Philippians: The Key to Joy 10
Three Commands:
1) Rejoice in the Lord (v. 1)
2) Beware of the dogs, evil workers, false circumcision (v.2)
3) Live as the true circumcision (v. 3-6)
Acts Chapter 9 please. I'm going to start at verse one. It is the passage in which a man named Saul of Tarsus encountered Jesus Christ and eventually became the Apostle Paul. Because of this one event right here, Acts Chapter 9, verse one. “Now Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked for letters from him to the synagogue at Damascus. So that if he found any belonging to the way, and that's what the Christian Church was called the way. (the brand new church was called the Way the people followed the way. Jesus said, “I am the way, the
truth and the life.” In fact, Steve's book is called The Way and it's just a wonderful discussion of that question of what it means for us to follow the way.
So he said, “If I find anybody who is following the way. He went to the synagogue in Damascus. He found anyone belonging to the way, both men and women. He might bring them bound to Jerusalem. As he was traveling, it happened that he was approaching Damascus. And suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him, and he fell to the ground, and he heard a voice saying. “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me”? And he said, Who are you, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. Get up and enter the city, and it will be told you what you must do. And the men traveling with him stood speechless, hearing the voice, but not seeing anyone. Saul got up from the ground, and though his eyes were open, he could see nothing.
And leading him by the hand, they brought him into Damascus, and he was there three days without sight, and neither ate nor drank. Then, of course, the disciple came to him, explained to him about Christ, and he put his faith in Christ”.
Then over to our passage for today, Philippians 3:1-11, starting at verse one.
Paul says, “Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same thing to you again is no trouble to me. It is a safeguard for you. Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of the false circumcision, for we are the true circumcision who worship in the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh, although I myself might have confidence even
in the flesh if anyone else had a mind to put confidence in the flesh. I far more circumcised the 8th day of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, as to the law of Pharisee, as to Zeal, a persecutor of the Church, as to the righteousness which is found in the law found blameless. But whatever things were gaining to me, these things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be lost in view of the surpassing value. Of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish, so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ. The righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings
being conformed to his death. In order that I might attain to the resurrection.
From the dead.”
Let me pray for us please, friends.
We bless you, Father, for this good day and for this good book and for this great chance we have to think about it. Thank you to this good nation you have given to us. Thank you for celebrating our 249th birthday. Let us be people who are both grateful and also catalysts for the name of Christ in this culture. Thank you for the freedom we have in this nation. Thank you especially for the freedom we have in Christ. We're so thankful for your goodness to us. And we pray that you would mold us more and more and more to look like your son. Pray for Travis and Trea as they are packing, attempting
to sell their house, shipped one of their daughters off to a conference. Just a lot going on in their lives. Would you, would you generously give them courage and encouragement? Bring them safely here to us. And we just remain deeply grateful for them. We do pray for safety for our body of believers. For all the body believers in this town, we're so thankful for Christ and for your forgiveness to us. And do we entrust ourselves to you? We pray you would teach us by your Spirit. We need your help in this. We ask it in Christ's name, Amen.
My best friend in life told me a story that he took his boy to the swimming pool. The boy was about four years old and he swam for a little while and then he went to the picnic table and he just stayed there. And my friend is wondering what's going on. My boy loves swimming. And he went over to his boy and said, hey, don't you want to swim? He said, “Dad. There is free gum underneath this table. And he had discovered an endless supply of free gum.”
Some of you are cringing. Why would that be? Why would that be? It’s free. There's an endless supply. I mean, when you're done with this table, there's more tables. And what's not to like?
Well, I told you that very cringeworthy story because if you're thinking you have something that's pleasing to God that you can offer to Him for your own forgiveness, you're basically bringing him preachhood gum.
That's how God feels about it. It's worthless, it's repulsive. God has no interest in our religion, in our accomplishment, in our performance, in our self gained righteousness. In this passage, the one I read to you from Acts and the one that I read to you from Philippians are both about this issue of a person
who came to understand that what he had to offer to God was not only worthless, it was repulsive.
Amazing story of what happened to this man. So in Acts Chapter 9 there's a man named Saul. He's from Tarsus. He is a Jew. He was raised in a city in what's today modern Turkey, in the southern part of Turkey. He was a severely Jewish man. He climbed the ladder to the pinnacle of Judaism. He was a Pharisee. He was at the peak of personal merit. He had it all in the Jewish system. But he had a life changing encounter with Jesus Christ. And in a nanosecond, he gave up what he had been working on for decades. Just threw it away and threw it away gladly. It was a very, very stark change for this man.
