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Hello, I'm John and I'm in the youth group and also the Alameda community group here at Christchurch.
So today's reading is from Paul's letter to the Philippians, chapter 1, verses 1 to 2, and then also chapter 3, verses 1 to 14.
Yeah.
Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, to all God's holy people in Christ Jesus at Philippi, together with the overseers and the deacons, grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Further, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord.
It is no trouble for me to write the same thing to you again, and it is a safeguard for you.
Watch out for those dogs, those evildoers, those mutilators of the flesh.
For it is we who are the circumcision, we who serve God by his Spirit, who boast in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh.
Though I myself have reasons for such confidence.
If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more.
Circumcision on the eighth day of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews.
In regard to the law, a Pharisee.
As for zeal, persecuting the church.
As for righteousness, based on the law, faultless.
But whoever were gains, to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.
What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord,
for whose sake I have lost all things.
I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him.
Not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ.
The righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.
I want to know Christ, yes.
To know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings.
Becoming like him in his death.
And so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal.
But I press on and take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.
Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it.
But one thing I do.
Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead.
I press on toward the goal to win the prize of which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
This is the word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
Good morning, Christ Church.
I want to thank you for many of you who have so warmly welcomed me back.
We were traveling as a family to all kind of places in June.
New York City, Washington, D.C., North Carolina, Atlanta, Georgia.
Visiting for two family weddings, college trips for my daughter.
Our family got to see the nation's capital for the first time.
And it was an amazing trip.
But I'm really glad to be back here with my Christ Church family.
And I was reminded that there are many great churches out there.
But this one is the best.
And so, you know, back in May, we started preaching the Apostle Paul.
And to do that, we began to look at this amazing book in the New Testament called The Acts of the Apostles.
And we turned and we looked at one of the places, one of the three places that Paul talks about his whole life transformation.
And we looked in Acts chapter 9 where Saul of Tarsus became the Apostle Paul by encountering Jesus.
Right?
Jesus whose people Paul was persecuting.
And on that Damascus road, Paul was, he was absolutely transformed.
Not only into a Christian, not only into a follower of Jesus, but into a messenger.
Into somebody that would go out and spread the gospel and begin to plant churches all over the Roman Empire.
And Paul would go on to write 13 of the letters that we have in the New Testament.
And then we looked not just at Paul's transformation, but the transformation that began to happen through Paul.
In Acts chapter 16, we saw how the Lord called Paul further and further away from ground zero.
And he called Paul deeper and deeper into Greco-Roman pagan territory where people had never heard the name of Jesus.
And Paul went and began to spread the message of Jesus.
And one of the first cities that he entered in, when he went to Greece, when he went onto European soil for the first time,
one of the first cities he went into was Philippi.
And maybe you remember that story how Paul went there and he encountered in that city a woman named Lydia.
She was a successful businesswoman.
And she was converted when she heard the gospel truth.
And then Paul encountered this other woman.
And she was this enslaved girl.
And she was converted when she encountered gospel power.
And then there was that jailer.
When Paul was thrown in jail with his friend Silas, there was that city jailer.
And he was converted when he saw gospel life in Jesus' people and how they were living.
And we're told there that in the city of Philippi, these three people plus their friends and family members that they shared the gospel with,
they were baptized as the first members of that church plant in the city of Philippi.
Well, having started that church in around 52 AD, fast forward a little bit to 60, 61, 62 AD,
Paul is writing this letter of affection, this letter of friendship.
And he's writing it from a prison cell to this church in Philippi.
And I want to encourage you as we open it up this morning that I think there's something here for everyone.
If you are here and you do not identify as a Christian, but you're exploring Christianity,
this is an amazing opportunity for you to engage with the primary sources,
to encounter for yourself what the greatest Christian theologian has to say to this multicultural church in this Greco-Roman city of Philippi.
And if you are a Christian, you're probably aware that the text that John just read for us, Philippians chapter 3,
is considered by most people to be one of Paul's greatest passages.
And that's why we're going to look at it not just today.
We're going to look up to verse 9 today, and then next week we're going to look at it again.
