Philippians 3:1-11
Philippians chapter three, verses
one through 11. The apostle Paul writes these
words. Finally, my brothers rejoice in the Lord to write the same
things to you is no trouble to me and is safe for you. Look
out for the dogs, look out for the evil doers, look out for
those who mutilate the flesh. For we are the real circumcision
who worship by the spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus
and put no confidence in the flesh. Though I myself have reason
for confidence in the flesh also, if anyone else thinks he has
reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more. Circumcised
on the eighth day of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin,
the Hebrew of Hebrews, as to the law of Pharisee, as to zeal,
a persecutor of the church, as to righteousness under the law,
blameless. But whatever gain I had, I counted
as a loss for the sake of Christ, indeed, I count everything as
loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus,
my Lord. For his sake, I have suffered
the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in order that
I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness
of my own that comes through the law, but that which comes
through faith in Jesus Christ, the righteousness from God that
depends on faith, that I may know him. and the power of his
resurrection, and may share in his sufferings, becoming like
him in his death, that by any means possible, I may attain
the resurrection from the dead. Amen. Let us pray together. Our
Lord and God, we pray that you would be gracious to us, that
in addition to your speaking to us by your word and spirit,
you would calm our hearts, that you would let them be tender
and to receive your word, that you would open our eyes that
we might see unstop our ears that we might hear. Let our wills
be ready, willing and able to be repentant and to be full of
energy and zeal to live for you. Most of all, help us to receive
the Lord Jesus Christ and to rest in him alone for our salvation.
Nothing in our hands we bring, but simply to the cross of the
Lord Jesus we cling. Let that be our prayer. Let that
be our mindset. Let that be the way of our heart.
We pray in the name of Christ Jesus. Amen. As a Christian,
what things, what aspects of your life could you boast about? I mean, think for just a moment
about what some of those things might be. You could be the founding
member of a church. You could make the best fried
chicken for Sunday church lunches. It could be that you have sat
in the same pew, in the same seat, sang from the same hymnal
year after year after year. Maybe you have one of those perfect
attendance buttons that you can pin on your Sunday outfit. And on and on the list could
go. As a Christian, what things could
you boast about? Maybe it’s your zeal. The number
of committees you have served upon, how many years you have
served upon them, your involvement in the church, your level of
engagement as a Christian, what things could you boast about? The Judaizers, who were the troublemakers
in the Philippian church, they were boasters. And so as the
apostle Paul writes a letter to the Philippian church from
his imprisonment in Rome as he waited trial before Caesar, he
warns them about boasting. And he says to them, boasting
is of no value. Boasting will get you nowhere,
especially not to heaven. But if you’re going to boast,
I can beat you. If you want to boast, I can out-boast
you. Now, the Judaizers, in particular
in this case, were encouraging. No, they were demanding that
the Philippian Christians, in addition to their faith in Jesus,
undergo circumcision. They were holding on to some
of the past. They were holding on to the previous
requirements under God’s law. They were zealous about this.
They were energetic about this. They were rather demanding about
this. And you know, they thought they
were right. Now, for sure, in some period or stretch of your
church life, you have stood on your principles. You have stood
on a certain belief that you have, a certain practice that
you hold. And you have said to yourself and to others, I in
this area am right. And come hell or high water,
come sun, moon and stars or daytime or nighttime, whatever the case
may be, this is what I or what hill I will die upon. This is
my cross. This is my burden. This is my
bully pulpit. This is my soap box. But our
passage of scripture today sort of punches a hole in that. It
pokes a hole in our little balloon and lets the air out. What if
what is on your list is wrong? What if you’ve been holding something
to be right and it is an error? You see, the apostle Paul is
calling into question the things that we put our confidence in
for hope and salvation. What if you’re in error? What
if you, What if you have miscalculated and God and his words show you
that your math is all wrong, that you have counted all the
right, all the right things in the wrong way? What if? What
if you find out that you’ve been laboring in vain? What if you
were to find out that what you trust in, what you place your
hope in, your security in is false? Well, the apostle Paul
tells us just a brief bit about his own life, his own confidence.
And he gives a handful of things. He says, I was circumcised on
the eighth day, not the fifth day or the fourth day or the
ninth or 10th day, or sometimes like we do with our children.
