3:1 Finally, my brothers,1 rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you is no trouble to me and is safe for you.
2 Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh. 3 For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God2 and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh—4 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: 5 circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law,3 blameless. 7 But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8 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 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
Straining Toward the Goal
12 Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. 13 Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Footnotes
[1]3:1Or brothers and sisters; also verses 13, 17 [2]3:3Some manuscripts God in spirit [3]3:6Greek in the law
3:1 Finally, my brothers,1 rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you is no trouble to me and is safe for you.
2 Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh. 3 For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God2 and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh—4 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: 5 circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law,3 blameless. 7 But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8 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 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
Straining Toward the Goal
12 Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. 13 Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Footnotes
[1]3:1Or brothers and sisters; also verses 13, 17 [2]3:3Some manuscripts God in spirit [3]3:6Greek in the law
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
Jeffrey Heine:
If y'all would turn to Philippians chapter 3 as we continue our study in Philippians. Just so you know, I'm not gonna be able to preach through this entire text. I'm gonna save some of this for Easter a few weeks from now, but we'll be able to, to look at the first part. Philippians chapter 3 beginning in verse 1. Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord.
Jeffrey Heine:
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 evildoers. Look out for those who mute mutilate the flesh. For we are the circumcision who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh.
Jeffrey Heine:
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 8th day of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews, as to the law, a Pharisee, as to zeal, a persecutor of the church, as to righteousness under the law, blameless. But whatever gain I had I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord.
Jeffrey Heine:
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 from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ. The righteousness from God that depends on faith that I may know him in the power of his resurrection and may share His sufferings becoming like Him in His death, that by any means possible, I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or have already become perfect, but I press on to make it my own because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own, but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Jeffrey Heine:
This is the word of the Lord. Pray with me. Father, we ask in this moment that you would send your spirit to open up our hearts and minds that we might hear clearly from Jesus. I do pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore, but lord may your words remain and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus.
Jeffrey Heine:
Amen. Okay. So Paul begins this section with the words finally, but he doesn't use that word like you would use that word. He uses that word like pastors use that word. He basically means I'm halfway done.
Jeffrey Heine:
He's got 2 more chapters to go. I don't know if you grew up in a tradition like I did, but the pastor, the word finally meant nothing. And the the final prayer was when he actually finished points 45 in his sermon to just keep going on and on. And and Paul comes in this great line of preachers here. He's not close to being done with this letter, but he is introducing a new topic.
Jeffrey Heine:
He's taking some time here to warn the Philippians about a certain group of people who are teaching things that will not only rob the church of its joy, will actually rob the church of the very gospel itself. And the teaching was this, you need to work for God's approval. You need to work for your salvation. And to come combat this false and this dangerous teaching, Paul Paul does something that's a little unusual here. He decides that this would be a great time for him to present his resume.
Jeffrey Heine:
Paul says, hey, if we're going to talk about all that we need to accomplish or all that we need to do to earn God's favor, well, let me tell you about my accomplishments. And so he presents his resume and it's quite an impressive resume. He begins by saying that he was circumcised on the 8th day, which was the day prescribed by Jewish law. This is an unusual boast if you will by Paul because, it's not like he had anything to do with it. I could actually imagine that he was probably resisting it at the time, but this is something he's saying, my parents my parents had amazing faith.
Jeffrey Heine:
I was essentially born into the faith. Oh, we might say something like, you know, from my earliest moments, I was a Christian or from the my earliest moments, I can remember being in church. My mom was in the choir, my dad was a deacon. I have a godly heritage. Paul goes on to say that not only is he an Israelite, but he's actually of the tribe of Benjamin.
Jeffrey Heine:
Once again, Paul has nothing to do with this. He was simply born into this position, but it was a lofty position. If you can remember back to our study of Genesis, you will remember that Benjamin was the only one of the 12 sons of Jacob to actually be born in the promised land. And and the Benjaminites, his descendants, they were the most fierce and the most loyal of all the tribes. We would call them like the special forces of Israel.
Jeffrey Heine:
They alone joined and defended Judah when all the other tribes left and betrayed them. And Paul wasn't just any Benjamite, he was even named after the most famous Benjamite there was, King Saul. Israel's first king was a Benjamite. Remember Paul's name in Hebrew is actually Saul. So Paul here, he presents a pedigree that's that's unmatched.
Jeffrey Heine:
And now he goes on to talk about his accomplishments. He says that he was a Hebrew of Hebrews. You know, most Jew Jewish people in this day, they didn't speak Hebrew. They spoke, Aramaic or they spoke Greek, but not Paul. He both preached, read, and studied the Torah and its original language.
