Episode Transcript
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If you are able, please remain
standing and let's give our attention to God's
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word and Philippians, Paul's letter to
the Philippians, chapter three, versus one
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to sixteen, Philippians three, verses
one to sixteen. Finally, my brothers,
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rejoice in the Lord to write the
same things to you. Is No
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trouble to me and is safe for
for you. Look out for the dogs,
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look out for the evil doers,
look out for those who mutilate the
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flesh, for we are the circumcision, who worship by the spirit of God
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and Glory in Christ Jesus, and
put no confidence in the flesh, though
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I myself have reason for confidence in
the flesh. Also, if anyone else
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thinks he has reason for confidence in
the flesh, I have more circumcised on
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the eighth day of the people of
Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin,
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a Hebrew of Hebrews, as to
the law, a Pharisee, as to
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zeal, a persecutor of the Church, as to righteousness under the law,
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blameless. But whatever gain I had
I counted as law US for the sake
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of Christ. Indeed, I count
everything as lost because of their surpassing worth
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of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord. For his sake, I have suffered
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the loss of all things and count
them as rubbish in order that I may
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gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own
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that comes from the law, but
that which comes through faith in Christ,
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the righteousness from God that depends on
faith, that I may know him and
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the power of his resurrection and may
share his sufferings, becoming like him in
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his death, that, by any
means possible, I may attain the resurrection
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from the dead. Not that I
have already obtained this or am already perfect,
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but I press on to make it
my own, because Christ Jesus has
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made me his own. Brothers,
I do not consider that I have made
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it my own, but one thing
I do forgetting what lies behind and straining
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forward to what lies ahead. I
press on toward the goal, for the
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prize of the Upward Call of God
in Christ Jesus. Let those of us
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who are mature think this way and
if, in anything, you think otherwise,
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God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to
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what we have a tained. My
God bless his word to us. Please
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be seated. Paul begins this next
section of his letter to the Philippians with
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some very harsh words, fighting words, so to speak. He is being
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very clear about who is who and
what is what. He calls these people,
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these Judaizers, who are bothering the
Philippians and bothering on the Church of
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God. He calls them dogs,
he calls them evil doers, he calls
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them mutilators of the flesh. He
speaks in this very harsh way, though,
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to make a particular point. He
wants the Philippians to understand that there
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is something, even in their rejoicing, to be on the watch for particular
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people, but also a particular philosophy
or religion or way of thinking about our
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place before God. He sets a
dividing line, a great dividing line,
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between righteousness that comes from the law
and righteousness that comes from faith. We
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want to think about this evening and
and Lord willing come away with this,
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the kind of clarity that the Holy
Spirit, through his servant Paul, wants
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us to have about what true godliness
is and what it is that we have
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gained in Christ that we might be
willing, like Paul, to lose everything
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else. So I want to begin
and thinking about those kinds of things by
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thinking about this command to be watchful, to look out. He begins in
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verse one by saying things very similar
to what he has been saying. Rejoice.
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This is something that's come up many
times already, and he says it
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in verse one, concluding these things. Finally, my brother's rejoice in the
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Lord, but he adds to that
a watchfulness. It reminds us that are
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rejoicing in Jesus Christ for all that
we have been given, in all that
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we have received. It's not a
party, it's not just a fun kind
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of thing. The rejoicing that we
have in Jesus Christ is very deep.
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Sometimes it's very joyful, sometimes it's
very serious, but it includes with it
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a certain kind of of watchfulness.
Even in our rejoicing and on our certainty
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of who God is and what he's
done, it doesn't mean that we are
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sort of out of the woods,
so to speak, in terms of attack.
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There are people, Paul says,
that seek to do to the Philippians
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and to us as well, real
harm. Satan continues to prowl around like
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a roaring lion, Peter says,
and Jesus and a number of parables says
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that watchfulness is important, look out
for these things, beyond guard about them,
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and he gives the proof of that
right here in their own context.
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He speaks of these people that they
seem to be very aware of, these
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evildoers, these dogs, these people
who mutilate the flesh. Paul speaking here
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of what are called Judaizers, people
that wanted to take Christians back to the
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law of Moses. They wanted Christians
to be obedient to the law of Moses,
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I'm not only in its particular commands, but also when it's symbols,
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perhaps in its sacrifices, and in
one particular aspect, and that's circumcision.