You know, we have a little baby and as Presbyterians, we’re supposed
to have them baptized. We wait till we can get everybody
in town. There’s nothing wrong with that. We wait until we can
get a caterer for that Sunday lunch or whatever we wait, but
not the, not the apostle Paul. He was circumcised on the eighth
day. According to the law, he was
an Israelite. He was one of the chosen people
of God. Now we don’t have any Israelites
in here. I don’t think we’re all Gentiles. Oh, but not the
apostle Paul. He was of Israel. In fact, he
was of the tribe of Benjamin. We just read about them. A small
tribe, an insignificant tribe, but what came from that little
bitty tribe in Israel? The kings, the rulers over all
God’s people, even Saul. In addition to being of the tribe
of Benjamin, he says, I was a Hebrew of Hebrews. Now in the South,
we call that a blue blood. You know, you come from the right
people. You come from the right stock. You live on the right
address. You’re a member of the right country club. You go to
the right colleges. You learn to ride horses from
the right horse teacher. You learn piano from the sweet
lady in town who teaches all the right people piano. We’re
bluebloods, right? That’s what the apostle Paul
was. He was raised right. Now, remember that he was a Roman
citizen. He was Saul of Tarsus. But as far as possible, he was
a Hebrew of Hebrews. And so he tells a little bit
about himself. Now he goes into how he practices all the right
things in all the right ways. He says, according to the, or
as related to the law, I was a Pharisee. You know, they kept
the law strictly and perfectly and meticulously. They even added
a few things to make sure they weren’t missing out. But as to
the law, he was a Pharisee. As to zeal, he was a persecutor
of the church of the Lord Jesus. And as to righteousness, In adherence
to the law, he says, I was blameless. So if anybody in the Christian
faith, if it were true that it was Jesus plus everything you
could accumulate, if anybody in the Christian faith had it
all, it was Paul. And what does he say here in
our passage? He says, it’s rubbish. I count every gain is lost. Whatever added up and stacked
up to heaven, I count it as rubbish, as lost. We cannot trust in the
works of our hands. You know, some of us could be
like the Apostle Paul. I was thinking to myself, if
I could write a little pedigree like the Apostle Paul, I’m a
preacher’s kid. I mean, that’s worth something,
at least to somebody. I went to Burlington Christian
Academy. I was educated by Christians. I was in youth group. I have
a Presbyterian college and seminary education. I have memorized the
shorter catechism. I passed ordination exams in
the associate reform Presbyterian church. I passed examinations
in the Presbyterian Church in America. And here’s the real
kicker. I’ve even made it into the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.
Try that one on for size. I could boast. I’ve even been
to the Holy Land twice. But those things cannot earn
salvation. Those things cannot achieve an
entrance into the glorious presence of Almighty God. With the Apostle
Paul, whatever our list says, we must count it as rubbish.
as refuse, as of nothing in the sight of Almighty God. Now, in
our study upcoming in Sunday school, we’re going to look at
the Reformation a little bit. And you understand and remember probably
from some of your background and upbringing that in the Reformation,
people were encouraged by the church to earn merits, to store
up for themselves in the treasury of merits enough to get them
out of purgatory, and out of purgatory and into heaven. Now
there’s a fancy little word that was used in those days. It’s
a fancy little word called super irrigation. Now in my little
mind, I think super irrigation is this. Last year I rented one
of those yard aerators. It was a little 18 inch one and
it dragged me around the yard. This year I’m going to rent a
super aerator. It’s going to be wider, and it’s
going to punch bigger holes, and it’s going to do it faster, and
it’s not going to hurt my back like it did. See, that’s what
I think of supererogation. I’ve got it all mixed up there.
Supererogation in theology is this. It is doing more than is
required by God and thinking he will actually care. And what
does the Bible tell us about our works? It’s one thing for
the apostle Paul to say they’re rubbish. It doesn’t matter how
high they add up. God doesn’t care. In fact, they
condemn you. But on this other hand, if we
think that we could do more and please God more and earn ourselves
a better seat or a better chamber, or maybe at least a room in heaven
with a queen size bed and a private bath and a coffee maker. He tells
us in his word that our works are before him as filthy rags.