Jeffrey Heine:
And he says, as to the law, he was a Pharisee. I know Pharisees get a bad rap in our day, but in this day, they were highly respected for the way that they observe the law. Everyone looked up to the Pharisees. And Paul was not just any Pharisee. We know from elsewhere in scripture, in Acts 22 that Paul had been trained by Israel's greatest Pharisee, their most respected leader, Gamaliel.
Jeffrey Heine:
In other words, when when Paul was younger, his parents sent him off, you know, he grew up, he was born in Tarsus, but they sent him off to Jerusalem to receive the best education possible. We would say, he went to Harvard to get his PhD. You cannot be more educated than Paul. So Paul has the pedigree. He has the education.
Jeffrey Heine:
And now Paul moves on to describe his passion. He says, as to zeal, I persecuted the church. In other words, I lived up to being a Benjamite. He saw himself in a long line of defenders of the faith of Israel. He was the sharp edge of the spear, and so he fiercely fought anyone who thought what he thought saw as an enemy to the Hebrews such as the Christians.
Jeffrey Heine:
Finally, Paul describes his morality. And he says in that he was blameless. Now Paul would not be so foolish as to say that he was sinless, but he could say that he was blameless. He tried hard to keep the law and when he did sin, well, he made the atoning sacrifices for his sin. He was blameless as to the law.
Jeffrey Heine:
So all in all, everything that Paul presents to us is an impeccable resume. Now what's the purpose of a resume? I mean, resumes is not just a sheet of paper that you can hold up that list all of your accomplishments. It's a sheet of paper that you hope can get you into places. You know, if you're a high school student, your resume is essentially, you know, it's your GPA, it's your ACT, your SAT scores.
Jeffrey Heine:
It's the clubs that you're a part of. Any of you high school students ever hear from your parents telling you you need to join some club or you need to do more volunteer work, not because they actually believe that's a good work for you to do, but because it will look good on your resume. Any anybody? If if you have a parent who said that to you feel free to look at them right now judgingly. I hope you do.
Jeffrey Heine:
However, your parents what they want is like, we want to build you a good resume so you can get in. So you could get into a good college. Of course, once you're in college you work on your resume, same thing with your GP and all GPA and all those things, hoping that it will get you into a good job interview. It will get you into a good job. After college you hope you have a, you know, you go and you start interviewing in places and you realize, you know, any of you feel the temptation to start padding your resume a little bit in order to be noticed more, in order to open up a few more doors.
Jeffrey Heine:
And, you know, you might have had an internship at some company, and maybe one day while you're at that company you had to, you know, make a bunch of copies and and do a bunch of mail outs to people. So on your resume you put that you are a marketing manager. And actually you had another intern help you, who was younger than you, so you called yourself a senior marketing manager. When I was in grad school, I was the chief distribution officer for computer business. In other words I drove a forklift.
Jeffrey Heine:
You know, we we find ways to like make what we do sound better, more impressive in order to open up more doors, but Paul didn't need to pad his resume. Paul didn't have to fluff up his titles. He was the real deal. Your resume is also what you present in order to get you into certain social circles. I mean, you don't go around, you know, like actually with your physical resume holding it up, but you present your resume in other ways.
Jeffrey Heine:
You name drop, let people know like who you know. You casually let people know like the important things you do, or maybe where you work, or the vacations you take, or the marathon that you just ran, anything to try to impress. Hoping that this will get you in to what you see is that inner circle there. And ultimately, your resume is what you hope can impress God Himself. That that you impress Him enough that He will let you in.
Jeffrey Heine:
You know, if if you could just show Him all the good you've done, that you've done more good than bad in your life then perhaps it will be good enough to for Him to let you in heaven. I mean you know Mother Teresa has a better resume than you, but but certainly your resume is better than most people. Certainly he'll take a look at that. Now Paul has been laboring for years, building the most impressive resume of his day. But now as he's presenting it to these Philippians, far from being proud of it, he calls it worthless.
Jeffrey Heine:
He considers it all worthless. He looks at all of his accomplishments and he says that now he considers it all loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, he goes on to say that he counts all things as loss. In view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus, his Lord, for whom he has suffered the loss of all things and counts him but rubbish in order that he may gain Christ. I I laugh almost every time I read that word rubbish.
Jeffrey Heine:
Rubbish. I mean, who who says that? Just so you know, Paul didn't. Paul actually did not say the word rubbish here. That's a very sanitized translation if you will.