From verse 10 and following.
But what I want to suggest to you is that Paul is, he's posing three questions in this text.
Paul is asking us, where is your joy and your confidence?
That's question number one.
Where is your joy and your confidence?
And the second question he's asking us is, what radically redefines our values?
What radically redefines our values?
And then the third question is, what are the implications of living by faith?
If you're going to live by faith, what are the implications of living by faith?
So let's just explore each of these for a moment.
Where is your joy and your confidence?
That's the first question.
Where is your joy and your confidence?
Look at what Paul says in verse 1.
He says, further, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord.
And Paul exhorts the church to ask themselves the question, what is the source of our joy?
What is the source of our rejoicing?
Right?
Like how would you fill in the blank?
If we said rejoice in blank, what would go in that blank?
And some of us might say, well, I rejoice in my summer vacation.
I rejoice in my career success.
I rejoice in this romantic relationship.
I rejoice in the well-being of my kids.
I rejoice in my bank account and my 401k.
And these are all really, really good things.
But Paul is telling us there's something of greater worth.
And what is that?
He says, well, rejoice most deeply, rejoice in the Lord.
That's what should go in that blank.
Rejoice in the resurrected and living Lord Jesus.
Paul says, make him your source of deepest joy.
Let him be the one that causes you to sing and to pray with joy.
To love other people with joy.
To work hard at your job with joy.
And what compels Paul to say this to the church?
To rejoice in the Lord.
Well, because there are these false teachers.
False teachers who are seeking to pull the church to rejoice in something else.
And what is that something else that we're being invited to rejoice in?
Well, Paul says in verse 2, he says, watch out for those dogs.
And in the Greek, again, it says, watch out for those evildoers.
And then again, it says, watch out for those mutilators of the flesh.
For it is we who are the circumcision, we who serve God by the Spirit, we boast, who boast in Christ Jesus.
And who put no confidence in the flesh.
Though I myself have reasons for such confidence.
If others think they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more.
So did you hear what Paul is saying there?
He says confidence, confidence, confidence.
Three times.
These false teachers are influencing the church to put their confidence, to put their trust in, well, not in the Lord Jesus.
But to put their confidence rather in their own flesh.
To make that the source of their joy.
To put their confidence and to take pride in themselves.
To boast in their own resume and their own righteousness.
And this is such a serious danger that Paul uses the strongest language possible.
And in the Greek, again, he says three times, watch out, watch out, watch out.
Even as he says confidence, confidence, confidence.
And hopefully he's getting our attention and prompting us to ask the question,
what is my source of joy and confidence before God?
How might I be putting confidence in myself and in my flesh?
Because these false teachers are trying to convince the church that, look, if you want to be confident in your relationship with God,
if you want to be confident that you belong to God and belong to the people of God,
if you want to be confident that your faith is real,
and you want to be confident that you are a genuine child of God,
and you want to be confident that you are an authentic servant of God,
then you need to look at your own performance.
You need to look at your own righteousness.
You need to look at how well are you living out the laws that God has commanded in his word.
These false teachers, they've come into this church that's predominantly full of Gentiles,
former pagans from all over the empire.
They're basically Greek and Turkish.
They're Egyptian.
They're Ethiopian.
They're German.
They're Persian.
They've come from everywhere.
They're all different kinds of cultures, races, ethnicities, languages.
And these teachers are saying to them, look, if you are not circumcised,
if you are not eating kosher foods,
if you are not practicing the Sabbath to the fullest degree,
if you're not following the rituals and holy days that we find in the law of Moses,
if you're basically a Gentile but not living Jewish,
then how can you really be confident before God?
And Paul says, okay, to these false teachers, he says, okay,
if you want to play the confidence in the flesh game, I'll play it with you.
And he says, not only can I match you with confidence in the flesh,
but I can outrun you and beat you every time.
And here's what he says in verse 4.
He says, if others think they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more.
Now this is a list of seven items,
and you're probably aware that seven is the biblical number for wholeness and completion and perfection.
And in this list, the first half of the list,
Paul gives us his inherited privileges and all of his orthodox upbringing and his amazing pedigree.
