Technicolor Joy: Philippians 3:4-11
Pastor Jefferson M. Williams
Chenoa Baptist Church
08-06-2023
Pick Me
Several years ago, I was on a team charged with finding our next worship/arts pastor. We put together a new job description and then sent out an ad and eventually received over 300 resumes!
I would take 50 resumes at a time and go to a little coffee shop in downtown Pontiac and read them through carefully. I divided them into three piles.
First, there were the resumes that didn’t have the necessary education and experience. There were a lot of those. We even had a resume from Africa and the pastor said he didn’t even want a salary, just a green card.
In the second pile were resumes that met the requirements. They were good but not great.
In the third pile were resumes that had everything we wanted and a little extra something that made them stand out.
As I read through each resume, it was as if each candidate was saying, “Pick me. I’m good enough.”
This morning, we are going to look at Paul’s spiritual resume and watch as he rips it up right before our eyes!
Turn to Philippians 3.
Prayer.
Review
"Further, my brothers and sisters, 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. Watch out for those dogs, those evildoers, those mutilators of the flesh. For it is we who are the circumcision, we who serve God by his Spirit, who boast in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh…” (3:1-3)
Paul begins chapter three with a command and a warning.
And what does Paul command? He commands the Philippians to rejoice in the Lord! The verb tense means to go on constantly rejoicing. And it’s plural.
Billy Sunday, the early 20th-century baseball star turned evangelist, said,
“The trouble with most men is that they have just enough religion to make them miserable. If there is no joy in your Christianity, you might have a leak!”
Paul tells them that he never gets tired of telling them about joy! It’s easy, not a burden, to remind them of what he told them when he was there in person.
Paul says that this joy will be a safeguard for them. This word means “protection against tripping or stumbling, leading to great injury.”
Nehemiah 8:10 tells us: “the joy of the Lord is your strength.”
Paul knew there were false teachers that could steal their joy. That’s why he then gives them a warning against the false teachers, which he calls dogs, evildoers, and mutilators of the flesh.
Paul is saying that if you make circumcision a prerequisite for salvation then you are no different than the pagan priests who cut themselves as they danced around their altars.
To them - Jesus + Circumcision = Everything.
To Paul - Jesus + Nothing = Joy!
Only the Spirit of God can circumcise your heart. This is a heart that has been captured by grace. The things that take the heart away from God are cut away and our heart of stone is replaced with a heart of flesh. (Eek 36:26)
Paul then lists three defining features of someone whose heart has been circumcised, or born again:
serve/worship by the Spirit
Boast only in Christ
Put no confidence in the flesh
When Paul uses the word flesh he is not meaning your skin. In this context, he is meaning your ability to save yourself.
You cannot hop high enough for God’s holiness. You cannot be good enough to get into heaven.
But we are going to see today that Saul of Tarsus really thought, at one point, he could be good enough.
I’d encourage you to go back and watch last week’s sermon on FaceBook, YouTube, Twitter, or our website.
Paul tears up his religious resume
“…though I myself have reasons for such confidence. If someone else thinks they have 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 righteousness based on the law, faultless.” (v. 4-6)
The Judiazers were teaching the believers at Philippi that trusting Christ was great but that was just the beginning. They not only needed to place their faith and trust in Christ but also follow the Jewish rules and customs, especially circumcision.
Paul engages in a little bit of spiritual trash talk.
A man survived the Johnstown Flood and went on to write a book and give lectures about his experience.
When he died, he asked Peter if he could share his story with everyone about surviving the Johnstown Flood.
Peter said, “Sure, but remember that Noah will be in the audience!”
Basically, he says, “You think that you guys are spiritual superstars? You ain’t seen nothing like me!”
He lists seven parts of his spiritual resume, four that he inherited and three that he achieved.
circumcised on the eight-day
This literally reads, “an eight-dayer.” Paul wasn’t a proselyte, which means he didn’t convert to Judaism. He wasn’t an Ishmaelite, which was required to be circumcised at 13 years old.
His parents had followed the Jewish requirement of circumcision in the correct way and within the correct time frame.