Jeffrey Heine:
Paul actually uses a very vulgar Greek word here. We could politely translate it as crap. It could be better translated as another 4 letter word. I would have actually preferred that the translators would have just said like, bleep, you know, there or maybe a bunch of syllables with some exclamation points, something to get the point of cross. Because what Paul is saying here is as he looks back and he sees all of his pedigree, all of his education, all of his passion, all of his morality, all of the good deeds he has ever done, he says, it's nothing more than a heaping pile of crap.
Jeffrey Heine:
That's all it is. When Paul met Jesus on that road to Damascus, he got to see what real righteousness looked like and it looked nothing like him. He got to see what God's standard was and he realized he wasn't even close. And Paul can no longer stomach looking at his resume after seeing the glory of Jesus. I've shared this illustration a few years ago, but, when I was in high school, I used to play basketball.
Jeffrey Heine:
Now in my mind I was, much better than I actually was. It's one of the advantages of getting older. I get better every year, but I I was actually decent. I was I was fairly decent at basketball. I could even dunk.
Jeffrey Heine:
Alright? I was obsessed with vertical leap in my high school years. I was one of those annoying fitness guys who went around wearing platform shoes and weighted vest just so I could keep ever increasing my vertical leap. But I got to the point where I was I would thought I was decent enough to where I actually entered into a slam dunk contest. For those of you who are from Atlanta, it was at the Cobb Civic Center and, was playing a game there and at halftime they had a slam dunk contest, and I thought I'm gonna enter it.
Jeffrey Heine:
In all honestly, I just was hoping people would be impressed with a 6 foot white guy who could dunk. I mean, that was it. Because I didn't have I didn't have much outside of that. Well, the guy in front of me he goes, he's So he dribbles a ball, he gets up there and he launches. And when I mean launch, I mean the guy launched into the air and he does a 2 handed windmill and he dunks it with such incredible authority, and and the entire arena just erupts.
Jeffrey Heine:
People start going crazy. And of course, you know, he gets all tens, and then the referee hands me the ball. And as I'm looking I promise you the backboard was still wobbling from the dunk, and I felt my legs go. You know when you're just like almost like when you're laughing too hard or something you have no strength. I felt my legs go and I didn't know what to do.
Jeffrey Heine:
I mean because it's not like I had much skill to begin with and I'm there, you know, I'm dribbling the ball, acting like I'm trying to think of what incredible dunk I'm gonna do, and I'm just trying not to pass out. That thought, well, how can I get out of this? Maybe I throw the ball up at like I'm gonna catch it and I just miss a couple of times and sit down. But finally I realized I I can't do any of these things, and I just handed the ball back to the ref and I sat down and the entire place erupts in laughter and boos. People began throwing things on the court And I went to the bench and I just lowered my head and covered it in shame.
Jeffrey Heine:
It is probably the most humiliating embarrassing moment of my entire life. And the reason was this, all of my work, like the best I could possibly all of it, I went there and I realized it was a joke. It was an absolute joke. I got to see what real perfection was and that I wasn't even close. I didn't belong in the same gym.
Jeffrey Heine:
And that's Paul on the road to Damascus. He thought he was an upright person. Most peep good people think I'm an upright person. And then Jesus walks in the room and you realize he's the only one that's level. We've been walking like this our whole lives.
Jeffrey Heine:
You see what perfection looks like. Listen to me, some of you think you have an amazing resume, and it might be pretty good especially when you compare it to other people. I mean, you obviously go to church, That's a good resume. You're here while a lot of people are not. Maybe you consider yourself, you know, to be just a all around kind of genuine good guy.
Jeffrey Heine:
You voted the right way, whatever way that was. You think you voted the right way. You try to treat others with respect and with dignity. You don't sleep around. Maybe you even give a lot of your money to charity.
Jeffrey Heine:
You're a social justice warrior. You might be the most woke person you know compared to everyone else around you. And Paul says, it doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter. Because it will never be good enough.
Jeffrey Heine:
Goes on to say, a matter of fact, your righteousness actually counts against you. Notice that Paul does not say he considers all of his good works to be neutral or that all of his good works never really gained him anything. That's not what he says. He says he counts them as loss. His good works, his accomplishments were a negative.
Jeffrey Heine:
They hurt him. How is that possible? It's possible because he trusted his good works to earn God's approval. He was trusting in them. You've heard me say this time and time again, but your sins do not keep you out of heaven.
Jeffrey Heine:
It will be you trusting in your good works. This is a simplistic illustration here, but hopefully it will get the point across. Imagine you die, and you go up to the gates of heaven, and whoever's there ask, why should I let you in? And in that moment, you can either present your resume, all of your accomplishments, or you can look over at Jesus and say, I'm with him, and he could say, yes, he's with me. So you can either try to get in based on your credentials or you could get in based on Jesus's credentials, but you can't present both.