And in the second half of the list, he gives us all of his personal successes,
all the achievements that he has performed both religiously and morally.
And he says, these were my grounds for confidence in the flesh, confidence before God.
He says, look, I was circumcised on the eighth day according to God's law.
I received that sacrament of initiation.
I received that symbol of God's covenant with Abraham,
and I received it within the first week of my life.
And then he goes on, he says, look, out of all the great mass of humanity
and out of all the many people in the race of Israel,
God chose to put me in the tribe of Benjamin.
Benjamin was Jacob's youngest son.
He was the only son to be born inside the promised land.
It says in Deuteronomy 33 that Benjamin is the beloved of the Lord.
It's from the tribe of Benjamin that the first king of Israel came.
If you looked at the boundaries of the tribe of Benjamin,
you would find this holy city of Jerusalem and the holy temple itself.
This one tribe, along with the tribe of Judah,
they were the only people to be true to God's covenant
with the line and the house and the throne of King David.
Paul says, I'm not only from the right race, I'm from the right tribe.
And then he goes on, he says, I'm a Hebrew son of Hebrew parents
because, you know, there's all these Hellenistic Jews who speak Greek
and they've basically been assimilated into Greek culture, but not me.
My Hebrew parents made sure that my mother tongue is Hebrew
and that we maintained our distinctive Hebrew way of life among the pagans.
And having described his orthodox pedigree and upbringing,
he now focuses us on the second half of his list on all of his achievements.
He says, look, I was part of the most scholarly group of Hebrews.
I was a Pharisee.
Pharisees take the authority and the inspiration of the Bible incredibly seriously.
They study God's revelation day and night.
They're scrupulous about living out God's commandments
and walking in the way of holiness.
That was me.
He says, as a measure of my great zeal for God
and my fervent devotion to his word,
I took action against anything that would dilute or distort
or derail Israel's faith.
And so, therefore, I persecuted the church,
this little group of people who said that a crucified man
was Israel's Messiah and the world's Lord.
He said, I basically stamped that out.
And finally, Paul says, as the culmination and the climax of these achievements
that give me confidence in my flesh,
he says, as for my righteousness,
as for my right relationship with God
and my right relationship with other people,
he says, I was outwardly obedient
to God's specific ritual and moral requirements.
And my record was absolutely faultless.
You can go ask anybody.
I was completely blameless.
Now, if LinkedIn had existed in Paul's day,
he would have had the most incredible resume you could imagine.
And what would a modern resume like this sound like,
a modern kind of confidence in the flesh list sound like?
I think it would sound a little bit maybe like this.
If anyone thinks they have reason to put confidence in their righteousness,
I have more.
I was born in the United States of America.
To hardworking parents,
my first words were personal responsibility.
I grew up in a multicultural environment.
I was educated at elite universities.
My peers and my mentors are published in The New Yorker and Nature Magazine.
I work for a Nobel Prize winner.
I advocate for the oppressed and for the marginalized.
I regularly volunteer to serve the poor.
I shop local.
I recycle and compost.
I only ride a bike.
I have not used a plastic straw since 2018.
I always vote, donate, march, and I post about it all on social media.
My family and my friends say that I'm authentic,
that I'm trustworthy,
that I'm empathetic and creative and passionate.
I start my day in prayer.
I tithe off the gross of my income.
I serve my church regularly.
It's an impressive list.
An impressive list of identity markers,
of cultural symbols, of personal credentials.
And Paul has it all.
In fact, there's another guy in the New Testament,
very much like Paul.
His name is Nicodemus.
He was a Pharisee like Paul.
He had the exact same resume, basically, as Paul.
And when Jesus entered into a dialogue with Nicodemus,
in the Gospel of John, chapter 3,
Jesus said to Nicodemus,
he said,
to this man who had great confidence in his flesh,
he said,
you cannot enter into the kingdom of God with the resume that you have.
You have to be born again from above.
You have to be born again of the Spirit of God.
He says to Nicodemus,
you cannot rely on all those identity markers of your resume,
your birth,
your country,
your race,
your language,
your upbringing.