Some people think that because they were baptized as an infant, or christened, or went through confirmation, or any other ritual they are good enough to get into heaven.
of the people of Israel
Paul was born to the people of promise. He believed that simply being born Jewish secured him a place in heaven.
Your ethnicity can not save you. There are people who think that since they are Americans they are Christians.
of the tribe of Benjamin
Benjamin was one of two children born to Jacob’s favorite wife, Rachel. (The other being Joseph). They were the tribe that was loyal to the David throne, the land where Jerusalem is located, and gave Israel their first king Saul.
A lot of Jewish people had intermarried with other nationalities and couldn’t trace their ancestry back to a specific tribe, but not Paul.
Just because your parents or grandparents were Christians, doesn’t make you one.
A Hebrew of Hebrews
Paul was a true, blue Jewish man. He grew up in Tarsus and many of his Jewish friends spoke Greek and couldn’t speak Aramaic. They had adopted a Greco-Roman worldview.
Paul could speak Greek as well but he was trained in Hebrew and Aramaic so he could read the Hebrew Scriptures.
By the age of his Bar Mitzvah at thirteen, Paul would have memorized large portions of the Old Testament.
Your pedigree won’t get you into heaven.
In regards to the law, a Pharisee
There were many sects of Judaism. The Sadducees were a liberal group that denied the bodily resurrection and the existence of angels.
The Zealots were a radical group that wanted to overthrow the Roman occupation.
And then there were the Pharisees, the separated ones, that were the most conservative group. They tried to follow the Law to the letter and wanted others to do the same. They were a small group, only about 6,000, but they were powerful spiritual examples to the Jewish people. If anyone thought they were good enough to get into heaven, it was the Pharisees.
Paul’s father was a Pharisee. It was in his blood. He studied under Gamaliel, the most famous rabbi of the day. Paul was his star student.
If you ask people how one gets to heaven, most will say that your good deeds have to outweigh your bad deeds and then give you a list of rules that you have to follow.
But Christianity is not about rule-keeping, but about a relationship with Jesus.
as for zeal, persecuting the church
Paul told the Galatians:
“For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers.” (Gal 1:13-14)
Paul saw the little Jesus sect, known as The Way, as a heretical enemy of true Judaism.
We first meet Paul as he stands collecting the coats of the men who would stone Stephen to death. (Acts 7:58)
Paul was breathing out murderous threats against the believers and even traveled to other towns to round up the Jesus heretics. (Acts 9:1)
He told Timothy that he was a “persecutor and a violent man.” (I Tim 1:13)
There’s a feeling in our culture that it doesn’t matter what you believe, as long as you are sincere. The problem is that you can be sincerely wrong. Paul learned that the hard way.
as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.
Paul is not saying that he was sinless. He is saying that if you examined his outward life, you wouldn’t be able to find fault in him.
This is Paul’s spiritual resume. It is the top of the stack, the cream of the crop, and can’t touch this resume of resumes.
He presents this to the Judaizers to show them that if anyone thinks they are good enough to get into heaven, he beats them on every count.
Yet, what Paul does next is mind-blowing - he rips up his spiritual resume!
Before we get to those verses, we need to look at one word.
Paul meets Jesus
“But…”.
This is one of the most important “buts” in the entire Bible. Thirty years before he wrote this letter something happened to him that changed him from the inside out.
On the road to the city of Damascus, he had an encounter with the risen Christ.
“…suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”
“Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked.
“I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied. “Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.” (Acts 9:3-5)
He was blinded by the light and wandered into Damascus with the help of his companions. A Christian named Ananias was directed by God to go and pray for Saul and when he did:
“Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again. He got up and was baptized, and after taking some food, he regained his strength.” (Acts 9:18-19)
The persecutor had become the preacher! His heart was dramatically changed and he saw his spiritual ledger sheet in an entirely different way.
Learning to Count
“…whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ…” (v. 7-8)
Paul is using the word picture of a ledger sheet that accountants would use. On one side are gains and the other column includes losses.
Paul looks at his spiritual resume, all the things he thought made him good enough for heaven and he realized that he is spiritually bankrupt! None of those things - the right birth, the right nationality, the right upbringing, the right parents, the right standard, the right passion, the right morality, gets him any closer to heaven.
