A matter of the heart – Taking Inventory -
This week we are looking at another portion of Philippians. The overall theme of this book is an expression of what Paul believes that Christians should be no matter what a person’s or nations physical situation. We know from the letter that he is in Rome and chained to a praetorian guard. He is restricted from the mission that he thought he would be on, preaching Christ in the capitol of the roman empire. He opens the letter by telling the church in Philippi how grateful he is to God for their prayers and support. Oddly he does not complain about his situation.
He has also noticed something pretty amazing. It seems that believers in Rome have found encouragement from his imprisonment. It appears to be some kind of unnatural response. Perhaps some kind of supernatural courage that has the local believers risking prison themselves.
I suggested that Paul’s hardship and limitations did not allow him to witness to his problems, his response and the response of other believers was to live as witnessed to eternal life and future promises.
So even thought he was limited – he was still joyful because it had encouraged other people to respond. Paul does warn of and hint at problems that the Philippians were also facing. His main encouragement was not to be like him…but to be like Christ. That after all was his goal.
So far in the letter he is stressed joy and gratefulness and being almost a choice. Perhaps even a supernatural gift that he had noticed. The theme the I notice is that his ability to see the good and t keep a right attitude is a matter of the heart. It is how he and we are encouraged to respond… what we demonstrate to other people… a faith in the message…
He suggests that how we face trouble is actually a visible testimony to the faith that we have.
-- The attraction of this letter for me comes from the similar situation that the culture he is in seems to match how our nation and even community are headed. Many Gods
(views) with politically correct requirements that will be backed up with force or for us litigation.
Paul sez… a different reaction to life’s problems and opportunities….unity with Christ like mindedness speaks of humility and selflessness… A church cannot be unified it the members think of themselves first. Christ became nothing…for the benefit of mankind.
Earlier in the letter Paul has been joyful because of Christ being preached in Rome. He was well aware that not every messenger had the right motives but he was glad that they had the right message.
In our reading this morning Paul offers a warning, “Watch out for those dogs, those men who do evil, those mutilators of the flesh.”
That seems like a pretty graphic set of descriptions. Being a dog lover myself I am initially not turned off by the description of “those dogs.” I have heard people describe some friend or enemy as “that sly old dog” and mean it as a kind of complement.
In Paul’s usage he definitely is not giving a complement. The word dog is probably closer to mangy stray scavenger with a wild pack dog – vicious overtone. The same word was often used to describe the gentiles so it is an indication by Paul that these false teachers in their attempts to keep the law are also ritually unclean and hold no standing in Jewish or Christians settings.
The general belief is that Paul was warning against Judaizers. This is a group of Christian believers that believed that it was necessary for believers to live under the Torah Law. They believe that Christianity is s sect of Judaism and therefore only Jews or those that are willing to convert to Judaism can qualify.
At first there was not much of a problem because the church was all Jewish. As gentiles were invited into the church there was a problem. These new converts did not have the heritage, the back ground, or any training about what God expected.
Judaizers were traveling preachers that went around following in Paul’s footsteps insisting that a person had to become a Jew first. Keep the law and, submit to circumcision in order to be included in the kingdom of God.
They were sure that all the existing rules has to be in place for people to qualify for salvation.
Paul tells his readers that it is the Christian believers that are the circumcision. That we have the gift of the spirit of God and have no confidence in the flesh… either in what we do to the physical body or what we do to keep the Law.
Then he jumps to what sounds pretty odd to me, he sort of makes a claim related to his personal credentials. HE says, “ though I myself have reasons for such confidence.
If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless.
What we have in that short few verses is an executive summary of how he was raised, his ethnic inclusion as one of God’s chosen people. He identified his educational standards, his level of commitment and even identifies that he is righteous as defined by the LAW.
Basically, he seems to be joining with the Judaizers’ position, if we can claim a position of being right with God based on the physical, Paul says, that he is the man.
Pail lists his qualifications as being a full member of the covenant people.
The first 4 he came by naturally the last 3 he worked hard to earn.
- He was circumcised on the 8th day as the Law specifies. He is not a convert to the faith and was a member of a family that took faith seriously.
- He is a natural born Israelite a member of the chosen people. He is automatically a full member of the community, the nation.
- He is from the tribe of Benjamin…Something that was getting hard to know for sure after all the inner marriage and exile and forced culture changes. The tribe was highly honored because Benjamin was the only son borne in the promised land. Israel’s first king Saul came from the tribe. The tribe was given the Land that contains God’s holy city Jerusalem when they came to the promised land.
- He is from a pure blood line. A Hebrew of the Hebrews. His father was a genuine Jew and his father before him etc.
Then he moves to the things he has earned.
-He lived as a Pharisee. The name means separated ones. His training /education were in strictest tradition. Not just the law but oral rules to make sure that you kept the Law.
- He was proud of his zeal - his passion for what he believed. And in the past he did not just sit on the pew in the synagogue. He went out to defend his faith; he had so much passion for God and the LAW that he was a persecutor of the followers of the Way, the church. Not just in his town, he traveled to deal with these people where ever he found them.