You can't rely on your gender.
You can't rely on your sexuality.
You can't rely on your financial status.
You cannot rely on your social power.
You can't rely on your intellect and your understanding.
You cannot rely on your zeal,
or your sincerity,
or all of your goodness.
Jesus said to him,
you must be reborn.
You have to be regenerated.
Something has to happen where the life of God comes into your soul,
and you become a new creation.
Nicodemus,
it's not just that you need to have something added on to you,
a new thing in your impressive resume just tacked on at the end.
It's not that you need to be modified here,
or changed a little bit over there.
He says,
you need to become a new creation.
None of your confidence in the flesh
is going to enable you to see the kingdom of God
or to enter into the kingdom of God.
That's very much what Paul is teaching us in Philippians 3.
He's asking us,
where exactly is your joy,
and where exactly is your confidence?
Is it in your flesh and in yourself,
or is it in something else?
And then Paul goes on.
Here's the second question.
What radically redefines your values?
What radically redefines what you value?
And Paul says this in verse 7.
Verse 7.
After his confidence in the flesh list,
he says,
but whatever were gains to me,
I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.
You see,
Paul's thinking about the life that he had
before his encounter with the resurrected and living Lord Jesus
on that road to Damascus.
And he's using the language of economics.
He's using the language of the marketplace
and of accounting,
of losses and gains,
of credits and debits.
And he says,
look,
all of my privileges that I inherited,
all the achievements that I accomplished,
they used to be for me on the gain side of the ledger.
That is where I found all of my confidence.
But then he says in verse 8,
he says,
what is more,
I consider everything a loss
because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord,
for whose sake I have lost all things.
I consider them garbage that I may gain Christ.
Now maybe you remember back in Acts chapter 9,
on the road to Damascus,
Paul sees that brilliant and blinding light
and he hears that commanding and probing voice
and Paul says,
who are you Lord?
And the answer he gets back is,
I am Jesus.
Now not all conversions are that dramatic,
okay?
But they all have the same effect
that Paul is describing here.
And what he says is,
the moment I discovered something,
the moment I discovered someone
of such surpassing worth,
such incalculable value,
that someone completely revised my balance sheet.
He says,
that moment that I met King Jesus raised from the dead,
he totally reversed all of my gains into loss.
He says,
what I discovered,
that precious and beautiful treasure
that I discovered in Jesus,
he says,
when I compare that
to the best that this world has to offer me,
it all amounts to a loss.
In fact,
he gets even more intense than that.
He says,
the relative value of all else
in relationship to Jesus
is,
in the Greek,
it's skubula.
It's garbage.
Paul says,
it's refuge.
It's excrement.
It's foul-smelling,
revolting filth.
What makes Jesus,
the eternally beloved Son of God the Father,
so great,
so valuable,
so precious,
that everything else,
in comparison with him,
Paul calls abhorrent garbage.
Well, Paul gives us the answer in verse 9,
when he's talking about
two different kinds of righteousness.
What are the two different kinds of righteousness?
He says in verse 9,
I consider them garbage
that I may gain Christ
and be found in him,
not having a righteousness of my own
that comes from the law,
but that which is through faith in Christ,
the righteousness that comes from God
on the basis of faith.
You see,
this first kind of righteousness,
he says,
it's righteousness,
quote unquote,
of my own.
It's about who I am.
It's about what I have.
It's about what I do
and how I perform
and that gives me confidence in the flesh,
that causes me to rejoice
in myself
and boast in my position
and my accomplishments.
And he says,
this first kind of righteousness
compared to the second kind
is dramatically inferior
and it's woefully insufficient
to give you the confidence
you need before God.
But he says,
look at this second kind of righteousness.
The second kind of righteousness,
he says,
it comes not,
it's not of my own,
it comes from God.
It's a righteousness
that's in Christ.
And compared to that first
kind of righteousness,
this righteousness
is infinitely superior
and it's wonderfully sufficient
to save us,
to put us into a reconciled
and a right relationship
with God.
You see,
none of us,
had we tried
our absolute hardest
could have produced
a greater righteousness
of my own
than that which
the Apostle Paul
accomplished.
