Everything Else Is Garbage
Romans 8:5, Philippians 3:1-10, Exodus 22:31, 2 Kings 9:10, 31-37, Romans 10:9, John 14:6, Acts 4:12, 1 Corinthians 3:11, 1 Timothy 2:5, 1 John 5:11-12, Isaiah 64:6, Philippians 3:8b-9
Philippians 3:8-14, 2 Tim 4:7 - 8
June 26, 2004
I. Two weeks ago I started talking about the third chapter of Philippians, in verse one Paul tells us to rejoice in the Lord.
A. We are to rejoice in the Lord because we know that He loves us, we know that He has provided us with salvation, we know that He knows our problems and cares more about what we are dealing with than even we do.
B. As I said then, Paul is trying to get a point across in this chapter, and the point is that we are to put no confidence in the flesh.
C. The bible uses the word flesh to describe the basic weaknesses of the human nature. The word flesh is used to describe human beings tendency toward self-centeredness, and weakness, and sin.
1. The spirit of God lives in us when we’re Christians, but there is a sinful nature that is apart of being human, and the bible talks about that in terms of the flesh or our human weaknesses to decide, that what we want is best, or what looks easiest is best, or what we think will bring the most pleasure to us is the best way, and that is a lie.
2. Romans chapter 8 verse 5 gives us a good description of that. (Rom 8:5 NIV) Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.
D. What he is saying is we are not to trust our own human desires as gauge for what is right, because our human desires are many times in conflict with the leadership of the Spirit.
E. Paul moves on to more specific things about not putting confidence in the flesh in verses two through ten.
(Phil 3:1 - 10 NIV) 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. Watch out for those dogs, those men who do evil, those mutilators of the flesh. 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-- 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. 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. 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. 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,
F. Every time that I am not very tactful I let myself off the hook by remembering that Paul was a preacher too.
G. Paul was not a very tactful person. He starts this passage by calling those who were telling people that you had to be circumcised to be a Christian, dogs.
H. In the Jewish community a dog was the most lowly and despised creature around.
I. To call someone a dog was to show utter contempt for them.
(Exo 22:31 NIV) "You are to be my holy people. So do not eat the meat of an animal torn by wild beasts; throw it to the dogs.
J. Queen Jezebel in the Old Testament was one of the most wicked people we read about, and as God described the terrible things that would happen to her to let the people know how much he detested her actions, He said that dogs would eat her.
(2 Ki 9:10 NIV) As for Jezebel, dogs will devour her on the plot of ground at Jezreel, and no one will bury her.’"
1. And by the way, if God says it take it to the bank.
(2 Ki 9:31-37 NIV) As Jehu entered the gate, she asked, "Have you come in peace, Zimri, you murderer of your master?" He looked up at the window and called out, "Who is on my side? Who?" Two or three eunuchs looked down at him. "Throw her down!" Jehu said. So they threw her down, and some of her blood spattered the wall and the horses as they trampled her underfoot. Jehu went in and ate and drank. "Take care of that cursed woman," he said, "and bury her, for she was a king’s daughter." But when they went out to bury her, they found nothing except her skull, her feet and her hands. They went back and told Jehu, who said, "This is the word of the LORD that he spoke through his servant Elijah the Tishbite: On the plot of ground at Jezreel dogs will devour Jezebel’s flesh. Jezebel’s body will be like refuse on the ground in the plot at Jezreel, so that no one will be able to say, ’This is Jezebel.’"
2. Dogs were considered unclean animals, and contact with one would make you unable to enter the worship area in the temple.
3. In that time there were packs of wild dogs that ran wild in the streets living off of what garbage they could find, and attacking and killing people at times.
4. And, Paul called those people who were adding something to grace by faith alone, Dogs
K. Then Paul goes on, if calling them dogs were not enough, he also called them mutilators of the flesh.
1. These people that Paul was talking about were teaching that you had to be circumcised according to the Jewish law to be a Christian.
