Do You Have Works Or Relationships.

"Do You Have Works Or Relationship"

11:00 3/14/93 Text Philip3:1-11 OT Prov. 2:1-8 Luke 12:13-21

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In our New Testament reading, we met a man who was greatly

blessed in terms of the material things. His work produced so

much wealth, he did not know where to store and invest all of it.

He had plans for great works that He was going to do with his

money. He was going to tear down some buildings and construct

larger ones. There is nothing in the passage to suggest that the

man was particularly evil, or greedy or immoral. The man could

probably point to a number of good works to demonstrate that he

was just as good as the next fellow. Yet God called him a fool

the day of the night that he was to die.

If someone said to you today, "Tell me, what proof is there

in your life that you are a Christian?", would you start telling

them about the good things that you do for others, or would you

start talking about a relationship you have with one called Jesus

Christ. Where is our hope for our salvation grounded today? We

will examine this as we continue our study in Philippians chapter

3.

We find in verse 1 Philippians 3:1 "Finally, my brothers,

rejoice in the Lord! It is no trouble for me to write the same

things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you." We know

from our earlier study that Paul was having a difficult time in

prison, and the Philippians themselves were having trials and

struggles in their lives. Having trials and struggles should

not be reasons to start feeling sorry for one’s self, being ready

to throw in the towel on the church, on God, and on life itself.

In the midst of suffering Paul says, "rejoice in the Lord." When

our hope is centered in Christ, we can always rejoice in God’s

love for us, God’s grace that He gives us, and the knowledge that

God is still in control of the circumstances of our lives. A

divine joy in the Lord in possible for believers in spite of

adversities, struggles of difficulties, because we know that this

too will past. It may shake us, but we don’t have to let it

defeat us. If we can thank God for whatever that happens to us,

we will discover that God can turn every blow and disappointment

that comes into our lives into a blessing for us. The ability

to do this comes from a relationship with Jesus Christ, not from

doing a lot of good things.

Paul tells them to rejoice again and again throughout this

book. God does not mind repeating himself again and again,

because it is a safety mechanism for our own behalf. He tells us

things to practice, and God also warns us again and again of

things that will destroy us.

Every congregation carries within it, the seeds for its own

destruction. The same is true for every family, and for every

individual. There are feelings and emotions in each of us that

can severely cripple our lives if they are not submitted to the

will of God. In the Philippian church there were false teachers

that sought only their own good, and wanted people to pay them

special attention. They were dangerous to the church, because

they wanted to take the focus off a relationship with Christ, and

put it on doing things their way.

Look at verse 2 Philippians 3:2 "Watch out for those dogs,

those men who do evil, those mutilators of the flesh." The word

watch out here, is a very strong one. Some translations use the

words "beware of " or "take heed" One of the things you need

to understand here is that our view of dog and their view of a

dog were two different things. The Jews considered the dog to be

the most despised, shameless and miserable of creatures." The

Jews considered all Gentiles to be dogs. There were a group of

Jews called the Judaizers who came into the church and accepted

Christ, but insisted one had to be circumcised in order to be

saved.

These people who considered others to be dogs, are being

called dogs themselves because of the viciousness they were doing

to the body of Christ. Paul saw this group like the herds of

dogs which prowled the Eastern cities without a home and without

an owner, and attacking those who passed by. Today circumcision

is not an issue for the Church but it was in the first century.

This group was saying, the proof that one was saved was not that

he or she had a relationship with Jesus Christ, but that he or

she had been circumcised and had a number of other good works