple things, because they are rightly ordered in relation to knowing Christ.

We don’t hold so tightly to the “all things” that we never capable of redeeming us, of delivering us from ourselves.

The loss of a loss is a gain.

And for Paul, we have to remember these weren’t bad things, they were his best things.

What is the best thing you’ve done this week? Now, can you imagine calling that ‘rubbish’ compared to Jesus?

The disparity of worth is astounding when we recognize it.

As Chrysostom says here, “When the sun hath appeared, it is loss to sit by a candle.”

This is the experiential, relational knowledge that transforms.

Paul would have us see all other pursuits as secondary (or further) to this ultimate relationship. (Artemis II and distance from earth - how far in importance things are in relation to gaining Christ!)

“He counted it all as “rubbish”—using a crude expletive by first-century standards. Paul’s former accomplishments had become abhorrent to him, not because they were bad (for they were not), but because they kept him from Christ.”

Paul is not saying his past was okay but not great, he is saying it is repulsive as a ground for salvation. That which keeps him from Christ, or his claim over his life stinks!

Makes me think of Eric Liddell, storied and legendary Scottish runner and missionary. Born in China to missionary parents, he would feel God's pleasure when he ran. Won the gold medal in the 1924 Olympics, but not in his best event. He dropped out of the 100-meter race because the heats were scheduled for Sunday, which he considered a day of worship and sabbath.

So he ran the 400 instead and won gold. He stood firm under immense pressure to secure earthly gains. While that is where the story ends in Chariots of Fire, Liddell would return to the country of his birth to serve as a missionary for 21 years.

Even when he was held in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp, with all the other China Inland Mission workers, he continued to serve and disciple. Just months before the end of WW2, he died in that camp, from a massive brain tumor. Was buried in a nondescript grave by the officers' quarters, marked by a small wooden cross. What is today, the grounds of a middle school in Shandong Province.

Not after fame. Even though it came after death. He was after something of greater value. He had his treasure and reoriented his life around it.

Countless other stories of heroes of the faith setting aside earthly gain for the glory of Christ, but not many others are buried in the Province where my daughter was born!

Paul had an encounter on the road; he was confronted by Christ, but by His Spirit, he had a continual encounter or relationship with him.

For us, we can have the same thing through his word and in prayer.

How does a Christian follow Paul in consecration? Progressively, through deeper and deeper knowledge of Christ, for the more we know him, the more we see his glory and the more we gladly give all to and for him.

Paul is not satisfied with a label or tradition; he wants to be like Jesus, to set everything else in its place so he gains Christ, and is found in him, united with Christ.

This invites us to the same pursuit, he tells us the way, it's for all of us, and it's glorious.

The Way

Philippians 3:9 “... 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—” (ESV)

This treasure is a gift, and the way to it is by righteousness given by God through faith.

Faith is not the foundation of our righteousness from God; it is the means of receiving the gracious gift of righteousness. Faith is accepting what God holds out to us in Christ, namely, the righteousness that comes to us through Christ’s death on the cross for our sins.

We receive righteousness from God through trusting the Son. Trusting in Christ is similar to boasting in Christ (v. 3), calling on the name of the Lord (Rom 10:13), and hoping in Christ (1 Thess 1:3).

“The great missionary John G. Paton, struggling to find a local word which would translate ‘faith’ and failing to find one, was interrupted by someone in great trouble and needing help. ‘Please, may I come and lean heavily upon you?’ he said. Faith is leaning heavily upon Christ: not labor but cessation of labor, not doing but ceasing to do; simply leaning the whole weight of our needs upon him, and finding in him acceptance before the presence of God, and a righteousness which could never be ours by our own works.” The Message of Philippians

This is the steady drumbeat of the gospel – our standing before God is not based on merit but on Christ’s redemptive work on the cross for us.

We learn that Christ does not become ours by effort but by rejection of effort.

The pressure is off; you don’t have to earn a place in the presence of God. In Christ, you are free to live out of the security and joy found in Christ’s righteousness attributed to you.

Your past is no longer your prison; you are free and made new!

We come to him in repentance (turning from our former confidence) and believe (Jesus really won forgiveness on the cross, and gives us his righteousness.)

Because it depends on faith, we ask for it, for an increasing awareness of what we have in Christ, which makes everything else pale in comparison.

We can realign our lives to seek and glorify Jesus above worldly pursuits and achievements because Christ is our greatest treasure.

“We who are saved possess Christ and he cannot be taken from us; we who are being sanctified are consumed by the ambition to gain Christ, and this is the driving force in our lives. Christ is the only hope for salvation when our ceremonies, privileges, religion and works of righteousness produce only loss. The same Christ always remains the only satisfaction for the Christian. This is how we work out the command to make the Lord our joy (3:1). May we be like Paul in seeing Christ alone as our wealth, and in being determined to evaluate everything else in the light of the full satisfaction only he provides.” J. A. Motyer

Nothing compares to the value of knowing Christ.

What’s our application?

“We cannot believe that Paul introduced the note of personal testimony in Philippians 3:4 merely in an illustrative way, and certainly it was not for self-advertisement. It is rather because, if the ‘we’ of verse 3 is to have meaning (that is to say, if ‘we’—the Christian church—are truly to worship by the Spirit of God, glory in Christ Jesus, and reject fleshly confidence), it can happen only when ‘you’ and ‘he’ and ‘she’ and ‘I’ find, possess and treasure Christ for our very own selves.” J. A. Motyer

Pursue Jesus - He is the prize of surpassing worth. As one pastor used to say, stare at the glory of Christ until you see it. Run after him. Keep doing it in community since we share this treasure.

Throw your pitch - What is one “pitch” (a work or achievement) you are currently relying on to feel okay before God? How can you lean heavily on Christ instead this week? Surrender your record to him. Live as unto Jesus, freed from slavery to sin, secure in your identity in him, hopeful for the future and his eternal reign. Live it up with joy in Jesus.

May we, with Paul, recognize this surpassing worth, that we may gain Christ and be found in him.