2. What was happening was people were teaching others to put their faith in something other than what Jesus did on the Cross.
3. The bible says that salvation comes by faith in Jesus and what he did and nothing else.
(Rom 10:9 NIV) That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
(John 14:6 NIV) Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
(Acts 4:12 NIV) Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved."
(1 Cor 3:11 NIV) For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.
4. To have faith means that we put our trust and our confidence in God whole heartedly, and to do that we can’t put our trust and our confidence in ourselves or any other thing to make us right with God.
(1 Tim 2:5 NIV) For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,
(1 John 5:11-12 NIV) And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.
5. Jesus is not a way to salvation, He is THE way to salvation, and there is no other way.
L. We are not to put our trust in anything other than Jesus to get us to heaven, our confidence is to be in Him and only in Him.
M. Our own abilities and our own righteousness won’t cut it.
(Isa 64:6 NIV) All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.
1. The literal translation of "filthy rags" in that verse would be "used menstrual cloths."
2. All of your good deeds amount to that. We can’t put confidence in our own abilities, we have to put our trust in God’s actions and ability to make us right with Him, by trusting what Jesus did on the Cross.
3. The point is that if we are trusting in Jesus and something else then we are not fully trusting in Jesus.
II. Now Paul goes on to show that if anybody had reason to believe that their own actions would give them reason to trust in the flesh it would be him.
A. He gives us a list of things that he could trust in if trusting in the flesh were good enough.
1. He was circumcised on the eighth day after he was born. People who were not born as Jews were not circumcised on the eighth day, they had to be circumcised later in life. So Paul is letting them know that he was born a member of God’s people.
2. Paul was also born into the tribe of Benjamin, which was the tribe of Israel that their first king came from, and a tribe that was given special honor. So not only was Paul born a true Jew, he was born into the right family.
3. He was a Hebrew of Hebrews his family had not adopted the Greek customs like some others. Hebrew was his first language, and he knew the customs of the Hebrew people even more than those who were saying that you had to be circumcised to be a Chrisitan.
4. Paul had also been a member of the most strict group of Jewish people the Pharisees, and he had been trained by one of the greatest leaders of that group, Gamaliel.
5. Paul also lets them know that at one time he had a greater zeal for the Jewish religion than all of them. He was a persecutor of the church before he came to realize that believing in Jesus was the only way to be right with God.
6. Paul even goes so far as to say that he had been faultless in his legalistic righteousness.
B. None of the people who were saying you had to be circumcised to be a Christian could list a list of credentials like Paul just listed. He had showed that he had done all the things that they said that someone had to do and more, but he goes on to show them that none of those things really mattered.
C. Paul says that all those things were nothing compared to Jesus. He even says that not only that, but everything else in life was nothing compared to knowing Jesus.
D. How many of us have that attitude. How many of you are so in love with Jesus, and feel so blessed at having the privilege of being a Christian through faith in what he did that you consider everything else in life nothing compared to it?
E. Paul wants us to know that we have been given something greater than we can accomplish by all our efforts, and that our relationship with God through Jesus should stand so far above everything else that we shouldn’t even be able to see the other things.
F. Paul says I have given up everything, because I want to focus my life on the one thing that really counts, and that is Jesus.
G. In case we have missed the point so far Paul tells us (Phil 3:8b-9 NIV) 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.
H. What Paul is telling us is that everything else in this world is nothing but garbage, when we put is beside what we have been given in Jesus.
1. All the things in this world that we struggle so hard to have, all the things that we mis-align our priorities to get, all the things that we allow to consume our time and energy to have, all the things that we let ourselves get focused on that take away from our appreciation of what we have been given in Jesus and our service to God are garbage!
2. Actually, the word that Paul uses for garbage has a dual meaning, it means garbage and dung.
3. So what Paul is telling us in his tactful way, is all those things that you put your priorities in other than Jesus, are manure, and you need to take a look at what is really important in life.