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That's why that comes up here.
They wanted a Christians to show and demonstrate
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their obedience to the law and their
willingness to be sub subject to the old
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covenant by being circumcised. Paul evaluates
this point of view. He evaluates the
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efforts of these Judaizers in the harshest
terms. First, he calls them dogs.
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Dogs in the ancient world were sometimes
pets, but not nearly as much
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as they are to day. I'm
often they were scavengers. In Israel,
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they were considered unclean and in the
in the Jewish world. The dogs was
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often a a way to name call
the gentiles. It was an attack on
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those who were did not belong to
Israel. These scavengers, these unclean people,
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these people that didn't belong or weren't
worth very much, those were the
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gentiles. The here Paul applies that
same word that is typically applied by the
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people he's addressing to the gentiles.
He applies it to them and he says,
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no, it's not them who are
the dogs, it's you who are
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the dogs. He calls them evil
doers or workers of evil. Again,
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this has a way of kind of
turning the tables. They're claiming to uphold
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the law, they're claiming to come
and say, here is spirituality, here
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is religion, this is what you
need to obey, here are the laws
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that God has given his his prophet
Moses. Follow them, obey them,
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and Paul says that in doing so, it's just the opposite. They are
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evil doers, not do gooders.
They are workers of evil and possibly it
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even connotes a kind of missionary enterprise
as well, that they're not just doing
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evil but actively seeking this in other
people as well. So at first he
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calls them dogs, then he calls
them evil doers, are workers of evil,
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and then he calls them mutilators of
the flesh. He uses this term
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to speak and and say, you
guys want circumcision, this term that sort
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of typically referred to as sort of
a cutting around and and instead you want
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to to cut off. I'm you're
cutting against oneself, you are mutilating rather
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than doing good. These, it
goes without saying, are very harsh things
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to say. They're very harsh things
to say. Paul speaking too strongly here?
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Is He being UNCHRISTIAN in the way
that he speaks? Why so strong
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of those that wanted to turn Christians
to Moses? Well, Paul speaks so
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strongly because to be connected to the
law and the way that these people were
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advocating is to be cut off from
Christ. Is Point is made in a
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number of ways here and throughout the
pages of the New Testament. We're told
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over and over again, in many
different ways, that Christ is the fulfillment
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of the law. He is the
thing that the law was pointing toward,
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the law, the things that the
law would be fulfilled in. And so,
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in a sense, not only by
turning away from Christ to the law
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are they turning away from Christ,
but an addition, in a sense,
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they're turning away from the law itself, because of the law is meant to
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point to Jesus, and you're not
going to Jesus, but your goal,
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but you're sort of emptying the law
of all that it was meant to do.
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Then it's to fail on both accounts. It's to fail on account of
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the law, it's to fail on
account of Christ. This fulfillment in Jesus,
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Christ and in the things that he
brings. Is why Paul says we
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are the circumcision. These people are
asking you to go back and to be
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circumcised. They're saying to go back
to the law of Moses, but we
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are the circumcision. They are but
mutilators of the flesh. Why are we
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to be considered the circumcision? Because, says, we are the things that
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this circumcision was pointing forward to.
We worship by the spirit of God and
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Glory in Christ, Jesus, and
put no confidence in the flesh. Paul
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here is being very clear that there
is a great divide between pride in the
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law, which is the say,
the same as pride in the Flesh,
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and pride in Christ. A great
divide and to make that really clear,
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he goes beyond this kind of evaluative
name calling to giving a very personal example.
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He says, if you want to
play the boasting game, the boasting
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in the law game, if anyone
has confidence in this, I have more,
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he says, in other words,
if you want to treat yourself in
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this way, consider my own example. I will beat you at this every
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single time. I did. And
listen to how he proves his case.
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He says, first, of his
birth and natural standing in the law and
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as a Jew. First, he
says, listen, I was circumcised on
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the eighth day. Now, this
may seem like not that big of a
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deal. Isn't that what they were
supposed to do? But that's kind of
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the point, right. Paul is
saying that the he did, excuse me,
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he did what and had done to
him on what was called to do.
