Sermon Tone Analysis

Prayer

ill.

when your cleaning, and you have to create a drawer for stuff that doesn’t belong anywhere else.

sometimes those become closets!! Full of stuff.

We don’t even know whats in there.

Sometimes we call them miscellaneous drawers if we more honest, we call them.......?

or for some of us it takes over a room!! we label them craft rooms or hobby rooms......

Then it might take a corner of the house---the car cannot go in the garage it is your area for collecting everything that has no place.

Now here is the thing…a lot of that stuff (not all of it) once seemed really important.

At one point, someone bought it because they thought it would improve their life to some degree.

And because they were birthed from desire, their was a perceived need, letting go of it seems like an impossibility.

And so most of us are clear of being guests on “Hoarders”, but many of us can relate to holding on to stuff and having a difficult time letting it go; it is precious to us.

And even if it isn’t there is some sort of nostalgia some sort of connection, even if we cannot explain it.

PAUSE

That is what is going on in this text of Philippians today.

Only it is not about physical junk, it is about spiritual stuff.

There are those who refuse to let go of their stuff that had a purpose, but are no longer helpful to the life they are invited to live.

And Paul is saying to them and to you and I do you want Jesus or a Junk Drawer.

There are those among the early church who are trying to convince the church that all the stuff that used to define them still needs to do so.

And Paul will have none of it.

But we do not see a callous smashing of their ideas, but actually someone who gets it, because he has been there

The question is the same for us today, as we have been welcomed into the family of God through Jesus Christ, will we see him as better or settle for junk.

PAUSE

That appears to be the final task of his letter.

And we are going to start exploring it today.

That is the situation here in Philippi, and Paul wants to make sure this congregation, these people he dearly loves are not pulled astray and trapped by this stuff.

This is the topic of Paul words here.

He says FINALLY (v.1)

What many scholars love here is Paul’s use of the word, finally.

Because there is nothing final about it.

He still goes on for 2 chapters.

Which brings t mind the story of a little boy asking his father

What does the pastor mean when he says “FINALLY”

That is the situation here in Philippi, and Paul wants to make sure this congregation, these people he dearly loves are not pulled astray and trapped by this stuff.

The dad said...“—absolutely nothing, son”

Protecting your faith comes when.....

I. JESUS IS OUR JOY (v.1)

Be glad in the Lord

Find your sustenance in the LORD.

Why because as one Puritan writer said:

“The joy of the LORD will arm us against the assaults of our spiritual enemies and put our mouths out of taste for those pleasures with which the tempter baits his hook”

The way to make sure we are not dragged along by something other than the gospel.

By Jesus AND something, is to find our joy in Christ.

The way to keep ourselves from being tempted to drift and allow temporary things to consume us is to find our Joy in Christ.

The reason he has to say that is because he is about to take to task the very opposite kind of thinking.

So he wants to firmly plant them in the God.

And what he is about to say is not new.

It was something that they needed to be reminded of apparently.

An ongoing issue not only in Philippi, but in the ancient church around the Mediterranean.

He calls it a “safeguard”

And that was this...many of those in the early church had come from Judaism.

They were loyal Jews who saw the OT law as vital to what it meant to be Israel..God’s chosen people.

Now with the cross, and all that Jesus accomplished, all that was promised to the people of Israel in the Hebrew Scriptures was burst open and offered to everyone else.

Jesus, the perfect Jew and therefore perfect representation of the Jewish nation, purchased our citizenship into the family of God.

Now all the titles of Israel are applied to those who come to God through Jesus:

children of God

holy nation

nation of priests

Now imagine----as a Jew, who has followed the laws of Moses--- with a history of keeping yourself ceremonially clean; keeping sabbath, not eating pork---now they are woshiping next to people who still have bacon in their teeth from breakfast.

It would be hard.

All that has made them who they are is threatened.

II.

JESUS IS OUR FOCUS (V.2)

everything else is a distraction

Matthew 14:22-

The waves didn’t get any higher?

Was the wind any stronger?

?

The wind was not blowing any stronger

In Paul tells his reader to keep an eye out for those who would draw their eyes off Jesus!

Who would place weights on them and cause them to sink.

In the original Greek the power of these words hits hard.

for 2 reasons.

One Paul uses alliteration!

kunas- dogs

kakous- evildoers

katatome- mutilators of the flesh

So as the words hit the ears of the hearers it would be recognized as a hard repetition, not by accident, but also

Paul is taking the very words used by the Judiazers concerning Christians who do not obey the mosaic law, and is applying it to them.

It is a slightly more sophisticated version of....you are!!!

As one writer wrote, Paul “impaled Judaizers on their own vocabulary”

When I think of a dog, I naturally think of our dog at home.

Little Wingo.

Dumb as dirt but cute and lovable.

When first century Jews thought of dogs they thought of scavengers who chewed on road-kill and garbage.

It was the perfect metaphor for those who did not keep the dietary laws of the Jews.

Paul turns it and says those who would try to take the freedom of Christ and attach some element of law to God’s gift are devouring dogs, tearing at the fiber of the Gospel.

He calls them evildoers!

Wait we are obeyers of the law, in fact we’ve invented a bunch of new laws!

Paul says your dependence on the law for your righteousness is evil.

His final hit here is extremely scathing.

When he calls them “mutilators of the flesh” he refers to their own circumcision as well as their push to make everyone who comes to Jesus circumcised as well.

In fact they were so caught up in the importance of circumcision as a sign that they belonged to God that the had a name for themselves.....it was real catchy…The Circumcision Group

They were like the least tough bike gang ever.

Or maybe sounds like realty company; The Circumcision Group

not sure name like that would “cut it”.

not sure name like that would cut it.

What Paul is saying is this....when you make circumcision a means to experience the belonging and grace that Jesus has freely offered, circumcision means nothing and it is simply mutilation of the flesh.

Do not add to what Jesus has accomplished.

dogs, evildoers, mutilators of the flesh!!

all because they add to Jesus.