And so he comes in Philippians 3 to explain to us what happened to him in Acts Chapter 9. He traded in his used gum for gold, traded in his Phariseeism for faith, traded in his righteousness from the law for the righteousness that gets accredited to you, to me, and to Paul. When you put our trust in Christ, traded it all in in a nanosecond and he wants to explain that to us in this paragraph. So he begins with this. He's going to give to us an explanation of the
transformation starting with three different commands that he gives us.
1) Rejoice in the Lord (v.1)
The verb literally means keep on rejoicing, rejoice today, tomorrow, the
next day, keep it up. And the message of the Bible is that joy is a choice, because we are told many times in the New Testament, rejoice. Rejoice in the Lord and it is a choice that we have. We can do it. It's not an emotional thing that we have no power to deal with. And so I can be a joyful person, even if life is not going well, even if I'm not young and handsome and rich and famous and well known, I can rejoice. I don't need those things to rejoice. What I need is faith in Christ. And heart connection with everything he's done for me if I have those two things.
I can be a person who rejoices in crazy ways. Henri now and said joy does not simply happen to us. We must choose joy and keep choosing joy every day. When I know the blessing of being in Christ and when I know what's coming, then I have that option every day.
2) Beware of the dogs, the evil workers and the false circumcision. (v.2)
He says beware here 3 groups of people to look out for it. When your mom says to you make your bed, make your bed, make your bed. What does
Mom mean? Make your bed and preferably right now!
So Paul says three times, I want you to beware. Keep your spiritual head on a swivel. You've got to pay attention. You have to have spiritual situational
awareness. Here's the first group of people to look out for. Look out for the dogs. Every time the word dog is used in the Bible, it is a derogatory term. Dogs in the ancient Near East were not pets. They were not. They were not a little frou frou animal for which you bought special food and took to the vet, et cetera, et cetera.
They were scroungers. They ate any filthy thing they could find. They were dangerous. They would bite you if they had a chance. Dogs are different in the New Testament than they are now. And so Paul says beware of the dogs. And he is talking about people, in terms of derision, people who instead of sitting at the banquet table of the word of God or eating junk off the ground like Pagan theology.
Like Judaism, adding Jewish faith to your faith in Christ. People who are eating junk, like speculation, like things I believe in my own mind, people who are scroungers, he said. Beware of those kinds of people. Secondly, beware of the evil workers. People who practice evil, who are bent on evil, have no conscience about evil. There's no way to soft pedal it. There are people in the world. Who are just flatly evil.
Beware, pay attention, stay away from them. And the third one is perhaps the most interesting. He says beware of the false circumcision. So in my Bible, in verse 2, there's a word translated circumcision, and in verse 3, there's a word translated circumcision, but there are two different words.
The first word is not actually the word commonly used for circumcision. It's a word that literally means mutilation. Beware of the false mutilation. And what Paul is saying is one of two things he's saying
a. Worship in the Spirit of God (not in personal effort)
Beware of the Christians who say you have to add Jewish rights, circumcision, et cetera, to your faith or you will not be saved. Because if you trust Christ and you think I have to add circumcision to that, you're actually only mutilating yourself. There's no benefit to it. Or perhaps he's saying beware of the pagans who worship their gods. By taking a stone or a knife and cutting themselves. Remember the prophets of Baal, they were trying to get the fire to come down and lick up the sacrifice. And they're cutting themselves and they're in great pain and they're screaming and they're bleeding. And they think that somehow this blood coming out of them is a sacrifice to their God and somehow they're being helped. And Paul is just saying those two things are not, they're not spiritually helpful. They're mutilation.
God says to us for a delight in loyalty rather than sacrifice and in the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. I would rather you were loyal to me. I would rather your heart was connected with me than that you were going out doing all of these kinds of things.
3)Live as the true circumcision (v.3-6)
His third command is this, verses 345 and six, live as the true circumcision, live as a person who, as the Bible says, is circumcised in your heart
and who is seeking loving Christ, promoting Christ, proclaiming Christ, pursuing Christ. Both Jeremiah 3:1 and Colossians 2 talk about this fact that when I have a heart for God, when I'm connected by faith, God circumcises my heart. Circumcision of the flesh was the old covenant sign that you were in the family. But the new covenant messages my heart is the one that gets adjusted so that I have this mark in my heart that shows I'm following.
In Christ, and here's how you do that. Here's how you live as true circumcision
a) Worship in the Spirit of God and not in personal effort. You and I are people who say Holy Spirit of God, help my spirit to respond to God who is Spirit.
