Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro:

What’s up Campus Church!

I hope you all treated your dad’s well on Father’s day.

This was my second Father’s day as a father and it is one of my favorite days.

Emily asked me what I wanted to do and I said all I wanted to do was nothing.

And that’s what I did.

Just chilled.

And it was awesome.

Anyways, If you have your Bibles go ahead and grab those.

We are continuing on in our Living is Christ sermon series through the book of Philippians and this morning we are going to start chapter three of Philippians.

While you’re turning to chapter 3 of Philippians… Let me just catch you up to speed to what’s happening in Philippians.

Three weeks ago we started in Philippians chapter 2 and looked at the importance of unity within the church.

2 weeks ago we saw Paul instructs the Philippian Christians to work out their salvation.

If you were here and if you remember we talked about how we are saved through faith by grace but if we are truly saved through faith by grace then our lives will looked different from when we were not saved.

Paul’s command to us is to work out our salvation not work for our salvation.

We talked about the two ways Paul tells us to work out our salvation.

We...

Work out your salvation through obedience (vs.

12-13).

It’s easy to say that we believe the gospel.

It’s easy to say that we know and belong to Jesus.

But obedience is the true evidence of having faith in God.

and we...

Work out your salvation through a pure life (vs.

14-15).

We work out our salvation through obedience to God and we work out our salvation by living pure (uncomplaining, without grumbling) lives so that we can be lights in the world for the purpose of the dark world seeing Jesus through us.

Paul says so to be faultless in a crooked and perverted generation.

Paul then wraps up chapter two with the examples of Timothy and Epaphroditus.

How they were men of character and lived out the example of Jesus by putting the needs of others over their own.

These men were humble and strived to live in unity with the rest of the body.

This is a great passage about two great men of the faith.

But today we are starting chapter 3.

And if you are in Philippians look down with me at verse one.

I am using the Christian Standard Bible...

3 In addition, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord.

To write to you again about this is no trouble for me and is a safeguard for you.

2 Watch out for the dogs, watch out for the evil workers, watch out for those who mutilate the flesh.

3 For we are the circumcision, the ones who worship by the Spirit of God, boast in Christ Jesus, and do not put confidence in the flesh—4 although I have reasons for confidence in the flesh.

If anyone else thinks he has grounds for confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised the eighth day; of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; regarding the law, a Pharisee; 6 regarding zeal, persecuting the church; regarding the righteousness that is in the law, blameless.

7 But everything that was a gain to me, I have considered to be a loss because of Christ.

8 More than that, I also consider everything to be a loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

Because of him I have suffered the loss of all things and consider them as dung, so that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own from the law, but one that is through faith in Christ—the righteousness from God based on faith.

10 My goal is to know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death, 11 assuming that I will somehow reach the resurrection from among the dead

This is the Word of God.

Let’s Pray.

I think that the Philippian church really struggled with joy.

Because he Paul is again telling them once again to rejoice!

The idea of “joy” fits well right here because...

the occurrences of “rejoice” in the book of Philippians function like a hinge at the beginning or the end of the sections in which it appears.

Paul uses “rejoice” first in 1:18 when he concludes, “What then?

Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.

Yes, and I will rejoice.”

Here in 3:1 he builds on the second occurrence of “rejoice” from 2:17, 18 where he had affirmed, “Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all.

Likewise you also should be glad and rejoice with me.”

In the intervening verses Paul expresses his joy over the examples of Timothy and Epaphroditus, especially the latter who almost died for the gospel (cf.

vv.

19–30, esp.

vv.

28, 29).

He tells them to rejoice because it is no problem for him to write to them because he cares for both their joy and their spiritual safety.

Spiritual safety?

What in the world were they and maybe we are in danger of that safety would be a concern?

Well this is the first thing that we will look at in our time together this morning… Is that there is a

real danger of false teachers in the church (vs.

2)

I know that we have talked about this a lot already in our sermon series through 2 Timothy but this is an important topic that Paul comes back to time and time again.

It was important then and it is important now.

The church in Philippi had some serious false teachers.

These guys known as the Judaizers.

What they did was they taught and pressured these greeks and gentiles who were coming to faith to submit to all of the Mosaic Law, including being circumcised as grown men and all of the dietary rules and restrictions, in order to be saved.

If you read the Bible and Acts in particular… Jesus fulfilled many of these laws and that the Law is not what saves us.

We are saved by faith in Jesus alone and it is only by the Grace of God alone that we are saved.

Paul has encountered this group of false teachers before.

If you’re following along in your Bibles turn back with me a few pages to Acts chapter 15...

15 Some men came down from Judea and began to teach the brothers: “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom prescribed by Moses, you cannot be saved.” 2 After Paul and Barnabas had engaged them in serious argument and debate, Paul and Barnabas and some others were appointed to go up to the apostles and elders in Jerusalem about this issue.

3 When they had been sent on their way by the church, they passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria, describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles, and they brought great joy to all the brothers and sisters.

4 When they arrived at Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church, the apostles, and the elders, and they reported all that God had done with them.

5 But some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, “It is necessary to circumcise them and to command them to keep the law of Moses.”

THE JERUSALEM COUNCIL

6 The apostles and the elders gathered to consider this matter.

7 After there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them: “Brothers and sisters, you are aware that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles would hear the gospel message and believe.

8 And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he also did to us. 9 He made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith.

10 Now then, why are you testing God by putting a yoke on the disciples’ necks that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear? 11 On the contrary, we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus in the same way they are.”

Bam.

There you have it.

Matter settled.

What’s crazy about what Peter says here is that even before Christ came and died to pay for our sins… God’s people were still saved by faith in God.

God has one people… not two.

There’s not Israel and then there’s the Church.

God has one people and we are all saved the same way.

Paul says in .

9 Is this blessing only for the circumcised, then?

Or is it also for the uncircumcised?

For we say, Faith was credited to Abraham for righteousness.,f 10 In what way then was it credited—while he was circumcised, or uncircumcised?

It was not while he was circumcised, but uncircumcised.

11 And he received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith,h while still uncircumcised

There is a lot of false teaching in the church today.

A lot of teachers who add to God’s requirements of salvation.

A lot of us may be guilty of believing in this false teaching that faith in Jesus isn’t enough.

Maybe you know someone who is living in open sin.

You pray for opportunities to share the gospel with them but you have that little voice in the back of your mind telling you that they need to clean themselves up before they can be saved.

This is false teaching.

Share the gospel.

We can deal with all that other junk later.