We all fall short of the glory of God. There is nothing in us
that pleases God apart from Christ Jesus. And so this passage of
scripture is very important for us. As we must understand the
gospel gives us a new way to count, a new way to measure,
a new way to gain heaven. And it means that we lose everything.
It means that we lose everything in order to gain heaven. We say
with the writer of the hymn, nothing in my hands I bring,
simply to the cross I cling. Nothing in my hands can fulfill
thy laws demands. Could my zeal and no respite,
no. Could my tears forever flow.
All for sin could not atone. Thou must save and thou alone. See brothers and sisters, we
have to get human and worldly math out of our heads. and come
to the gospel and say, I come empty and Jesus fills me full.
Now, the apostle is going to speak of three important aspects
of our salvation in this passage. He’s going to speak of our justification,
our sanctification and our glorification. First of all, our justification.
Justification brings up a very weighty question, and that question
is this. How can a sinner like me stand
before a holy God? Like the one I read of in the
Bible. Well, the apostle Paul in verse nine answers that. We simply must be found in Jesus.
We simply must receive him and rest in him alone for our salvation. And then and only then can we
approach God in repentance and confession and an endeavor to
new obedience. What is justification? Well,
justification is a fancy word that simply means this. God declares
you righteous. He is the judge and he assesses
the situation and he makes a declaration and he pounds his gavel. And
he says, you are righteous. Now, how is that possible? If
we’re sinners and all have sinned and fallen short of the glory
of God, we anger God, we sin daily and thought word and deed.
How is that possible? Well, the scripture tells us
this, that Jesus died in our place. He’s like the scapegoat
in the Old Testament where all the sins were placed on that
goat. The priest laid his hands on the head of that goat and
sent that goat in the wilderness so the sins would be known no
more. Jesus is that scapegoat. All the sins of God’s loved ones
have been placed on Jesus and on the cross. When Jesus died
for your sins, he died for them past, present and future. And
let me tell you, brothers and sisters, Satan does not want
you to believe that or remember that or be encouraged by that.
And so if you are struggling with your sin and whether God
forgives you or can forgive you of this one or that one, your
justification, God having declared you righteous in his sight is
something you need to lay hold of in your mind and heart. You
need to tape it on your forehead, put it on the bathroom mirror,
put a string around your finger and never, ever forget that once
you are justified, God will never let you go and you will never
be found guilty. God is not a God of double jeopardy,
but justification is Jesus obeying in our place. and Jesus dying
in our place. We like to say it this way. It’s
just as if we’ve never sinned, and it’s just as if we have always
obeyed. And that comes to us by faith.
We recognize ourselves as sinners in the sight of God, justly deserving
his wrath and curse and punishment, knowing that when the judge,
we meet face to face, that he is gonna be both the judge and
the executioner for the wages of sin is death. But by faith,
we repent and we lay hold of Jesus and all that he offers
in the gospel. And we say, I want Jesus. I do not want sin. It’s all by grace. It’s a gift of God. It’s not
something we can work for or earn. It’s a free gift of God.
And he gives it to us full of his grace and mercy. Some of
you may have received a speeding ticket recently. Don’t raise
your hands, but you have a court date. You will appear before
the judge, and you don’t know until that judge makes his decision
and utters it and pounds his gavel whether you are guilty
or innocent. But I want to tell you this. If you have faith in
Jesus and have repented of your sins, you are justified by God
Almighty, the judge of the earth, and you already know the outcome.
And so when you approach judgment day, you do not have to worry.
For God sees you as if you’ve always obeyed. He sees you as
if you’ve never sinned, and that by faith in the merits of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Friends, justification is a big
fancy word, but it means everything to us as Christians. It can wipe
away our fears. It can let us sleep at night.