Jesus said the Father is looking for people who worship Him in spirit and in truth, who have a heart connection with Him and who worship Him as He really exists. Not as we want Him to exist, but as He actually does exist. And that is a massive issue in our culture. We want God to exist in a certain way, but He exists in the way that He revealed He exists. He doesn't exist as I want Him to be.
Decades ago, I went to observe a worship service. In a cave under the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. And it's a church and a cave that's shared by 4 different Christian religions. There was some religion in there that night, some sort of an Orthodox religion, and they're having a worship service. And so there were candles, there was incense, there were 2 priests, there was antiphonal reading, and there was about 30 people watching, nobody really worshiping. It was all tourists. And these two priests were taking turns with the reading. With the stuff and the candles and this and that. But in between the antiphonal readings, they were having a vicious personal argument. And so they would say just a rote memory that's coming out of their minds. And with your spirit. It was just fascinating. It was the most depressing piece of natural multitasking you can imagine. They were going after it. We sat there for 1/2 an hour while they did the entire service.
While they were chewing each other out. That is not worshipping from the heart. Obviously, thank you Dave for pointing that out. God wants my
heart, not my habits. God wants my heart and all my habits. He wants my faith, not my rituals. They're different things.
b)The second way that I'm a person who lives in the true circumcision is that I glory in Christ Jesus and not in personal merit. I changed myself to a focus on the glory of Christ, the perfection of Christ and what He's done for me, and I abandoned my personal merit.
Here's the mission statement of FCBC. We exist to glorify God by pointing the affections of all peoples to the all satisfying person of Jesus Christ. It's what we're about. We, like Paul said, it's about Jesus. Who else besides Jesus can forgive your sin? Or take you to heaven, or give you what you need for life and godliness or help you in any way. Who else can do that besides Jesus? Nobody.
That's why the focus has to be on him. And the question becomes, why do we toy around with lesser things? It's nonsense. Why do we do that?
c) Thirdly, he says put no confidence in the flesh. Put all your confidence in Christ and put it in him crucified. So this is the example of a person who had confidence in a religious system but he abandoned it. And he put it all in Christ. The guy telling us to do this is the guy who did that. And we have an innate sense that I'm not right with God, an innate sense that I need to do something to fix this. So we choose a system and we work on it. Paul had chosen Judaism, but option A is just to put your trust in your personal system of religion. So some of your options would be Hinduism, Islam, Animism,
Mormonism, pantheism, Catholicism, Judaism. Lutheranism, Methodism, Presbyterianism. Just pick a system. Pick a system and say, if I do everything that I'm told to do by this system, surely I will be right with God. I will throw myself into it. Paul threw himself into Judaism. I threw myself into Lutheranism. I did it all.
My name is not in the Bible, but I was working as hard at Lutheranism as Paul was working at Judaism. I once saw a woman in India, probably 85 years old, a Hindu woman, who had a huge prayer wheel. And they think that if they turn
the wheel, they're sending prayers up to God. She's so decrepit she can't walk, but she can lean on the rail, on the prayer wheel, and she's going round and around and around and it's just depressing to watch, throwing herself at 85 years of age into a system to make God happy with her.
Now, friends, I'm not telling you that every Lutheran is not a Christian. I know a lot of them. I'm not telling you that every Catholic is not a Christian. I'm telling you that if you're thinking about walking up to God and his says why should I forgive you, say I'm a good Lutheran, I'm a good Catholic, I'm a good Methodist, I'm a good Presbyterian.
He's going to say wow. Why didn't I sacrifice my boy? What was I thinking? You could have done that. You could have done this. I didn't have to have my boys spill his blood.
The question for Paul, the question for us is what am I trusting in? And Paul rejected his system that he was trusting in, and he exchanged it for the work of Jesus Christ. He exchanged it for what Jesus did on the cross.
The imitation of all of us is to understand the message that I have a sin problem. It separates me from God. I could not be further away from him. I am hopeless, I am helpless. There's nothing for me to do and seeing me in that state, God sends his boy. In fact, he decided to send him before the foundation of the world to die for our sins, pay for our sins on the cross, spill out his precious blood, gave up his life covered in the sins of the whole world and in his kindness he says if you will put your trust in what Jesus did
on the cross and that alone. I will give you forgiveness, I'll give you eternal life, I'll give you the indwelling Holy Spirit, I'll give you everything you need for life and godliness. I'll give you joy. I'll give all of that to you.
If you'll make that one decision to humble yourself, give up on your isms, put your faith in Christ, I will offer you forgiveness, eternal life. That's the offer he makes to us.