In a shocking twist, he moves them all of the loss column. Notice the word gains is plural and the word loss is singular. What remains in the gains column? Only one thing - Jesus!
This is past tense. But thirty years later, he reevaluates this decision. Someone might wonder if he still thinks that decision was worth it.
He then writes nearly the same thing again, except this sentence is in the present. He doesn’t regret his conversion at all.
Everything can be moved to the loss column because the only thing that is worthy of the gains column is the “surpassing worth of knowing Christ.”
Jesus told two quick parables to help us understand this:
“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.
“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.” (Matt 13:43-44)
Paul wrote that he had lost all things but had found the ultimate treasure. Notice he writes, “Christ Jesus my Lord.” This is not just head knowledge but heart knowledge. It’s personal and experiential.
What had he lost? His family was most likely wealthy and he was on track to be a tenured rabbi in the best school in Jerusalem. He could have written books, had a podcast, and spoken at conferences.
Instead, he was basically homeless, living off the money he made from tent making. Instead of living a comfortable life, he experienced a life of struggle, pain, and constant opposition. ?
He wrote to the Christians at Corinth:
“I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. Five times I received from the Jews forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false believers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches. (2 Cor 11:23-28)
And yet, he looks at the things he used to be so proud of and calls it “scubula.” This word can mean garbage but it can also mean poop. He says those things are like garbage scraps that you would throw to the wild dogs, or like dog poop that you get on your shoes, or like the smell of a day-old dirty diaper.
I love the way that Eugene Peterson paraphrases these verses:
“The very credentials these people are waving around as something special, I’m tearing up and throwing out with the trash—along with everything else I used to take credit for. And why? Because of Christ. Yes, all the things I once thought were so important are gone from my life. Compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as my Master, firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant—dog dung. I’ve dumped it all in the trash so that I could embrace Christ and be embraced by him.” (Phil 3:7-8, The Message)
Knowing 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 on the basis of faith. I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his
sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.” (v. 9-11)
Paul’s greatest desire is to know Christ. Is that your greatest desire?
87 times in the Bible the believer is said to be “in Christ.”
Paul wrote:
“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Gal 2:20)
Paul is no longer depending on his good works, his righteousness because he now knows that his righteousness is nothing but filthy rags. (Isaiah 64:6)
In 1912, a French tailor, Franz Reichelt, climbed 200 feet up the Eiffel Tower. He was going to prove the parachute worked. His friends begged him to use a dummy first to see what happens. But Franz wouldn’t be deterred. He put his trust in the parachute to carry him down softly and gently.
Instead, he fell like a rock and died of a heart attack before he even hit the ground.
What he had placed his faith in, let him down.
We can not be good enough to get into heaven because we must be righteous to be in the presence of God. We need a righteousness that is outside of ourselves.
“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Cor 5:21)
Jesus died on the cross, in our place, to pay the penalty for our sins. His righteousness was imputed to our account. In other words, He took the test that we failed, made a perfect score, and that score was applied to the top of our paper.
This is what theologians call justification. When God looks at us as Christians, it’s just as if we never sinned. He doesn’t see your sins and shame, He sees his Son’s righteousness covering you and me.
And this is a gift from God through our faith, and our trusting in Him.
Paul proclaims that he wants to know Christ.
I’m currently reading Robert Ballard’s book, Into the Deep, about his life and discoveries under the water, including finding Titanic in 1985.
One of the things that drives him is that only about 20% of the ocean floor has been mapped. There’s just so much more to explore.
Do you feel this way about Jesus? There’s just so much more to learn.
I know a lot about Barry Manilow. If I went to his house in Palm Springs and rang the gate asking to see Barry, they would call the cops on me. Why? Because I might know a lot about Barry, we do not have a personal relationship.
That might describe you perfectly. You know about Jesus, but you don’t actually have a relationship with Him.
Jesus said that there would be people who thought they knew Him but, at the end of time, He will turn them away saying, “I never knew you.” That doesn’t mean Jesus doesn’t know who you are. It means that you never responded by faith to the invitation to be in a personal relationship with Him.