Jeffrey Heine:
You can only wholly trust in one of them. This is what Paul means when he says that he wants to be found not having his own righteousness that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Jesus. Or you could translate it through the faithfulness of Jesus that comes because of his good works. Paul realizes that he can't get in based on his resume. He needs the resume of another.
Jeffrey Heine:
Your sins do not keep you out of heaven and your righteousness does not get you in. It all boils down to who do you know? Who do you know? Now I actually know a number of people who would agree with Paul, with a lot of what he's saying, not everything, but with a lot of it. They would they would say you're right, you know, working on one's resume that's just that's just a bunch of crap.
Jeffrey Heine:
It's it's worthless. Who cares what other people think about you? But then they would go on to say what really matters is what you think about yourself. Really it's it's coming to accept who you are. It's knowing your authentic self that matters.
Jeffrey Heine:
And, of course, this is why people go off to Colorado in order to find themselves. But can I just say that with each year that passes, I'm 47 years old, and with each year, I am wanting just to discover less and less of myself? Because the more I dig down in there, the more ugliness I keep finding, not the more good. The more depravity I keep seeing instead of more righteousness. I don't need to find myself.
Jeffrey Heine:
I need to be found. Paul's goal isn't to know himself, it's to know Christ. His goal isn't to find himself, it's to be found in Christ. Verse 9 here, it's the key to the entire text. I could I could land here for an hour.
Jeffrey Heine:
I'll just say finally. We're at verse 9. Paul says that his goal is to be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own, but that which comes through faith in Christ. He must be found in him. Those two words, in him or in Christ, are 2 of the most important words in all of the Bible.
Jeffrey Heine:
And I'm not exaggerating when I say this. Did you know that the word Christian is only in your Bibles 3 times? I mean, we use it all all the time to like sum up who we are as God's people, like we're Christians. It's only used three times, But Paul alone uses the words in him a 167 times. That is the defining mark of what being a Christian looks like.
Jeffrey Heine:
We are to be found in him or in Christ. To be in him. It's an unusual expression. But basically, he's describing this this organic union. It's kinda like a branch is in a tree or like my arm is in my body.
Jeffrey Heine:
This is organic attachment, it's the the closest of unions here. You might have heard it this way. He's talking about a personal relationship with Jesus, knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. He knows him. And when he says to know Christ Jesus my Lord, that phrase Christ Jesus my Lord, It is actually the only time you will ever read those words in the new testament.
Jeffrey Heine:
Christ Jesus, my Lord. Every other time Paul says something similar, he says Christ Jesus, the Lord. But here he says Christ Jesus, my Lord. He's my Lord. And this is intentional that he deviates here from what he says every other time in the Bible because he wants you to see something.
Jeffrey Heine:
He wants you to see that moving from calling Jesus the Lord to calling Him my Lord makes all the difference in the world. You see a day is coming in which every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is the Lord. He just said that in Philippians chapter 2. Everyone will acknowledge that Jesus is the Lord. Everyone will know who he is, but not everyone will know him.
Jeffrey Heine:
Not everyone will be able to call him my Lord. Paul is saying that Jesus is not just the Lord, but he is his Lord. He knows him. He's trusted him. On that road to Damascus, he met him and was forever changed by him.
Jeffrey Heine:
And now for the rest of his life, all he wants to do is know him more. He no longer cares about a comfortable life. He no longer cares about having money. He no longer cares about what people think about him. He no longer cares if he was in prison or if he gets out of prison or if he's executed.
Jeffrey Heine:
He just wants to know Jesus more. Because it is the only thing that matters in this life and in the in the next. Which brings up just a really simple question for us. Do you know Jesus? Do you know him?
Jeffrey Heine:
Have you given your life to him? Have you united yourself to him? Or do you only know Jesus as the Lord and not as my Lord? Because knowing Jesus is all that matters in this life and in the next. Your resume means nothing.
Jeffrey Heine:
If it's good, it won't get you in. If it's bad, well, it won't keep you out. It's who do you know and trust. Pray with me. That we might know you, Jesus, I pray that would be on the hearts of every person here.
Jeffrey Heine:
Or for those who don't know you, they might even believe that you are the Lord, but they've never called out to you and said, will you be my Lord? Will you be my savior? Will you forgive me of my sin? Lord, I pray that in this moment they would call out to you. And for those of us who pat ourselves on their back thinking we are superior to others because of our resume, may we repent of our damnable good righteousness our good deeds.
Jeffrey Heine:
May we humble ourselves and trust completely on you, Jesus. So spirit of God, come. Have your way in us. Thank you that you have called us to yourself. We pray this in your name, amen.