I mean,
he's a truly
impressive person.
But,
Paul says,
when he compares
what he did,
when he compares
the righteousness
of my own
with the righteousness
that God has provided
for us
in Jesus Christ,
he says,
it amounts to
a pile of
something I cannot
say in church.
Scubala.
Garbage.
Excrement.
That's what my own
righteousness
is worth.
See,
the wonder
and the beauty
of this God-given
righteousness
is that it comes
not from inside of us,
but it comes from
outside of us.
righteousness.
It's a righteousness
that's not waiting
to be lived out
perfectly
and consistently
by us,
but it's a righteousness
that has,
in fact,
already been lived out
perfectly
and faithfully
in the life
of someone
better than us.
Right?
It's been secured
by the obedience
of Jesus
who righteously
obeyed God
his whole life
all the way
to and through
his obedience
to God
on the cross.
And friends,
what Paul is saying
here is that
you can spend
your whole life
searching high
and searching low
and you are never
going to find
a better righteousness
in all the philosophies,
in all the systems
of life,
in all the religions
of the world
than the righteousness
that comes
through Jesus Christ.
You see,
if you sit down
and you read
the Gospels
and you see
the way that
Jesus is healing
the sick,
the way he's
feeding the hungry,
forgiving people
who just royally
screwed up,
the way he's
raising up the poor
and welcoming
the marginalized
and liberating
the oppressed,
when you see
Jesus showing
and telling people
how to really
be truly human,
right,
how to love
and worship
and pray to God
with all your heart,
how to give yourself
in love
for your neighbor,
for other people.
Jesus shows people
how to do that
by giving up
his body to death,
right,
putting himself
in the place
of sinners
on the cross.
When you see that,
when you see
the righteousness
that God has provided
for us
in Jesus Christ,
it's so surpassingly
more worthy,
it's so incomparably
more valuable
than any righteousness,
not only that any of us
could have achieved
or performed,
but of all of our
righteousness put together.
So the robe
of righteousness
that God has provided
for us in Jesus
makes all the righteousness
that we are trying
to weave around ourselves
look like tattered
and pitiful rags.
And this is why
Paul says that
all the ways
that I put confidence
in my flesh,
my birth,
my upbringing,
my country,
my race,
my intellect,
my understanding,
my zeal,
my goodness,
it's scubala.
It's just rank
and rancid garbage
in comparison
with what God
has provided in Christ.
He says,
everything the world
could offer me,
whatever advantages
or status
or benefits
or honors
or comforts
that might possibly
come my way
in the future
and that I might
put my confidence in,
he says,
it's scubala.
It's revolting refuse
compared to
gaining Jesus
personally
and knowing
Jesus relationally
and being found
in Jesus
positionally
before God
because Paul says
when I have Christ,
his resume
is now my resume.
His portfolio
is my portfolio
and that's why
Paul defines
a Christian
in verse 3.
He says,
a Christian is someone
who puts no confidence
in the flesh
but rather they boast
in Jesus Christ.
That's what a Christian
is.
So where's your joy
and your confidence?
What radically
redefines your values?
And the last question
briefly is,
what are the implications
of living by faith?
What are the implications
of living by faith?
So just to review,
what does it cost God
to provide this righteousness
for us?
Will it cost Him
everything?
It cost Him the life
and death
of His beloved Son?
He's done everything
that's needed
for our righteousness.
And what does it cost
us to receive
this righteousness?
Well, it costs us nothing.
It's a free gift
of God's grace.
All we need
is our need.
All we need
is what Paul calls
faith in Christ.
Just to have open
and empty hands
by faith
to receive righteousness
from Jesus
with gratitude.
Just to by faith
allow God
to put the robe
of Christ's righteousness
on us.
Here's the question.
What are the implications?
What are the consequences
for receiving
God's free grace?
If by faith
I take hold
of the righteousness
that God has provided
for me,
what will happen
to my life?
And the answer is,
it will cost you
the loss
of all things.
That's what Paul says
in verse 8.
