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Philippians • Sermon • Submitted
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Philippians 3
1 Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you is no trouble to me and is safe for you. 2 Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh. 3 For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh— 4 though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. 7 But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 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 9 and be found in him, 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— 10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
Everything hinges on the prepositional phrases in vs 8.
“Because of the worth of knowing Christ”
“For the sake of whom.”
A command to Rejoice
Paul starts a new passage in his letter by commanding his recipients to rejoice.
Paul talks about rejoicing 8 times in this short epistle. I believe that that the church in Philippi needed to be reminded of this need.
Paul has been telling them that to live is Christ, and to die is gain. What does that mean, Paul?
Imagine it this way...
Made to walk an extra mile...
Spit on for being an “atheist”...
Made to walk a mile
Cheated by the tax collector...
Receive word that your cousin in Rome has been crucified for proclaiming Christ...
You gather with the church to hear this letter read from Paul who is in prison...
“Finally brothers rejoice!”
“To live is Christ to die is gain!”
You’d be muttering, this is a crazy person!
Paul wasn’t crazy, but he possibly more than any other man in history was able to grasp and hold onto the truth that reality is about being found in Christ.
Paul would say to the man or woman who had that terrible day, “Brother, are you found in Christ? Then rejoice?”
21 For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain.
phil 1:
He then unfolds the why.
Be Watchful
The Bible Knowledge Commentary 2. The Example to Be Avoided (3:2–3)
One particular group in Paul’s day was especially guilty of putting confidence in the flesh. These were the Judaizers. They plagued Paul and his converts constantly. Confused about the gospel, they added works of the law to faith in Christ, both for salvation and for Christian living. The Old Testament rite of circumcision was of special concern to them. They insisted that it was necessary for salvation. They did not omit faith in Christ but added works of the flesh. Paul called such men “deceitful workmen” (2 Cor. 11:13).
So it is in the context of men teaching these things that Paul firstly reminds his readers who they are in Christ.
Identity in Christ
English Standard Version Chapter 3
For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh
Wait Paul! I thought circumcision WAS about the flesh.
God had told his people all the way back in Deuteronomy that He would circumcise their hearts.
Circumcision of the flesh, all along was representative of what God was doing in the heart.
6 And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.
29 But the Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter, whose praise is not from people but from God.
11 in whom also you were circumcised with a circumcision not made by hands, by the removal of the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ,
colossians
So we worship by the Spirit, glory in Christ Jesus, and put no confidence in the flesh.
Now that he has shown the believers what their identity in Christ means, he gives them an example from his own life what finding our identity in the flesh looks like.
Identity in the flesh
Paul then proceeds to roll out an impressive resume of righteousness.
The search committee has been going through tons of resumes, and this is basically what Paul is doing here.
If we are evaluated by our works, then Paul was the leader of the pack.
4 though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.
Circumcised on eighth day. Pureblood Jew
Benjamite. Highly esteemed tribe
Hebrew of Hebrews. Leader amongst peers, Hebrew son of Hebrew parents
Pharisee. Strictest Sect
Zealous for the Jewish religion to the point of persecuting “dissenters”
Paul even goes so far as to say that he is blameless as to the law. This term in scripture was reserved for a select few. People who understood repentance and placed their faith in God. But we knew these men to be prone to sin as well. Job, Noah, David. These men all knew something Saul did not.
Righteousness is found IN God. Not out of God.
Everything the Pharisee’s did was about export righteousness, meaning it comes from us.
The thread we see through the entirety of scripture however, is import righteousness. It is not from us, but from God.
The beautiful thing about the Gospel however is that import righteousness BECOMES export righteousness.
It is only through abiding in Christ that we are able to be seen by God as righteous.
Paul did not realize this when he was a young man named Saul
All the works he had amassed he began to see in a new light.
Paul had created a proverbial mountain of righteousness.
But the dawn of the revelation of Christ cast a new light on his work.
Imagine working all night to build a mountain, and then when the sun comes up, you realize it’s a trash heap.
That’s what happened to Paul.
What was missing in his equation?
God.
God turned Paul’s mountain of righteousness into a trash heap.
He did this simply by being a holy God.
Even Paul who by our worldly standards was “blameless” was found to be completely sinful when exposed to a holy God.
Paul even tells us this himself in
15 This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.
15 Here’s a word you can take to heart and depend on: Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. I’m proof—Public Sinner Number One—
When Saul met Jesus on the road to Damascus, he was exposed to the full son blast of the glory of God in the face of Christ. And it struck him blind. He didn’t eat or drink for 3 days.