Explanation: The Christrian faith is the only faith that declares the work of atonement is done for us!
Application: Trust Christ.
Without faith, it is impossible to please God. I have to trust him.
So now in verses 4 to 11, Paul says, here's the two different ledger sheets that I had.
My first Ledger sheet, what I was trusting in, in Judaism, the whole list of it. Then my second Ledger sheet, which just had one item on it. So here's what he started with. Here's what he's going to give up. And this is before the road to Damascus. Paul explained it to us in Acts Chapter 9. What happened to him there before the road to Damascus? Here's what he was trusting in, which he
later calls.
Before–The Loss and the rubbish.
● Circumcised on the 8th day.
That's the day prescribed in Judaism in Leviticus to circumcise a boy. And if you're a good Jew, you circumcise him on the 8th day. Part of what Paul is saying, I'm not a convert to Judaism. I was born into it. I mean, day one I was born into it. Day eight I was circumcised.
● I'm of the nation of Israel.
The Israelites had great respect for Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and they believed. Because I'm a blood descendant of those patriarchs, I'm in. I'm good to go, Paul said. I was in.
● I was of the tribe of Benjamin.
Doctor Tom Constable said Benjamin was the younger of the two sons of Jacob, of Jacob's favorite wife, Rachel. He was the only son of Jacob who was born in a promised land. Many noble warriors came out of them. The first lawful king came from Benjamin. Jerusalem and the Temple stood in the territory of Benjamin. That tribe alone with Judah stayed with the House of David in the divided monarchy. And Mordecai, who brought about the salvation of the Jews in the book of Esther, was a Benjamite. This is a good place to be. It's not quite the tribe of Judah, but it is a great place to be, he said.
● I'm a Hebrew of the Hebrews
Meaning my dad's a Hebrew, my mom's a Hebrew, I am full blooded Hebrew.
And unlike the other Jews of the Diaspora. I learned Hebrew and I studied the law in Hebrew. I've got all of my boxes checked.
● I'm a Pharisee. As to law keeping,
Pharisees were the strictest sect. Most Jews thought I could never rise up to be as good as a Pharisee. They're doing it all, they're getting it all done. As to zeal.
● I was a zealous persecutor of the church.
Paul decided the church, the way this guy Jesus is perverting Judaism. I love Judaism, therefore I hate him, and therefore I hate everybody who follows him and therefore I'm going to kill them. That's how zealous I am for faith. I
will kill the Jews who are the Christians. The people of the way who are perverting Judaism and he was going to go deal with them.
● A righteousness derived from the law
I was blameless. Doesn't mean he never sinned, it just means that when he did sin, he dealt with it immediately. He gave the prescribed offering. He took care of it. He followed the law zealously. This is the man named Saul of Tarsus. He had it all, Warren Weirsby said. “Like most religious people today, Paul had enough morality to keep him out of trouble. But not enough righteousness
to get him into heaven.”
It's not the bad things that kept Paul from Jesus, It's the good things. He had to lose his religion to gain salvation.
Paul counted all of all this as loss and rubbish!
It's a powerful message for all of us. I lose it to gain salvation. So Paul is at the
pinnacle. He's at the very top. He has everything that could possibly be needed and he abandons it at the one flashing light on Damascus Rd. He said I am a spiritual Midget. I am an idiot. What was I thinking? I didn't know. He takes decades climbing to the top of the peak of Judaism and in one nanosecond he throws it away. He says I was wrong, it's rubbish, I'm done with it. He walked away from it. The word rubbish is a word that's used to speak of garbage, filth, manure, something repulsive, detestable and worthless things. The only place it appears in the New Testament is here in this passage. Outside the New Testament it's used to refer to half eaten carcasses.
Pre-chewed gum. I mean, Paul says all of that that I had, it's rubbish. He was at the top of the heap and he gave it all up. Isaiah 64:6
“For all of us have become like one who was unclean. All our righteous deeds are filthy garments. All of us wither like a leaf. All of our wrongdoings are taken away like the wind takes us away.” And so we rejected all of that. And then he comes to verses 7-11 and says,” here is my one new asset.
After–The Gain and the Gold:
● Christ
He says now I came for the sake of Jesus Christ. I came into a personal relationship with the one being who could forgive me, the one being who could help me, the one being who could guide me.
● Surpassing knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.
I know Christ personally. I know him as Savior. I've trusted him. I know him as Jesus the Savior. I know him as the anointed 1, the Messiah, the King. I'm under his rule. I know him. Lord, I obey Him. I know Him in wonderful ways. I'm no longer a striver. Who's wondering if I did enough? Now I'm a son who's in the family? I've traded that. I'd not a striver anymore, he said.