He says,
he talks about
the surpassing worth
of knowing Jesus my Lord
for whose sake
I have lost
all things.
What does Paul mean?
What is the loss
that comes to him
from putting his faith
in Jesus Christ?
Well, let me just see
if I can draw this out
for you as we close.
What Paul is saying here
is he's saying
Jesus is surpassingly
great
and worthy
and valuable
in himself
no matter
what anyone
thinks about him.
He just is that.
He's great.
But Paul says
it's not enough
to just stand back
and to marvel
at the objective
beauty
and excellencies
of Jesus.
Paul says
what we need to do
is enter into
a subjective
knowing of Jesus
not as the Lord
but as what Paul
calls him
my Lord.
Jesus has to become
for you
my Lord
who loved me
and gave himself
for me.
This critical
and essential move
from objective
knowledge about Jesus
to subjective
knowing
of Jesus
what Paul is telling us
is that when you
make that move
you're going to lose
things that are
extremely valuable
to you.
Think about what
the Apostle Paul
lost.
By placing his faith
in Jesus there
on that Damascus road
he lost
all of his
former sources
of identity
and belonging
and meaning
and purpose.
He lost
his social status
his reputation
and his standing
before his community.
Paul lost
many many
of his cherished
relationships.
He lost
financial support.
He lost
his personal comfort
and security.
He's writing
this letter
from jail
and a few years
he's going to
lose his head.
What Paul is saying
here is if you
put your faith
in Jesus
you're going to
lose something
that's really
really valuable
to you.
For us
that probably
means your
independence
your autonomy
you no longer
if Jesus is
my Lord
you no longer
belong to yourself
you're no longer
your Lord
you have a Lord
that you have
to listen
to
and follow
and obey
and surrender
to
and submit
to
you're going
to lose
your independence
and your
autonomy
but what Paul
is saying
is that these
losses
actually will
not feel
like losses
to you.
I was reading
in my Bible
reading plan
earlier this week
and it took me
to Jesus'
parables
in Matthew 13
and here's
what Jesus
says
he says
Jesus is telling
us about people
whose lives
were changed
by the joy
of discovering
an object
of such
surpassing
value
a new
precious
reality
that was
there
for the
taking
and they
didn't just
stand back
and say
wow
that is
objectively
a hidden
treasure
that is
objectively
a pearl
of great
price
no
they
subjectively
renounced
everything
that they
had
they
subjectively
sold
absolutely
everything
they had
to go
get the
thing
of great
value
and that's
what Paul
means
when he
says
for Jesus
sake
I've
lost
all
things
but when
he says
that
he doesn't
think
that he's
made any
sacrifice
at all
Paul says
I really
haven't lost
anything
in fact
everything
I've gotten
through Jesus
has been a
gain to me
Paul would
write in
Colossians 2
3
he says
when I
discovered
Jesus
when I
discovered
the king
of God's
kingdom
I found
the one
in whom
are hidden
all the
treasures
of wisdom
and of
knowledge
and Jesus
has consistently
down the
last 2,000
years
been moving
men and
women
into large
life changing
decisions
that may
seem to
other people
like great
hacks of
renunciation
but for
Paul
and for
me
and maybe
for you
knowing
Jesus
personally
and relationally
knowing
Jesus
intimately
and
experientially
as
my
Lord
who
loved
me
and who
gave
himself
for
me
that
so
far
surpasses
all
other
things
that
losing
all
to get
him
is actually
a gain
and what
you'll find
is that
you actually
get back
everything
that you
thought
you lost
your identity
your belonging
your meaning
your purpose
your relationships
your freedom
everything
comes back
to you
in Jesus
friends
it's only as
you look
upon
the treasure
of who
Jesus is
that pearl
of great
price
that you
too will be
carried away
by joy
and by the
power of
God's free
grace
to go
sell
absolutely
everything
you have
to get
it
and to
say with
Paul
I have
lost
all things
for the
sake
of the
surpassing
worth
of knowing
Christ
Jesus
as my
Lord
let's take a
moment to
just reflect
on that
as we come
to the table
of our
king
in the name
of the
Father
Son
and Holy
Spirit
Amen