It can give us confidence to live faithfully the life that
God calls us to live. That’s our justification. Secondly,
Paul speaks of sanctification. I have a funny little poster
in my office, and it’s for a little pill called Perfexil. And this
little pill, it’s a fictitious one, you understand, but it’s
a pill for instant sanctification. You just pop this little pill
and all your pesky sins go away. Well, it’s a fake advertisement
or it’s a fake pill that was an advertisement for a summer
conference, I believe, for Reformed University Fellowship, maybe
15 years ago. And I grabbed hold of one of
those. I love it. I think it’s the funniest thing ever put out. But friends,
there is no perfect pill that you can pop. That will take care
of your sanctification, I hate to tell you. But I’m actually
encouraged to tell you sanctification is a glorious but also painful
lifelong process. As long as you live life in this
world, you will live stretched between two truths. One is your
justification. God has already declared you
righteous and he will not change his decision. His gavel has pounded
on the courtroom table of heaven. But you also live in this tension
of sanctification, where God, having pardoned your sin, has
also subdued your sin. But that sin nature is still
in you. Do you know that tendency to do what you know you’re not
supposed to do? Like the Apostle Paul speaks
of in Romans 7, I know the thing I ought to do, but that thing
I do not do. And the thing I know I ought not to do, that’s what
I do. Did I get that right? It’s a tongue twister. But we
know the struggle of sanctification. We’re supposed to hate what is
evil, hold fast to what is good, and to live faithful, obedient
Christian lives. But we do daily break God’s law
and thoughtward indeed. But thanks be to God for the
work. the ongoing work of sanctification.
You see, justification is an act. God declares. Sanctification
is a process. And so some of you, maybe all
of us, we understand that we fall, we get up, we fall, we
get up. And some of us get very discouraged. Oh, Lord, why do
I keep sinning? Oh, Lord, why do I keep doing
the thing that I know I shouldn’t do, but I still do it because
it’s the thing I love? You see, we have misplaced affections.
We don’t love God perfectly. We don’t follow him. We don’t follow him as we ought.
And this passage in verse 10 speaks of sanctification. And
Paul tells us that he desires to be sanctified through his
suffering. Now, we’re going to be sanctified in all kinds of
ways. It’ll be through the preached word. It’ll be through the word
as we read it in our own times. We listen to podcasts. We have
daily devotionals. We read our table talk. We listen
to sermons throughout the week on Christian radio. We have family
worship. We encourage one another over
coffee. There are all kinds of ways God sanctifies us by his
word, by his spirit, through the sacraments. But I hate to
tell you, but it’s true. God sanctifies us through our
suffering. And some of you who went through
the Sunday school class on Job, you know that well. Many of you
through your life’s experience, know it well. God often sanctifies
us through suffering. Some of you will know the name
Johnny Erickson Tada, a gal who when she was about 18 years old,
went diving into the Chesapeake Bay and the water was a little
too shallow and she is a quadriplegic. This summer, she observed 50
years in a wheelchair. And do you know what Johnny Erickson
Tada says? She says, I’d rather know Jesus
and be in a wheelchair. than not know him and be on my
feet.” How many of us could say that? Oh, we love this world. Oh, we love our fine houses.
We love our granite countertops, our nice cars. We love the conveniences
of air conditioning and a Starbucks on every corner. We love, we
love, we love, we love the world. And here she says, I would rather
know Jesus in this chair than to not know Jesus on my feet.
Oh, but how many of us would rather be on our feet and not
know Jesus? Because sometimes we think, we have it in our heads,
that this world is all there is, and to not be on our feet
in this world means everything. But do you know, she will be
made perfect in heaven. In her resurrected body, she
will not be a quadriplegic. And after all these years of
being in a wheelchair and wrestling and struggling, it has not been
easy for her. She knows Jesus way better than
probably most of us. And God has been hard on her.
But aren’t we thankful for the ministry somebody like her has
had in her hardship, she has shown brightly for the Lord Jesus
Christ. You see, friends, life is messy. And God uses those messes to
wake us up, to bring us back to himself, and to burn off and
to rub off all those impurities about us. that do not let us
shine brightly for his glory. Friends, sanctification is a
work of God’s grace, whereby we are enabled by his spirit
more and more to die to sin and to live to righteousness. It’s
by his word, his spirit, it’s through the gifts of the church,
it’s through the people of God, it’s through the sacraments.
