"To Do Or To Be"
7/28/95 Text Philip3:1-11 OT Prov. 2:1-8 Matthew 7:13-27
For the Christian, "to be or not to be", isn’t the question, but rather "to do or to be is" the issue that we face. More times than not we opt for doing rather than being. Many people don’t mind doing great things for God, but being what God wants them to be" is something altogether different. What you are doing, should never overshadow who you are.
In our New Testament reading, we saw how it’s possible to do great things, and still miss out on the will of God.
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? Is your hope for salvation grounded in what you do, or in who you are in Jesus Christ. Let’s look together in Philippians 3:1.
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." Paul is the writer of these words. "Rejoice in the Lord." You may say it’s easy to say that when things are going well for you, but you need something else because you’ve got struggles in your life.
Paul didn’t write this letter from some beautiful palace. He was chained in a dungeon in a damp prison. He had some difficult times facing him. People on the outside were trying to make sure his trial went for the worst. The people in the church at Phillipi were having trials and struggles in their own lives. Don’t forget, it was in Phillipi where Paul and Silas had both been severely beaten . So when Paul, wrote rejoice in the Lord, they knew these were more than words to put a smile on your face.
. 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. As Pastor Toby told us last week, it may be time for us to make an attitude correction adjustment.
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 in whatever situation that comes our way, 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. God doesn’t ask us to do good works to have his joy. He asks us to keep our hearts and minds focused on becoming what he wants us to become in our lives.
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. There is nothing outside of you that can keep you from becoming the person God wants you to be. Tell the person, next to you, you can make it if you want to make it. God’s obligated to complete the good work He began in you.
In the Phillipian church there were false teachers that sought only their own good. 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. When this letter was written, the Jews considered the dog to be the most despised, shameless and miserable of creatures." 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.
They were causing havoc in the church. 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 that the law had set up. This relationship thing with Jesus was of secondary importance. They were more interested in a person doing what they wanted them to do, instead of being what God called them to be.
When anyone makes knowing Jesus CHrist a secondary issue in being saved, that person is an evildoer. The Judaizers made the issue circumcision. Today we here a whole range of what once must do in order to be saved. There is one must speak in tongues, one must be baptized, one must tithe, one must just try to live a good life, one must just believe in God somewhere, one must join this particular church or one must do such and such and so on.
It is so easy and so tempting to want to be able to point to a number of things we do and don’t do in order to show that we are saved. But that’s not where its at. We can do all the right things, go to all the right places, and volunteer at all the right functions and be lost and spend eternity in hell. Our hope cannot be in doing, but rather in knowing who Jesus is and becoming what he intended for us to be.
A man can be the best volunteer, the most helpful person at the church, and the person everybody know they can depend on for help. But if that man is a husband, doing those things is not what God is seeking. God wants him to be a child of God. That means loving his wife and his children in a manner pleasing in God’s eyes, before trying to minister to the church and to the world. "God always wants us to be what we need to be at home first. But we’d rather impress the world with our good deeds. The world might be impressed, but God never is.
The Judaizers wanted to say, that the cutting of the skin was a key factor. Paul says no, the only cutting that truly matters is a cutting of our hearts. That’s what keeps us from building a relationship with Jesus Christ. The cutting of the heart is a lifelong process. We know that we are growing in our relationship to Christ, when we discover there is a lot more sin in our lives than we ever imagined before.
I’m not referring to any gross immoral behavior, but to the realization that the word I spoke was not pleasing in God’s sight, the priorities I have are not the ones that God has for me, the things I do, are doing nothing for the glory of God. Even the thoughts that we have, disappoint us because we know they disappointing God. Anyone growing in Christ, is constantly coming to the conclusion, God, I’m worse than I ever thought I was and I really need you to help me out.
Look at verse 3. Philippians 3:3 "For it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh--". The word is saying here, there are three marks of a Christian who is growing spiritually.
The first mark is, the person worships by the Spirit of God, which means the person is empowered by the Spirit and lives and serves through the Spirit of God. The person is recognizing, that if the Spirit of God is not present in my life, I’m not worshipping, I’m simply going through some motions.
You see worship is not something we come and do on Sunday morning. Worship is what we do between 1:00 Sunday afternoon and 9:30 11:00 the following Sunday week. During that other two hour period, we are equipping ourselves with knowledge to make our worship more effective, and we are being renewed and empowered to take our worship beyond the problems and difficulties that we face.
The Bible says to present ourselves as living sacrifices, for this is our reasonable worship. There’s not enough time to make sacrifices for God during an hour or 2 hour service. That’s why we’re required to do it each day of the week. The next time you feel anger coming on, you’ll be in the position to worship, for you can sacrifice that anger to God, simply by making an attitude adjustment.
The second mark of a Christian growing spiritually is that the person glories in Christ Jesus. Jesus’s death on the cross alone is the person’s only ground for salvation, and he or she does not boasts of personal goodness or works. Christ receives the glory for any good that is done, and whatever is done, is always done to lift up the name of Jesus Christ. One’s own preference is secondary, to what will have the greatest impact for Jesus Christ. Are our works done to glorify Christ or to please ourselves?
The third mark of Christian growing spiritually in Christ is that he or she puts no confidence in the flesh. The flesh, means our own abilities and achievements. It covers who we are, what we have and where we come from. Sometimes we think we’re somebody because we have the things that the world considers important.