4. And he goes on to tell us what this really important in life in case we missed it.
(Phil 3:8 - 14 NIV) 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 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. 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 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
III. Paul tells us that gaining Christ, and being found in Him, not found in a righteousness that is our own, not in a righteousness that we can say we created, not in a righteousness that we can try to find a way to justify, not in a righteousness that comes from the law, but in and only in a righteousness that comes through faith in Jesus.
A. Jesus is the way to the Father and He is the only way to the Father and faith in Him and only Him is the only thing that will make us right with God.
B. But he goes on to tell us that having faith and being a Christian is not a reason to cop out on other things.
C. He says that we are to strive to know Jesus, not just believe in Him but to have a relationship with Him that allows us to KNOW Him.
D. The Greek word (gnonai) that Paul uses in those verses means "means to know by experience."
E. What Paul is saying is that the goal is to align ourselves with Jesus in our actions, and goals and priorities in such a way that we EXPERIENCE Him in our day to day lives.
F. That means that we are to live according to the ways that the bible says that we are to live, but not so that we can have salvation because that comes only through accepting Jesus and what He did on the Cross as the only way that we can be right with God, but that we are to live our lives the way God says that we are to live our lives, so that we can experience Jesus in our lives on a daily basis.
G. Paul goes on to say, Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
H. Paul says, I’m not perfect yet, but I aim at that goal. He is saying I work toward that goal, I have put the other things behind me because they are not important.
1. He says, I haven’t got it all right yet, but I have a focus, "One thing I do" He is saying if I don’t get it all right, there is one thing that I am going to do. I stay focused on the one thing that is really important.
2. He says, I’m not looking for petty excuses to try to justify my actions that aren’t right. I make my priority in life putting everything into doing what is necessary to know and experience Jesus in my life.
3. I make a priority in my life my service to God and my becoming like Him.
4. I am not hanging on to my past, and I am not letting my priorities be what they were before Jesus took hold of me.
5. Paul is saying, I realize what is really important in life and I am making that the priority above all else.
I. Paul goes on to use the illustration of a runner in a race to finish making his point.
1. Paul was probably talking about the Greek games, which we now know as the Olympics.
2. People who compete in the Olympics devote their lives to what they are doing.
3. What Paul is trying to tell us is that we are not to let other things distract us from our devotion to what is really important. Our relationship to God, our service to God, our knowing and experiencing Jesus in our lives has got to come before everything else.
4. There is nothing in this world that is more important than those things and we are to devote ourselves to those things above all else.
IV. We have been given a great gift by God, a gift that we could never have by our own efforts, and our own actions, but that is not an excuse to live how we want to live with no regard for what God says we are to do, and how we are to live.
A. We are to strive everyday to be more Christ like, to know Jesus, and to experience Jesus in our lives. We are to make Him our example, and devote ourselves to serving God in the way that he did.
B. We are to make God and our relationship and service to Him THE priority in life, because everything else is garbage, its manure, and it is not worthy of our devotion, only God is.
C. We are to push ourselves toward the prize that is worthy of our effort, and we are to be an example for others to follow.
In a recent NCAA cross-country championship held in Riverside, California, 123 of the 128 runners missed a turn. One competitor, Mike Delcavo, stayed on the 10,000 meter course and began waving for fellow runners to follow him. Delcavo was able to convince only four other runners to go with him. Asked what his competitors thought of his mid-race decision not to follow the crowd, Delcavo responded, "They thought it was funny that I went the right way." Delcavo was one who ran correctly.
D. In the same way, our goal is to run correctly; to finish the race marked out for us by Christ. We can rejoice over those who have courage to follow, ignoring the laughter of the crowd.
E. Our goal is to be the same one that Paul had, so that when we come to the end of our lives we can says what he said in (2 Tim 4:7 - 8 NIV) I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day--and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.
F. Put your relationship with God in its rightful place on your priority list, and make it the goal, because everything else is garbage.