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I'm some as we know, in
the pages of scripture, often a
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delayed or in certain occasions delayed circumcision
beyond where it should and he said this
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didn't happen with me. Now,
of course Paul wasn't actively involved in that,
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but that's also part of the point
too. He says that not only
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am I zealous about these things,
but I didn't come to them later in
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life from the Vy, from the
eighth day I was circumcised. He makes
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this point even stronger by saying I'm
an Israelite by birth. My parents were
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Israelites as well. They were not
proselytites who came in. He it's a
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way of him proving his credentials as
a Jew. He's going about putting these
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fourth and saying and showing how,
if anyone belongs and if anyone could win,
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so to speak, in terms of
righteousness by the law, it would
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be him, circumcised on the eighth
day and Israelite by birth. And he
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also says he was of the tribe
of Benjamin. Their number of ways,
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Benjamin and that tribe or special and
scripture. Benjamin was Jacob's favorite son from
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his favorite wife. Benjamin was the
only one who was born in the land
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of promise. Israel's first king was
a Benjamin nighte who, as it happens,
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Saul, was named after the Apostle
Paul before his former names. Saul.
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Then the tribe of Benjamin was also
a tribe that remained loyal to David
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during disruptions in the monarchy. And
even geographically, the tribe of Benjamin was
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special in the Jerusalem and the temple
were within its boundaries. From a number
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of angles, a Benjamin was an
important and a beloved tribe among a God's
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people. And here you have this
man named Saul, of the tribe of
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Benjamin, circumcised on the eighth day
and Israelite by birth. And he goes
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even further, a Hebrew of Hebrews. Here he marks out a distinction that
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was in the Jewish world at that
time. I'm there were Jews, a
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Hebrews, that spoke Aramaic or Hebrew, and then there were Jews that were
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more hellenistic or spoke Greek. And
it makes a difference if you are trying
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to prove your credentials as a Jew, to be not only a Jew,
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not only of the tribe of Benjamin, not only in Israelite by birth,
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but one who was grazed and grew
up culturally in this way as well,
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speaking Aramaic, knowing Hebrew. It
gives him a cultural credibility and probably an
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academic one as well. He would
have had access to ancient sources and translations
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and and various other texts that those
who only knew Greek would perhaps not have.
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This kind of very this very hebrewness
of of Paul as a Jew is
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proved in his biography in various places. You can imagine these parents, Paul's
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parents, who are also of all
these things and they have set for their
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son a very intense, we might
say, program to be a Jew of
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the Jews. It says he's born
in Tarsus. We read in Galatians One
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and acts twenty six that he's born
and Silicia. But yet he is brought
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up in Jerusalem before he is brought
to, what we learn in other places,
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one of the premier teachers in Israel, Gamil Eel. So you imagine
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a situation where you have this husband
and wife, this Jewish couple, living
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in Tarsus, they have birth to
his son and they say we have plans
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for this young man. He is
of a high pedigree and we are going
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to keep it that way. And
so they don't keep him in Tarsus,
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but they send him to Jerusalem,
they provide for him in education with one
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of the best teachers. This is
one reason we think that Paul may have
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been of some means and of some
wealth. I'm also considering his Roman citizenship,
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but setting all that aside. But
Paul is proving here is that he's
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not only by birth and by culture
and all of these things, a Jew,
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but he's he's one of the best
by his birth, by his natural
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standing among the people. But he
doesn't leave it there. These things in
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many ways he had nothing to do
with. But it goes even further.
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And then in the next part of
these this list, he goes into his
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personal achievements. So here I was
born. I'm a born, born far
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away, but sent to Jerusalem,
trained there and he took it seriously.
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He wasn't some student who wasted his
education and his resources that his parents had
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given him. He applied himself and
he became a Pharisee, one who took
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it very seriously, took the law
as serious as one could, but his
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phariseeism was not an ivory tower kind
of Phariseeism. He goes on to say
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that that he was zealous in this, though he was very accomplished and and
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and good in the law and in
knowledge of it, in an upholding it
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in a theoretical and kind of way. He was zealous about it as well,
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even to the point of persecuting the
church. So Paul's not some kind
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of ivory tower theologian, but he
is willing to get down on the streets
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and get his hands dirty with blood
and murder people, as he himself says.
