Saved From Self-Righteousness

The point of my sermon today, and the point of the text which we are reading… Both are simple. Very simple. Paul is telling his hearers in Philippi, “If you want to be sure you are in Christ, you must be righteous.” What that means is, you must possess righteousness. You must BE a righteous person. If you are not righteous, you will face hell for your unrighteousness. Why?

Colossians 2:13a (ESV)

And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh

Because we are dead in our sins. Our sin is offensive to a holy God. We have trampled His Name with our sin and wickedness.

We cannot achieve or earn our righteousness. You can’t muster it up. Not even for a day, not even for an hour can you go without sin. You say, “how?” Because sin takes no holidays. Every motivation we have is steeped in the muck and mire of sinfulness. We are, at our core, wicked. That kind of message won’t grow a Steven Furtick church. Maybe it offends you. Maybe you say, “I can’t believe the Bible says that. That’s not how this works.”

Romans 3:10–16 (ESV)

as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.” “The venom of asps is under their lips.” “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.” “Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery,

Oh, just the opposite. That’s EXACTLY what the Bible says about us. We are rotten to the core. We’re not good people who lost our way. We are rebellious God-haters without Christ. In other words… Righteousness is an impossibility for humanity. We cannot even hope to capture a glimpse of it.

If this is the case, which the Bible tells us it is… Then I want us to consider just how foolish self-righteousness is.

The Key: Self-righteousness is a rotting corpse in a suit and tie that’s here to convince you it has the key to joy, life, and happiness.

Let’s move into our text for this morning.

Trust Not in Outward Appearances

Philippians 3:1–2 (ESV)

Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you is no trouble to me and is safe for you. Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh.

Exposition

Finally seems to be his transition to, “And now for the final things.”

The idea of “safe for you,” is likely to mean that this is a safeguard for the Philippians. He’s telling them these things to keep them safe.

There’s this group of people going around to the places where Paul has been, trying to convince people that Paul’s Gospel is incomplete. That in order to come to Christ, they must first undergo a Jewish ritual to follow Jesus.

Paul uses “dogs” to reverse the ethnic superiority of the Jews.

These Judaizers would go so far as to mutilate their flesh to prove their righteousness.

Jesus had something to say about people like this…

Matthew 23:27–28 (ESV)

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

Application

We like to laugh at the Judaizers and think, “you silly Judaizers. Righteousness isn’t on the outside… It’s on the inside!” And then we think of Christian as a brand to display, rather than an identity to live in. I borrowed that phrase, by the way, it’s not my own.

What do I mean? I mean that there are all kinds of people out there in our culture today who will go on and on about Jesus, but act in ways that completely betray that.

This looks like:

Praying before a meal, but then giving your waiter or waitress a lousy tip; Saying you follow Jesus, but using derogatory terms for people not like you… Momma said if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all… Jesus said out of the mouth, the heart speaks; Drunken parties on Saturday nights, church on Sunday mornings; Facebook posts that offer no grace and all condemnation.

The fact of the matter is that this kind of living does not make anyone joyful. This is a sour, bitter personality that is in desperate need of the true grace of Jesus Christ. This is what happens when the unsaved person tries to live the Christian life.

Exposition

Philippians 3:3–4 (ESV)

For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh— 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:

Paul says that we (Christians) ARE the Jewish ritual… Why is that? Because we follow Christ, who FULFILLS the Jewish Law and all of its demands. Therefore, we are to put NO confidence in the flesh. The flesh cannot attain that which we always hope it can!

We always do this, don’t we? We put faith and trust into weak idols. Sometimes it’s our own flesh. This is how much of our culture approaches the concepts of God and Heaven. “Oh, well if there is a God, He’ll see how good of a person I’ve been. I’ve tried to contribute, I haven’t gotten in trouble with the law, I went to church a couple of times in life...” This is not the path to righteousness before God. Isaiah recognized this in the Old Testament era! He said…

Isaiah 64:6 (ESV)

We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.

And so Paul says, “look… If anyone has a right to claim being righteous, it’s me…”

This gets us into the issue of self-righteousness.

The Stench of Self-Righteousness

Philippians 3:5–6 (ESV)

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; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.

Paul makes it clear… You can live pretty dang good at the whole moral life thing. You can do well at doing good things. That’s why you see what you might call, “good people” of all different stripes. I enjoy being around people who are good people regardless of whether or not they know Christ.

But here’s the problem… Paul lays it out right here, we cannot BE righteous. We can do lots of righteous things, but doing righteous things is not what God requires of us to be holy. Why? Because holiness is about being without blemish. There’s not a single person alive on the earth who can attain perfect holiness.

But yet, this is the heart and posture of someone who exhibits self-righteousness. But it’s rarely ever that simple. You see, self-righteousness doesn’t usually spring up by someone saying, “Oh, I’m perfect, and you’re not.”