- And if that were not enough to be proud of, he was completely righteous when measured by the Law in his own eyes and the eyes of his colleagues.
That is a 5 second personal inventory of personal qualifications that he feels like he can place next to anyone and feels that he is head and shoulders above want other Jews can claim.
-- I know that most of you have noticed that the stores had already planted Christmas decoration seeds in a few isles. In a matter of weeks they will grow faster than kudzu and take over the stores before we know it.
I started thinking about how much planning goes into every retailer’s year to be ready for the Christmas season. For a store, Inventory is what makes the season successful. People want their items now. They don’t want to order and hope that they can get what they want. When a place has to order products for Christmas 6 or more months in advance…that must be hard.
With our economy like it is you definitely don’t want to order to many of any item and get stuck with them. That could put a store out of business. And it seems that every year there are those special hot items that you would want to have. Just to get shoppers in the store.
Pictures - of good inventory
So for a store, in town or on the internet, to be successful and popular it has to stock up on the right stuff. You want to be a store that has the hot items of the year on hand.
Stores these days must take a really big gamble so that they could claim to be the place to shop. To be popular. They had to have an impressive inventory to be taken seriously.
Paul suggests that id it is personal inventory of family, culture and accomplishments that is important. He has it made.
I have a few more pictures of bad inventory.
Pictures – not so good inventory
Choosing to depend on the wrong inventory can be a real problem. For a store it can cost you a profit and leave your business in danger.
Paul does not say that his past, his family, his nationality or even his education were specifically bad. How ever he does see a problem in teaching that the personal inventory he happens to have is something that is required for a gentile to be welcomed into a relationship with Christ.
Basically, Paul sez – been there, had the surgery, got his diploma and position and he was not any closer to God than in any way that he could identify.
He was a rule keeper and not a spiritual person.
He shares what his personal inventory was worth, “But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things.”
He does not see any profit, any value in his personal inventory or accomplishments. He feels that he must separate himself from those things to move closer to Christ.
Let me try to clarify the point a little more.
If he or any of us think that we can claim a family PEDIGREE\nationality, or religious or spiritual accomplishments as having value compared to God’s standards and requirements we have made a mistake.
We have made a mistake of trusting in works. Trusting in a false religion which we can easily hear about when we turn on the TV and watch some of the Religious broadcasting or when we look in the religious section in the book store.
If we in any way believe that our experience and actions actually help save us we are mistaken because that belief is something that separates us from the absolute need for Jesus Christ.
Paul seems to claim that he has to actively discount his past experience and accomplishments. He has to count them as loss so they don’t become a false foothold in his relationship with Jesus Christ.
He keeps stressing the lack of importance by saying, “ I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.
He knows that His relationship with Christ Jesus is what nullifies not only his accomplishments but also his sin. So for the sake of the relationship he lost or abandoned all other earthly value and inventory.
The word translated as rubbish in NIV , or mere rubbish (refuse, dregs) Amplified, but dung KJV, or dirty disposable diapers TAB translation.
So according to Paul, anything someone does on our behalf, offerings , sacrifices, prayers, or anything we do for ourselves is u- reliable in being righteous before God.
It is an illusion that we are depending on, putting our faith in something other than Jesus Christ.
We are depending on dirty diapers to help us get to reach God.
The matter of the heart for us to consider this morning is who’s inventory, who’s actions, who’s works do you celebrate. As we celebrate our relationship with Christ we will respond with works on his behalf. We will talk to and bless people….not to be assured of salvation but because our joy of knowing him.
Paul finished our reading today by saying,
“I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.”
Paul finds profit , value, in knowing Christ and the power of his resurrection. He sees promise in becoming like Jesus in sufferings and death.
He adds that somehow he would also obtain resurrection form death….
I don’t think he is expressing doubt. I think he is speaking if a mystery that he cannot comprehend. But he is confident that he will experience.
The point for today is what are you depending on in your journey to the eternal?
- Is it that you have always been in church and your family has always been in church? - Is it connected to reading the bible and perhaps agreeing to serve the church in different ways?
Or is your faith in Jesus and God based on the actions of Christ and the knowledge that you have gained by knowing him in a personal way?
Your response to the relationship offers is very important. Your growing knowledge will lead you to respond to opportunities and needs in a supernatural way.
The most important idea this morning is that we must always be careful of how we add up our personal spiritual inventory. We cannot over value what we bring to the church or to our relationship with Jesus Christ.
In our culture, people we know are looking for an authentic source of spiritual information.
You and I should be a source that is different because we aren’t saying that our credentials or our spiritual accomplishments have value, but we know where and in whom value can be found.
Our joy is centered in the fact that it is not up to us to get right. We receive that as a gift that we can never earn. That kind of love is a real mystery. That kind of live when lived in and shared makes us different in this season of cultural problems and tangible losses.
With the power that your relationship with Christ provides you can be a source of truth and hope in a struggling and hurting world.
All Glory be to God!