The sun was starting to shine on the garbage heap.
This experience was not unique for Paul.
This is the experience of everyone in Scripture who encounters the Holy God.
Turn to
1 In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. 3 And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” 4 And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. 5 And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” 6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.”
Isaiah 6:1-
Isaiah became explicitly aware of his fallen sin nature when he was in the presence of God.
This is how Paul must have been feeling as he lay in his bed, blind in Damascus.
Before long the full sunblaze of the revelation of Christ had fully exposed Paul’s past works.
And his perspective shifted.
Throw away past works for Christ
7 But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 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
Phil 3:7-
Paul is willing to exchange everything to gain Christ.
Paul is even willing to exchange his life to gain Christ.
We are called to exchange our life daily to gain Christ.
23 And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.
20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
Galations 2:20
11 So also you, consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
But that sounds hard!!
Because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.
Paul is saying that the light of the gospel has exposed his mountain of righteousness to be a trash heap, while simultaneously revealing Jesus to be the most valuable treasure attainable.
THAT I MAY KNOW HIM
THAT I MAY KNOW HIM
OH that I may know Him.
Paul had been to the Emerald City, pulled back the curtain, and found nothing but death.
Do you know how crazy Paul would have sounded to his Pharisee peers?
Nothing that they spent their time doing was about knowing God in the sense that Paul was talking about.
Two things the Pharisees did that flew in the face of the character of God:
1: They had herb gardens expressly for the purpose of tithing a tenth of even their little plants.
2: The Pharisees had a saying, “When a sinner dies heaven rejoices.”
Can you imagine the balm that Jesus must have been in this religious climate?
The people were being told that God wanted nothing to do with them, and that what he really cared about was 1/10th of your mint.
This is the type of person Paul was!
And this is the type of person many of us are too!
Using rigid obedience as a tool to keep God at arms length.
The word Paul uses for knowing God here, is a word that communicates an experiential knowledge of someone. Not just a intellectual or cerebral knowledge, but a hands on, experiential knowledge.
“That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and may share His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death.”
“The words “becoming like him” are the translation of symmorphizomenos, which means “being conformed inwardly in one’s experience to something”
Lightner, R. P. (1985). Philippians. In J. F. Walvoord & R. B. Zuck (Eds.), The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures (Vol. 2, p. 661). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.
A few weeks ago we talked about the idea of cruciformity, and how suffering is part of the Christian experience for God’s glory.
Here in Philippians Paul is saying, I want to share in the experience of Christ’s death, that I may know him and be found in him.
“that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead”
Paul was not confused about works by any means. He just got finished hammering the Judaizers for requiring people to follow the law. Paul knew salvation comes by grace through faith not of works.
In this last verse we are catching another glimpse of how much Paul loved Jesus, and treasured Him above all else.
This has everything to do with one’s perspective of the gospel.
If good news for you is, Jesus died so I don’t go to hell, you have believed a false gospel. It’s part of the gospel, but it’s like stopping a steak dinner after one bite. Like having a gallon full of ice water in a desert and taking one drop on your tongue.
If Jesus died simply to keep us from hell, then there would be no need to pursue him, and no need to die to self.
After all, he already died for us, so we’re good!! Let’s relax!!
But if Jesus died so that you may KNOW him, to experience Him symmorphizomenos, then we will NEVER stop running towards Him.
When we realize the immense value of Christ, and knowing Him, then we are compelled to draw near Him.
And in drawing near Him, we must die.
And dying is painful. Dying every day is most painful.
Someone may be sitting here today contemplating pursuing Christ.
I can promise you a few things:
Life with Jesus is going to be the most refreshing, rewarding, satisfying, joyful you’ve ever done. There is a God who made you and His desire is for you to know Him. And he promises rest for those who are found in him
It is true that part of the gospel is an invitation unto death, but the promise is that what is being crucified with Christ, is the old man. The old woman. Every part of you that separates you from Christ is nailed to the cross with Him so that the new man may be found in Him.
Therefore if any man is in Christ, He is a new creation, the old things passed away, behold!, new things have come.
3. God has new things planned for you. The longer my walk with God gets the more I realize how unlike Him I really am in my flesh. But God has new bodies for you and me.
When we crack open our bibles, and we spend time with God, we are experiencing the sun starting to rise on our own garbage heap.
If we’re honest, we’ve suspected that it was a garbage heap all along.
But now we know it is. And it smells bad.
If Christ is the greatest treasure, and it’s either Him or the trash pile, then I invite you...
Draw near to him and die.