No, self-righteousness makes it’s entry when it says, “I’m right, and you’re not.” Self-righteousness has its origin in the… well… self. If you are a Christ-follower, there are many things that you can put false hope in. Into your education, how much Bible you know, how often you attend church… Any of this is putting confidence in the flesh! It is SELF-righteousness! But we’ve already established that one cannot be made righteous by their own works. One cannot be made righteous by anything that comes from oneself.

Every aspect of righteousness that can be credited to my name, every ounce of goodness, not a single microscopic bit of it will get me into the kingdom of Heaven. This is the exact OPPOSITE of what our culture teaches! This is the antithesis of today’s moral compass. Today’s moral compass says that tolerance and acceptance are the highest values. It comes down to your ability to have no firm stand on how anyone in society should want to live their lives. You can’t even say live and let live in our society. If you are not absolutely FOR each person’s sexual or gender preference, you are not to be heard, you are to be silenced. Our culture is permeated with self-righteousness.

I don’t wade into politics much, and for good reason, but this week, politics jumped into religion, so I’m going to weigh in.

This past week, Justice Sonia Sotomayor issued a statement of dissent against the SCOTUS ruling on Texas’ heartbeat law: “The Court should not be so content to ignore its constitutional obligations to protect not only the rights of women, but also the sanctity of its precedents and of the rule of law.”

Our culture has a completely twisted sense of sanctity. There’s a reason she chose the word, “sanctity.” She is placing the sanctity of the courts OVER AND ABOVE the sanctity of human life, which is what the abortion issue comes down to. It is a bold slap in the face to anyone who would argue for the sanctity of human life, and an unborn child’s right to live. This is an embarrassment to the concept of sanctity and holiness.

But we can’t just look at the culture and say self-righteousness lives out there. Self-righteousness is everywhere! Don’t act like it doesn’t sneak up in your heart… I know it does mine, and I have to constantly be on alert, watching for that self-righteousness to rise up.

But there’s a difference in accountability and self-righteousness. Accountability is holding one another up to biblical standards. Accountability has to do with conviction. Self-righteousness has to do with holding someone up to preferences. Self-righteousness has to do with condemnation. Self-righteousness says MY way is best. Accountability says Christ’s way is best. Just to help us understand what self-righteousness looks like… Because the world will call us self-righteous when we know we are simply striving to live a Christlike life.

And truthfully, Christ is the only person who ever walked the earth who COULD legitimately have been self-righteous! And yet He did not display such a front. Christ chose to walk in a humble authority. And I think this is something that’s really important for us to see, understand, and practice. Watch how Paul lives in this tension…

Philippians 3:7–8 (ESV)

But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 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

Paul’s supreme treasure is Christ. He gave all of his status and righteousness and standing and wealth, what-have-you for the treasure of Christ. This is the beginning of righteous-living as opposed to self-righteous living. Righteousness gives life, self-righteousness takes life.

Why is that? Because self-righteousness is rooted in Pride… Not humility.

“Pride preaches merit; humility pleads for compassion. Pride negotiates as an equal; humility approaches in need. Pride separates by putting down others; humility identifies with others, recognizing we all have the same need. Pride destroys through its alienating self-service; humility opens doors with its power to sympathize with the struggle we share. Pride turns up its nose; humility offers an open and lifted-up hand.” -Darrell Bock

Philippians 3:9 (ESV)

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—

Now, returning to the concept of placing our righteousness not in ourselves, but rather in Christ: We know that all of our confidence is to be placed in Christ for our righteousness. This is the very heart of the Christian faith. It’s not that we are better than anyone else. It’s not that we are special. It’s that we come to terms with how awful our sin is and how great God’s grace is! That’s what Paul is getting at here in the text. The righteousness is NOT from the law. It is from Christ. It is only through faith in Him that we find our confidence in righteousness.

So we don’t go around with the attitude of, “oh, thank you God, that I am not like those lesser Christians.” “Thank you that I am not like those in the world…” Stop playing games with your salvation. Trust in Christ. Believe rightly. Give charity to those who think different than you, provided that they affirm Christ, Scripture, et. al.

Philippians 3:10–11 (ESV)

that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Chiasm of these verses shows that Paul knows that his resurrection with Christ is tied to his death.

Do you want Christ’s righteousness? Come and die, so that you may live. When we trust in Christ, we die to ourselves and come alive in Christ. That’s why we talk about the fact that we are new creations. We are not merely better versions of ourselves, we are WHOLE NEW SELVES!!!

That is the Good News! That you have no righteousness to call your own, but Christ supplies Himself as both your substitute and your supply! He put Himself on the cross to pay for your unrighteousness and gives you His own. It’s a beautiful exchange that we had NOTHING to do with. He offers it. Freely. For you. Why? Because of His great love for you. Instead of watching you wallow in unrighteousness, He would rather DIE and invite you into true life. And that’s the invitation this morning.