Sermon Tone Analysis

Rejoice

Rejoice!

It is not suspicious that I would write this...it is a safeguard for you.

No matter how bad it gets, God is still working in you to accomplish His purposes.

No matter how bad it gets, there is an end to suffering.

No matter how bad it gets, Christ died on the cross to give you life, and He rose from the grave to prove that He has the power to keep His promises.

Beware of the Dogs

phil 3 2-

Beware of the dogs:

We are the circumcision

We worship God in Spirit

We rejoice in Jesus Christ

We have no confidence in the flesh.

Circumcised

Hebrew of the tribe of Benjamin.

A Pharisee concerning the law

Persecuted the church concerning zeal

Concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.

Gain Christ and the righteousness which is from God by faith

phil 3 7-

What did Paul lose?

v7 Paul went from being a Pharisee with authority to a prisoner because of Christ.

He went from being the Jew who persecuted Christians to a Christian being persecuted by the Jews.

v8 The value of knowing Christ Jesus the Lord is unsurpassable.

v9 righteousness through faith in Christ vs righteousness from the law.

I want to make sure you completely understand what is happening here.

Sometimes it seams like Paul is throwing away the Law…almost saying the Law is useless.

As a result of Bible Illiteracy many preachers and celebrity teachers have led many in the church to just throw the Old testament away.

This is not what Paul is saying and it is not what God wants.

17-

luke 24 44-

So, What is Paul saying about the Law?

phil 3

is Paul saying that the only righteousness that comes from the law is a righteousness that is his own doing?

It is only a righteousness of works?

No.

One proof:

Here is the clue.

If I hadn’t read through the Bible so many times and studied another language to speak it…I might not have caught it.

Was Paul blameless concerning the law?

nope…by his own admition:

1 tim 1 12-

Here, Paul admits that he sinned while performing the law AS THE PHARISEES HAD BEGUN TO INTERPRET IT.

Paul says in v13 that he was living out the law in ignorance and unbelief.

Before Christ, righteousness came through the law by faith.

Moses gave:

Ceremonial Laws

Religious Laws

Civic Laws

Because we are all sinners, and people would break the covenant (They broke the covenant before Moses even got off the mountain.),

God set apart the Levites to offer daily burnt sacrifices as intercessory prayer for the people.

The people were required to appear before the Lord 3 times a year to observe 7 feasts.

One of these feasts was the Day of Atonement in the 7th month of the year.

The high priest would enter the holy of holies one time a year to sprinkle the blood of the sacrifice on the altar.

This would provide atonement for sin for one more year.

But all of the burnt sacrifices and specifically the Passover Feast was to remind the people that God had promised to send the Messiah to die on behalf of the guilty.

Moses had reaffirmed the promise in the Law itself:

deut

By the time you get to Zechariah and Elizabeth in the New Testament, it was possible to be righteous in God’s sight through the law, because they believed God’s promise to send the Messiah.

When Paul says in :

he is speaking about how he and other Jews continued to perform the law after Jesus died and was resurrected.

What happened to the Jews is not that the Law was insufficient to gain righteousness…it is just that the law was meant to hold people of faith until Jesus came.

The law declared the coming of the Innocent One who would die for the guilty.

They rejected the Messiah that God sent, therefore after Jesus died and rose from the grave the fact that they continued to perform the works of the law means that they changed God’s meaning and intention concerning the Law…they did this because they were not adhering to the Law by faith…they were seeking a righteousness of works.

rom 10 1-

In Ahaz’ day, God promised a sign (explain) that would be a stumbling block:

So the Jews stumbled, but Paul was a Jew and among the remnant that was saved…throughout Paul’s ministry he would first go the the Jews of a city and many Jews (remnant) were saved.

In the Philippian church…Lydia was a Jew and a part of the remnant.

So Now we conclude what Paul is saying to the Philippians

Faith through the Law was faith that God would send the Messiah.

Faith in Christ is believing that Jesus was the Messiah.

After Christ, it is impossible to gain righteousness through the Law…because righteousness can only be gained through faith in Christ…He was the fulfillment of the Law.

Faith is believing rightly about God and ordering your life accordingly.

(I don’t have time right now to get into this…but one day I will have the opportunity.)

V10 Paul turned from the Jews current rejection of Jesus as Messiah to know Jesus as Messiah.

power of His resurrection.

The resurrection is absolutely vital.

Without the resurrection we would have no proof that God accepted Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross for the eternal atonement for sin.

Paul, like Christ is suffering at the hands of the Jews, and could possibly like Christ die by the hands of the Jews.

He believes Scripture: because he is righteous in God’s sight (through faith in Jesus not the works of the law) he will like Christ resurrect from the dead.

Our resurrection will also be proof that God has accepted Jesus’ sacrifice....this is why Jesus is called the first fruits…He died on the Passover…He rose on the waving of the sheaf (faith that the harvest would come.)

1 cor 15 22