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Here you have a picture of some
of the people that we hear even
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in the news today, people that
are so committed to a particular law that
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they are willing to kill, destroy
and murder those that do not follow the
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law. Paul says that was me. I was that guy, not only
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knowledgeable in my head, but active
in it's zealous and persecuting the church,
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or the Church of God, as
he puts it in other places. And
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then, finally, the last one. He says, as an in terms
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of righteousness, blameless. For Paul. This is not a game. He
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is not going about this in some
kind of haphazard way, and it's not
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a charade either. He's not just
these things by way of of title or
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status or something like this. He
was pursuing them with all of his heart
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and it was in his life in
accordance with the law. He says I
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was blameless. One irony I find
in this is that when we boast of
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our righteousness, we often boast in
in kind of worldly accomplishments, of writing
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certain things or going certain places or
lifting certain amounts of weights or whatever.
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It is a Paul here, it
is not only boasting of these kinds of
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things, but he's boasting in very
spiritual terms. The point of that is
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just to say again, if anyone
is going to be able to get this
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right, it's Paul, and that's
what he's saying. I had what everyone
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was seeking. But here's the conclusion
he comes to. After putting all of
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that forward, he says in verse
seven, but whatever ought, whatever gain
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I had, particularly in the perspective
of the Judaizers, I counted as loss.
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For the sake of Christ, it
was a liability, not an asset,
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and said, indeed, he says, I count everything is lost because
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of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ, Jesus, my Lord, for his
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sake, I have suffered the loss
of all things and count them as rubbish
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in order that I make gain Christ
and be found in him. So,
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going back to the beginning, why
does Paul put this in such a strong
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way? Why such a clear dividing
line? Because, he says, compare
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the value you can have the greatest
blessings and so called spiritual accomplishments, to
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be prized among your people, to
be valued, to be zealous, to
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be blameless in the law, and
so on and so forth. And yet
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it's it's nothing. I count it
now as all loss because of the surpassing
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worth of knowing Christ, Jesus,
my Lord. Paul hasn't given up on
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obeying God. He calls Jesus his
Lord because Master, the one that he
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is a slave of, as he
puts in other places, in puts uses
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that metaphor in other places. But
in terms of pursuing that righteousness, in
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terms of the law, in terms
of one's obedience and accomplishments, he says
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it's all rubbish. We use this
word rubbish to refer to to trash.
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I. We actually don't even think
use it that often in the United States,
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but it has behind it this word
that means is sort of combined of
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filth and worthlessness. It's used of
a couple things. One is excrement and
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the other is rotten food, filth
worthlessness. All of this, all of
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this that I had, all that
could possibly be gained by righteousness according to
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the law. I count it as
excrement. That is how lowly Paul Esteems
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it as good as the rotten food
that you find in the back of your
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refrigerator and don't even want to touch, to throw away, because it's that
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worthless and that filthy. That's what
righteousness by the law's worth, Paul says.
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That is what's justness by the law
is worth. But righteousness and by
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faith in Jesus Christ, the righteousness
that comes not by the law but by
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God, by this grant, by
this free grace that comes from Jesus Christ
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and his work on our behalf.
Oh now that's another thing, the surpassing
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worth of knowing Christ, Jesus my
Lord. He talks about some of the
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specifics of that. In Verse Ten, he says I count all these things
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as waste and his filth, that
I may know him and the power of
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his resurrection. I throw it all
away because in Jesus Christ I don't have
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filth and worthlessness, I have resurrection
from the dead. I have one who
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will obediently fulfilled the Law on my
behalf and was vindicated in that by his
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own Riet resurrection, a resurrection which
I too can trust in and know that
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I will share. I share in
his sufferings. Now Paul says, becoming
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liken him in his death, that
by any means possible, I may attain
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the resurrection from the dead. Who
Cares about those who are persecuting me?
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Who Cares about the shipwrecks I've endured
and the beatings on the jail and all
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the all the rest of it?
