Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro

;

Have you ever thought how you would explain what it means to be an American?

Have you ever thought how you would explain what it means to be an American?

Or have you ever met someone who has done everything you have done but he has done it better, faster and in a more interesting way than you have.

You know the person the one who has a story to top every story you have?

Paul is going to present both in our passage tonight.

First he is going to explain to the Philippians how to identify the Judaizers

Philippi was not a city with a large Jewish population

In when Paul arrives he doesn’t go to a Jewish synagogue to begin his teaching - which leads us to believe there wasn’t one in Philippi

It only requires 10 men to start a synagogue

So the Philippians may have needed an idea of what it meant to be “Jewish” and how that would impact the teaching of the Judaizers

Paul is going to demonstrate that for them in this passage tonight.

He’s also going to provide a little bit of rhetorical “one up-manship”

He’s going to say that the Judaizers are going to tout their pedigree but if anyone should have confidence in the flesh it is me.

Paul is going to provide us seven qualities from his life - both his upbringing and his choices as an adult - that would lead you to believe he could have confidence in his flesh

Read

Pray - remember the Madigan family

Advantages of Birth

; ; ; ; ; ; ; Romans 9:8

Paul is going to give four ways that he was the best of the best

Paul is going to give four ways that he was the best of the best

Circumcised on the Eighth Day

Circumcision was the core issue that threatened the early church

After Paul’s first missionary journey there came some converted Pharisee’s that harassed the Gentile converts saying that they needed to submit to circumcision in order to be saved

The Council of Jerusalem issued a decree saying that the Gentiles didn’t have to submit to circumcision

Circumcision is an essential part of the Old Covenant established by God with Abraham in Genesis

The Jews were frequently referred to in the Old Testament as the circumcision - Gentiles as the uncircumcision

Established by God as a sign of the covenant in

Paul distinguishes himself further by saying that he was circumcised on the eighth day - literally says “an eighth-dayer”

Unlike the proselytes who would be circumcised as adults (including some of the Judaizers) Paul was circumcised at birth

The Jewish nation had forgotten that circumcision was to demonstrate our sinfulness and need for cleansing and instead had made it to stand for a badge of their own inherent righteousness

Because of the medical benefits most infant males are circumcised so the covenantal meaning of this practice has lost its meaning

Our modern equivalent to circumcision would be baptism - baptism is the physical representation of what has already taken place inside of the believer

It is not regenerative - meaning that baptism isn’t necessary for regeneration to take place

It is not salvific - meaning that baptism isn’t a requirement for salvation

Of the people of Israel

Paul is not a proselyte - he is a natural born Israelite

Paul is not a proselyte - he is a natural born Israelite

He possesses all the rights and privileges of God’s chosen people because he belongs to them by birth

- he has access to all parts of the Temple, to all the rights of a natural born member of the nation of Israel

Israel was God’s chosen nation, His possession, to demonstrate His goodness to the nations of the earth

Psalm 147:1

It was from this nation that the Christ would be delivered unto the world

Genesis

Paul was a physical descendant of Abraham - another point that the nation of Israel relied upon for salvation

Romans 9:

Of the tribe of Benjamin

Despite being the smallest of the tribes - Benjamin was a very prominent tribe in Israel

Benjamin was the younger son born to Rachel - Jacob’s favorite wife

He was the only child born in the promised land

Out of Benjamin came the first king of Israel - Saul

The holy city of Jerusalem was found within the borders of Benjamin

Benjamin resisted the inroads of foreign cultures and remained pure

By the time Paul is born the intermarrying of tribes made it very difficult to trace the lineage of an individual

By claiming membership in the tribe of Benjamin, Paul is pointing to his familial purity in the nation of Israel.

A Hebrew of Hebrews

Even though he was born outside of Israel, Paul and his family did not conform to Hellenistic culture that had infiltrated and watered down Jewish life

He submitted to his Jewish heritage - he learned and spoke Hebrew, he accepted the customs of Jewish life,

Paul points to his lineage as giving him a spiritual advantage within the old covenant

in effect he is demonstrating that he is the spiritual equivalent of a Kennedy

Advantages of Choice

; ;

Paul now demonstrates that it is not just by birth but also by the choices he made that demonstrate his righteousness

A Pharisee

The Pharisees were a sect of about 6000 men in Paul’s day

Emerged following the following the Maccabean revolt in 165-160 BC

Pharisees were held in high esteem by the local populace in Israel

His self-satisfied, or else mock-modest or ostentatiously meek bearing would betray him, even irrespective of his superciliousness towards others, his avoidance of every touch of persons or things which he held unclean, and his extravagant religious displays.

They formed the religious triad in Israel along with the Priests and the Saducees

The Pharisees were the most zealous of the three - requiring strict adherence to the Law

To be a Pharisee was to be a member of an elite, influential, and highly respected group of men who fastidiously lived to know, interpret, guard, and obey the Law.

To be a Pharisee was to be a member of an elite, influential, and highly respected group of men who fastidiously lived to know, interpret, guard, and obey the Law.

Not content just to follow the Law given by Moses, the Pharisees held themselves to every law in the oral law, the interpretive traditions and those given by the scribes

Jesus most ardent adversaries they dogged his ministry in the towns and villages throughout Judea and Galilee

Interestingly Paul doesn’t relinquish his claim to being a Pharisee

Acts

Paul would not have referred to himself as a converted Pharisee but as a completed one.

With zeal - persecuting the church

zeal for God and the purity of the Old Covenantal system drove Paul

There is a certain amount of irony to Paul’s statement

The Greek word for church is ekklesia

This word was used for the nation of Israel at the gathering at the foot of Mount Sinai when the Law was delivered

In the New Testament it is applied to the believers of the New Covenant

In essence what Paul is saying is that in an effort to protect the Old Covenant people and purity of God he is persecuting the church, the New Israel, the new heirs under the New Covenant.

Righteousness under the law - blameless

What Paul is writing here is not that he was sinless - but that he was so effective at keeping all of the laws requirements (even those of atonement) that the testimony of his efforts would demonstrate him to be blameless

Much like the rich young ruler in - Paul could claim that he had kept all the commandments from his youth

Advantages are not really advantageous

Paul uses the language of a business ledger

Paul uses the language of a business ledger

gains vs. losses

He is not comparing the good versus the not as good.

He’s saying that everything he once thought was working in his favor for righteousness and salvation was actually working against him

When it comes to salvation there is only one item in the “gain” column - Christ.

Conclusion

The fact that our parents, grandparents or forebears were great Christians does not mean that we are Christians.

That was the whole tragedy of the Jews, as we have seen.

Put next to birth, family, nation—none of these things matter at all.

Tony Sargent, Gems from Martyn Lloyd-Jones: An Anthology of Quotations from “the Doctor” (Milton Keynes, England; Colorado Springs, CO; Hyderabad, AP: Paternoster., 2007), 206.

Conclusion