Paul says in verse 4, "If anybody had a reason to think they were somebody big in the eyes of God and of others, I had the best reasons of all." Paul had more going for him, than most people ever would have, especially some of the Judaizers who thought they were somebody.
He starts in verse 5, First of all I was circumcised on the eighth day. In other words I was a child of the covenant promise that God had made, and I was circumcised on the exact day that the word of God said to do it. Next, I was of the people of Israel. In other words, I was born of the right people. I wasn’t an alien or foreigner who came and converted to Judaism. I have been what I am all m+y life.
Not only that, I came from the tribe of Benjamin. In other words, I’m from the tribe that God chose the first king of Israel from. Benjamin was one of the most powerful tribes and at one time it took on all the 11 other tribes at once and won two major battles before losing. It was also the only tribe that remained faithful with Judah, from which the Messiah came.
He says he was a Hebrew of Hebrews. Both of his parents were Jews, he spoke the Jewish language, practiced the Jewish customs, and carried out the Jewish manner of life. He says in regard to the law a Pharisee. Pharisees were the most educated of the educated. Paul had his academic degrees. Not only that, the Pharisees had the strictest and most difficult rules to follow. There were held in high esteem by the people. When you said your Son was a Pharisee, you had said something to be super proud of.
He says "as for zeal, persecuting the church." Paul hunted down and voted to have Christians executed, not because he hated people, but because he loved the word of God. He thought these Christians were perverting the word of God in claiming Jesus to be the Messiah. He went out of his way to make sure the Jews remained steadfast to the word of God.
He says as for "legalistic righteousness, faultless." Paul paid his tithes and all the special offerings without complaining , he helped the orphans and the widows, he was present at the temple, he was faithful in his tasks, he kept the law and nobody could go and say, aha, you’re not doing this. The man had more good works by himself than we probably have as a church.
If he wanted to have put confidence in his ability to make it into heaven on his own he had what it took to try it. He had religion, race, descent, education, high moral values, and blameless outward righteousness. But my friends when Paul discovered the reality of a relationship with Jesus was possible, his assessment of the value of these things in his life underwent a radical change.
Look at verse 7 "But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ." Paul is saying, all these things that I thought were so important in life, and these things that I thought gave me an advantage with God not only do I consider them a loss, I realize now that they were actually a danger.
Paul is not saying, that I’m giving up these things to follow Jesus. He’s saying, these things would have sent me to hell, had it not been for Jesus. They allowed him to be content with just doing things, rather than being what God demanded of me on the inside.
My friends, there is nothing in our lives that is a plus, that we give up to follow Jesus. When people say, I gave up my career to follow Jesus, or I gave up a good job to follow Jesus, or I gave up my fiancee to follow Jesus, they do not understand what Jesus offers When we hold on to something instead of letting it go and following Jesus, the truth is, we are not holding on to anything. That thing has seized control of us and has become our god. If we cling to it, we ultimately will allow it to take us to a place far hotter than it is today.
Paul takes it a step further in verse 8. Philippians 3:8
"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. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ." Notice it wasn’t just when Paul got saved that he considered everything a loss. It became a lasting attitude or way of life. Nothing was excluded. Anything that hindered him in developing and maintaining a relationship with Jesus Christ was considered a loss and a minus factor in his life.
Some of the things that we once considered a blessing, have now become a loss in our lives, because they now keep us from developing a relationship with Christ. I hate it when I see Christians who are not real strong in their faith, start jobs that work on Sunday. One by one, they drop out of the church and out of their relationship to Jesus Christ. The devil tells them, you can still be a Christian and not go to church and to bible study.
Keep in mind that losses are not bad things in themselves. You can be spending time doing good things, even church things, but if they rob us from spending time in developing our relationship with Jesus Christ, those things are losses. Even people in our lives can become losses, once we allow them to keep us from becoming what Jesus intends us to be.
Jesus does not call us to do things. He calls us to come to Him, that we might become more like Him. Good works do not save us, nor do they change us. But building our relationship with Jesus Christ causes both processes to take place.
Paul says nothing compares to knowing Jesus Christ as his Lord. Jesus is someone personal to Paul and Jesus wants to be someone personal to each of us. When Paul became a Christian, he loss the esteem of his colleagues, he was no longer the ideal role model, and he was no longer among the privileged few of society. But he says, as far as all that stuff is concerned, I consider them to be rubbish, worthless, and undesirable in order that I might gain Christ.
Paul is saying, if I had to chose between having nothing and having Christ or having everything without Christ, I would gladly choose to have nothing with Christ. Paul’s goal for his life begins in verse 9. "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."
Paul does not trust in a righteousness of his own from doing good works, because he knows there are no good works apart from Jesus Christ. The righteousness he thought he had, was not righteousness at all. The only righteousness that exist anywhere, is that which we receive by faith in Christ realizing that it comes from God. This is why anyone who knows Jesus Christ, can never look down upon anyone else, because we know that we are what we are because of God’s grace and God’s mercy.
Jesus is not looking at how many good works, and good things we are doing.. Are you determined to build on ongoing relationship with Jesus Christ, or do you think just doing good works every now and then will get you in? Don’t let your good works, be the loss that cause you to lose out on knowing Jesus Christ Being in a relationship with Jesus Christ is a much more enjoyable lifestyle, than attempting to do a bunch of good things for God..