Because I know Jesus Christ, I know
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what it means to be declared,
to be declared not just blameless before men,
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perfect before God. Now he recognizes
that, though he has this,
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these kinds of things in Christ,
in his life, here and now,
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there is still work to begun,
the work to be done. He is
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not he does not yet consider himself
as being resurrected from the dead and made
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perfect in that sense, verse twelve. Not that I've already obtained this or
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I'm already perfect, but I press
on to make it my own because Christ,
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Jesus, has made me his own. That's so powerful, it's so
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lovely. Paul is working hard,
he's striving towards what he calls the goal
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for the prize of the Upward Call
of God in Christ Jesus. He's striving
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towards this goal, moving onwards and
upwards each day of his life, even
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though he's suffering persecutions and setbacks and
is writing this very letter from prison.
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He's pursuing this prize, this upward
call of God in Christ Jesus, because
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Christ Jesus has made me his own. He knows who he belongs to,
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an he knows that this righteousness that
comes to him by God is something that
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secures him before God forever and ever. And so he gladly forgets what lies
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behind verse thirteen and strains forward to
what lies behead ahead. The author to
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the Hebrews says is similarly, in
Hebrews twelve, verse one, let us
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lay aside every weight and sin which
clings so closely, looking to Jesus,
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the author and perfector of our faith. We look behind, we look to
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Jesus because of him behind us on
the Cross and before us at the resurrection,
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and what he has done and what
he has secured. We press on
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Jesus. Christ, Paul says,
is not filthy, he's not worthless,
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he's just the opposite. He's immeasurably
valuable, he's perfectly clean and pure and
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every way. The righteousness that we
receive from him is not that filthy righteousness
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that we try to earn and have
the somewhat possibility of earning in pursuing according
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to the flesh, but the righteousness
that we receive from Jesus is the righteousness
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of God. Sit On that,
dwell on that. The righteousness of God
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is what belongs to us through Jesus
Christ. Paul lays aside these things because
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of what is gained, because of
what God has done, comes to him
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all as a gift. He receives
these blessings freely, and so you can
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see why anyone who would seek to
come between him and his beloved children in
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the faith, these Philippian Christians whom
he's raised up in Christ, why he
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speaks of them this way. You
are dividing, he says to them implicitly.
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You are dividing or trying to divide
these people from the only thing that
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is a value. And so he
says to them, to the Philippians and
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to us, beware, beware,
watch out for those who will put you
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or point you to confidence in your
own in your own righteousness, even if
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it's a righteousness that's by the law
of God. If it's a righteousness by
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the law, it is a righteousness
that is worthless, but if it's righteousness
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by the Jesus Christ, it's worth
losing everything for. This applies to us,
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because it's not just a call to
the Philippians, but Paul says it's
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for all of us. He says
they are in Verse Fifteen. Let those
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who are mature think in this way, and of course he means in that
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let everyone think in this way,
not only those who are mature, but
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those who should be mature and those
who want to be mature and those who
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are maturing. We are to all
think in this way. It is a
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mark of maturity. We are called
to think in this way, to prize
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our Savior in this way, to
pursue righteousness in this way, and it
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should also cheer us as well,
to go back to the rejoicing at the
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very beginning. Though we are on
guard and though we are careful of these
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things, we all so rejoice.
It cheers us to know that the legalists,
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though they should be watched, we
need not fear their threats. We
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need not fear losing righteousness with God
for not being circumcised or not following the
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mosaic law, for not coming again
under those commandments. We need not fear
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these things, for we have all
that we could ever need in Jesus Christ,
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freely given to us by God himself. It's in that freedom, of
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course, that Paul says we are
now free to obey. We are free
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to give to God the works that
he has called us to give, but
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we don't give them as something that
is attempting to earn our righteousness, but
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we give them, as he said
earlier, a few verses back. I'm
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in Chapter Two meurely as a sacrificial
offering, as an act of worship and
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praise to the God of grace who
has saved us. May God grant us
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this kind of maturity to rejoice,
to be on guard and to live lives
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according to faith, faith not in
ourselves, but faith in Christ, Jesus
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our Lord. Let us pray
