Ripping Up Your Spiritual Resume Series

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!”