Right now, people are flocking to a zoo in China to see a sun bear. He stands up on his hind legs and waves. Many people are convinced that it’s not a bear but a man in a bear suit.
You might have looked and acted like a Christian, but iGod knows your heart.
Paul wants to know the power of the resurrection. The power that raised Christ from the dead is the same power that can give us the strength to say no to sin, to be bold in our witness, to love our families unconditionally, and to live our faith in a lost and dying world.
Paul begins his letter to the Ephesians believers with a prayer asking for that power to be shown in their lives:
"I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.” (Eph 1:17-21)
He not only wants to know Jesus’ resurrection power but also the fellowship of his sufferings.
I came across this quote from the late Tim Keller this week:
“The basic premise of religion– that if you live a good life, things will go well for you– is wrong. Jesus was the most morally upright person who ever lived, yet He had a life filled with the experience of poverty, rejection, injustice, and even torture.”
Jesus told His disciples that they must lose their lives to find true life. (Luke 9:23)
Paul wrote to Timothy at the end of his life:
“In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted…” ( 2 Tim 3:12)
These sufferings have a sanctifying effect - they help us to know Christ more and follow Him better:
"These [trials] have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.” (I Peter 1:7)
Several of the leaders attended the Global Leadership Summit Thursday and Friday. Over 100,000 leaders from all over the world were part of this event.
Albert Tate, a pastor, and author, was speaking about beginning his journey with a coach. On their first phone call, she mentioned that she was starting chemo for the second time.
This is what she told Albert:
“At first, I was complaining a lot and God convicted me that I needed to do less complaining and more surrendering. I wake every day, with its pain and discouragement, and pockets of joy, and say, thank you God for the manna that you have provided for me today.”
Paul ends this section by saying that his desire to, somehow, attain the resurrection of the dead. He is not uncertain about this, he just doesn’t know exactly how it will happen.
He is speaking of glorification - when we will experience Christ in all his fullness and when our bodies will be gloriously made new and rejoined with our souls.
“The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.” (Rom 8:16-17)
Joni Erikson Tada was paralyzed in a diving accident at 17 and is a world-known author, speaker, painter, and leader of a nonprofit called Joni and Friends.
I saw her speak and she said, “ There will be a day with these legs will work and I will run with freedom and joy. And I will use those legs to run to Jesus and fall at His feet and say thank you for the wheelchair! Without the wheelchair I would have never known you, loved You, and served you like I did!”
Martin Lloyd Jones graduated first in his medical class. He was the best and the brightest. He was hand-picked to be an assistant to Lord Horder, who was the royal physician.
He was discouraged by the royals and high society individuals he interacted with day to day, their shallowness, their sin, and their need for Christ.
At age 27, he was asked to be the pastor of a small church in a very poor area of England.
Martin spent the next 29 years preaching the Gospel.
He gave up fame and fortune to preach Christ among the poor and the prostitutes.
When asked if he regretted giving up his medical career to be a pastor he replied,
“I gave up nothing…I received everything. I count it the happiest honor that God can confer on any man to call him to be a herald of the Gospel.”
Communion
"For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures…” (I Cor 15:3)
J.I Packer wrote:
“Once you become aware that the main business that you are here for is to know God, most of life will fall into place.”
This is what communion is all about. Is Jesus your treasure?
Martin Lloyd Jones wrote:
"I am not asking whether you know things about Him but do you know God, are you enjoying God, is God the centre of your life, the soul of your being, the source of your greatest joy? He is meant to be."
After communion, you will end the service by singing “Knowing You.”
All I once held dear, built my life upon
All this world reveres and wants to own
All I once thought gain, I have counted loss
Spent and worthless now, compared to this
Knowing You, Jesus, knowing You
There is no greater thing
You're my all, You're the best
You're my joy, my righteousness
And I love You, Lord
Now my heart's desire is to know You more
To be found in You and known as Yours
To possess by faith what I could not earn
All-surpassing gift of righteousness
Knowing You, Jesus, knowing You
There is no greater thing
You're my all, You're the best
You're my joy, my righteousness
And I love You, Lord
Oh to know the power of Your risen life
And to know You in Your sufferings
To become like You in Your death, my Lord
So with You to live and never die