But God is at work in us, and he is often using our trials
and our hardships. And the apostle Paul knows this
as he sits in prison waiting for a hearing from Caesar. And
he tells the Philippians Hey, whatever it takes, whatever God’s
megaphone is to get my attention, I’ll take it for I’ll be like
Jesus. But there’s a final thing he
speaks of in this passage, and it’s our glorification. Some
of you have a. list of places you would like
to see before you die. We call it a bucket list nowadays.
Oh, we want to see the Grand Canyon. We want to see, uh, the
glaciers. We want to visit Alaska. Uh,
we want to maybe travel down the Pacific coast highway. We
want to, uh, go see the giant redwoods out in the Western forest.
We want to see new England in the fall. There are things that
we want to see, but it’s high on your bucket list. Seeing the
face of God. I mean, that’s the ultimate gift
God can give us. Behold, the dwelling place of
God is with man and he will be their God and they will be his
people. We’ll see the face of God. We
will see the beauty and the splendor and the glory of God. And you
know, throughout the history of God’s people, nobody has seen
God’s face and lived. I mean, Moses got pretty close,
but for the most part, God passed by the backside of his people.
They could not look upon him as sinners and see his face and
live. But that means there’s something
gonna be changed about us. We’re gonna be glorified, sanctification
over, misery, hardship, sitting under the word, the sufferings
of this life over with. We will be made whole and we
will see God as he is. And friends, that is not possible
unless you are glorified. What a wonderful change awaits
each of us who trust in the Lord Jesus. God will make it so that
we can be in his presence and not fall over dead. You know
what else we’ll see in heaven besides the face of God, the
light of the world? We’ll see Jesus. The book of
Revelation tells us that we will see before the throne of God
a lamb looking as though he was slain. We’ll see the Lord Jesus,
the person of Jesus, those five bleeding wounds that he bore
on Calvary for your sins and for mine that save us. Remember,
not our works, but his. We’ll see Jesus and those wounds. No more sin. No more broken fellowship
with almighty God. We will be glorified. Oh, friends,
we can gain the world. We can have a stock portfolio
that has numbers that reach into the bazillions. We can have houses
that have more square footage than Donald Trump could ever
dream of. We can pile up in a crew of good
works, perfect attendance, the best fried chicken, served on
the most committees, sat in the right pew, gave the most tithes.
On and on we could go, and they will never merit the favor of
the judge of the earth. Only the Lord Jesus can do that. So do you trust in God? Do you
trust in Jesus and in him alone for your salvation? Have you
gained Christ and consider everything else rubbish? Or do you have some little room,
maybe not a real one, but a figurative room, maybe it’s in your mind,
it’s in your heart for sure, where you You’d be sure that
you shine all your silver and polish all your good works and
you make sure that all the books are kept and they’re in alphabetical
order so that when God comes calling and says, who are you
and why should I let you into my glorious presence? You can
say, here’s all the records. They’re in order. CPA approved. Sarbanes-Ansley compliant, whatever. It’s rubbish. We trust in Jesus
and in him alone and in the surpassing knowledge of who he is and what
he has done for us. Let us pray together. Our Lord
and God, we thank you. We thank you that you show us
the truth about ourselves, that we are poor. Oh, no, we’re worse
than that. We’re bankrupt. You show us our
need and you show us the provision for that need, the Lord Jesus.
And we pray that in this moment right now, that Jesus would shine
brightly before our eyes more than ever, that his worth would
surpass any earthly and heavenly or any earthly and worldly beauty,
any monetary number, any any such thing that might give us
confidence. Oh, we thank you that you humble the apostle Paul.
You took Saul of Tarsus with all those accolades, all that
pedigree. And before Jesus on the road to Damascus, you you
laid him low and you said, this is how much you must suffer for
my name in order that the Gentiles, that’s us, may know Jesus. Oh, we’re grateful, Lord. Help
us to remember this day all that Jesus is, all that he’s done,
and may we lay hold of him even stronger, that he is ours, and
that because of his work, because of his obedience, because of
his sacrifice, we can enter the highest of heavens before the
presence of the God of the universe, the God who is eternal, always
has been, always will be, and we will behold him forever and
enjoy the delights of heaven. We thank you for this great truth
and we pray that you give us the strength to live out of it
this week. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen. Let us respond to
God’s word as we sing together, hallelujah, what a savior, 175.