● Being found in Christ.
When I face judgment, I will be in Christ, His righteousness on my account.
Our son was a page in the US Senate decades ago, before the horrible security, and he took us to places where a regular person couldn't go because he had a page badge. Walk up to some security guard and they would recognize my son, see his badge and, and I'm with him. I'd say, you know, just walk in. I'm with him.
When I get to heaven, I'm just going to say I'm with Jesus. I don't deserve to be here.
I don't have the badge, I'm not the guy, but I'm with Jesus. And basically that's what Paul is saying. Abraham believed God, it was credited to him for righteousness. And Paul says now I have-
● A righteousness derived from faith.
Not derived from working like crazy on the law. Now I know the power of
Jesus' resurrection. It's a word that means to know, to recognize, to feel, to experience. It's not an intellectual word. Now I'm experiencing what it's like to live in the power of Christ. I know the fellowship of his sufferings. He's not saying I'm a masochist who wants to suffer. He's saying it's only right that I
suffer. Because Jesus suffered for me and so if I'm going to promote him and I'm suffering for that, great, I'm in, I'll do it. Know the fellowship of his suffering. I am conformed to his death, not meaning he died in a way that helped his salvation, but meaning as Jesus died Philippians 2 to his
own agenda, we die to our agenda and we say Lord Jesus, yeah, my answer is yes, what's your question? I'm in. I will do it. And then he says I am.
● Knowing the power of Jesus’ resurrection
To the resurrection from the dead. Paul is not saying there that because
he was such a good Christian that he was going to be raised. Everybody's going to be raised, good Christian, bad Christian, no Christian, everybody will be raised. He is simply saying that whether I die as a martyr, die of natural causes, or go up in the rapture, I will experience the resurrection, the first resurrection, the new life. And that is a great, great gift to me.
Chapter one, verse 21, He said for me to live as Christ and to die is gain.
In Acts 9 on the Damascus Rd. Paul changed his appetite, he changed his focus and he changed the energy of his life. Everything changed for Paul at that moment.
Here's the central truth, friends.
If you are a Hebrew of the Hebrews, or a Catholic of the
Catholics, or a Hindu of the Hindus, or in Anything of the Anythings.
–Need to take a walk down the Damascus road and trade it in for Jesus Christ?
You need to recognize this. This is not helping me. This is not working. God's not interested in what I've been doing. He's interested in my heart and my trust in Christ.
I want to close this message today by reading to you a hymn that's very familiar, written by a man named Augustus, Top lady. He was an English clergyman. He died in 1778, and he wrote this hymn in 1776, which of
course, it is the birthday of our country, which is when he wrote this hymn.
It's a hymn about freedom. Here is what he said.
Rock of Ages cleft for me. Let me hide myself in Thee.
Let the water and the blood from thy wounded side which flowed be of sin,
The double cure save from wrath, and make me pure.
Not the labor of my hands can fulfill Thy law's demands.
Could my zeal no respite know?
Could my tears forever flow?
All for sin could not atone.
Thou must save, and Thou alone.
Nothing in my hand I bring simply to thy cross I cling naked.
Come to thee for dress helpless, come to Thee for grace foul
I to the fountain. Fly.
Wash me, Savior, or I die while I draw this fleeting breath,
When my eyes shall close in death.
When I rise to worlds unknown.
Behold thee on thy throne,
Rock of Ages cleft for me. Let me hide myself in thee.
Let me read one line again, which I think is basically a summary statement of Philippians 3:1-11. “Nothing in my hand I bring. Simply to thy cross I cling.”
We have a choice.
Friends, I'm going to pray for us for a moment. We have a 7 minute prayer time coming. Now. I know it's very hot for some of you. Please feel free to go to the other room if you would like or fan yourself or whatever you need to do. But we're going to post up here 7 prayer topics, one at a time. I'll read them off and then we will just ask you to pray for that particular topic for one minute. There's seven of them and then we will finish the prayer time. So let me pray for us.
We're grateful, Father, for your kindness to us in Christ. We're deeply grateful for this passage, for what you did for us through the Lord Jesus. Thank you for Paul and his testimony of trading it all in, for knowing the person of Christ. So we entrust ourselves to you. We're deeply grateful for your kindness, for your concern for us. We take some time right now in the quietness of our hearts to lift up various things to you in the quietness of our own hearts.”
So friends first.
Pray for the people who are around you, please, just for a minute.
We pray you're helping Christ Jesus name.
Amen.